A query about The Dark Knight on Marginal Revolution originally from Brad Allen:
I was watching the Dark Knight on a bus yesterday evening (I’m not sure how familiar you are with the movie) – there was a scene that I thought was pretty interesting to think through, and was curious how you might go about it.
There is a scene where the Joker kills a mob boss, and then gives his 3 subordinates one half broken pool cue – and basically tells them that to live, the other two have to die. You don’t see what happens, but what do you think happens? Is it advantageous to pick up the pool cue, or would that signal the other two to attack you first? Would you try to back out and let the other two fight? Or would that incent them to come after you? OR does everyone do nothing, until a last second dash like bicycle sprints?
Obviously, I’ve had fun thinking about this. Do you have any guesses?
I think the best move would be to back off. They’d be unsure whether to pursue you or to defend themselves against the person closest to them. Mutual uncertainty on their part means they’ll attack each other first, instead of pursuing you. Whoever won would get the pool stick, but they’d also be tired and you’d have an advantage. You also would have had the opportunity to observe their fighting style.
It depends on your ability to come up with an alternate force-multiplier to the offered weapon to establish some kind of tactical superiority. If you quickly come up with one, or are at least confident of your ability to do so, the smart move is to induce the others to deal with each other first, then attack the winner from a position of strength after he has been weakened by the initial exchange with his first opponent. Otherwise, pick up the offered weapon; then the ideal strategy is still probably to see if you can get the other two to attack each other before coming after you, perhaps acting as though your only reason for picking up the weapon is to be a “coward” who wishes to avoid a fight altogether—because, of course, the other two are unlikely to go after the more dangerous opponent first, even though collaborating to eliminate the primary threat before attempting to finish off a (hopefully) weakened remaining foe is probably the winning strategy for them.
Of course, the real smart move, if you can get everyone in on it, might be to ensure that all three of you collaborate in a surprise attack on the Joker after giving him the impression he’s safe by pretending to initially target each other. That’s pretty damned unlikely to happen, though, given the level of trust most likely needed to achieve that kind of alliance without cluing in the Joker and getting yourself killed by him instead of the other two.
In general, it is a smart move to precommit to mutual support against opponents attempting to sow dissension. Of course, how effective this is depends on how reliably individuals in the group can precommit and how effectively they can signal reliable precommitment. (Also, insert obligatory UDT reference here.)
A query about The Dark Knight on Marginal Revolution originally from Brad Allen:
I think the best move would be to back off. They’d be unsure whether to pursue you or to defend themselves against the person closest to them. Mutual uncertainty on their part means they’ll attack each other first, instead of pursuing you. Whoever won would get the pool stick, but they’d also be tired and you’d have an advantage. You also would have had the opportunity to observe their fighting style.
Needless to say in real life I would just die.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truel
It depends on your ability to come up with an alternate force-multiplier to the offered weapon to establish some kind of tactical superiority. If you quickly come up with one, or are at least confident of your ability to do so, the smart move is to induce the others to deal with each other first, then attack the winner from a position of strength after he has been weakened by the initial exchange with his first opponent. Otherwise, pick up the offered weapon; then the ideal strategy is still probably to see if you can get the other two to attack each other before coming after you, perhaps acting as though your only reason for picking up the weapon is to be a “coward” who wishes to avoid a fight altogether—because, of course, the other two are unlikely to go after the more dangerous opponent first, even though collaborating to eliminate the primary threat before attempting to finish off a (hopefully) weakened remaining foe is probably the winning strategy for them.
Of course, the real smart move, if you can get everyone in on it, might be to ensure that all three of you collaborate in a surprise attack on the Joker after giving him the impression he’s safe by pretending to initially target each other. That’s pretty damned unlikely to happen, though, given the level of trust most likely needed to achieve that kind of alliance without cluing in the Joker and getting yourself killed by him instead of the other two.
In general, it is a smart move to precommit to mutual support against opponents attempting to sow dissension. Of course, how effective this is depends on how reliably individuals in the group can precommit and how effectively they can signal reliable precommitment. (Also, insert obligatory UDT reference here.)