This mapping does not match any actual decisions in blackmail. First, it’s not a simultaneous choice, it’s a branching multi-turn decision tree. Second, there are more than 2 actions available at various stages. Either of these would make prisoner’s dilemma analysis suspect, together it becomes much more like multi-street multi-bet poker than like PD.
The “victim” first makes choices (or is born into a situation) susceptible to blackmail. The blackmailer learns of this, and has at least 3 choices: publish the information, threaten to publish, or bury the information. The “victim” in the threaten-to-publish (blackmail) case offers incentives (which may be the same as the requested fee, or may not) to bury rather than publish, and the blackmailer chooses which action to take. Even leaving out true defection cases (accept the money and publish anyway, or killing the blackmailer), this is a fairly complex payout tree, and the correct choices are specific to the situation. In fact, since parts of the payout tree are unknown to one or both players, it’s likely that mixed strategies come into play, to prevent exploitation of the unknowns.
If there are reliable precommittment mechanisms for the topic, this makes it simultaneous. It still has a more complicated payout structure (publish/blackmail/bury X pay/no-pay in the blackmail case (and perhaps in the publish case, if the “victim” makes an unsolicited offer)), and different payouts for different amounts asked/offered in the blackmail box). It’s not clear that the values in any part of the matrix correspond to PD for any specific piece of information.
Additionally, the same blackmail can be brought up again at a later date, giving in to a blackmail can be used as blackmail material in the future (ex: giving information to a foreign government), and giving into blackmail gives the blackmailer (and perhaps others) the information that you are a good target for future blackmail
This mapping does not match any actual decisions in blackmail. First, it’s not a simultaneous choice, it’s a branching multi-turn decision tree. Second, there are more than 2 actions available at various stages. Either of these would make prisoner’s dilemma analysis suspect, together it becomes much more like multi-street multi-bet poker than like PD.
The “victim” first makes choices (or is born into a situation) susceptible to blackmail. The blackmailer learns of this, and has at least 3 choices: publish the information, threaten to publish, or bury the information. The “victim” in the threaten-to-publish (blackmail) case offers incentives (which may be the same as the requested fee, or may not) to bury rather than publish, and the blackmailer chooses which action to take. Even leaving out true defection cases (accept the money and publish anyway, or killing the blackmailer), this is a fairly complex payout tree, and the correct choices are specific to the situation. In fact, since parts of the payout tree are unknown to one or both players, it’s likely that mixed strategies come into play, to prevent exploitation of the unknowns.
This is a good point, but perhaps precommitting to give in/not give in vs. precommitting to blackmail/not blackmail is a simultaneous choice.
If there are reliable precommittment mechanisms for the topic, this makes it simultaneous. It still has a more complicated payout structure (publish/blackmail/bury X pay/no-pay in the blackmail case (and perhaps in the publish case, if the “victim” makes an unsolicited offer)), and different payouts for different amounts asked/offered in the blackmail box). It’s not clear that the values in any part of the matrix correspond to PD for any specific piece of information.
Additionally, the same blackmail can be brought up again at a later date, giving in to a blackmail can be used as blackmail material in the future (ex: giving information to a foreign government), and giving into blackmail gives the blackmailer (and perhaps others) the information that you are a good target for future blackmail