Rational Action

If I am to make a movie in the next month, it shall be about the Prisoner’s Dilemma. That’s not to say that I’m going to be making a movie in the next month — I won’t be. But you know, it’s something you think about.

Take two prisoners. They have both committed some crime, and they have to choose to cooperate with authorities (confess) or to defect (dont’ confess). Hence the following:

Here’s the problem. Each prisoner must assume that the other will go for the gold of defection (not confessing to the crime/blaming the other guy) in hopes of getting off scot free. To prevent himself from paying the penalty of life imprisonment, the logical choice is for he, himself, to defect.

Because both prisoners go through the same thought process, they both arrive at the same conclusion. Both defect, and they end up with the bottom-right box: 20 years. Hence The Prisoner’s Dilemma.

The optimal solution is for both of them to cooperate. But in this “non-iterated” game, they would be fools to do such a thing. One could end up with life. AND THAT SUCKS

Now, the interesting thing is how we can make the prisoners cooperate. This stuff is called game theory, and there has been quite a bit of research on how to get people out of the bottom right box and into the top left one. It focuses on moving out of single games into sequences of them. Tit-for-tat gameplay occurs when one partner cooperates, and then each partner mimics the other. Instead of expecting defection, one expects cooperation. On the other hand, one doesn’t defect, because that defection would be mimicked in the future by the partner.

I think about this stuff a lot with respect to social situations. Much of the “dilemma” is mitigated by the iterative gameplay of friendship. We have established trust bonds with our friends and can usually expect them to cooperate. But what happens when you find your friend defecting. The iterated system breaks down and we’re back with a prisoner’s dilemma. You’ve got to defect too or pay a big penalty.

That was boring. Go have a lemon party.

I have been listening to Death Cab for Cutie a bit recently, and I’ve decided I like them a lot. It’s some combination of song structure and lyrics. Take “A Movie Script Ending” as an example. (A good example, because it’s such a damn good song). The chorus is just an act of beauty, but they manage to build towards it over the course of the first half of the song. You don’t listen to it for the catchy hook; you get half the enjoyment out of the anticipation. And just what IS the chorus?

Passing through unconscious states
When I awoke I was on the highway
Highway
Highway
Highway

That’s right. He fell asleep in car and when he woke up he was on a highway. And it sounds beautiful.

I close out the post with lyrics from “Kaleidoscope”. You must listen to these songs to get the full effect:

I was a kaleidoscope
The snow on my lenses distorting the image
Of what was only one of you

Ethan came to town on Friday night and documented the night. We stood guard during a massive monetary transaction, ate some good pizza, found the source of much happiness, and proved that ivy leage stairs can be ugly too. Let’s not forget the Christmas party:

My 6 Reasons to be happy, in relation to the Christmas Party

Here’s a quick overview of the most important events in the recent past. Since brevity is the soul of wit, I will keep the descriptions short. We’re going for maximum entertainment:

1. On what I believe to be Tuesday night, I awoke at 4am and sauntered over to my desk. I decided I wanted a drink of water. I proceeded to squirt some of my contact lens solution (or, as I must have thought, my contact lens juice) into my cup. It tasted salty.
2. Frankie’s friend, who once thought I was “pretty hot”, now says I’m only getting a 3 out of 10 on the hotness scale. I’m working on it.
3. I set a new record on Thursday, writing a 1450 word essay in roughly 4 hours. That’s 362.5 words per hour, 6 words per minute, or .1 words per second. Touch me.
4. On Friday I discovered that consecutive finals result in additive not multiplicative suckiness. In other words, it wasn’t all that bad.

O’ Adam, truly only you could have proven so well the hegemonic stability theory. By your wit and grace you showed the advantages of globalization in U.S. foreign policy.

REJOICE, INTERNATIONAL POLITICS IS OVER!

I was working on my final Lit Hum paper at 5am when I decided I wanted some potato chips. I took the elevator downstairs only to find a group of about 8 kids sitting around eating.

It was really AZN. They had seaweed salad and lox and sardines and other weird stuff. Not that those foods are AZN, but, you know, they were all Asian…

I asked them what the hell was going on. They told me it was a Chinese celebration, and that they did it every Sunday night.

It was 5am. They had class in 4 hours. Hnuh?

Recently in my international politics class we studied the proper direction for the United States to take in its “Grand Strategy”. We learned about the Democratic Peace Theory. Now I have something to propose, uniting the two:

The Hey Ya Peace Theory.

Logic: If residents of State A and State B listen to Hey Ya, States A and B will not fight a war.

Empirical Evidence: Everyone gets up and dances when he/she hears Hey Ya no matter his/her denomination, demographic, musical preference, sexual preference, etc.

Theoretical Basis: State behavior derives from individual behavior.

Potential Responses: The Way You Move Peace Theory, Bombs Over Baghdad Hypothesis