Prisoner’s Dilemma: To Cheat, or not to Cheat Part 5 of 6

In my last post I talked about the “I sold you, you sold me” equilibrium. Graphically it’s as shown below:

	Suspect # 2 refuses to cooperate with the cops	Suspect #2 cooperates with the cops
Suspect # 1 refuses to cooperate with the cops	(1) Both walk free. No sentence.	(2) Suspect #1 gets a heavy sentence, while Suspect #2 get a light sentence.
Suspect #1 cooperates with the cops	(3) Suspect #2 gets a heavy sentence, while Suspect #1 get a light sentence.	(4) Each get a medium sentence.

The players start at the upper left corner (1), and they shift to improve one’s gain (2/3). But they ended up in the lower right corner (betraying each other), as represented by (4).

Does that mean my old friend was right? And if that applies to love and relationships, does it not support many cheaters’ claim that monogamy is unnatural? Does it mean we should all go out and cheat? Not so fast! I did promise an anti-cheating conclusion, did I not?

(stay tuned for my next post...)