Co-operation and Co-ordination!!

This week we were introduced to the idea of Game Theory where this is about probabilities and outcomes, but mainly about interactive decisions/judgements. It is trying to work out what sort of strategies people arrive at. This is where the Nash Equilibrium and the prisoner’s dilemma came into play.

The Nash Equilibrium was derived by John Nash and suggested that we as people are self-interested and in the prison dilemma. Looking at the example of the Nash Equilibrium got me to thinking, would I rat out my spouse for a smaller sentence? Therefore the Nash equilibrium is a combination of strategies that cannot be improved upon.

Another example of co-ordination in regards to people’s actions was the example where to people have met and decided to go for coffee, however both cannot remember where it was they were supposed to meet. In reality there are places even without discussing things people gravitate towards. These are called shelling points. These are places that are intuitively obvious, so therefore people tend to gravitate towards.

Another topic in class we looked at was that of competitiveness amongst people. Are we born with it, or do we learn it? It is my belief that we are born with in. In evolutionary terms animals would always compete to be the alpha male and to mate with females. However it is my belief that with humans that main reason we are so competitive is because there is such inequalities within society. How can we not compete with one another when everybody is different? If we all lived in the Amish where everyone dresses equally and nobody gets paid. And they all work together as equals to work at their community. Then there would not be any need for competitive behaviour. Although realistically we do not live in a world that is equal, therefore it will bring out people’s competitive nature.

There was an example given in class of a clip from the film ‘Rebel without a cause’. And the example was the Chicken game. Where these two boys had to drive towards a cliff and the first person to bail out of the car was the loser. It resulted with a person dying. This example showed how risk and competitiveness can be taken too far. Another such example was that of the Cuban missiles and the almost nuclear was between America and the Soviet Union. Both didn’t want to back down. However in the end the Soviets didn’t fire on the Americas and no war was started.

This shows how competitiveness and can result in drastic behaviour and unnecessary risks.