Talk:Prisoner's dilemma

I still can't reconcile these 2 statements in the current article

I still can't reconcile these 2 statements in the current article:

"For cooperation to emerge between rational players, the number of rounds must be unknown or infinite.

"Another aspect of the iterated prisoner's dilemma is that this tacit agreement between players has always been established successfully even when the number of iterations is made public to both sides."

~~~~ Mathiastck (talk) 01:17, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the idea is that when real people play repeated rounds they do not follow the rational / dominant strategy, and co-operation still emerges. I can believe this is true, but it would probably be better supported by a reference. Mgp28 (talk) 08:01, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I can find references in which co-operation emerges in a finite game (I'll leave this reference here as an example) but the word always needs some justification. I'm tempted to rephrase without the always but equally good if there is a citation to support it. Mgp28 (talk) 08:32, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Template:Reflist-talk

Suppose a prisoner testified but perjured their testimony with false extraneous details.

Just saying. Hope no policy has been broken by my use of this. Tathagata1st (talk) 17:16, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Lacks reference

The following paragraph lacks reference.

"In contrast to the one-time prisoner's dilemma game, the optimal strategy in the iterated prisoner's dilemma depends upon the strategies of likely opponents, and how they will react to defections and cooperation. For example, if a population consists entirely of players who always defect, except for one who follows the tit-for-tat strategy, that person is at a slight disadvantage because of the loss on the first turn. In such a population, the optimal strategy is to defect every time. More generally, given a population with a certain percentage of always-defectors with the rest being tit-for-tat players, the optimal strategy depends on the percentage and number of iterations played." 202.92.130.118 (talk) 02:52, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Current form of academic section is anti-intellectual and illogical

The most obvious issue is that if no one were to take an exam, everyone should receive a zero. One has to take an exam to earn an A on it. It's also asinine to award grades to others for not taking an exam. Exams are not stunts, unless one has little belief in their validity. The argument underlying this section is that students are harmed by being required to take final exams. This, of course, suggests that students are harmed by being required to learn anything. The misery of the exam experience can, of course, be questioned. Perhaps there are better ways to test the acquisition of learning. However, the basic interpretation/point is clear. — Stephen Sauer 107.77.195.171 (talk) 17:28, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

It's a real life event, and sourced. It worked with the grading scheme in place, so your argument that it's somehow unrealistic or illogical doesn't hold.

BUT I still don't think it belongs here because it's not a Prisoner's Dilemma for several reasons. T=R, and a PD requires that T>R - If one person took the exam it would disadvantage all others, but wouldn't gain them anything, they still score 100%. From the IHE article it also looks like they safely colluded by gathering outside the exam hall and then not going in, so if a student decided to break the boycott all others could change their strategy on the fly and take the exam rather than being locked into their decision to cooperate or defect, so also for that reason I think it fails as a PD. It's a practical example of game theory, but not of a PD. Binkyuk (talk) 21:52, 19 June 2025 (UTC)