Posted: September 17th, 2015

Societal Dilemmas.

Bruce Schneier is a recognized expert in Cryptography and computer security. Recently he has started to examine the basis of security itself — the nature of trust. One could argue that this is the same thing that ethics concerns itself with. He uses the language of Game Theory rather than ethics to discuss the same dilemmas that ethics deals with. Game Theory is the study of “winning strategies.” Read Chapter 5 of his book, Liars and Outliers and answer the following questions.
1. How is the Prisoner’s Dilemma affected by the relationship between Bob and Alice? Does it seem different if you view Bob and Alice as buyer and seller instead of partners in crime? What type of relationship would make Bob and Alice more likely to cooperate? This is a general question, don’t discuss specific relationships. Explain. (To clarify, I’m looking for an attribute of a relationship that would be more likely to promote trust.)
2. In a Tragedy of the Commons scenario, is the individual harmed by cooperating with the group norm? Why or why not? Don’t interpret “harm” too rigidly, think more in terms of “disadvantage.” Assume everyone else cooperates.
3. In a Tragedy of the Commons scenario, is long term or short term thinking most likely to induce individual cooperation with the group norm? Explain.
4. Explain the difference between a zero-sum game and a non-zero-sum game. Note that there are a wide variety of non-zero-sum games, and Schneier doesn’t really go into them very far. What might you think is the difference between positive-sum games and negative-sum games? It’s OK to speculate here, since Schneier doesn’t really say.
5. Schneier briefly mentions civil rights as being a result of defectors. What does he mean by this? What does it mean to be a defector in Game Theory and what circumstances might lead to a defection being beneficial to society?

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