Day 68 - Darwin's Game - Chapter 17 (1958 words)

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DARWIN'S GAME

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 17

“What we have here is the classic Prisoner's Dilemma, played out with the fatal consequence, not unlike the real version I guess, but with more immediate consequences.”

“And what is this Prisoner's Dilemma?”

“The Prisoner's Dilemma, Kirsty, is a classic psychological game and also a very effective technique used by law enforcement every day.”

Kirsty Bennett, the blond, perky and inquisitive host of the Opinion show was quizzing a pet psychological consultant for their magazine type breakfast news and opinion show, discussing the latest epiosde of Darwin's Game, one that left more than a few viewers puzzling over the meaning of the process they had seen.

“Can you explain it to me, in terms I can understand?” She quickly appended “Doctor Cooper.” to the request, reminding the audience of the legitimacy of whatever he was about to say, and diverting attention from the fact that with degrees in behavioural science and communications, she knew full well what the Prisoner's Dilemma was. It was much better for the audience to believe that the 'dumb' blonde needed it explained, rather than highlighting the general ignorance of the population.

“Well, we have seen a progression through these episodes so far, the first being a simple matter of prison hierarchy. The single bullet, instructions most likely that we did not hear, not singling out any one person for execution, but letting the societal structure of criminals decide the outcome.”

Kirsty lifted her pen as if reaching the conclusion for the first time, thanks to his knowledgeable guidance.

“Paedophiles, the lowest of the low right?”

“That's right Kirsty, every prison has a pecking order, but in all of them, those who prey on children are at the very bottom, without exception.”

Kirsty nodded and looked solemnly at the camera, nodding now to the audience, it was impossible to feel any sympathetic connection to the first victim, or any of the ones following so far. Everything that was being learned as they uncovered more about the players was cementing the innate justice that was being done in this highly illegal, unethical and yet incredibly effective manner.

“Then we came to?”

“The trial of your peers, sightly less than the traditional twelve angry men, more like eleven guilty ones right?” The doctor looked over his spectacles at the camera, chuckling at what he found funny and then carried on. “So we see that in an uneven number on the panel it is impossible to have a split decision, a hung jury not possible with no even division of votes. A comment perhaps on the justice system?”

“Do you believe that is what he is saying? This Darwin person?”

“If it is actually A person, then possibly yes. After all the whole game is a meta-commentary on the system of justice and punishment over all. The players are all known to be very guilty, some of them a burden on the stare, some eluding justice altogether and some, well.... we have no odea uet if Darwin, the person or group, effected the escape or cheated their deaths, or whether they did themselves and only this Darwin, again a person OR a group of people, are the only ones capable for finding the guilty and punishing them.” The doctor sat back and folded his hands, his thought resonating in his own space for a while, forgetting he was feeding live to a national audience.

“Interesting perspective Doctor Cooper and in the third episode? What is going on there?” Kirsty brings him back to reality and he sits forward again concentrating on the line of thought they were pursuing.

“Ah yes, the third. Well in this episode, the quote tells you all you need to know, it is an exercise in co-operation and collaboration, but the winners are kind of the losers in this episode, possibly even vice versa? He has set up a game where in order to survive the loser of the initial sort, the short straw game is the classic scenario used for selection, the drawer of the short straw is the one who needs to figure out how to use the distancing effect he so cleverly put in place to save himself.”

“Except he did not really figure that out did he?”

“Well, no it appeared to be blind luck really. The collaboration should have been between the interested parties, the ones with the weapons, but as they could not gang up on the prey easily they needed to be able to hunt, or herd the victim in the maze and corner him, but the leader of the pack, a valid analogy if I ever heard one, is intent on having the kill for himself and the dissent and the lck of co-ordination fulfils the quote at the beginning quite nicely. It is the victim who adapted, he used proximity to escape the room in the first place, used the rage of the man.., Wynton Washington, against him and that drove the unsuccessful strategy that put Mr Vargas in the position to take advantage of that luck when faced with the boy killer, the Trust Fund Killer I think he was called.”

Kirsty referred to a tablet on her lap and made a show of looking up the name she already knew by heart. As did most of the avid followers of the game. “Jackson Jones.”

“The third.”

“Yes, you're right, the … third.” There was just enough of a gap in that sentence that Kirsty was able to inject casual contempt for the pretentiousness of a family legacy that produced such a monster. “Which leads us to the current episode and two deaths.”

“Yes, and it appears that it could as easily been no deaths at all, but their own nature is what drove them to the fatal conclusion for two of them.”

“Right, the Prisoner's Dilemma you referred to.”

“Exactly, we use this example to show how rational and sensible choices are not always the ones that people make, and why we don't always convict guilty people s well. You see the Prisoners Dilemma is most usually played in pairs, but he has set up a chain of the situations as he is not really trying to get the classic outcome but one to find who will turn on the others.”

“I would have thought they all would, wouldn't you?”

“Well, yes I would have thought so too, but we only had three of them rising to the bait and one more of the players obviously in a very bad shape psychologically. The set up is very simple, you offer the prisoner a choice in conjunction with an unseen other person matching them. We don't hear what the instructions are but it is clear that it is along the Dilemma lines. You can do one of two things as an accused party to a crime, and this is what the police do daily with suspects. You offer them a reduced sentence if they rat the other person out, if one turns on the other, then the sentence applied is reduced on the person who confesses and the sentence is extended on the person who has not. So it sets up a matrix, if you think the person you are paired with will stay silent and you stay silent then you both get punished moderately. If you confess and the other person confesses, you also get punished moderately as the two cancel each other out. If you confess and the other person does not then your confession of their involvement increases their punishment, but decreases yours. The final option is silence on both parties, which can lead to no punishment or a very light one at best.”

“Sounds very confusing, no wonder they got it wrong.”

“Actually it's very simple, the smart thing to do is stay silent and take the risk of a light punishment and the silence of the other party, but if you have no trust as criminals don't often, then your fear is that the other person has confessed already and you will get the harshest punishment.”

“So they should all not trust each other?”

“In most cases yes, but after three episodes already and seeing three other players die quite violently and right in front of them, it makes sense that the remaining players would be over-cautious and know that it is a matter of life and death. Instead of all remaining silent though, three of them let their fears determine their choice and that is the deciding factor in getting to the last round, they were punished by their own choice to punish someone else. That must be an unexpected consequence of their initial decision,.”

“Right, they think they are protecting themselves and they are singling themselves out as victims instead.”

“Correct, so if everyone had stayed silent, they would have been no one go to round two, or at least we assume that of course, since there are no rules, no commentary and no communication of intent from the Darwin entity.”

Kirsty tapped her stylus on her lips, drawing attention to her mouth as she thought before asking about round two.

“And then the water device? Is that part of the Prisoner's Dilemma too?”

“No, no heavens no. That is new and not a part of the famous thought experiment, though I'm sure Nash Equilibrium would still be applicable to the new medium.”

“The Nash Equilibrium?”

“After John Forbes Nash, the mathematician and father of game theory.”

“The Beautiful Mind guy?”

“Yes indeed. But it appears that in this new environment there is a way out, but the participants own fear and mistrust are what lead to the death of not one, but two players in the latest instalment. An unexpected outcome at least to us. It works so elegantly that they cannot bear for the other person to have the advantage over them that they risk their own safety to fight for that one-up of the control of the water and ultimately their own demise. By the look of the way things were going, if they had simply allowed the water to drain, “stayed silent” in the mode of the original Dilemma, then they would have survived with the minor punishment, the discomfort of the tubes and the near-death experiences. Instead they opt to push the sense of mistrust and try to eliminate their opposite number and only the first person to make a move survives.”

“Is that not counter to the experiment though? The most mistrustful player wins?”

“Well no, because Mr Vargas equally distributed the water he was not targeting one person, not playing personal but evening the playing field already set against him because of his height. If he had chosen one, then the third player could have targeted him as well as the person he was sending water to. That would have changed the advantage and he would still have drowned first. So he actually made the most rational of decisions and that lead, would have been unassailable as it eventually was and the other two, well you saw what happened.”

“Yes, yes we did. And what do you think will happen next?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. I will be watching though, won't we all?”

Kirsty turned to the camera “Thank you for your valuable insights Doctor Warren Cooper from the institute of Behavioural Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Now on to lighter things, is your cat trying to kill you? The answer may surprise you, after the break.”