Voting Prisoners Dilemma |
October 21st, 2012 |
On election day you find yourself talking to a supporter of the Purple
Party. As a member of the Pink Party you find the Purple candidate
reprehensible, and you would be quite upset if they won, but of course
the Purple supporter feels the opposite way. Neither of you have voted
yet, and voting is kind of annyoing, so you'd rather not do it. You
propose that instead of voting you both stay home, and they accept.
But should you actually stay home?
The payoffs are:
| You Vote | You Stay Home | |
|---|---|---|
| They Vote | You each have the hassle of voting, your candidates relative rankings are unchanged. | They have the hassle of voting, their candiate goes up by one. |
| They Stay Home | You have the hassle of voting, your candiate goes up by one | Both get to not vote, rankings are unchanged. |
I'm not actually interested in how people would answer this; I like it as an alternate statement of the Prisoner's dilemma. Voting is 'defecting', staying home is 'cooperating'.
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