89transam

I dont know if any of you have seen the show, but basically the premise is people are paired into groups of two and earn money doing awnsering questions. When its time to leave they split up the money by voting either friend or Foe. Ill explain

If both choose Friend they split the money
If both choose Foe noone gets any money
If one Chooses friend and the other chooses foe the one who went foe gets all the money.

You dont get to see what the other person chooses (sealed booth)/ You get to plead your case to the other person before you both choose.

SO my question (finally huh) is what would you choose and what would you say to your partner before you choose.

I would tell them I am choosing freind cause I am a poor college student and need the money. If they choose foe they will be effectivly getting all the money and taking the money I will be using to buy food.

I would vote friend also.

Spartak

Heh, this is a great example of Economics in action. Using Nash's game theory and economic logic it's in your best interest to chose foe all the time. Because there is no way you can be in a compromised position if you chose foe.

So yeah, I'll go for foe, no money is better than the other person getting all of it, and you have a 50/50 shot at getting all of it.

Actually it would depend on if I could trust the person, and my general mood at the time, but foe is a good option.

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Sleepyjack

Hehe, i liked how Nash's game theory with the chicks in A beautiful mind. Good Stuff

As Spartak said, that's the baic setup. You're best off getting foe al the time.

**************foe---friend
YOU:**foe-- none---all
***** friend-none---half

So basically you have a half a chance of geting half, with friend, or half a chance of getting all with foe.

So foe for me. Unless the other person's really nice

edit: dman i thought i could just import a spreadsheet in nicely, but it fucked up. hope it's readable now? doens't like 'em whitespaces

CSflim

Is it just a single choice at the end of the game?
Then the answer is obvious! Choose foe!

What would make a MUCH better game is if they had to make the decision many times during the game. That way there is an incentive to choose "friend" in the hope that the other player will reciprocate.

Check out the book The Evolution of Co-operation by Robert Axelrod. It is essentially a mathematical treatment of this game, and what is the best strategy to adopt. Very interesting, and has many diverse real-world implications (economics, the origins of society, international reations, etc).

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lurkette

The problem is if BOTH people are using Nash's game theory (safest to choose foe all the time) nobody gets anything, ever.

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Nisses

and that's the idea, you didn't win anything, but neither did that other greedy bastard

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Sleepyjack

Normally Nash's game theory would be looked at with multiple perspectives and the choice would be given to what gives each player the best possible outcome. So that way, people would always choose friends. That's how they got the girls in the movie (a beautiful mind, a movie about Nash and his troubles/mental illness as a mathematician). Each guy did the best the he could to help out the whole group, rather than all go for the one hot girl and all loose out. Thats the whole prupose of it, looking at getting the best for all players concerned. Well i think?

However, most people would look at it from a singular view point (cause you can't really collaborate with the other person) so i guess it'd be foe then.

ratbastid

The "foe's a better choice" only works out in the aggregate. Over a million instances, you'll do better always chosing foe than always chosing friend or a random pattern.

This isn't a million instances, this is one instance. And I question the logic of whether it's better to stop the other "greedy bugger" from getting all the money. Would you rather have the greedy network keep it?

I'd chose friend.

denim

Sounds like Prisoner's Dilemma.

Sparhawk

Exactly.

We have two prisoners who together committed a crime. We don't have much of a case. If one or the other will rat on his partner, we can go to trial. We offer them a deal:
We will give full immunity to the rat, if only one of them rats. We will give no immunity if they both rat, but we will reduce the sentence that we are asking for. If neither of them rats, then we will convict them of a lesser offense, with a much lesser sentence.
The lesser sentence, for the lesser offense, will be much less than the reduced sentence for the main crime, by the way. If you were one of the prisoners, would you rat on your partner? Think about it.

Interesting to see game theory turned into tv reality...

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wannabenakid247

Yes I would choose Foe as well. At least then you couldn't feel like you lost to someone else.

nash

Hi, I am Nash. Although it seems that my theory implies that choosing the option "Foe" would give you the safest outcome each time, I myself would choose "Friend." Here is my reasoning:

Most of you seem to be drawing a payoff matrix in which the outcome of Foe/Foe is neutral. I would rather choose the outcome of Foe/Foe to be very negative for both sides.

My reason for doing so is this: I am either given money or not given money. I am not losing anything. However, I consider the outcome of Foe/Foe to be a loss because there is no gain for either player. (I do not consider "him not getting the money either" to be a benefit to me.) So if I choose "Friend" and my partner chooses "Foe," good for him! Either way I do not lose any money.

I have never liked it when people are malicious about these problems and would rather both of them not benefit than to let the other side "win." Sure, there are some circumstances in which this is mandatory (e.g., the Cold War) but in trivial problems I do not see a need for this behaviour.

Giant Hamburger

Here in hides a flaw in human behavior. This type of thought process (Nash's not lurkette's) explains man's historic inability to work as a cohesive unit. Power and profit rarely, if ever, comes from choosing "friend."

I wish it were otherwise.
-GH

yournamehere

It is human nature to choose "What's better for ME" over "What's better for US."

The world would be a much better place if that were otherwise - but I don't see it happening.

<i>Friend or Foe</i> is just another example of how being a nice guy gets you nothing. Unless, of course, you're <i>both</i> nice guys.

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Foe

gimme all your money nice people

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amonkie

I had a chance to put this theory to the test during a seminar this last summer. As you might expect, the individual greed of a person often directs their choices, and in the end, there was only one group out of the 12 that actually ended up coming out on top, and it was because all the group members agreed to answer a certain way, and STUCK to it. Other groups, like mine, went to cover their own back, and in the end ended up losing the game.

The key to Nash's theory, in my opinion, is that everyone must agree to work for the common good of the group, or one person will take advantage and everyone else is knifed in the back. Not a fun thing at all.

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Spartak

Yeah, but one of the rules of game theory (in this instance a prisoner's dilemma type game), the two parties cannot communicate in any way and have to make decisions only on guy instinct. Economic theory tells us that humans are selfish and utilitarian (want to increase pleasure and decrease pain), the gut instinct would be to go with foe, that way you are minimising the pain of being swindled, and increasing the pleasure if you manage to end up with all of the cash.

The only real way to get out of a constant foe/foe lock would be with some type of signal which would be genuine and costly to fake, so go figure what that might be

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89transam

What about morals? What if the pot is only $500 ? Would you compromise yourself for an extra $250? If not, how much would it take?

Nefir

Common sense is telling me to pick "foe", because I really can't count on the other guy being nice... but something else inside me is urging me to pick "friend", because if I pick "foe" and the other guy picks "friend", then I'd feel like a traitor and really hate myself for it.

I'd rather pick "friend"... even if I lose, at least its an honorable loss rather than a dishonorable victory.

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MSD

I'd decide to beat the system.

Here's what I'd say to the other guy when I was trying to convince him that we should split it: "OK, so we have three options. We split it, we lose it, or one of us takes all of it. I've seen this show too many times to think that I have a chance of getting money, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going foe. You can choose foe, and we both wasted our time being on the show. Since I've already decided, theres no chance you can get away with all of the money. The other way to do it is that you can choose friend, and I'll mail you a check for half of what we won."

InTeGrA77

I'd do the same...

It sounds like an interesting and stressful game now that I think about it. I'd go crazy if I actually had to pick, and I'd probably end up thinking TOO much about it, and just pick foe for the hell of it!

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