Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Roommate's dilemma [modified version]

This blog is about explaining the simple, yet very interesting puzzles which I categorize as puzzles under Game Theory.

Here is a small modified version of prisoner's dilemma :

Me and my roommate live in an apartment near our university. I come home to see that the apartment is dirty. There are soda bottles, empty pizza boxes, dirty tissue papers and all sort of dirty stuff lying all around. I definitely don't like it when the apartment is that dirty. I can still live as I am in the apartment for a very small amount of time. What should I do ???

Let me assume this :

We are in the same class or we develop a good rapport. We both have equal amount of work and have exams and holidays at the same time. There are greater chance that we get time to know each other. I can talk to my roommate and arrange a schedule when we both can clean up the apartment once in a while or any similar strategy.

Now the things become very simple and the apartment is clean and we are happy (so is the landlord who occasionally checks the state of the apartment, he is really happy and offers a discount on the month's rent !!!!! ). We both have lost some time.

Now imagine if the things were a little different :

We are not in the same class or we are introverts. We do not talk much with each other. There is no communication. If we observe this situation, we see lots of interesting things :

I come home and see that the apartment is dirty. I don't talk to the roommate and I don't like the apartment being this dirty. I can either clean up the apartment myself or wait for the roommate to clean the apartment. These actions have a different possible outcomes. If I clean up the apartment myself and keep the place clean, the landlord sees that the place is clean and offers some discount in the rent. We both end up paying lesser money / saving money. But, why should roommate get rewards because I cleaned up the place ? Why should I do all the dirty work and both get rewards ? I also have lost lot of time cleaning up the place. I could have done something really useful in this time. It is rather unfair.

I could choose to not clean the apartment and wait for the roommate to clean it up. If he cleans up the place, then I get the discount in the rent and I wouldn't have wasted any time cleaning up the place. I could do some creative work in this time. Landlord will definitely be unhappy and will not offer any discount.

Observing this situation what should be my best course of action ?

Game theory suggests that NOT CLEANING THE APARTMENT is the best course of action !!!!!!! How ?? Technical aspects will be covered in subsequent posts ...

Joker's action in the movie of Dark knight is an example of Game Theory. As quoted by Prof. Benjamin Polak of Yale university, these people are called "evil gits". So is game theory teaching us to be 'evil gits' ? Hmmmm .... I will post more of my thoughts in the coming entries ...

I will discuss more about this in the coming posts. HERE is the original prisoners dilemma puzzle.

This entry was inspired by this lecture.

No comments:

Post a Comment