Comment by prunes on The True Prisoner's Dilemma · 2008-09-03T22:05:48.000Z · LW · GW

Eliezer,

The other assumption made about Prisoner's Dilemma, that I do not see you allude to, is that the payoffs account for not only a financial reward, time spent in prison, etc., but every other possible motivating factor in the decision making process. A person's utility related to the decision of whether to cooperate or defect will be a function of not only years spent in prison or lives saved but ALSO guilt/empathy. Presenting the numbers within the cells as actual quantities doesn't present the whole picture.