Re: Economics class

[masamune]

So the Prisoner's dilemma is a fundemental example in economics because it illustrates a concept of game theory. Game theory describes the mathematics of human interaction in a perfectly reasonable world. While humans are not reasonable, understanding game theory provides an understanding of natural processes, human activity on a broad scale, and provides a basis for understanding more complex models of human interaction.

The prisioner's dilema illustrates how the rational choice may not be the best outcome for all parties involved. Obviously in the prisoner's dilema, cooperation leads to the best result for both prisioners. The key is that if one player cooperates, the other player is better served by betraying the other prisoner.

Now, a betrayed prisioner who chose not to confess is better off confessing. The punishment if both prisoner's betray each other is less sever than being the only one not to confess.

Ultimately, this means that if completely rational, both prisioner's defect because they make out better than cooperating for any choice that the other prisioner makes.

Hope that explination made some sense. Here is the wikipedia article on that:

[sevenalive]

Ill explain what happened in class with the prisoner thing, which was so stupid and surreal.

2 buddies rob a bank or w/e then the cops catch them. Now this is what the book says.
Your a prisoner and here are the possibilites:
If you rat your buddy out, you go free - LOL like that ever happens
If you don't confess and ur buddy does not talk u get 4 years
If you don't confess, but he does, you get 7 years.

Now i see the logic, but this was a really really bad example, the class was not focused on the logic or the concept. They all just said, 1 liners like. Don't talk or I didn't do anything. They made jokes, they didn't understand it.

[masamune]

Yeah, I was mostly trying to explain the concept. It sounds like it wasn't convayed effectively in class. Can't fault the book or the teacher for using the standard example for this concept though.

As to DVD's question: I teach there because I want to teach, the have an open position, and they offered me the job. I also know other instructors there I respect. I am fully aware I only get to teach and I don't get to evaluate the results of my teaching. I still think that I will be able to help people, so I'm willing to give it a go.

But don't mistake my discussion of academic material as an endorsement of ITT policy. I don't recommend the school when asked, and I believe many of the claims made agianst the school. Regardless, I prefer to avoid those topics and stick to being a teacher.