Trading Reflection for Shadow

First, in case you don't read to the end (although I hope you do), I need to thank everyone for the feedback to yesterday's viaduct shot. It truly is all those comments and stars and hearts which ensures I have the camera in my pocket on such a freezing cold day as yesterday. I really, really appreciate it.

A quick glance at the blips coming in today and it's pretty obvious that the whole country is suffering from biting cold winds and snow showers. I woke up this morning to a blizzard but within a few minutes that had turned to bright sunshine. I took a detour to the tarn on the way to the station to get a few photos. I rather liked the dramatic shadows falling on the snow dusted frozen surface. We've really only had a smattering of snow here, but it was still enough to curtail any plans to cycle in this morning. And I'm sure glad I wasn't cycling back this evening!

Roam had to pitch a concept for a new television program at college today and we threw a few ideas around last night. We came up with a show based upon a game which has always fascinated me, and which formed a central role in the final chapter of my book Earthdream. Following your amazing response to last week's blip about introversion I thought I might enlist your help again. Earthdream was published before the advent of the internet so it was never possible for me to see how this game might play out in the real world. If you've got a few minutes I'd be grateful for your indulgence in reading the following. Hopefully, it will get you intrigued.

The game is played for points between two people who have no communication with each other, and no knowledge of each other. Each player is given the choice of cooperating or defecting. No more than that. Cooperate or defect. Now, if both players choose to defect, their pay-off will be one point each. If one player chooses to defect and the other to cooperate, then the defector's pay-off will be five points and the cooperator will get none. On the other hand, if both players choose to cooperate, their pay-off will be three points each. The aim of the game is to acquire as many points as possible.

What I want to do is set up a round robin tournament between all of you who wish to play. I'm simply asking you to make a choice between cooperation and defection. That one choice will then be matched with the choice of the other people here who have chosen to play. At the end of the tournament, you will receive the sum total of points due from the pay-offs with everyone else, as calculated in the manner described above. You have no idea who the other players are, and have to assume that you never will. To emphasise again, the idea is to come out of the tournament with as many points as possible.

I don't want you to give me the answer you'd like me to have or which you'd like to be seen to be giving. You have to think this is for real. Pretend that you are playing for hard cash, say a hundred pounds a point! There's quite a bit to think about. The situation is full of the most horrible paradoxes. There is no rational strategy. The dilemma is that, collectively, it is in the best interests of everyone to cooperate, while, individually, it is in the best interests of everyone to defect. Let me attach some numbers to this to make the point as clearly as possible. Let's say I get 21 respondents. If you all cooperated each person would receive £6,000, twenty lots of three hundred pounds. However, the choice to cooperate has to be made in the knowledge that defection is always more profitable. If everyone else has cooperated, you could clear £10,000 by defecting yourself. On the other hand, if each player was to defect, everyone would receive just £2,000. And if you were unfortunate enough to be the sole cooperator among twenty defectors, you would end up with precisely nothing.

So, what is you choice? I've always wanted to do this for real so I'd love it if you'd email me your answer. A simple C or D will suffice, but if you wanted to add a bit of reasoning behind your choice then that would be a fantastic bonus. Hoping this doesn't fall flat on its face, I'll announce the result on Friday's blip. I only wish I were rich enough to offer real cash as an incentive to focus your mind. Just try to pretend. My email address is my user name here at gmail.com. I really look forward to seeing what happens.

Finally, it's really important that you keep your response to yourself. Nobody will ever know your choice and your secret is safe with me! You can shaft everybody with no fear of reprisal. For obvious reasons then, don't give me your answer in a comment although it would be good to mention if you've joined in to hopefully encourage others to participate too! I really hope this will get you thinking. For me, I've now got the more mundane task of feeding two apparently very hungry and actually quite patient sons.