March 18, 2020, 10:00 pm
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What we are currently experiencing is the intersection of Pascal’s Wager with the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
Each of these boils down to a 2 x 2 decision matrix.
Pascal’s wager is as follows: You can believe in God or not believe in God; and you can be right or you can be wrong. This produces four possible equations:
1. You believe in God and you are right = You spend eternity in Heaven;
2. You believe in God and you are wrong = Nothing happens
3. You don’t believe in God and you are right = Nothing happens
4. You don’t believe in God and you are wrong = You spend eternity in Hell
Pascal offers a “wager,” which essentially boils down to the following:
by disbelieving in God, you get either Nothing or you get Hell; but by believing in God, you get either Nothing or Heaven.
Therefore, you are better off believing in God, because, essentially, “What have you got to lose?”
The prisoner’s dilemma is a situation where two parties, separated and unable to communicate, must each choose between cooperating with the other or not. The highest reward for each party occurs when both parties choose to cooperate. But each party has an individual incentive to act selfishly.
The scenario is as follows: two co-defendants to a crime are interrogated separately and offered the same options: stay silent or rat the other guy out. Here’s how the equations look:
Prisoner A stays silent, and Prisoner B rats him out = Prisoner A gets 20 years and Prisoner B goes free;
Prisoner A rats out B, and Prisoner B stays silent = Prisoner A goes free and Prisoner B gets 20 years;
Prisoner A rats out B, and Prisoner B rats out A = Both get 10 years;
Prisoner A stays silent, and Prisoner B stays silent, Each gets 1 year.
Each is faced with an incentive to rat. Each faces the possibility that the other will rat him out, so he gets 20 years for staying silent and 10 years for also ratting.
Even though, by cooperating and sharing the pain, each would have to endure a much lesser punishment of only 1 year, the risk of having to suffer 20 years causes each to rat on the other, leading to more pain for both parties in the end. The prospect of getting off scot free is too great an incentive to pass up, so each Prisoner betrays the other.
What is happening now in the context of this pandemic is exactly the conjunction of these two scenarios: a wager and a dilemma.
The global pandemic could be real, or it could be hype:
If it’s real and I ignore the pleas and warnings to practice self-isolation, and I go to party in Daytona Beach, I am very possibly or even likely contributing to the deaths not only of potentially millions of innocent people, but also to the very people I love and care for most, when I come home and infect my family; and I increase my own risk of dying a miserable and terrifying death in a few weeks’ time;
If it’s real and I stay home and practice self-isolation, I would be one less potential vector for spreading the virus to everyone else in society, and I have two further options:
I might already be infected, in which case I have three options further still:
– I could get sick and die;
– I could get gravely ill and recover;
– I could have a mild case and recover;
or,
I might not be infected, in which case I increase my chances of surviving the next 45-90 days.
On the other hand, this all might be a hoax, exaggerated for some mysterious Q-anon political reason, and all the videos of body bags from China, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Iran, Italy, France, Germany, England, and all the videos warning us to take this seriously, and all the declarations of states of emergency, the greatest stock market crash since the Great Depression, the prospect of nearly all small business going bankrupt, the airline industry collapsing, the mobilization of the US military for domestic catastrophe, the closure of all schools, the cancellation of all sporting events, concerts, religious ceremonies, presidential primary debates, late night talk shows, the election primaries and even possibly the US election itself, might all be fake news, likely paid for by George Soros, which would present me with another two options:
I go to Daytona Beach and party and have a good time while all of the losers stayed home and were bored;
Or,
I practice social distancing and self-isolation for a few weeks along with hundreds of millions of my fellow members of society, and it turns out it wasn’t really necessary.
What have you got to lose?
#stayhomebewell