We have seen more and more people advocating and subscribing to simple living. When the material satisfaction has way exceeded our basic needs, it rarely add much additional value to our body and mind. (Consider from a Honda to an Acura, and to a BMW, etc.) Likewise, when the world has been moving fast and constantly accelerating, we get more stress and pressure than work satisfaction and self-fulfillment. The negative overshadows the positive. Yet, people might say, “I have to earn for a living, and how could I slow down when all other competitors all pace up?” That reminds me of an example in Game Theory: The Prisoner’s Dilemma.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma begins when two thieves were caught in the same incident and put in two separate rooms for confession of their crime (purely out of volition). The rules were given, for three different scenarios:
1. If neither of them confesses, each of them will get a half-a-year sentence.
2. If both of them confess, each of them gets a two-year sentence.
3. If one confesses and the other doesn’t, the one who confesses is freed while the one who doesn’t gets a five-year sentence.
Now, if you were the prisoner, what would you choose? Since you don’t know what the other one would choose, if you choose not to confess, you run the risk of being sentenced for five years (if the other confesses). And if you choose to confess, the worst for you would be two years — not five years — and you have a chance of getting freed (if the other does not confess). So what would you choose?
In fact, the Game Theory states that there is an equilibrium point from which any deviation will result in worse results, or higher cost (in this example, longer sentence). So in this example, the two prisoners will both end up with independent choice of confessing — and each getting a two-year sentence.
Obviously, if you consider the sum of the sentence time, this choice is not the wisest. The wisest would be both remaining silent, so that they would each be sentenced for only half a year. But the interesting thing is that this can not happen given the choice is made independently and based on the game rule.
This theory has many applications in real life. In economy, for example. In fact, I think the reason why we cannot slow down is also related to this.
The reason that we can’t comfortably slow down — in a workplace or as a business — is because we don’t know whether our competitors will slow down or not. The best scenario is we all slow down — the whole world slows down — and on this basis the competition level would remain the same and everyone would get the same profit as they do now. Not less, because we all agree upon working 8 hours a day instead of 12. This scenario corresponds to the “both not confessing” scenario in the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the “genie choice”. Yet according to the theory, this can hardly happen. The reason is we don’t know if the other guy would beat us overnight and throw us out of the business by secretly working 12 hours a day for a mere period of one month.
That’s unfortunate because I do think our quality of life will significantly improve while each of us remains at the exact same level of financial security, achievement, etc. at a slow-motion mode of living. It’s unfortunate that this is difficult to achieve.
Yeah, maybe I am a little communist in some aspects…
Some “slow down” advocacy:
1. Slow Hands (Yoga Journal)
2. Don’t Hurry, Be Happy (Yoga Journal)
Filed under: Life, Self-development
