The Fear Deadlocks Put in my Heart
Marcus Johnson
10/12/21
Networks Blog Post
Recently in class we’ve been discussing game theory. Generally speaking, game theory is the analysis of interpersonal strategy in isolated situations. We’ve gone in depth about the prisoner’s dilemma specifically. I believe the prisoner’s dilemma reveals the nature of humans to self-preserve rather than employ utilitarianism. A broad definition of utilitarianism is “the greatest good for the greatest number”. Considering both prisoner’s are aware of all the options available to them and the requisite consequences, you would think it wouldn’t require consultation with one another to take the utilitarian-esque action and defect. Despite all of that, it is most common that both prisoners would end up cooperating, as it is their dominant strategy, given the following: 
It’s fairly simple to see how this thought process would develop. Obviously, neither person wants to go to prison and the only way to avoid that possibility is by cooperating, additionally if they are suspicious that the other will cooperate, cooperating themselves lightens their own sentence. A simple, faint suspicion defeats the logical decision of just remaining silent and spending less time in jail overall.
Conversely, what I’m interested in examining and talking about is the opposite scenario, a deadlock. Deadlocks occur in situations where the dominant strategy is also the decision of greatest mutual benefit. From a fundamental perspective, this is a great scenario, but when applied to real world situations that’s not always the case. The following is a deadlock scenario:
You can see from the table, defecting is the dominant strategy for both players and all together yields the most benefit, contrasting the prisoner’s dilemma where the dominant strategy for that scenario is the least beneficial for both parties. The article that I read provided an example of a nuclear weapon deadlock, where a treaty was made to disassemble nuclear arms. Cooperating with the agreement would yield less military benefit for each country than breaking it and secretly continuing to make, or at least not disassembling, nuclear weapons. Obviously, it’s morally wrong for both of these countries to dishonor their word, not to mention M.A.D. principles are at play here, making the stakes of this deadlock literally world breaking. Although they seem extreme and rare, deadlocks are just as common in everyday life. As a gamer, every time I turn on my PC and log into a game, I forego my dominant strategy in the deadlock of using a certain cheat.
A few months ago, a new type of aim assist cheat was developed, which has been proven to be undetectable by anti-cheat software and looks like high level gameplay to even professional gamers. With unfettered aim assist, any player will perform infinitely better than normal, and since they can’t be caught and punished by the game’s countermeasures for cheats, this cheat is the no risk, high reward option. As a result of this new software, a game has been created with a deadlock. The choices are to defect, and use this new cheat software, or to cooperate, and play the game using your own skill. The payoffs are as follows: Two players of similar skill competing normally yields an even payoff; one player cheating while the other does not, creates a fundamental superiority of the cheaters results in game, making the payoff one sided in the cheater’s favor; both players cheating means that they are both on equal footing notwithstanding individual ability, solidifying cheating as the best response regardless of the other player’s choice, therefore making it the dominant strategy for both players, thus proving there is a deadlock. (I am choosing to ignore the social pressure to not cheat for the sake of argument.)
Fortunately, the leak on this software’s code was mitigated thoroughly and is apparently only under ownership of only 500 people or so. But this is the internet we’re dealing with, so it will break out eventually. On top of that, there are a large number of unsavory gamer folk who feel no shame in cheating in competitive games so the effects will be fairly immediate once it leaks fully. This is a deadlock I dread more than anything else that comes to mind, because it could mean the ostensible death of any beloved genre of game that features mouse and keyboard aiming systems. Not only would that be one of the biggest losses for the gaming community, the economy behind one of the biggest industries would take a massive hit. It sounds melodramatic, but imagine if every human could have a chip installed in their brain so they never miss another basketball shot no matter how hard it is. Never mind that the chip defeats the purpose of the game, nobody in their right mind would ever play if they didn’t have one and it’d ruin the economy behind basketball like the NBA, sports betting, the olympics, performative street leagues, ad revenue from all of the aforementioned etc. The gravity of this single program is quite disturbing honestly.