The Prisoners' Dilemma

 There's a famous psychological test called The Prisoners' Dilemma  The idea is to try to better understand people's selfish instincts.  We all think we're selfless but few of us are; or at least we're not as selfless as we think.

Here's the test:

You have two prisoners who both have a year of incarceration left.  You give them the opportunity to reveal something incriminating about their fellow prisoner.  If both prisoners refuse to tattle then they're both released; if both prisoners rat out their cellmate then both of them have their sentences doubled; but if one tattles and one doesn't - here's the catch and it's a beauty - the tattler goes free and his cellmate remains locked up.

The study measures selfishness in a very clever way.  There is a group of people who are so averse to "being taken advantage of" that they risk a worse outcome rather than see someone else get something at their expense.  Even though their suffering is increased they see this as better than getting screwed by someone else.

Makes me think of the way we pass on the message in A.A.  We give with no expectation of return.

"Who does that?" I thought when I first came into The Program.

I does that.