Defecting is always the smarter move for each individual, and precisely for that reason both end up worse off. The prisoner’s dilemma only changes its ending once the game is laid out on a grid: every cell plays its 8 neighbours, sums the payoffs under a matrix with T > R > P > S, then copies whichever neighbour scored highest. Nowak and May showed in 1992 that cooperation survives by huddling into clusters whose edges flicker endlessly; push the temptation T past roughly 1.8 and those blue clusters break apart as red floods the grid.
| Opponent 🤐 Silent | Opponent 👉 Confess | |
|---|---|---|
| You 🤐 Silent | You 1 · Opp 1 | You 3 · Opp 0 |
| You 👉 Confess | You 0 · Opp 3 | You 2 · Opp 2 |
Defecting is always the smarter move for each individual, and precisely for that reason both end up worse off. The prisoner’s dilemma only changes its ending once the game is laid out on a grid: every cell plays its 8 neighbours, sums the payoffs under a matrix with T > R > P > S, then copies whichever neighbour scored highest. Nowak and May showed in 1992 that cooperation survives by huddling into clusters whose edges flicker endlessly; push the temptation T past roughly 1.8 and those blue clusters break apart as red floods the grid.
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