The Prisoner's Dilemma - Real Life Scenarios

[acinod]

The prisoner's dilemma is as follows:

Alex and Bobby are arrested for serious fraud, and held in separate cells. The persecutor makes the same offer to each:

• If you confess, and your accomplice does not, then you will go free. With your testimony they will be convicted of fraud and sent to prison for ten years.
• If your accomplice confesses and you do not, the opposite will happen: they will walk free, and you will go to prison for ten years.
• If you both confess, then you will both be convicted of fraud, but your sentence will be cut to seven years.
• If neither of you confess, then you will both be convicted on lesser charges, and each sentenced to prison for six months.

Now the best solution seems to be option 4 since you minimize your total amount of prison time. But then they can both be thinking that the other might be rat and confess so they get to go free and the other suffers and as a result, both will end up on option 7, which is the worst for both of them.

Now I was wondering if we could apply this dilemma in real life scenarios. A similar situation I was wondering about is if you want to talk to someone on MSN but you want to seem like your busy so you appear offline. However the person you want to talk to may also have the same reasoning. In the end you have 4 similar options:

• If you appear offline, and they online, then you win because you are technically 'busy' and they aren't. They are waiting for you.
• If they appear offline, and you appear online, the opposite will happen: you have to wait for them and you lose.
• If you both appear offline, then you won't get to talk. This is the worst scenario.
• If you both appear online, then you both get to talk. It's a win-win technically but not the best win unlike option 1.

So what would you choose?