A classic ethical dilemma in mathematics is the prisoner’s dilemma, which is set-up so that the best solution for two people is to both refuse to confess, but the best individual solution is to confess and seek to throw the other person under the bus, leading mostly to the “mini-max” solution where both people confess and get a moderate jail term rather than nearly no jail at all if both refuse to confess.  The problem is a classic example of the “tragedy of the commons” as well as the “problem of trust.”  Will people behave nobly or act selfishly?

Today provided an unusual and complicated set of problems.  One of my stepfather’s coworkers was undergoing an ordeal in order to make it to the wake of his girlfriend’s ex-husband.  Due to the lack of traffic (Good Friday), I made it to work early enough to be able to end work half an hour earlier than normally, leading me to conduct my banking errands earlier than normal.  As my mother and I raced down to pick up my stepfather and his coworker on MacDill Airforce Base, we faced the ridesharer’s dilemma.  Do we choose a longer route to end up in the Visitor’s Center and make others wait an extra few minutes for air conditioning and some music videos, or do you take a less comfortable place to save a few minutes for everyone else?  This would appear to be a classic prisoner’s dilemma (and I chose to wait outside).

Unfortunately, there was more than simply that issue to deal with.  I was unaware of it at the time, but as it happens, MacDill Air Force Base, for reasons undisclosed (and probably top-secret) was evacuated this afternoon and the MacDill gate was closed.  Therefore instead of waiting five minutes for the rest of the travelers, I had to wait about twenty minutes outside.  Instead of a convenient pickup, albeit a late one, my stepfather and his coworker had to walk for forty minutes to the Visitor’s Center at the Dale Mabry gate, and as a result of all of the mismatched signals, we ended up losing a great deal of time, and the girlfriend of my stepfather’s coworker started a fight, not seeing all of what went wrong.  It would be a hard matter to explain.

Now, most families nowadays would solve that problem of the Ridesharer’s Dilemma (namely incomplete information) via cell phones, but cost aside, hardly anyone in my family seems inclined to even use cell phones.  A lack of information leads to a lack of efficiency, and to frustrating afternoons spent wondering if the sinkhole blocking off an exit of Interstate 4 near my old stomping grounds will ever be closed up.  Che cassino!  Or, to put it slightly more delicately, all is futility.