The reality of conflict

One of the important themes that come out of this work and out of game theory itself is the reality and ubiquity of conflict. Games like the prisoner's dilemma show that conflicts between people can be very difficult to solve, and in the case of the prisoner's dilemma, it is effectively impossible to solve. We want to think that if only people would think rationally, they would see that cooperation is more beneficial than defection, but the prisoner's dilemma show that it is impossible, in some cases, to rationally demonstrate the value of cooperation. This is such a strong conclusion that, as the author shows, a cottage industry has grown up to show that someway or somehow, prisoner's dilemmas can be solved. To realize that prisoner's dilemmas cannot be solved is to realize something more valuable than any "solution" could possibly be, it is to...