the prisoners’ dilemma

Of course the online world is not reality—though sometimes that fact is easy to overlook—but the interactive demonstration, The Evolution of Trust by Nicky Case, is a good heuristic tool not only for exploring how relationship of trust and the opposite are cultivated but also an appreciation of the frameworks and experiences that prompt and promote cooperation.
Models of conflict and optimising agents can be structured to persuade people to have confidence in one another that one’s not seeking profit at the expense of another but they can also be created (and perhaps it’s easier to digest psychologically as general mistrust given the pace of the internet and nature of interaction) where cheating is the best strategy. The internet entire isn’t rigged like that, but suspicions are justified—especially it seems against a milieu that’s being manipulative in inscrutable ways. The canonical prisoner’s dilemma that the iterative game’s set up (but updated and couched in more familiar experiences) is premised upon posits that two members of a criminal gang are caught and incarcerated and put in solitary confinement (no way to communicate or form a strategy with one another). Due to insufficient evidence, there’s a possibility for them both to have the sentences commuted, but are separately give the opportunity to either betray the other by profession his own innocence or remain silent (thick as thieves). If they betray each other, they both are sentenced and if one betrays the other, one goes free and the other goes to prison, while if they both are truthful, they both are released.