The Game Theory
Looks like I have (finally) found a theoretical solution to
my roommate noise phenomena problem. And it comes in the form of Game Theory.
Who could have thought?
Readers of this blog will know that for the past month or so
I have had to endure the terrible noise of K-Pop and Korean drama coming out of
my roommate’s multimedia devices. I have come to the conclusion that now he
does not give a shit whether I am in the room or not.
What has perplexed me over the same period of time is his
inability to buy a headphone/earphone for himself. In my opinion, this is THE
greatest mystery of all time after, of course, the pyramids (who has the answer
for this?) and the “cat crossed the road,
oh no!” thing which always screws me over. Damn you cats.
Scenario:
We both are sitting on our tables. I have a horrible looking
Principles of Economics book in front of me. My roommate has his laptop in
front of him. We both have a certain work to do. While I have to get through
some of the most boring chapters written in this world (some are interesting
but mostly boring), he has to listen to some shit in Korean.
The Ideal situation would be a co-operative environment
where I don’t disturb him and he does not bother me. But since we both work on
our self-interests, our own dominant strategies take charge.
His dominant strategy would be to put his Korean shit on
loud speaker. That has been the way for several days now and he finds it very
comfortable in doing so.
My dominant strategy would be that I would like to read my
chapters and summarize to a portrait of DT’s Mike Mangini, which is a bit weird
I know, but it helps me memorize and understand boring stuff. And he has that “I
understand you look” so its pretty good.
Since we are both influenced by our dominant strategy, he
ends up doing what he does best and I end up doing my Mike Mangini thing.
Result: We both end up disturbing one another. Eye for an
eye.
It so happens it’s the same reason why OPEC can’t keep their
oil prices high, the same reason why there’s never ending talk of nuclear disarmament.
The latter one being of much interest. Ideally if everyone was to disarm
themselves, everyone would have been safe. But since everyone works for their
own interest, everyone’s now in danger.
The same thing applies to our room’s scenario. I could have
quite easily knocked him on the back and gave my headphones but since I thought
he had the sense to think about it before I didn’t bother to do so. Reversely,
he could have quite easily asked me for my headphones and we would both been in
a win-win situation. But since forces of self-interest took place, the eye for
an eye solution took out it’s ugly head to dominate.
And so it has been proven. The book claims that tit-for-tat
strategy is a good rule of thumb that
does not allow you to be in a disadvantaged position but also does not allow
you to be in an ideal position. Time to get my speakers.
But before I can get back to reading my final chapter, I have
come to appreciate the truth in the act of self-interest. Everyone works for their self-interest. When
Halal refused to sign the paper for the campaign we had, it was because he was
working in his self-interest and that he wanted us to go through the same pain
he had to endure while he took the course. Makes sense.
Same goes with me. When I work, I work with my own self-interest.
For instance, I love giving gifts. Giving is unselfish act but then I do have
self-interest embedded in it. Since I see that the person receiving the gift is
happy, it makes me happy so basically I am working on my own self-interest to
keep me happy. Well, the case where I give my professors gifts is entirely out
of vested interests but for most part, its clean.
Nirvana.
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