The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a very interesting philosophical thought experiment I came across that challenges the idea that you can always act rationally and achieve the best outcome. Originally created by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher and adapted by Albert W. Tucker, it goes a little bit like this: Two prisoners are locked in separate rooms with the cops trying to get them to confess. The prisoners have two options here: to stay silent or to confess. If one prisoner confesses and the other one doesn’t, the prisoner who stayed silent serves 10 years in jail while the one who confessed gets to go free at that instant. If they both confess, both prisoners spend 6 years in jail. However (this is the catch), if they both stay silent, they both only have to serve 2 years in jail. Of course, because there’s a chance that one individual prisoner could serve no time in jail by confessing, the rational action to take if you were in one of those prisoners’ shoes is to confess. But the reason wh