Think of a social situation which could be considered as a N-person Prisoner’s dilemma.

A year ago, I was talking about Pokemon Go with two professors in UA Sociology department. One of them asked me if pokemons in Pokemon Go are public goods, so I answered her that they are not. As you can see, many social scientists tend to think that (the variations of) prisoner’s dilemma is very commonplace, covering many important social phenomena (and not-so-important ones, like pokemons). In practice, it is often unclear whether a situation/a phenomenon could be actually considered as (N)PD or not – open-source software I mentioned on the week#4 is one such example. Think of a social situation which could be considered as a N-person Prisonor’s dilemma. Describe the situation, and explain why you think it could be considered as a NPD. Note that in PD, there is no socially beneficial equilibrium in the situation – the only equilibrium in PD is mutual defections –, therefore actors acting based on their self-interests would not be able to produce a socially desirable collective outcome. Think of a way in which the situation above can be interpreted as something other than NPD (stag-hunt, most likely – though it can be something else). Explain why. My argument on open-source software makes a good example of this, though obviously you cannot use it for this question. Note that in stag-hunt, there is an equilibrium(s) where actors acting on their self-interests can produce socially desirable collective outcome. Which one of your arguments do you think is more convincing? What one of your argument do you think is more useful for understanding the situation? Why? You may want to think about which argument covers the most important characteristics of the situation