this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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61
What's an example of economic irrationality you've observed in the world? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago by LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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A friend from Argentina once told me Argentina keeps its best wines for themselves and exports the mediocre stuff, even at the sake of profits.

Similarly, a friend from Turkey once said he couldn’t find good Turkish olives outside of Turkey because “Turks are terrible businessmen and keep the best olives to themselves.”

These are anecdotal and might be untrue but I liked the idea.

At an individual level, it’s irrational to cooperate in a prisoner’s dilemma yet experiments show people cooperate.

Contributing to open source projects may fall into this category.

Have you observed any obvious behavior that goes counter to profit maximization? Any cool examples?

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[–] LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But then it stops being a prisoner’s dilemma. What makes the game so intriguing is that individual rewards take you to a suboptimal outcome. When the collective and individual incentives agree, it’s called a prisoner’s delight.

[–] reactionality@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I had to look that (prisoner's delight) up, very interesting thanks. TIL!

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2011.02307.x#b6](Binmore, 2004)

[–] LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Awesome!

Also, prisoners dilemmas can become stag hunts (where cooperation is actually sustained by individual rewards) under scenarios of repeated interaction.