• Question: What would you do if the hunger games were real

    Asked by Saz 69 to Barbara, Matt, Ravinder, Sophie, Tristan on 12 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Barbara Shih

      Barbara Shih answered on 12 Mar 2015:

      Hey Saz! I haven’t seen the latest movie for Hunger Games; only seen the first 2 so I don’t know any new story in the 3rd movie. I might revolt if I was outside the game (depending on how things are going). If I’m inside the game, I would probably try to sabotage the game secretly somehow. If I have a loved one that I know his/her life will probably be destoryed if I die, I’ll do what I can to win the game. (pretty sure I’ll die first though, I don’t have the best hand-eye coordination).

    • Photo: Matthew Moore

      Matthew Moore answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      It’s actually an interesting question and one that evolution can inform upon! Organisms have evolved altruism (seemingly selfless behaviour) because cooperating with one another is often of a huge benefit to simply exploiting others’ kindness or aggression.

      Sometimes this is framed as the prisoners dilemma, imagine you and your partner in crime have been arrested and are both being offered shorter prison sentences by squealing on the other. You can’t talk to each other so have to decide to cooperate or defect.

      If you defect you can have your sentence shortened, if they defect then their sentence will be shortened and yours lengthened, if you both defect nobody wins, if you both stay silent then nobody gets a shortened sentence. You can tell on them (defect) and hope that they haven’t so they get a longer sentence while you get yours shortened.

      The hunger games would ultimately come down to this question of whether to trust or not, extreme violence wouldn’t get you that far as there will be times where you need other people. This means however that you have to decide during the games whether it’s worthwhile to use energy on other people (perhaps give them some of you water) as you risk them not sharing their water later, on the other hand they could share their water later. Alternatively you could take somebody else’s resources in good will and not repay them when they’re in trouble and be an outright winner in that sense!

      The hunger games are different of course because you have to kill them at the end and relationships are far more complicated than that! In such an animalistic setting however, much could be reduced to this gamble of cooperating or not!

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