Game Theory In the Dark Knight

[Carusos Shades]

Found these articles on a facebook board. Very interesting stuff I thought. Apologies if they were posted before....

http://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/20...cene-spoilers/

http://www.quantitativepeace.com/blo...rk-knight.html

[donk70]

People are putting waaaaaaayyyyyyy too much thinking in this movie

It's just a movie. Watch it and enjoy it.

Not everything has to be complicated folks

[Jonathan Crane]

And I thought my jokes were bad.

[Lemenbolle]

I have read like twenty pages on game theory in the Dark knight :P. It's an interesting theme. But I do not think that it is that similar the prisoner's dilemma, because in the ferry game there will be no reward in cooperating.

Maybe more like the Bayesian game, where there is insecurities. Such as the Joker lying....i hopez

Still, it is worth to mention that the same people halting at flipping a switch just couldn't wait to kill Coleman Reese.

[Byron Long]

Great post and interesting links. A little too cerebral for this crowd though as demonstrated by a few of the posts.

[EHTNAMTAB]

Anoher intersting point (if i say so myself) - was the fact that the neither ships bnelw the other one up based entirely on compassion/the inability to press the button. Or did the existence of batman (that he might save the day) have some influence.
Which in turn leads us to -
*if no boats were destroyed because people are good, there is no need for batman??

[JoeCat]

Originally Posted by Carusos Shades

Found these articles on a facebook board. Very interesting stuff I thought. Apologies if they were posted before....

Good post and an entertaining read.

[Lemenbolle]

Originally Posted by EHTNAMTAB

*if no boats were destroyed because people are good, there is no need for batman??

Good point, but, well, if there aint no batman, both boats wil be destroyed by the unhindered Joker

Reading the ferry scene in the script, some questions related to the ferry scene arose (supposing it was not cut):
Holding a detonator, with two buttons. What was the other button for? I seem to recall there not being a button, but a key to turn?

These men will kill you and take it, anyway. Give it to me, you can tell people I took it by force...give it to me and I'll do what should've been done ten minutes ago.

What does it mean: you can tell people I took it by force

• How can he tell them, when he will be dead because either the other passengers or the Joker blew him up?
• It might imply that the tattoed prisoner know that his fellow passengers all suppose he is going to push the button, killing and taking the blame too. But he is not one ordinary person, he wants to surprise them. (or, really, us, the audience)
• Or that he knows that the Joker is double-crossing them all, giving them the detonator to their own bomb, but this way the blame will be on the tattoed prisoner when the civilian ferry explodes. (and the prisoner lives are saved).
• Finally, the prisoner might be a psychich, seeing Batman and stuff.
  

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[Beanjuice]

Oh look, jesus in my toast!!

[Paradyme]

I'm lazy, what's 'the game theory'?

[LegendaryCaleb]

Originally Posted by hewholaughs55

Oh look, jesus in my toast!!

I dont see it...?

[WompuM]

I'm an Econ major and a bat fan and even I feel like this is a stretch.

[Anita18]

..didn't we already have some sort of thread about this...?

Or maybe I'm going crazy....

[Jakk]

Originally Posted by Anita18

..didn't we already have some sort of thread about this...?

Or maybe I'm going crazy....

No, I distinctly remember that too. It involved math and matrices. It annoyed me and gave me a headache.

[Anita18]

Originally Posted by Jakk

No, I distinctly remember that too. It involved math and matrices. It annoyed me and gave me a headache.

Here it is!

http://forums.superherohype.com/show...4&postcount=48

[Crook]

Originally Posted by Anita18

Here it is!

http://forums.superherohype.com/show...4&postcount=48

What the hell? There a quick summary for this? I feel dumb for not having the will to read all of that.

[Anita18]

Originally Posted by Crook

What the hell? There a quick summary for this? I feel dumb for not having the will to read all of that.

I had not-very-quick summary later on in the thread, but at least it's in layman's terms.

Originally Posted by Anita18

It's a just a more technical way of trying to explain the rationale behind the ferry social experiment. It's a lot like how people like to use big words made up by old dead white guys to explain philosophy, when you could pretty much explain it using everyday language.

Basically it said that if everyone only had survival on their minds, detonation would happen 100% of the time, which makes sense.

But there are differences on the two boats - in the civilian ferry, they decide to do a majority vote, and in the prisoner's ferry, one of them takes the responsibility directly by intimidation. It only so happens that the prisoner taking responsibility is moral, but....anyway. And even though the civilians vote for detonation 3 to 1, none of them are able to take up the responsibility. Still, survival was a greater priority, detonation would still occur most of the time.

But of course, there are yet more caveats. It's time-dependent, meaning that the game ends after 30 minutes, or when detonation is chosen by either ferry, whichever comes first. If both parties can hold off detonation, there is a chance (albeit very slim) that both of them will survive. (It's the same example of cooperation offered in the classic prisoner's dilemma, except that the people on the ferries are depending only on the hope of benefit.)

And you also have to count the fact that you're trying to break a large group of people, which is most definitely harder than breaking one person. Whether you want to call it peer pressure or the drive for social order, it's pretty much the same thing.

I think your belief in the outcome of the social experiment depends on your outlook of humanity in general. I don't think that it was completely realistic, but I also believe that people will hold onto any shred of order if they can, which is why I believe the outcome we saw is possible in real life.

We saw this when Gotham went through with Loeb's funeral as planned, even though the Mayor's life was in danger. (The Joker was able to take advantage of this by infiltrating the funeral itself, but even he couldn't break thousands of people at once through fear.) We even experience this in real-life disasters. If only survival was on people's minds, there would be mass chaos, but you often don't see that. You see people trying to find others, sticking together, making plans.

[Crook]

Wow, that was it? I knew all of that already. Did the author think no one understood that?