Learning About Trust Through Game Theory

Explorable Explanations is a jewel of a site that I came across, “a hub for learning through play, whose “artists, coders & educators want to reunite play and learning”.

In this episode, the author starts off with what happened on Christmas Day 1914 on the Western Front: “Despite strict orders not to chillax with the enemy, British and German soldiers left their trenches, crossed No Man's Land, and gathered to bury their dead, exchange gifts, and play games“.

Next up, we’re engaged in understanding how trust and distrust evolve using game theory. Only after experimenting with the different kinds of players — the Always Cooperate, the Always Cheat, the Copycat — and the different variables that can intervene in a game (made to picture the real-life accidents that can happen), you get to find out what makes or breaks trust.

Explorable Explanations has episodes dedicated to various subjects, such as philosophy, economics, journalism, math, art, etc. And they’re all made in this interactive way, where you’re given an explanation, or a general rule of how something works, and then, to test your understanding of the matter, you have to place a bet or continue a drawing.