After a long season of plunder, a pirate team of five Prudent Pirates has amassed a booty of 500 golden coins. Before they part their ways, the five decide to divide the treasure.
They that they will each propose a division strategy in order of their seniority: first the oldest pirate will propose the strategy for the division of coins. All five will then vote on it, and if at least half vote "Yes", the strategy will be used to divide the coins. If the majority rejects the plan however, the oldest pirate will be killed, and the whole process will be repeated with the remaining pirates, with the second oldest proposing his strategy.
Since all the pirates are very prudent, each one will want to claim as many coins for himself without getting killed. Given this, how many coins will each of the pirates (5 - 1, with 5 being the oldest) get, and why? What strategy will the oldest pirate propose?
(In reply to
I beg to differ by pleasance)
The experiment that has been described here has been performed in many states, to opose those who say that it only applies to children and people dealing with token units of transfer. It was recently performed (I forget who actually performed the study) in Indonesia with amounts of currency equivalent to approximately two to three months wages for the two participants. In this case (as with any in this game) theory suggests that the decision maker should give the other participant only one unit, as they will accept, being better off than the zero unit non-decision, threat point. But, as with the children described previously, the non-decision making participant was less than 50% likely to accept any split less than 70:30, even though this 30% proportion may have been equivalent to one months wages.
I guess it all goes to show that we're not all game theoreticians!
re: I beg to differ
