> The Joker scares the city onto its two ferries. Once the ferries are in the middle of the water, he cuts their power and gives them both a button to blow up t

> The Joker scares the city onto its two ferries. Once the ferries are in the middle of the water, he cuts their power and gives them both a button to blow up the other ferry, thereby constructing a prisoner’s dilemma (one boat is filled with real prisoners). A pet peeve of mine: this is not a prisoner's dilemma. For one thing, the Joker says that if neither boat presses the button, he'll blow them both up. If they both cooperate, everyone gets the worst possible outcome. (This doesn't happen in the film, because the Joker didn't automate the blow-them-both-up thing, but the prisoners have no particular reason to think it won't happen.) Even in the "if they both cooperate, no one dies" case, it's not a PD. In a PD, you have reason to defect whether your opponent defects or not. Here, your only reason to defect is to stop your opponent defecting. (Your decision can change your opponent's? That's not a PD either.) You don't directly care what you do, you only care what they do. About the only thing this has in common with a PD is that there are two parties, and they both have two choices. > One of the prisoners makes a Ulysses pact and credibly commits by tossing the detonator overboard. This isn't a credible commitment in the game theory sense, because the other boat doesn't see it happen. > even though his various games only have one innocent casualty I don't particularly remember the film, but I don't believe this. It's possible that we only see one, but I definitely remember car chases, which sometimes kill people; and also you don't blow up a hospital without killing some people even if it's been emptied. And the plot summary on wikipedia says he kills someone named Loeb as well as Rachel.