Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher devised the game at RAND in 1950; Albert Tucker gave it the prisoners and the name. Each does better by talking, whatever the other does, yet if both talk, both do worse. Played over and over in Robert Axelrod’s tournaments, the simplest strategy won: tit for tat.
Each night, keep quiet or talk. He can’t hear you. Then the guard comes back.
Played once, talking always pays. Played night after night, it stops paying, because you’ll be dealing with each other again tomorrow. Axelrod called that the shadow of the future.
Ask yourself. What does the way things are set up make it sensible for people to do?
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That’s the whole collection examined, every room. Now imagine doing this with your own life, for a year, with two people who come to know it well. That’s membership.