.

Yeah... what the fuck? What's the moral lesson of this one?

trading

pirate obviously!

currently located on a desert island with 4 younger pirates!

Nice riddle
esr needs a spoiler function :P

He proposes they share them out based on age, oldest to youngest?

Either that or he takes the gold bars and bludgeons the other pirates to death.

in ajob interview they are way more interested in how you try to solve the thing that whether you actually do get a solution.

absolutely agree,

(for info this is how to think for "american options")

you're not far, but the 1st can do better

well, he could offer less to the third, fourth, and fifth but then they would feel indifferent since the 2nd priate would as a minimum make exactly the same offer. And then they could decide to hope the 2nd one makes a mistake and offers them a little more.

love game theory btw :)

right
me too actually

don't you have some i can think of?

none from the top of my head sorry. nly somewhat related riddle I remember is the one with 12 identical looking coins where you can use a scale three times to find out which one weighs diefferently and whther it weighs more or less than the rest.
The scale it the two are thing which tips to a heavier side.

Took me about 2,5 hours to find it out on my own once :/

So we have 5 pirates on a desert (deserted?) island. Where are the thousand pirates who are fucking gold pieces located? And more important; how do you fuck a gold piece?

you don't want to know :(

that made me laugh :-p

save that question for maths enigma part III

edit: explanantion posted below

How is he supposed to get majority that way?

dont have time to explain now, but it has to do with the others wanting to keep their lives.

You're such a dick making me wait like this. =´(

Long answer:


pirate 5 is safe from death, so he can always vote no and hope that he kills off all the other pirates leaving him with all gold.

pirate 4 knows that if it comes to him, there's no way he can get a majority and so will die. therefore pirate 4 does not want pirate 3 to die and will always vote yes to pirate 3's offer.

pirate 3 can propose anything and the vote will pass. therefore pirate 3 would maximise his gold 1000,0,0. pirate 3 therefore wants 1 and 2 to die, and will always vote no to them.

pirate 2 will receive a no vote from pirate 5 and pirate 3 regardless of offer, and so will die (no majority). therefore pirate 2 doesnt want pirate 1 to die, and will always vote yes.

pirate 1 will receive a yes from pirate 2, and no from pirate 3 and 5. he thus has to persuade pirate 4 to vote yes in order to have a majority. pirate 4 will otherwise get zero from the others, and so just 1 gold piece is all thats needed to persuade 4 to vote yes.

thus the offer is 999,0,0,1,0 at this stage

However...

if pirate 5 thinks, he will see that he is never going to be able to kill pirate 4, because pirate 4 will never effectively commit suicide by voting no to pirate 3. so pirate 5 will end up with nothing if he keeps voting no. therefore priate 5 can be persuaded by 1 gold piece.

pirate 2 therefore can use this persuasion to stay alive if it comes to him. so pirate 2 would need to offer 1 to pirates 4 and 5 in order to secure a majority (pirate 3 will always vote no). So his offer would be 998,0,1,1.

therefore pirate 2 would vote no to pirate 1, unless he offers him a better offer (999).

pirate 1 can't do this without dieing or having zero gold for himself. pirate 1 therefore needs to persuade BOTH 4 and 5 (each can be persuaded by 1 piece remember).

so the actual answer is 998,0,0,1,1.

It's not because the guard from the 3rd path came along and stabbed them all in the face.

imo you're wrong

2nd and 3rd will vote against it. because the second can offer:
998,1,1,0 giving them both more coins.

and at that point 3rd and 4th would agree because otherwise they either loose their lives or get no gold. That is because when the 3rd or 4th pirate offers something the 5th can always prevent a majority.

I put my explanation in hide tags, if you want to look at it.

0, 500, 500, 0, 0

That's stupid, and you know it.

ah i just read injx's analysis..

ok so i've been thinking a lot about this right and i've found that 998, 0, 0, 1, 1 is incorrect, because 4 and 5 can vote no to 1's prop and know that 2 will offer them 998, 0, 1, 1, so they don't gain anything by voting yes to 1's prop of 998, 0, 0, 1, 1. 3 knows that he will get nothing because 4 and 5 will vote yes to 2's prop, so 3 can be bribed by #1. so, #1 can propose 997, 0, 1, 2, 0 or 997, 0, 1, 0, 2 and win the majority of votes.

yeah i concluded that that line of thinking didnt apply. the problem states that each pirate is "only interesting in maximizing the number of pieces he'll get". so if p1 offers p4 and p5 1 gold piece each, then p4 and p5 know they aren't going to get any more out from p2's potential offer. so they've already been offerered their respective maximum ammounts, and if they are "only interesting in maximizing the number of pieces" then they will accept the offer.

in other words they're not going to turn down an offer which is a maximum for them.

well, if thats the case, then there would be no need for #1 and #2 to bribe #4 with 1 gold, because if hes going to vote yes for 0 gold when its 3's turn, then he'll just vote yes for 0 gold when it's #1 and #2 turn. apply same reasoning to #3 and #5.

why would he accept nothing? he can still offer the fifth all of the money on his turn and get away alive, thus he has nothing to loose by voting no while he keeps the possibility that the 2nd or 3rd pirate make him a better offter.
On the other hand he has the very real threat that if he votes no number 1 2 and 3 will die, so they will tend to offer him a little more ;)

"hy would he accept nothing? he can still offer the fifth all of the money on his turn and get away alive, .."

so he's basically killing #3 and getting nothing.

yes, he has the option to do that, but it is obviously something the 3rd and 2n dwouldn't like to happen ;)

don't feel like writing the whole explanantion again, so if you're interested read my solution in comment 6

Good for you I didn't got to read your post before you edited. ;)

who s the hot blonde on the upper left picture?

my ex

my gf

I have a better answer.

Pirate 1 asks for a few days to contemplate an ideal offer. The other pirates will surely get hungry, so they explore the island to gather food, rest, etc. In the meantime, pirate 1 gets busy gathering resources of his own to build a wooden raft out of various vines and logs. After completing his raft, pirate 1 then keeps all 1000 pieces to himself and sails the seven seas alone, on his raft.

I win, imho.

at least it's an original one...