Somewhere in my college background, I heard a hypothetical story about what Hell would look like. In this story, you are seated at a large banquet with the best food you could imagine. Seated across from you is another person. You both have forks long enough to feed the other person, but too long to feed yourself. In order for you to get fed, you must feed the person across the table and trust that they will feed you. In Hell no one trusts the person across the table from them so they both go hungry. This story is intended to show that you treat people as you see them. When you look for the good in others and that’s what you see, you both get fed. In econ 101 terms, I am not sure why this equilibrium exists in Hell.
If Kyle feeds Flad and Flad feeds Kyle, they both eat 1000 calories. Since they both don't trust each other, they don't feed each other and receive zero calories. It's clear there are two equilibria here, but because it's Hell, they equate in a suboptimal equilibrium where they both starve. I think the correct term for this is a noncooperative equilibrium.
I would think that this works out to be some sort of non-cooperative equilibrium. This is a great example that I think students would get a kick out of after introducing the prisoner's dilemma. Plus, "Dante's Inferno" rules!
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