“Change the payoffs.”

— Robert Axelrod, The evolution of cooperation

A common reaction of someone caught in a Prisoner's Dilemma is that "there ought to be a law against this sort of thing."

In fact, getting out of Prisoner's Dilemmas is one of the primary functions of government: to make sure that when individuals do not have private incentives to cooperate, they will be required to do the socially useful thing anyway. Laws are passed to cause people to pay their taxes, not to steal, and to honor contracts with strangers. Each of these activities could be regarded as a giant Prisoner's Dilemma game with many players.

Chap. 7 : How to Promote Cooperation
The Evolution of Cooperation (1984; 2006)

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Robert Axelrod15

American political scientist 1943

Howard Raiffa (1924–2016) American academic

Part I, Chapter 2, Research Perspectives, p. 31.
The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982)

“Small kindnesses often, unintentionally, produce the biggest payoffs.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Gift

“You learn after a while that it's not getting your face recognised that's the payoff. It's having your film remembered.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

“Most advocates of the nonphysical self have been happy enough with the immortality payoff not to obsess about the incoherence it carries with it.”

Alexander Rosenberg (1946) American philosopher

The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011)

“We're more comfortable in that kind of business. It means we miss a lot of very big winners. But we wouldn't know how to pick them out anyway. It also means we have very few big losers - and that's quite helpful over time. We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, as quoted in "Why Won't Buffett Invest in Tech Stocks?" at Motley Fool (6 March 2000) http://www.fool.com/boringport/2000/boringport000306.htm