1. Spending too much time in my kost revising pilot behavioral-game protocols for translation has made me see strategic situations everywhere (this is what first year grad school felt like; not a fond memory). It's also given me time to observe this guy from my balcony:
Volunteer traffic directors are very common in Jakarta (and elsewhere in Indonesia), solving two major problems in one go: extreme labor abundance, and the classic coordination problem known as traffic. I firmly believe traffic behavior is a great indicator of societal norms (although probably not in the obvious ways). In theory, all you need is a universally acknowledged norm to overcome these problems (e.g. "drive on the right hand side" or otherwise fill your sidewalks with "Look to the Right" to save some foreign lives), but you also need people to follow norms...
The Jakarta solution is to have people volunteer to serve as traffic directors (in most parking lots, for example). It works, and they get voluntarily paid too.
The thing is, I'm not 100% sure this guy is just coordinating traffic. There's a chance he's predating on it as well, being paid not just for direction services, but for simple passage rights.
2. I could use an Indonesia-friendly alternative story for the
prisoner’s dilemma that doesn’t involve criminals, non-sharia investments or anything resembling “gambling”. Let me know if you have an idea.
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