Kill-or-be killed
Breaking bad
Breaking Bad is an American neo-Western crime drama television series. It tells the story of Walter White an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited high school chemistry teacher who is struggling with a recent diagnosis of stage-three lung cancer. White turns to a life of crime, partnering with his former student Jesse Pinkman by producing and distributing crystal meth to secure his family’s financial future before he dies while navigating the dangers of the criminal underworld.
S1E3: And the Bag’s in the River
After threats from Krazy-8, Walt invited him and his cousin, Emilio, to learn the meth recipe and do business together. But things didn’t go as planned by Walt and Krazy-8 and Emilio forced Walt by gunpoint into the RV but instead of mixing the recipe, the expert chemist concocted a phosphine gas explosion. The gas killed Emilio, but Krazy-8 lived, so Walt had no choice but to lock him in Jesse’s basement, working up the courage to kill him. Eventually using the bike lock chained to the pole.
Who was Krazy8?
Domingo Gallardo Molina, commonly known by his nickname Krazy-8, was a meth distributor formerly associated with Jesse Pinkman and Tuco Salamanca. He was also the cousin of Emilio Koyama. Jesse used to work for Krazy 8. He used to supply drugs to Krazy8 customers and also used to cook meth.
For most of us, kill-or-be-killed situations are the stuff of soak-the-sheets sweaty nightmares. For Walter White, they’re a way of life. Walt pretty much begs Krazy 8, the dealer he’s taken captive (after a failed attempt to gas him to death in an RV), to give him a reason not to kill him in cold blood. Krazy 8 delivers, but not in the way Walt wanted. In this, we discuss that kill-or-be-killed situation using prisoner’s dilemma.
When Krazy8 and Walter, both defect:
In this case, both decide to kill each other and they will both end up dying.
When Krazy-8 defects and Walter cooperates:
In this case, Walter decides not to kill Krazy-8 as it's an unethical thing to do and unties him as he trusts Krazy -8 while Krazy-8 decides to kill Walter the very moment Walter unties him and so that he can become the sole owner of his business of drug distribution and also take revenge of his cousin Emilio’s death.
When Krazy-8 cooperates and Walter defects:
In this case, Walter decides to kill Krazy 8 as he doesn’t trust him because he is afraid that his secret won’t be a secret anymore and his family would be in danger and adding to that he would need to share a big chunk of his profit with Krazy-8 While Krazy -8 decides not to kill Walter and trusts Walter White.
When Krazy 8 and Walter, both cooperate:
In this case, Krazy 8 and Walter decide not to kill each other and cooperate in order to do business together by sharing the profit.
Weak Version of Prisoner's Dilemma
Nowak and May introduced the weak version of the prisoner's dilemma game. If there can be “ties” in rankings of the payoffs, the condition of the prisoner’s dilemma can be weakened without destroying the nature of the dilemma. In this case, Punishment = Sucker
T>R>P≥S
Then, for both Walter and Krazy-8, although killing won’t strictly dominate cooperation, it will still weakly dominate the sense both of them have a chance to get better payoff when they defect in comparison to when they do not.
What happened in the end?
Krazy 8 secretly snagged a shard of a broken plate to stab Walt which forced Walter to kill him in self-defense. (The kind of self-defense that involves choking a man to death from behind while he’s handcuffed to a pole, but still.) At this point, Walter still has the decency to be devastated, but the killing is a step in the wrong direction, as his ability to bounce right back makes clear.
