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Can you solve the pirate riddle? - Alex Gendler

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8,209 Questions Answered

TEDEd Animation

Let’s Begin…

It’s a good day to be a pirate. Amaro and his four mateys – Bart, Charlotte, Daniel, and Eliza have struck gold – a chest with 100 coins. But now, they must divvy up the booty according to the pirate code — and pirate code is notoriously complicated. Can you help come up with the distribution that Amaro should propose to make sure he lives to tell the tale? Alex Gendler shows how.

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Additional Resources for you to Explore

A longer discussion of the Pirate Game, its counterintuitive results, and extended versions with more pirates can all be found in this article. The Pirate Game is an example of the ultimatum game. This seemingly simple experimental scenario has many implications for economics and politics, as well as anthropology and evolutionary psychology.


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Meet The Creators

Educator
Alex Gendler
Director
Outis
Associate Producer
Jessica Ruby
Content Producer
Gerta Xhelo
Editorial Producer
Alex Rosenthal
Narrator
Addison Anderson

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