'That's the deal: own up yourself and testify against your mate - he'll go down for 10 years and you just walk away'. coricocat knew the police could send them down for one year anyway, just for writing the words; but they didn't have enough to pin the libel action on them. the catch was that she also knew they were cutting the same deal with catastro in the next cell - if they both confessed and incriminated each other, they would each get five years. if only she knew what catastro was going to do...
coricocat is no fool, so she carefully weighs up her options. 'suppose catastro keeps quiet; then my best move is to inform on him - he'll get ten years and I'll go free. and suppose he points the finger at me: it's still best to confess, inform against him, and get five years - otherwise, if I keep quiet, it'll be me doing the ten-year stretch. so either way, whatever catastro does, my best move is to confess'. the problem for coricocat is that catastro is no fool either and reaches exactly the same conclusion. so they incriminate each other and both get five years. yet if neither had said anything, they would only have got one year each...
what went wrong? they couldn't collaborate. so the moral of this story is (1) that the pursuit of one's own interest, even if rational, may not lead to the best outcome for oneself or others and collaboration is the best policy; (2) when collaboration is denied, keep your gob shut; (3) the police are pricks.
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