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A comment on Self-Enforcing Protocols. Parent comment

Re:Self-Enforcing Protocols by pavel_lishin on Tuesday August 11, 2009 @12:17PM (#755567)
Wouldn't the two people not cutting wait 'til the knife was in the middle, and then try to yell 'cut!' as fast as they could? First person to yell "cut" would get half of the cake, and the other two would get a quarter apiece...
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Re:Self-Enforcing Protocols by nostrademons on Tuesday August 11, 2009 @12:26PM (#755582)
All parties can say cut, including the cutter. If he calls it, he gets the part behind the knife, just like any of the others.

In the above scenario, the cutter has an incentive to yell cut as soon as the knife passes the 1/3 point, then each of the remaining people has an incentive to yell cut when it's passed half of the remainder (or 1/3 of the total).

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