What are the motifs in Prisoner's Dilemma by William Poundstone?

The dangers of amoral public policy is a motif in this book. One idea that comes through in Prisoner's Dilemma is the dangers of adopting game theory as a normative rather than a descriptive approach to public policy. Normative approaches tell us what we "should" do, whereas descriptive approaches tell us what we actually do. Game theory is a simplified, sometimes accurate, model of actual human behavior and situations. Insofar as the model is exactly like reality, it may provide normative guidance, but often reality is not exactly like the model.