Re: Game theory: it's not just a class

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Does philosophy work for that? I'm recalling the only philosophy class I ever took: "See, over there? That's Hespherus- the evening star. Wanna wait here for Phosphorous to show up?"


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 12:23 PM
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At least game theory is good for something.

To count, an example must:
1. be an actual business situation where somebody used the insights of game theory;
2. have occurred within the past five years; and
3. involve real, live, actual companies -- not governments, nonprofit organizations, or Russell Crowe.


Posted by: joe o | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 12:35 PM
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I just had to stop reading Tucker Max because I was laughing enough (starting with their song requests to the blind piano player) that my officemates probably thought I was insane. Damn you, FL!


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 12:46 PM
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Is it obviously NSFW? It's web-nanny blocked for me.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 12:47 PM
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W/D, yeah, Tucker Max is both loathsome and sort of funny about it. (Do you know a lot of people like him, in your line of work?)

LB, it's text-only, but vile.


Posted by: FL | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 12:48 PM
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And he went to Duke, so there are multiple stories set in my town.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 12:54 PM
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I don't know many law students like that, though I can think of one or two who, if I knew them better, might be. I think I know a couple of attorneys who would be comparable, but not full on Tucker Max. Not really certain though.


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 12:54 PM
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Labs, if it's any consolation, anyone that loathsome who manages to get laid is only fucking people who are themselves so damn stupid that they'd probably have fucked him anyway.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 12:54 PM
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Or loathsome themselves; always a possibility.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 12:55 PM
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I'm also pretty confident that many of those stories contain a fair bit of artistic license.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 12:56 PM
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I've known way too many Tucker Maxes to actually laugh that much at Tucker Max.


Posted by: strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 12:58 PM
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LB, one funny story ("self-reflection") involves him freaking out because some woman comes over for a fellatio before she goes out on a date with another guy. He then starts wondering if he's been in this other guy's position, more or less, which is revelatory to the character "Tucker Max" if not to the actual Tucker Max.

B, typing that brought me back to our days in grad school.


Posted by: FL | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 1:22 PM
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1: Does philosophy work for that?

"Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. No, really, try it: chicks dig the silent mysterious type."


Posted by: Felix | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 1:38 PM
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1. The world is all that is the case.
2. What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.
3. The logical picture of the facts is the circus.
4. The thought is the significant proposition.
5. Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.
(An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)
6. The general form of truth-function is: [ p , clown , N( clown )].
This is the general form of proposition.
7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
8. Fuck you, clown.

Wait.... wrong thread. Sorry.


Posted by: arthegall | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 1:49 PM
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No worries. This person hasn't studied game theory, is my bet, a this is just from A Beautiful Mind, where Nash explains his theory, but said more crudely:

Nash: If we all go for the blonde and block each other, not a single one of us is going to get her. So then we go for her friends, but they will all give us the cold shoulder because no on likes to be second choice. But what if none of us goes for the blonde? We won't get in each other's way and we won't insult the other girls. It's the only way to win. It's the only way we all get laid.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 1:56 PM
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Shorter 15: pwn3d.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 1:57 PM
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One of my friends complained about ABM that 15 isn't even a Nash equilibrium, since if nobody goes for the blonde any individual player could increase his EV (given the others' strategies) by going for the blonde unblocked.

Come to think of it, Tucker's situation isn't a real Prisoner's Dilemma either. Game theory is useless. Stick with the philosophy of language moves. ("I call it 'Giorgione.' Know why?")


Posted by: Ttam R. | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 2:06 PM
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The first half of 17 gets it exactly right.


Posted by: arthegall | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 2:09 PM
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Unless it's one of those repeated things? I can't remember, now...


Posted by: arthegall | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 2:12 PM
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Wait.... wrong thread. Sorry.

Nothing to be sorry about. You were probably looking for this thread.


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 2:18 PM
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17: Isn't what makes the Prisoners' Dilemma a dilemma that the best outcome isn't a Nash equilibrium, because defecting dominates cooperating? All 15 does is describe a Prisoners' Dilemma ("If everyone defects by going for the blonde, no one gets laid; if everyone cooperates, everyone gets laid, but not with the blonde"). Maybe not exactly, because cooperating still works as an independent strategy, but close.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 2:20 PM
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Sure; in game-theory geek terms, the Nash equilibrium isn't Pareto optimal. But Nash's big insight was the existence of Nash equilibria. They shoulda been portraying that, not just a Prisoner's Dilemma.

Plus it's not clear that it is a Prisoner's Dilemma, which would require that everyone else be made worse off if one guy went for the blonde. In this case there are a bunch of Nash equilibria, in which one person goes after the blonde and everyone else goes after one of her friends. And these are Pareto optimal (maybe not for the women, but their payouts don't seem to be factored in). What they have is a coordination problem.


Posted by: Ttam R. | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 2:26 PM
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If one of the players is more strongly attracted to the redhead than to the blonde, does that throw a monkey wrench into the works of the dilemma?


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 2:27 PM
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The "Beautiful Mind" example is a multi-person Prisoner's Dilemma, the annoying thing is that the Russell Crowe character actually describes its Nash equilibrium and then tells his friends to play a non-equilibrium strategy.


Posted by: dsquared | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 2:42 PM
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Is it a multi-person PD, though? As I understand it the payoff matrix (assuming two players) is

  Blonde      Not-Blonde
B 0,0 3,1
NB 1,3 1,1

placing a value of 3 on scoring with the Blonde and of 1 on scoring with the non-Blonde and 0 on not scoring. So NB isn't dominated; it's a coordination problem as to whether they're going to reach the upper right or lower left equilibrium/optimum.


Posted by: Ttam R. | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 2:51 PM
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Labs, if it's any consolation, anyone that loathsome who manages to get laid is only fucking people who are themselves so damn stupid that they'd probably have fucked him anyway.

The loathsome community is amazingly large in this country, if not a dominant majority, and it's both wrong and dangerous to snipe at them, at least when they're fucking each other and leaving us alone.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 4:02 PM
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As long as the clown community continues to fuck each other, and leave us alone, I think we'll be alright. Clowns are loathsome.


Posted by: arthegall | Link to this comment | 07-26-06 4:06 PM
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