Games of Life and Death

A short talk on game theory I gave at the Nammour Symposium at Sacramento State. I cover the classic issue of nuclear deterrence and some of my own research on the death penalty.

To be completely honest, I wasn't wholly satisfied with this talk. Originally it was over an hour long, so I had to drastically cut it down for time and the end product suffered. On top of that, I was venturing out of my comfort zone by talking about game theory, a subject that I am far from an expert in. But que sera, I suppose I'll let you decide what you think of it.

• Category

  Education

[bimblinghill]

Excellent lecture & an interesting way of looking at the arguments for / against the death penalty; however (speaking as someone who has done no research) I suspect that countries with the death penalty in place *also* have greater numbers of people serving life sentences. E.g. US vs western Europe.. so there are more things going on here than the game suggests. What I'm saying might be beside your point, but it is a real world scenario you are using, so I think my concern is reasonable.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

Unfortunately cross cultural comparisons don't help much. Maybe the exoneration rate is lower in Germany, but if it is, maybe that's because they don't have the death penalty, or maybe that's because they convict fewer innocent people to begin with. I don't have the expertise to sort the signal from the noise.

[arsenelupin123]

Hey do you know of a good introductory text to game theory, for example that presents these games you are talking about and that you wanted to talk about?

Thanks.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

"Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction" by Ken Binmore is a very good... well, short introduction.

[polymath7]

Are you familiar with Douglas Hofstadter's concept of "super rationality"?

The basic idea is,if both prisoners are exceptionally intelligent, they'll independently anticipate it's in their mutual interest to say the other is innocent, will anticipate that the other will anticipate it, and act accordingly.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

Yeah, I read Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas" a few years back. Great book. Not sure if I buy 'super rationality' though. Might be a good idea in the abstract, but in practice nearly all humans engage in 'bounded rationality.'

[SisyphusRedeemed]

"I mean are you suggesting that all US governments under the cold war deliberately used game theory as tool to crush the USSR."

I mean both sides used game theory to prevent the cold war from heating up. In the U.S. we actually had an entire military apparatus dedicated to it (The RAND Corporation). This is well documented in the history of the cold war.

Perhaps you should actually learn about a subject before you opine on it with such confidence and incredulity.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

Darwin's "Origin of Species" had no formulas and no equations. Do you think that's pseudoscience, too?

[TheAtheologian]

Well if I was going to commit a crime I'd do it with someone who knew how to make the bank lose :P

[Eric Goetz]

very well done Explanation.

[LeirgaukThe2nd]

Right, not telling defeats the entire purpose! If someone gives you an answer, please send it to me! The curiosity is killing me! Damned speaker!

[ostihpem]

So what is the answer to: Why is it rational to keep the doomsday machine secret? I do not see it since it seems more rational to show your threats to your opponents to PREVENT a strike against you which would be the best possibility. Almost all deadly animals have those "warn signs"...can somebody explain?

[d007ization]

I would have played dove in every scenario that involved only me getting a disadvantage. That would have given me some kind of psychological advantage in at least one way.

[Adam Peredo]

to get the money you have to play the game . . .

[FaceWhatsAhead]

Hmm... Think of our youtube-atheist model of charitable donation, where donations are announced publicly and tied to individual reputations. I wonder if this is an ideal way to achieve great results. Does the reputation of individuals donating make people less likely to donate? To attend the auction itself? Is the more loudly trumpeted an item a boon or bane? And what of the items we don't allow in?

[slugyellow]

It doesn't even matter if Game Theory was "deliberately" applied. The point of his video is to use game theory as a tool to understand how we got to a certain outcome. The whole idea about game theory is that people usually pick their most rational choice, regardless of whether they're thinking about game theory or not. Indeed his argument would hold even if the Soviets and the US did not apply game theory. The outcome is based purely on this assumption: rational players.

[slugyellow]

I think you should have a follow up about continuous games. If games are indeed played over time more than once, the outcome may change. e.g. the continuous hawk-dove game. If you can implement that in your experiments like repeated donations to either lifers or deathrow inmates, it may give some more dynamic and even unexpected results.