On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 11:24:31 -0400 (EDT) Michael Pollak
<mpollak at panix.com> writes:
>
> On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > game theory always struck me as mostly empty wankery - can someone
>
> > convince me to the contrary?
>
> Well I mainly agree with you. Once you call it a theory you've
> probably
> already entered the baroque stage. Certainly when add numbers.
>
>
> Secondly, the second generation of prisoner's dilemma thinking --
> the
> repeated game experiments, and the demonstration that trust actually
> make
> rational sense -- is IMHO another usefully clear reductio ad
> absurdam
> argument. Not only for people on the left, but even more when you
> are
> discussing the possibilities of international cooperation and why it
> isn't
> impossible.
The iterative Prisoners' Dilemma Game was applied by people like John Maynard Smith to problems in evolutionary biology such as the explanation as to how reciprocal altruism evolved. Richard Dawkins popularized this work in his *The Selfish Gene*. And yes, this application of game theory works by supposing that genes are rational actors that follow certain strategies to maximize their reproductive fitness.
>