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Almost All Strategic Problems Can Be Solved with Game Theory

I think almost all strategic problems could at least be improved upon if people would do more careful game theoretic analysis.

I think almost all strategic problems could at least be improved upon if people would do more careful game theoretic analysis.  The reason game theory works in predicting is because people intuit how to behave game theoretically.


For example, the United States government probably could be more successful in exerting influence in trying to help people form a democratic government that is not an Islamist government by employing game theoretic reasoning to work out how to help empower some interests at the expense of others.  

We probably could more successfully resolve the North Korean nuclear threat through game theoretic reasoning.  We could successfully resolve what American leaders seem to perceive as an Iranian nuclear threat through game theoretic reasoning.  I mean pretty much you point to a problem and good reasoning about why people are doing what they are doing and what constraints they face in terms of how others will behave, and you’re looking at a problem that could be improved upon by game theoretic reasoning.

60 Second Reads are recorded in Big Think’s studio. 


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