Basically, the idea here is to figure out your best strategy for the 'game' (which really means any situation where you need to make a decision), given that the other "players" don't cooperate with you in any way (i.e. you assume they are going to act in their own self-interest).
The most basic successful strategy for the Prisoner's Dilemma is called "Tit-for-Tat", in which you always choose the "altruistic" option, unless the other player chose against you last time.
Personally, I plan on pursuing a career where game theory would play an important role in my research or work (teaching or intelligence research).
In many ways it's the science of cause-and-effect (hence why the Tit-for-Tat game solution works so well). By applying the concept of how one event can determine another on a predictable basis, one can help explain and potentially solve many of the world's greatest problems.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 28.3 ms ] threadguess 2/3 of average: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_2/3_of_the_average
pirate game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_game
dollar auction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction
Most common/well-known:
prisoner dilemma: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
chicken: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_chicken
battle of the sexes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_sexes_(game_theor...
El Farol bar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Farol_bar_problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
Basically, the idea here is to figure out your best strategy for the 'game' (which really means any situation where you need to make a decision), given that the other "players" don't cooperate with you in any way (i.e. you assume they are going to act in their own self-interest).
The most basic successful strategy for the Prisoner's Dilemma is called "Tit-for-Tat", in which you always choose the "altruistic" option, unless the other player chose against you last time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat
Follow that up with the EconTalk podcast episode with Dr. Bruce Beuno de Mesquita: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/_featuring/bruce_bueno_de_m...
http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/game-theory
Prof. Asu Ozdaglar's MIT course on game theory with engineering applications:
http://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/6/sp08/6.254
Game theory for managers (MIT course for MBA's so it's light ;-)
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School-of-Management/15-040S...
How Real People Think in Strategic Games: http://www.msri.org/people/members/sara/articles/expecon.pdf
Ten Little Treasures of Game Theory and Ten Intuitive Contradictions: http://people.virginia.edu/~cah2k/treasure.pdf
In many ways it's the science of cause-and-effect (hence why the Tit-for-Tat game solution works so well). By applying the concept of how one event can determine another on a predictable basis, one can help explain and potentially solve many of the world's greatest problems.