Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life

Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life
by Len Fisher

Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life
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Book Summary Information

Author: Len Fisher
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-11-04
ISBN: 0465009387
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Basic Books

Book Reviews of Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life

Book Review: Best introduction to game theory
Summary: 5 Stars

A good example of how to write at the "popular" end of the popular science spectrum. Game theory in general deals with settings in which each player has to choose one of several strategies without knowing other players' choices, and gets a payoff depending on everyone's choices (note this is rather different from what we call games in everyday language). Such games typically have a Nash equilibrium, which (roughly speaking) is the result when players behave selfishly; but there may be some different "cooperative" choices of strategies that would make everyone better off (a "social optimum"). This paradox or "logical trap" is usually illustrated by the Prisoner's Dilemma story. Observing where this situation occurs and contemplating ways of getting around them by "self-enforcing strategies" -- how cooperation might be achieved in the face of temptations to cheat -- are the main themes of the book, which is well paced and engagingly easy to read. Some highlights are

(1) Discussion of "7 deadly dilemmas" given cute names by theorists (Prisoner's Dilemma; Tragedy of the Commons; Free Rider; Chicken; Volunteer's Dilemma; Battle of the Sexes; Stag Hunt) -- models in which there is math theory.

(2) A lengthy verbal discussion of strategies to promote trust and cooperation (e.g. making it costly to change your mind later; deliberately cutting off your escape routes).

(3) Martin Nowak's 5 rules for the social evolution of cooperation.

While the in-text accounts of scientific studies in the human social world or in biology are conversationally casual, the end-notes (comprising 1/5 of the book) provide citations to the scientific literature -- a definite improvement on most books at this level.

All popularizers tend to exaggerate the scope of applicability of their subject, but this book less so than most. Let me just mention two ways in which the real world is more complicated than the book implies.

(4) Except in special cases where the payoff is money and nothing else matters, the payoff has to be modeled as some number of abstract "points" (or "utils", in jargon) which one can't actually measure. And then any observed behavior can be construed as optimal behavior in some game theoretic model. So game theory is more like a useful way of thinking about issues, and less like a traditional scientific theory which makes testable predictions

(5) In complicated real world economic situations, trying to make everyone better off is both fiendishly complicated and involves some kind of tax and subsidy scheme; introducing such things creates its own moral hazard outside the context of the one particular game.

Summary of Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life

Praised by Entertainment Weekly as “the man who put the fizz into physics,? Dr. Len Fisher turns his attention to the science of cooperation in his lively and thought-provoking book. Fisher shows how the modern science of game theory has helped biologists to understand the evolution of cooperation in nature, and investigates how we might apply those lessons to our own society. In a series of experiments that take him from the polite confines of an English dinner party to crowded supermarkets, congested Indian roads, and the wilds of outback Australia, not to mention baseball strategies and the intricacies of quantum mechanics, Fisher sheds light on the problem of global cooperation. The outcomes are sometimes hilarious, sometimes alarming, but always revealing. A witty romp through a serious science, Rock, Paper, Scissors will both teach and delight anyone interested in what it what it takes to get people to work together.

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