Game theory- GS

Game theory is a concept that was invented during the Cold War. It shows how humans think when they are faced with a situation in which they need to put faith in someone else. It has been shown that people will choose to act in self interest rather than to cooperate. In the cold war this was based on this simple premise. If we don't produce nuclear bombs and the other country does, then we are defeated. This lead to both sides deciding to build nuclear bombs in "self defense," even if both sides knew that not building bombs would be better for both of them.

I liked the experience we had in class, I think that it really made us understand the concept of game theory. We lost because my team decided to share. I was the only one against that idea because the math showed me that saying steal would have made been better. Here is the math:

Us Them

share share= 1

share steal= -1

steal share = 1

steal steal = 0

Steal 1-0= 1 Share 1-1= 0

By these calculations, I concluded that stealing would guarantee a non-negative outcome. The reason (share-steal) is -1 is that if we lost we had a consequence. This showed me that people sometimes will try to follow their feelings, even if the facts show that the outcome is more likely to be negative. I think that the fact that we picked share actually made me happier because it proved that my idea was right.

In Civ 5 the open border option works on game theory, this practices your trust in the other Civ. The reason for that is that it could be bringing troops in your capital to attack it, but the other Civ could also just want to pass through your land. This leads to an open border deal often being countered by another open border deal by the other civilization. This is a negative outcome because you could have asked for something else that would have been more helpful (gold, resources, ect...). In my personal game I am dealing with game theory right now. My game theory is more complicated because it involves three countries: Me, Brazil, and Spain. Brazil and I are now attacking Spain. These factors that come into play: The player playing Brazil is good friends with the player playing Spain, Spain is in 1st place, I am in 2nd place. This makes me think of all the possible outcomes from him helping me or him betraying me. Right now I hope that all will go well and that I will win this war. I am putting faith in someone else or choosing "share" in The prisoners' dilemma.

I think that the prisoners' dilemma can connect to the real world trough relationship between countries. A great example is Palestine and Israel. In this "war" share = don't shoot and steal = shoot. This is repeated almost every day and most of the time both chooses shoot. This makes the other side mad so the shoot and this make that battle an infinite mess that will not stop if they do not both choose to not shoot.