I thought the reading from Rock, Paper, Scissors was an extremely interesting introduction to Game Theory, as I’d never been familiar with its premises before. I had heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the Tragedy of the Commons, and the Volunteer’s Dilemma from Dr. Harwell’s Leadership and the Social Sciences (102) course, but I am happy I got a more in-depth look into the concepts to see how they apply to real life. I really liked that the author provided examples that we exhibit in our everyday lives; for example, the Free Rider dilemma occurs when someone leaves a mess for others to clean up in a shared space. These are things we do all the time, but they can be analyzed through a Game Theory lens. The Free Rider dilemma is the one I am most familiar with because in my 102 class we played the public goods game, where we saw the Free Rider dilemma come into play when people did not contribute resources. Furthermore, in Leadership and the Humanities we talked about groupthink and how it impacted Kennedy’s decisions during the Cuban Missile Crisis; brinkmanship (Chicken) was also present here. The Soviet Union and the United States were about to engage in a nuclear war, but Kennedy refused to lift the navy blockade. The groupthink drove Kennedy and his colleagues to make these poor decisions and brinkmanship occurred where both parties both faced unfavorable outcomes regardless of their actions. The threats being made in this historical example lacked credibility, so the two parties were stuck in a stalemate. I am excited to learn more in class about the Seven Deadly Dilemmas and about game theory!
Anna Marston
I am not a history person, at all. But the example did help me understand brinkmanship and threat credibility in a deeper way. This connection also made me realize that most movie plots concerning governmental, military or political power are centered around these seven dilemmas. Game Theory really is everywhere.
In my response, I also wrote about the example of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I really was surprised at how the application of game theory was used. I did not even think that there could be such a systematic rational depiction of each leader’s options.
I agree that using everyday connections to these terms help us understand them better. When I was reading about the free-rider problem an example I thought of was adding profiles on other people’s Netflix accounts, a common occurrence people rarely take issue with, but can have significant implications on the company’s profits that in turn affect their employees’ wages and their stockholders’ return on investment.