From: "Jon Leonard" <jleonard@divcom.umop-ap.com>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 08:16:17 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Game Theory and its Relevance to Cypherpunks
In-Reply-To: <199607250636.XAA06174@dns2.noc.best.net>
Message-ID: <9607272209.AA18318@divcom.umop-ap.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


James A. Donald wrote:
> At 03:21 AM 7/21/96 -0700, Llywarch Hen wrote:
> > What Timothy May espouses is not the appearance of craziness but actual
> > insanity itself.
> 
> The best way to convince others you are crazy is to actually be crazy.
> 
> More practically, if you organize your nuclear forces so that any 
> serious war is likely to escalate uncontrollably into the battle of 
> armageddon, regardless of your intentions and desires, which is how 
> the American government organized its nuclear forces in Europe, 
> then you can pretty much guarantee you will not have to face a 
> serious war.

This was, of course, the logic behind the alliances before World War I.
It was obviously suicidal to start a war with any of the major powers,
but it happened anyway.

Game theory is the proper tool to analyze this sort of scenario, but the
tendency for non-ideal behavior has to be factored in.  Brinksmanship
is another aspect of game theory, too...

Jon Leonard