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Week 10 [08.01.2018-14.01.2018] What game theory teaches us about war?

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Game theory is a mathematical field of study behind cooperation and rivalry. It comes from researching optimal strategies in parlor games such as poker or bridge. Nowadays it has much wider use for example in economics, political science, biology and psychology. Simon Sinek describes one of the most important features in game theory and shows how politicians even without noticing choose  strategies which have immense impact on our world.



Questions:
  • Can you give other real world examples of infinite and finite game? 
  • Which kind of game are todays politicians playing, what are the possible consequences of that strategy?
  • Have you ever heard about Simon Sinek? If yes then have you watched his other TED presentations?

Comments

Unknown said…
This was very interesting show. I must say i was not aware of this issue. unfortunately i am not able to answer you questions:)
13 January 2018 at 15:52
Jakub Lisicki said…
After watching this presentation, I think it's a really broad and scattered topic. If it would be so easy to observe and notice all of the infinite games, there would be not much more of them left. People tend to mark their final goals for every possible things going on in this world. If there are no final goals yet, it just means that they're not decided yet. Real world examples of infinite games are mostly based on gaining the influence among other countries. This is achieved by many ways including wars, setting prices for different resources or even discriminating some countries by setting limits on the exploitation of some resources that are not popular among many other countrires.
Politicians today are mostly thinking about now so their actions pretty often ruin the future. They only think about some of the possibilities and getting as much influence as they can while being still in power.
I haven't heard of this guy earlies, but I really enjoy the way he spoke about the game theory in this presentation. It's straight to the point and easy to understand. I think I would watch some of his other presentations in the near future.
13 January 2018 at 20:45
Filip Sawicki said…
This is indeed very broad and scattered topic. We should be aware that our world cannot be modeled using just formulas and theories. However despite the complexity there are couple of very promising mathematical applications which are used to predict real world situations for example in quantitative research. Game Theory is not yet fully developed to be that reliable in political use.
I really liked your example of the infinite game! Sagacious countries should establish long term strategies and carefully direct their decisions. The goal is not to win, because there is no winning in the infinite game, but to “be in the game”. I also agree that politicians nowadays are not farsighted they just deal with current problems, using methods which are continent for them but devastating for their countries in the long term.
13 January 2018 at 21:36
Yevhen Shymko said…
Saw some other presentation of Simon Sinek about millennials problem and accidentally bumped into this video. Before that I thought that companies made only to gain profits but after that video started to realize that it's not true for all of them. First person who plays infinite game that came to my mind was Elon Musk. Why? Not tacking into account his previous history with tesla, solarcity and hiperloop its enough just to remember spaceX with the idea to colonize Mars and further more first took as a joke news that Elon want to send his new Tesla Roadster to Mars' orbit.
14 January 2018 at 01:29
Filip Sawicki said…
Great example! I also think that Elon Musk Is playing infinite game. That becomes apparent when you take a look at the stock exchange. His companies are rising despite generating huge expenses which are not covered with revenues. It seems that this strategy has been noticed by investors who believed in Musk’s vision of future.
Regarding Simon Sinek I would recommend you watching more of his videos, he is the very well-known public speaking guru! His talks are about businesses, applied mathematics (well just a brief theory) and education done in a way that everybody can understand even most complex topics.
14 January 2018 at 11:27
Filip Sawicki said…
Nice to hear that you liked it! I wasn’t aware of this issue too. Just after watching this presentation it hit me, how easily you can spot infinite and finite games in the real world and at the same time see how devastating strategies most of us choose.
14 January 2018 at 11:36
Unknown said…
The end of the presentation confused me a lot. I thought he is speaking about the nonsense of those who are trying to "play" in the infinite game supposing that this game is actually finite. It makes sense since the meaning of this idea is similar to this quote: "Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day". I don't know how it is applicable to the business though, because the most active players are often the most successive ones. But, as it turned out, he goes big and talks about World War 2.0, America and their enemies :(
14 January 2018 at 16:03
Marcin Mróz said…
If I understood correctly, I think that every major company in the world like Google, Microsoft, Amazon etc. play infinite game. They want to keep the game going, they have their vision and want to stay at the top as long as possible. In case of politics, I think some of them are in infinite game and some of them in finite, it depends on the country. I have never heard about Simon Sinek, I don't know whether this whole conpcept is his idea, but it seemed to me a bit like creating theory behind some natural things that are obvious for businessmen or politicians.
14 January 2018 at 17:39
Unknown said…
I think you misunderstood what he was talking about. He said that those who play FINITE game lose, and those who play INFINITE game win. Then he presents some examples of finite players losing against infinite players (like finite America vs infinite Vietnam, or finite USSR vs infinite Mujahideens of Afghanistan).
14 January 2018 at 18:11
Unknown said…
This was an interesting presentation, but I think Simon Sinek is too confident about his theory. I believe, that every infinite game can by divided into a set of finite stages. It's never an entirely finite or infinite game - there is no universal division between the two. An infinite game goes on, and every conflict is just a finite game inside of an infinite one. If a game is finite or not, depends only on the scope.

I have never heard about Simon Sinek, but I am looking forward to hearing more of his thoughts.
14 January 2018 at 18:26
Łukasz Domeradzki said…
Eh I don't know. Every infinite game can be divided into finite segments that take part in it. If go by this idea, then how is this different than playing one finite segment of such playthrough? Under some conditions we might actually "continue" our first finite segment in another one, taking in account everything we achieved previously.
14 January 2018 at 20:56
Unknown said…
Oh, I mixed up accidentally those two words in my comment :) Yes, you are right, finite gamer will lose against infinite gamer.
14 January 2018 at 21:09
Uladzialsu BArdzinovich said…
The general theory is interesting to consider, however, I do not agree with at least half of his analysis. The most important message that he obviously should have conveyed (if He´d dare), is that the war industry is intentionally pushing the government towards actions that will uphold a state of perpetual war.
14 January 2018 at 21:23
Unknown said…
1)I can but i don't want to :P
2)Who knows?
3)That will be 2x NO.
14 January 2018 at 23:35
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