10 ms·
The principle is beyond the Nuclear policy. It's a famous winning strategy in game theory called "tit for tat" which can be considered as the foundation of all
by jjcc 10y ago
The principle is beyond the Nuclear policy. It's a famous winning strategy in game theory called "tit for tat" which can be considered as the foundation of all moral principles of human society.
- oxide 10y agodoes the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction have roots in game theory? or does the concept itself simply tie back into tit for tat?
- gizmo686 10y agoI have never seen the phrasing "mutually assured destruction" in game theory (outside of nuclear references). However, outside of edge cases, it is the same concept as a Nash equilibrium. Specifically, it is a strategy where defecting leads to a worse outcome for both parties.
- aidenn0 10y agoThe person credited with creating the term was a mathematician, (and also extraordinarily hawkish). He was almost certainly aware of Nash's work, as he coauthored a book proving the existence of Nash equilibria for zero-sum games prior to Nash's more general proof: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Mutual_assured_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Mutual_assure... [edit] As a note, I can't find a date for Von Neumann coining the MAD term. It seems likely to me that it would predate Nash's work, though as I said earlier, the existence of such equilibria was already well known (It was jut not proven that for large classes of non-zero-sum games there must exist at least one such equilibrium, which was Nash's contribution).
- Xcelerate 10y agoThe funny thing is that for the iterated prisoner's dilemma, tit for tat is less optimal than an extortionist strategy. I don't know what this entails for the moral principles of human society though haha. https://www.edge.org/conversation/william_h_press-freeman_dyson-on-iterated-prisoners-dilemma-contains-strategies-that https://www.edge.org/conversation/william_h_press-freeman_dy...