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Yeah, I think that's because the subheading basically isn't true. Game theory is more of footnote on von Neuman's many amazing achievements than a capstone. It

Yeah, I think that's because the subheading basically isn't true. Game theory is more of footnote on von Neuman's many amazing achievements than a capstone. It influenced cold war thinking certainly, but the situation of the US and USSR didn't really fit the zero sum, repeated games that Von Neuman originally formulated studied. Essentially, the US and USSR faced a "Mexican standoff", "mutually assured destruction"(MAD), a non-repeated, non-zero-sum situation you can claim has a mathematical solution but which ultimately is more of a psychological problem.

eru 4y ago
If you want to model MAD via game theory, it would certainly be a repeated game. They faced each other day in day out year after year. I agree that war, both cold and hot, is a non-zero sum game. That's why things like temporary ceasefires can work at all. Or Geneva conventions.
- selestify 4y ago
  Also, game theory doesn't imply zero-sum or repeated games. It can most certainly apply to "a non-repeated, non-zero-sum situation" as well.
  - eru 4y ago
    Also repeating (two-player) zero-sum games doesn't do anything: In zero sum games, you minimax and that's it. You don't even care what the other guy is doing. Whether you repeat or not, it doesn't matter.
liquidsmoke 4y ago
Before the book with Morgenstein, Von Neumann single-authored a paper on game theory, which formalizes all of multiplayer reinforcement learning. Where Turing asks if a machine is intelligent, if it plays the Turing Game well, Von Neumann asks how such a machine should play to do well at the Turing Game, or any other parlor game for that matter. On another note, Von Neumann is surely put on a pedestal. I believe such sanctification to be natural. What is unnatural, is that in more recent years, whenever the name of Von Neumann is brought up, someone inevitably pops in the comments here to describe our hero of science as a genocidal maniac. On the MAD development, you have to realize that the USSR also had very smart mathematician minds working on this. So yes, it is as much a physical arms race as a mental/psychological one.

eru 4y ago

If you want to model MAD via game theory, it would certainly be a repeated game. They faced each other day in day out year after year. I agree that war, both cold and hot, is a non-zero sum game. That's why things like temporary ceasefires can work at all. Or Geneva conventions.

selestify 4y ago
Also, game theory doesn't imply zero-sum or repeated games. It can most certainly apply to "a non-repeated, non-zero-sum situation" as well.
- eru 4y ago
  Also repeating (two-player) zero-sum games doesn't do anything: In zero sum games, you minimax and that's it. You don't even care what the other guy is doing. Whether you repeat or not, it doesn't matter.

liquidsmoke 4y ago

Before the book with Morgenstein, Von Neumann single-authored a paper on game theory, which formalizes all of multiplayer reinforcement learning. Where Turing asks if a machine is intelligent, if it plays the Turing Game well, Von Neumann asks how such a machine should play to do well at the Turing Game, or any other parlor game for that matter. On another note, Von Neumann is surely put on a pedestal. I believe such sanctification to be natural. What is unnatural, is that in more recent years, whenever the name of Von Neumann is brought up, someone inevitably pops in the comments here to describe our hero of science as a genocidal maniac. On the MAD development, you have to realize that the USSR also had very smart mathematician minds working on this. So yes, it is as much a physical arms race as a mental/psychological one.