From: "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu>
Subject: M-I: Rahul on game theory
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 00:31:51 -0500 ()


     Uh, Rahul, what's with all this moaning about 
academics?  Is this really necessary or useful?
     I have few disagreements with your remarks which I 
think have been mostly on the mark.  I originally posted on 
game theory because Kevin Cabral asked me to (blame him).  
Furthermore, given the ugly flame war this list has just 
been through, it struck me that even if it is an arid 
academic topic, a discussion of the relevance or lack 
thereof of game theory might help pull the list back up to 
a higher intellectual plane, if not necessarily one that it 
should stay at forever.  Sorry (don't get on my case, 
malecki!) if this is somehow offensive.
     Just to very briefly respond to your latest specific 
remarks, I did not say that the Nash equilibrium "is 
stable" or describe how it is so.  I said that it has some 
stability characteristics, which was a deliberately vague 
remark, since as you accurately point out it depends on 
specifics of the game in question. I was trying to downplay 
the significance of the Nash equilibrium which you seemed 
to want to build up.  Thus I mentioned that it is simply 
one among quite a few other equilibrium concepts. I am well 
aware of and fully agree with the criticisms you mentioned 
of CGE and PO, along with several others you didn't mention 
that I doubt are of interest to this list.  I mentioned 
subgame perfect equilibrium, not because I think it is 
something that is wonderful or that we should get all 
worked up about, but again simply to note that Nash 
equilibrium is not the end all and be all.  Subgame perfect 
equilibrium involves optimization over a repeated game.  
There happen to be subgame perfect equilibria for the 
prisoner's dilemma that give the cooperative solution.
     In my original posts on this topic, I said that I 
thought that the PD was the most useful and practical 
aspect of game theory for socialist issues.  I also think 
that it can be put in relatively common sense/easy to 
understand terms, which is a virtue of it.  I don't think 
you disagree with that.
     After your longish posts you said that you were going 
to tell us what you thought was useful to get out of game 
theory, even if you think it is mostly a waste of time, 
intellectual crock, etc.  I am curious to see/hear what it 
is that you think is useful.  By then we can probably drop 
this topic and stand aside for the developing seminar.
Barkley Rosser

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu




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