File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-03-22.073, message 73


Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 14:25:12 -0800 (PST)
From: " Rahul  Mahajan" <rahul_saumik-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: M-I: Rahul on game theory


Barkley:

>     Uh, Rahul, what's with all this moaning about 
>academics?  Is this really necessary or useful?

No moaning here, Bark. I was just trying to get some of you to raise your level
of effort, if nothing else.



>     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.

Judging from my readings of academic journals and the contributions of
academics on this list, I would say that the intellectual level this list can
handle is definitely higher (conversely, of course, it can sink to depths that
only a few postmodernist types in academia can attain).

>     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.  

What you said, Barkley, was a lot of nothing, and you tried to hide the fact as
much as possible by using technical terminology you assumed no one else would
be familiar with. Just one of the many annoying habits they teach you before
you get your guild card.

>     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.

I don't, but it's just a crude representation of common sense, nothing more.

>     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.

That's what my third post was about. I said that the free-rider problem, to
which game theorists have been drawing our attention, is a very important one
for socialists to grapple with, both now, in terms of building a movement, and
later, in terms of building a socialist society. I didn't say that game theory
itself was of any use. The fact that it's based on assumptions that are not
only highly questionable but obviously false might be okay if there were a way
to test it properly, with unambiguous procedures leading to definite
predictions that could then be falsified, but, as I point out, such is
obviously not the case. Instead of giving some coherent way of understanding
things, the best it does is to give trendy new jargon in which to dress up
common sense and give it the imprimatur of "science." If you want to discuss
the matter, you should think about actually saying something concrete in
defense of the usefulness of game theory (and not something really dumb, like
the case of the Turkish hunger strikers, which had nothing to do with the
Prisoner's Dilemma except that they were prisoners facing a dilemma).

Rahul

---------------------------------------------------------
Get Your *Web-Based* Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
---------------------------------------------------------


     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005