Game Theory Quotes

I think voting for the lesser of two evils in game theory always leads to more evil. ~ Penn Jillette

I think game theory creates ideas that are important in solving and approaching conflict in general. ~ Robert Aumann

Evolutionary game theory is a way of thinking about evolution at the phenotypic level when the fitnesses of particular phenotypes depend on their frequencies in the population. ~ John Maynard Smith

Fair Game Theory: If you are dumb enough to be drained by people then you are fair game. ~ Frederick Lenz

If you are a leader or someone who works for the interest of a community, first make sure that you understand the interest of the people who make up that community. In this way, you will have a good chance of minimizing, perhaps, avoiding the us versus them mentality. ~ Duop Chak Wuol

Here some one thrust these cards into these old hands of mine, swears that I must play them, and no others. And damn me, Ahab, but thou actest right, live in the game, and die in it. ~ Herman Melville

There is a neat economic explanation for the sexual division of labour in hunter-gatherers. In terms of nutrition, women generally collect dependable, staple carbohydrates whereas men fetch precious protein. Combine the two – predictable calories from women and occasional protein from men – and you get the best of both worlds. At the cost of some extra work, women get to eat some good protein without having to chase it; men get to know where the next meal is coming from if they fail to kill a deer. That very fact makes it easier for them to spend more time chasing deer and so makes it more likely they will catch one. Everybody gains – gains from trade. It is as if the species now has two brains and two stores of knowledge instead of one – a brain that learns about hunting and a brain that learns about gathering. ~ Matt Ridley

Interactive Decision Theory would perhaps be a more descriptive name for the discipline usually called Game Theory. ~ Robert Aumann

The Game gives you a Purpose. The Real Game is, to Find a Purpose. ~ Vineet Raj Kapoor

I use game theory to help myself understand conflict situations and opportunities. ~ Thomas Schelling

Existing political philosophies all developed before evolutionary game theory, so they do not take equilibrium selection into account. Socialism pretends that individuals are not selfish sexual competitors, so it ignores equilibria altogether. Conservatism pretends that there is only one possible equilibrium - a nostalgic version of the status quo - that society could play. Libertarianism ignores the possibility of equilibrium selection at the level of rational social discourse, and assumes that decentralized market dynamics will magically lead to equilibria that yield the highest aggregate social benefits. Far from being a scientific front for a particular set of political views, modern evolutionary psychology makes most standard views look simplistic and unimaginitive. ~ Geoffrey Miller

In its first 30 years of existence, up to the mid 1970s, the practical applications of game theory were very limited, probably as a result of excessive preoccupation by game theorists with cooperative solution concepts. ~ John Harsanyi

That streetside tree is obscuring the air. Cut it down. Haul it in for questioning. There are secrets within that foliage. You might want to separate the branches in different rooms and apply some elementary game theory."
"Question a plant?"
"Trees have a will too, just like people. We have to know it's purpose. Read Schopenhauer."
"Schopenwho?"
"He was the only authentic German. You might like him. Being a police officer, you're undoubtedly familiar with the need to put an end to the lives of the perverse when sex crimes go too far. Now just generalize that necessity to every human being. ~ Benson Bruno

For us the chief point of interest is the place where the game is played. Generatly it is a simple circle, dyutamandalam, drawn on the ground. The circle as such, however, has a magic significance. It is drawn with great care, all sorts of precautions being taken against cheating. The players are not allowed to leave the ring until they have discharged their obligations. But, sometimes a special hall is provisionally erected for the game, and this hall is holy ground. The Mahabharata devotes a whole chapter to the erection of the dicing hall - sabha - where the Pandavas are to meet their prtners. Games, of chance, therefore, have their serious side. They are included in ritual. ~ Johan Huizinga

After preliminary work by a number of other distinguished mathematicians and economists, game theory as a systematic theory started with von Neumann and Morgenstern's book, 'Theory of Games and Economic Behavior,' published in 1944. ~ John Harsanyi

My mother was an economics professor. I'm proficient in math, and statistics, game theory, symbolic logic and all of that. ~ Dave Hickey

That is why one day I said my game will be like the Pythagorean Theorem - hard to figure out. A lot of people really don't know the Pythagorean Theory. They don't make them like me anymore. They don't want to make them like that anymore. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

If skeptic can weakly force E, then he can force E. ~ Glenn Shafer

The implication of game theory, which is also the implication of the third image, is, however, that the freedom of choice of any one state is limited by the actions of the others. ~ Kenneth Waltz

Their behavior is based on your own, just as your behavior is being influenced by theirs. ~ Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths

The road to hell is paved with intractable recursions, bad equilibria, and information cascades. ~ Brian Christian

You have not seen desperation and helplessness till you have seen a man hopeless in love. Of course, unless you have seen a gamer. ~ Vineet Raj Kapoor

Although the drama of games of strategy is strongly linked with the psychological aspects of the conflict, game theory is not concerned with these aspects. Game theory, so to speak, plays the board. It is concerned only with the logical aspects of strategy. ~ Anatol Rapoport

Marriage is a prisoner's dilemma in which you get to choose the person with whom you're in cahoots. This might seem like a small change, but it potentially has a big effect on the structure of the game you're playing. If you knew that, for some reason, your partner in crime would be miserable if you weren't around - the kind of misery even a million dollars couldn't cure - then you'd worry much less about them defecting and leaving you rot in jail. ~ Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths

I did several types of work about several investigations of application of game theory to international relations. ~ Reinhard Selten

​Dharma or Ethics and Morals are the Fundamental Set of Rules created for those who want to Play the Game, by those who are Inside the Game. ~ Vineet Raj Kapoor

And when attacked by a Capitol-aligned soldier in District 2, she tells him that fighting in the Capitol's wars makes them all slaves: "It just goes around and around and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I'm tired of being a piece in their Games." Game theory is not about games. It's about politics and psychology, war and strategy. For Katniss Everdeen, it is life and death, and in the end, everyone in Panem comes to learn that the only way to truly win the game is not to play at all. ~ Leah Wilson

I engage in the use of game theory. Game theory is a branch of mathematics, and that means, sorry, that even in the study of politics, math has come into the picture. We can no longer pretend that we just speculate about politics; we need to look at this in a rigorous way. ~ Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

In terms of the game theory, we might say the universe is so constituted as to maximize play. The best games are not those in which all goes smoothly and steadily toward a certain conclusion, but those in which the outcome is always in doubt. Similarly, the geometry of life is designed to keep us at the point of maximum tension between certainty and uncertainty, order and chaos. Every important call is a close one. We survive and evolve by the skin of our teeth. We really wouldn't want it any other way. ~ George Leonard

Although a large branch of game theory is devoted to the study of expected utility, we generally consider each player's payoffs as a ranking of his most preferred outcome to his least preferred outcome. ~ William Spaniel

It is the shortcomings of game theory (as originally formulated) which force the consideration of the role of ethics, of the dynamics of social structure, and of social structure and of individual psychology in situations of conflict. ~ Anatol Rapoport

I think almost all strategic problems could at least be improved upon if people would do more careful game-theoretic analysis. The reason game theory works in predicting is because people intuit how to behave game-theoretically. ~ Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

If changing strategies doesn't help, you can try to change the game. And if that's not possible, you can at least exercise some control about which games you choose to play. The road to hell is paved with intractable recursions, bad equilibria, and information cascades. Seek out games where honesty is the dominant strategy. Then just be yourself. ~ Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths

We do have tendency, now in biology especially to make up stories, to make theoretical biology a kind of game, in fact we have game theory in biology which is meant to use the theory of games to make predictions or explain things. ~ Richard Lewontin

In 1958, Anne and I returned to Australia, where I got a very attractive research position at the Australian National University in Canberra. But soon I felt very isolated because at that time game theory was virtually unknown in Australia. ~ John Harsanyi

Contrary to conventional military and game theory, the most effective offense is sometimes a direct attack against your political opponent's greatest strength - not his weaknesses - to place him immediately on the defensive. ~ Mark McKinnon

Merlin smiled. "Thank you, sir! It was just Game Theory."
"It was just – is this a Maths thing?"
"Well, Maths and Philosophy, and..."
"Stop! Stop right there – I really have no wish to hear you expound upon either Mathematics or
Philosophy, Merlin. Just take the compliment ~ FayJay

The actual rewards that come from arguing with other people have nothing to do with winning and losing. A good argument helps us refine our own ideas and discover where our reasoning is the weakest. Other people's opposition can help us turn our own half-formed ideas into clear assertions backed by solid reasoning. And setting our ideas and opinions against someone else's helps us know each other better, which makes us better friends. We get these benefits from arguments when we collaborate with a partner. We do not get them when we try to destroy an enemy. That is how non-zero-sum games work. ~ Michael Austin

War is noble and heroic if a nation is defending its sovereignty from the invaders. War is disgraceful and unheroic, a despicable crime against humanity, if a dominant nation is invading another country and killing its innocent men, women, and children. The war, in the 21st century, is ostensibly the methodic game theory in offensive action that has no ethical and moral ground, whatsoever, but to intentionally kill and divide people, and, consequently, paralyze the political and economic stability of another nation. ( - Danny Castillones Sillada, The Existentialist Homo Technologicus) ~ Danny Castillones Sillada

On other and practical grounds we see that the theory of eternal progression is untenable, for destruction is the goal of everything earthly. All our struggles and hopes and fears and joys, what will they lead to? We shall all end in death. Nothing is so certain as this. Where, then, is this motion in a straight line - this infinite progression? It is only going out to a distance, and coming back to the centre from which it started. See how, from nebulae, the sun, moon, and stars are produced; then they dissolve and go back to nebulae. The same is being done everywhere. The plant takes material from the earth, dissolves, and gives it back. Every form in this world is taken out of surrounding atoms and goes back to these atoms. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Mom talked a good game about the power of blackness, but she knew that the white world held even more power. You just needed to find a way to break in. ~ Ilyasah Shabazz

People with trust issues also have faith and humility issues. You can't ask the world to rise to your expectations, yet not meet that same standard for others. The notion that God didn't hurt me, but you did becomes an illogical argument for many. People who are trying to love you feel that they can never meet your definition of love because it is one sided or has rules that don't apply to you, as well. This is when the teachings of Christ become distorted. Forgiveness, compassion, love, kindness and second chances becomes a game. People in your life feel they must win it to receive it, which is far from the unconditional love God gives us. In the end, the person with trust issues find themself on a journey of perfection seeking out people incapable of mistakes like the last person or hurting their self esteem. Sadly, they miss the blessings of growth that come through humbly accepting they are also flawed and make mistakes. They miss the blessings of faith because they don't invite God into their heart, so he can help them overcome their cycle of pain. They miss the peace that comes from forgiveness and being forgiven. But most of all, they miss out on the beautiful people God brings into their life who love them so much. ~ Shannon L. Alder

I dropped the head and kicked it into the crowd. I say "kicked" but in truth it's a bad idea to kick a head. I learned that years ago, a lesson that cost me two broken toes. What you want to do is shove the head with the side of your foot, like you're throwing it. It's going to roll anyhow so you don't need that much force. See, the thing about severed heads is the owner no longer has any interest in minimizing the force of the blow, or any ability to do so for that matter. When you kick somebody in the head as you do from time to time, they tend to be actively trying to move themselves out of the way and the contact is lessened. A severed head is a dead weight, even if it's watching you.
And that exhausts my insights into the kicking of severed heads. Admittedly it's more than most people have to offer on the subject but there were Mayans who knew a lot more than I do. That of course is a whole different ball-game. ~ Mark Lawrence

Ebola...is manufactured and purposefully mutated to cause the most harm possible... (p. 105) ~ Julie Rowe

The Qur'an had begun to develop a primitive just war theory. In the steppes, aggressive warfare was praiseworthy; but in the Qur'an, self-defense was the only possible justification for hostilities and the preemptive strike was condemned.5 War was always a terrible evil, but it was sometimes necessary in order to preserve decent values, such as freedom of worship. Even here, the Qur'an did not abandon its pluralism: synagogues and churches as well as mosques should be protected. The Muslims felt that they had suffered a fearful assault; their expulsion from Mecca was an act that had no justification. Exile from the tribe violated the deepest sanction of Arabia; it had attacked the core of the Muslims' identity. ~ Karen Armstrong

The continual awareness of what was going on made me feel ashamed I wasn't saying anything. I burst out because I could no longer play that game any more, it was just too much for me. ~ John Lennon

His lips turned upward. Man told you to lick salt off me, but he didn't say where you would be licking the salt from. ~ Elizabeth Morgan

I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions. ~ David Antin

A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong ~ Francis Crick

My attitude toward punctuation is that it ought to be as conventional as possible. The game of golf would lose a good deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green. You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

If you have real passion for a career in game shows, be willing to serve an apprenticeship; it's the best way to learn. ~ Randy West

The state university is supported by grants from the people of the state, voted by the state legislature. In theory, the degree of support which the university receives is dependent upon the degree of acceptance accorded it by the voters. The state university prospers according to the extent to which it can sell itself to the people of the state.

The state university is therefore in an unfortunate position unless its president happens to be a man of outstanding merit as a propagandist and a dramatizer of educational issues. Yet if this is the case--if the university shapes its whole policy toward gaining the support of the state legislature--its educational function may suffer. It may be tempted to base its whole appeal to the public on its public service, real or supposed, and permit the education of its individual students to take care of itself. It may attempt to educate the people of the state at the expense of its own pupils. This may generate a number of evils, to the extent of making the university a political instrument, a mere tool of the political group in power. ~ Edward L. Bernays

But, as the results presented in this book (and others) show, we are all far less rational in our decision making than standard economic theory assumes. Our irrational behaviors are neither random nor senseless-they are systematic and predictable. We all make the same types of mistakes over and over, because of the basic wiring of our brains. So wouldn't it make sense to modify standard economics and move away from naive psychology, which often fails the tests of reason, introspection, and-most important-empirical scrutiny?

Wouldn't economics make a lot more sense if it were based on how people actually behave, instead of how they should behave? As I said in the Introduction, that simple idea is the basis of behavioral economics, an emerging field focused on the (quite intrusive) idea that people do not always behave rationally and that they often make mistakes in their decisions. ~ Dan Ariely

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is a beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
life is a challenge, meet it.
life is a duty, complete it.
life is a game, play it.
life is costly, care for it.
life is wealth, keep it.
life is love, enjoy it.
life is mystery, know it.
life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is a sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is Life, fight for it!. ~ Mother Teresa

Once the whistle goes, it's game on and you shut out the outside factors. If you thought about things, you wouldn't be able to do your job. For 95 minutes you have to totally concentrate and that's what we'll do. ~ Joleon Lescott

You've never heard of Chaos theory? Non-linear equations? Strange attractors? Ms. Sattler, I refuse to believe you're not familiar with the concept of attraction. ~ Michael Crichton

At this stage of the game, I am not sure what the hell is going to happen. ~ Bobby Rahal

One time, I put up 40, 50 points dunking on Shawn Bradley. After the game, he brought his family over. He was like, 'This is my wife. She wants to take a picture.' I'm like, 'Nice to meet you.' I smile into the camera, take the picture, and then feel guilty about dunking on him so many times. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

Fear has it's uses. Fear is what keeps the dark from devouring you. Fear is what stops you joining a game you cannot hope to win. ~ Jay Kristoff

I play the game for the game's own sake, ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

I'd like to think I did well. I'd like to think that, if I had a must-win game, the guys I played with would want me to have the ball. But no, I don't think I deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. ~ Curt Schilling

Of course, I have my own limits as to how much game software I can take care of at any one time. ~ Shigeru Miyamoto

The fakirs always throng the sea-shore
To find meaning in the chaos
And then they too become melancholy
Feeling nothing but their naked toes. ~ Avijeet Das

If we can keep the Christians thinking of themselves as sinners not sons and daughters, we can make them view their relationship to The Adversary as a negative-sum-game: They fall in a hole, He pulls them out, they fall back in, etc... That way they never get anywhere; they're always either standing next to a hole or down in it. ~ Geoffrey Wood

Pellerin used to read every available book on aesthetics, in the hope of discovering the true theory of Beauty, for he was convinced that once he had found it he would be able to paint masterpieces. ~ Gustave Flaubert

So here is one of my theories on happiness: we cannot know if we have lived a truly happy life until the very end. This view of life and death was reinforced by my close witnessing of the buildup to the death of Philip Gould. Philip was without doubt my closest friend in politics. When he died, I felt like I had lost a limb. ~ Alastair Campbell

Business is a basketball game. The more tricks you know, the more points you score. ~ Ehab Atalla

i was poised for greatness, but the poising game me a cramp so i have instead just settled for comfortable mediocrity... (Vimrod # 4904) ~ Ralph Lazar

But my prevailing theory at the moment was this fucking booth. ~ Sierra Simone