From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Wed Feb 20 2002 - 16:31:01 MST
> >How Many Blonds Mess Up a Nash Equilibrium?
> >--------------------
> >By BART KOSKO
> >February 13 2002
> >
> >The film "A Beautiful Mind" is the first to deal with a profound social
> >issue that touches everyone but that few people understand--a Nash
> >equilibrium.
> >
> >The complete article can be viewed at:
> >http://www.latimes.com/la-000011031feb13.story
> >
> >Visit Latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com
Yet another reason why poker is the ultimate Extropian game: we
learn to calculate Nash equilibria of two-player games of incomplete
information in our heads, and get a pretty good feel for the n-player
versions. Bart doesn't tell us what his payoff matrix is for the
blonde game, or what the exact rules are, but any poker player
knows even without the numbers that you should choose randomly
between pursuing the blond or one of the brunettes, weighted toward
the brunettes (but not 100%, as Bart correctly points out). Of
course, if you're among those who, like me, actually value brunettes
more (while your bar-buddies are all blond-seekers), then the Nash
equilibrium of the game may well involve ignoring the blond.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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