From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu Dec 12 2002 - 15:04:25 MST
Anders Sandberg wrote:
>You might find the following paper interesting:
>
>http://www.econ.brown.edu/2002/wp2002-15.pdf
>"Annexation or Conquest? The Economics of Empire Building" by
>Herschel I. Grossman and Juan Mendoza. A game theoretical analysis
>of expanding an empire in an optimal way.
>
Nice, good arguments. But I'm not really supposing that the strategy is
as rational as you are arguing for. I see it as basically
opportunistic. But if you plan to attack some county that contains a
lot of resources that you currently control, then you stand to take a
big loss, so it acts as a definite check. Still, it's only a check.
And if the resources are controlled by a competitor, you might weep
crockodile tears were they expropriated/destroyed. (I don't see
countries acting as unities, but rather as being controlled by competing
gangs with greater and lesser degrees of power, and under slightly
varying sets of rules.) So chance plays a large role here, and "who's
on top?" and various negotiations and games, that are too complex to
understant. (Well, even simple game theory fits that description, but
you know what I mean. This is n-person game theory of games of
partially hidden information with probablistic outcomes. Where none of
players are even initially of equal strength. And where strengths exist
along a multitude of dimensions with payoff matricies rather than scalars.)
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