#gametheory

How a Problem About Pigeons Powers Complexity Theory | Quanta Magazine…

When pigeons outnumber pigeonholes, some birds must double up. This obvious statement — and its inverse — have deep connections to many areas of math and computer science... #mathematics #computerscience #complexitytheory #gametheory #computationalscience

https://formuchdeliberation.wordpress.com/2025/04/12/how-a-problem-about-pigeons-powers-complexity-theory-quanta-magazine/

@toroe and I gave a lecture about "#Economic #Simulation #Games and how to #cheat them" at the Oldenburger Computer Museum last thursday. Here is the (German) video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFXUUUAnrQE

#GameStudies #RetroGames #Commodore64 #C64 #Economy #GameTheory

Ontario sets 25% surcharge on US energy exports to counter #Trump #tariffs - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/10/ontario-canada-trump-tariffs "Premier Doug Ford says province ‘won’t back down’ until US president retracts duties on Canada" everyone must do the same #gametheory

Idea of #karlmarx s alienation or weber s objection to his very definition of class and www
If someone works in #google can they end up buying their own #alphabet product one day
But the means of production here can be free , thanks to open source , but can they be?
I mean server cost is never free , #labor isnt free of cost , tax cuts re not free, nor is marketing and lawsuits
But #bigtech folks dont go through alienation
Why , because they share political control ( ie bargain position ) , which can be different from ownership , while the latter , including the value, which they can influence of their stock holding is reduced in that accord and they end up being better off than their peers in #academia or #foss as bigtech is now big enough to influence policy making for that
The dictated aspect of #gametheory .
Afaik weber didnt highlight the rich gets richer or big gets bigger part

the very assumption that people need be selfish for optimal results beats the argument #taxtherich
#gametheory equilibrium #economics
#strategy can't be individualistic , a game needs > 1 player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HezHJKZ47Ck

"Dear passengers, the train will remain at the station for a while so that the police can do a safety check."
-> A couple of passengers get up and sprint out of the train.
-> The doors close and the train leaves.
#GameTheory

Dear Brisbanites and S.E. Queenslanders. You are not allowed to complain about panic buyers if you…

• Shopped a day or two earlier because you heard about shortages,
• Grabbed one or two extra “just in case”,
• Switched brands when you’d normally have gone without,
• Acted differently to how you would in your normal every day shopping.

…if you did, guess what? You’re “panic buying” too. You’re just salty because you missed out.

Blame yourself (or maybe the retailers). Calling everyone else an idiot when you acted too late, nope - that’s on you.

And, let’s be honest, you’re not going to starve. You’ll be uncomfortable for a few days.

Acting surprised and exasperated when you arrived but the shelves were empty. Realise, thousands of other more prepared people simply shifted their shopping by a few days, or bought an extra loaf of bread - this hardly constitutes panic.

But, you say “when I arrived the shelves were bare and people had 6kg of ham in their trolly - who can eat 6kg of ham?”. Fair, but consider a) you don’t know their circumstance, maybe they like ham, and b) It’s not their fault if it’s not your fault - they weren’t acting in time either. Their hand was forced, they had to act - rationally - given the circumstance. Grab yourself 6kg of olives and enjoy.

The only thing that could have changed your outcome is you acting sooner, or having suppliers/shops be more responsive and proactive. Expecting the behaviour of others to change to suit you is just nonsense.

We all know how this works. Remember the last toilet paper crisis? If you’re caught short again, maybe it’s not everyone else who’s the idiot! Cyclone Alfred affecting Brisbane/SEQ was looking possible since the weekend, so you can’t claim ignorance.

I know why you’re angry, you missed out. I understand and it sucks. But stop squarking about it. Try again tomorrow.

(Caveats: Not talking about hoarding beyond personal use, or profiteering. Also, I feel genuinely for those who couldn’t act earlier due to financial or other circumstances - if you’re in north-western Brisbane and this is you, message me directly I don’t know what I can do, but if I can I’ll help).

#CycloneAlfred #Brisbane #GameTheory #PanicBuying #queensland #cyclone #beprepared

Discrimination can arise random differences, such as a coin flip

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-discrimination-random-differences-coin-flip.html

#inequality #randomness #gametheory #socialscience

Call for Abstracts: "Technology assessment and future warfare: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly".

The Special topic of issue 35/1 (2026) is guest edited by
Prof. Dr. Karsten Weber and Prof. Dr. Markus Bresinsky, OTH Regensburg, DE

Submit your abstract by: 11 April 2025

Further information:
https://lnkd.in/g7gxBh2V

#FutureWarfare, #GameTheory, #NuclearWar, #CyberWeapons, #AutonomousWeapons, #DualUse
#Zeitenwende, #TechnologyAssessment, #TAJournal

oekom Verlag
@ITAS_KIT

The Axelrod library is 10 years old.

If I'd had time to see that coming I'd have written down some thoughts about it all. Here are two simple thoughts:

For a library that started as a demo project at @PyConNA, it's ended up being a huge part of my research and teaching.

I've also learnt so much from the amazing co-maintainers of the project who have become friends.

https://axelrod.readthedocs.io

#gametheory

"To promote human safety, AIs should be given the basic private law rights already enjoyed by other non-human agents, like corporations. AIs should be empowered to make contracts, hold property, and bring tort claims. Granting these rights would enable humans and AIs to engage in iterated, small-scale, mutually-beneficial transactions. This, we show, changes humans’ and AIs’ optimal game-theoretic strategies, encouraging a peaceful strategic equilibrium."

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4913167
#ai #gametheory

#Telegraph #UkraineTheLatest

Very interesting episode with Dr. Robert Person (Associate Professor of International Relations at the United States Military Academy at West Point), on the endgame and bargaining theory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8LglBIPwSM

#Person #EndGame #GameTheory #Bargaining #WestPoint
#Ukraine #UkraineWar #StandWithUkraine

@jon I very, very, very much recommend playing "The evolution of trust" (link below) which shows (with game theory) that a certain amount of forgiveness towards errors (or opposing viewpoints) of the other side is a winning strategy, whereas screwing people over is a losing strategy. Everyone, it's Sunday, play it.

https://ncase.me/trust/

#trust #gametheory #winwin

The properties of good iterated prisoner dilemma strategies are:

1. Be "nice" in non-noisy environments or when game lengths are longer
2. Be provocable in tournaments with short matches, and generous in tournaments with noise
3. Be a little bit envious
4. Be clever
5. Adapt to the environment (including the population of strategies).

You can find all the raw data from the tournaments here: https://zenodo.org/records/10246248

You can find the processed data here: https://zenodo.org/records/10246247

#gametheory

After running his original 2 tournaments Robert Axelrod concluded with a list of 5 properties for good performance in iterated Prisoner's Dilemma tournaments.

Over the Christmas period my co-authors and I published a paper where we analysed more than 45,000 tournaments to come up with more precise (and I'd argue correct) properties: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012644&?utm_id=plos111&utm_source=internal&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=author#sec008

#gametheory

In the mid 80s, TSR came out with a new version of Top Secret. The original game was set more in a cold war USA vs USSR kind of setting. The newer game leaned more into a James Bond fantastical kind of setting.

I played it a couple of times. I really liked the combat of the game. Each character had a paper doll with hit locations and hit boxes. Players would roll 2 ten sided dice to see if they hit. 2 ten siders can make 00-99. If you rolled under your skill rating, you would get a hit.

But what was cool was that the same roll also told you how much damage you did, and where you hit. If Suzie had a Melee score of 67, and she rolled 58. She would do 5 points of damage and hit location 8 (right let). If she rolled a 20, she would do 2 points of damage and hit location 0 (head). If she rolled 78, she missed.

I always wanted to try such a system in a medieval style rpg, but damage and body types are more varied. I did not relish the idea of making paper dolls for Dragons, Centaurs, and Mermaids.

#rpg #spy #osr #tsr #gametheory

Never thought about it, but that is really cool

Thesis: No one in the history of mankind has ever shuffled the cards in the same order before. [oxford mathematics]

#math #cards #gametheory

https://youtube.com/shorts/5C6pRAuqSNY

Recent discussions about hypothetical D&D economies led me to look into Roman currency. Here is a great wikipedia image of the common currency in the 27 BC - 100 AD Roman era.

So instead of copper, silver, electrum gold (the D&D standard), the early Roman Empire used various iterations of Bronze, Orichalcum, Silver, Billon, and Gold.

And today I learned Billon is the name for an alloy of silver and gold, or silver and copper, or silver and gold and copper, or basically any alloy of silver and some base metal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_currency#Imperial_period:_27_BC_%E2%80%93_AD_476

#dnd #rpg #osr #history #gametheory #worldbuilding

Credit to @capita_picat

for pointing out this article about how Gold was not the usual currency used in medieval times.

https://acoup.blog/2025/01/03/collections-coinage-and-the-tyranny-of-fantasy-gold/

I like looking at real world analogues to help inform making the "physics, economic engine" for rpgs.

A lot of issues in rpgs come down to how well do we want to emulate something from the real world like; falling damage, combat injuries, or should the economy use silver pieces.

Versus the thought of, are we playing a "game" and the rules should be more gamey in nature. Usually because going too far down the emulation path becomes a slog.

#dnd #rpg #gametheory #osr #medievalhistory

Factorio exemplifies how computational engagement patterns can be therapeutically channeled through recursive optimization frameworks. Rather than pathologizing min-maxing tendencies, it provides bounded infinite possibility spaces for cognitive load distribution. #GameTheory #Neuroscience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoOIxqOv9U