[UA] UA lrp (was no subject)

[Liam Astley]

From: "Nick Wedig" <mrteapot at disinfo.net>
Subject: Re: [UA] UA lrp (was no subject)
> More like John Von Neumann says we shouldn't nuke the USSR (Incidentally,
Bertrand Russell was >strongly opposed to war and was jailed several times
for protesting any war in the last century that >you could mention, so I
doubt he suggested that), thoguh Russell was involved, IIRC.

if i recall correctly, it was back in the early post-war years. russell was
convinced that nuclear weapons would eventually spread to other nations,
there would then be a nuclear conflict, and as a result all life on earth
would be wiped out... so he said the USA should nuke the USSR before they
could develop nukes of their own to fight back with

>So the best strateg is not to nuke, or nuke when you're certain the other
guy won't, etc.  Could be >adaptble into gaming somehow, IMHO.

there was a nice bit in one of the early issues of alan moore's Tom Strong
where he teamed up with an "evil" AI. when he asked it why it was trusting
him not to stab it in the back, it pointed out that statistically speaking
you do slightly better if you trust people than if you don't.
there was a game show on telly a couple of months ago called "trust me" (i
think) that had a sort of game theory thing going on. two people would be
put in separate rooms, competing for the prize money. they could choose to
"share" or "steal", without being able to tell what the other person chose.
if they both chose to share, they split the money between them. if one
shared but one stole, the stealer got to keep *all* the prize money. but if
they both chose to steal, neither of them got anything.



liam
 --
www.dogzilla.co.uk



_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua