#greed #psychology #gameTheory https://mastodon.social/@Viss/114356559318436994

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

Signaling Design https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2502.02328&r=&r=des
"… in the unique equilibrium in our setting, a profit-seeking monopolist school offers an uninformative #signaling technology, generating the same signal regardless of effort, and capture all the surplus in terms of fees. In this case, the separating equilibrium envisaged in #Spence (1973) vanishes, and no wasteful effort is exerted! Competition among schools affects both the total surplus produced and its distribution: competition in fees allows students to retain a higher share of the total surplus … competition to attract high types induces schools to offer more informative monitoring policies, incentivizing higher levels of wasteful effort.

… one equilibrium outcome stands out for its robustness: full separation, yielding the Riley outcome—low-type students exert no effort and high-type students exert the lowest effort that low-types are unwilling to emulate. Thus, compared to the #monopoly case, #competition shifts surplus from the school to high-type students and entails efficiency losses due to socially wasteful effort in equilibrium. The critical driver of this result is the high-type students’ willingness to pay to access a monitoring policy that enables them to better distinguish themselves from low-type students and thus obtain higher #wages."
#GameTheory

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lYbDND5WjKk&pp=ygUEUmllaw%3D%3D

Einmal mehr eine sehr treffende Analyse des Spiel-Theoretikers Prof. Dr. Christian Rieck, wie ich finde. Beruhigend zwar nicht, aber schlau wie ein Fuchs und amüsant wie Bolle!

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 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).

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

#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

'Sup, everyone!

Any suggestions of resources for studying simulation, in a broad sense?

Is game theory and complex systems useful for developing cooler simulations or studying them would be overhead?

Where can I start learning about tactics and strategy?

"democrats, treat republicans they way they treat you and treat trump as though everything you said about him is true."
#democrats #republicans #bullies #respect #gametheory #resist #tactics #politics #standup #standupforhumanrights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1ACmdglOSA

There are some topics that just instantly generate endless debate. The Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Physics is one.

In RPGs, D&D and such, I think the equivalent topic is Referee, DM objectivity and the use of dice. This article by Bob Kruger describes the issue a little better than I have been able to describe it in the past (and I have tried to explain it so many times without much success).

https://web.archive.org/web/20160520122457/http://www.baen.com/danddmasters

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

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.