Quote:
Originally Posted by Quartz_MJC
One method which is used to varying degrees of success to model internationalrelationships between nation states is game theory.
http://gametheory101.com/International_Relations.html
Game theory is a mathmatical model and is a little heady. The basic assumption for game theory to be applicable is- the actors in a scenario need to be "Rational Actors". A "Rationa"l actor is one that acts in their best interest.
There is a brief and puffy vide on Ted Talks . |
I can only relate this to business, not international relations, so it may not apply. In a couple roles I've been in, I've looked at game theory and it ended up sounding better than it worked.
Sometimes it's in a persons best interest to act irrationally. At the extreme, during a riot, it may be in your best interest to join the out of control mob, with an unpredictable outcome, than stand up to them and face certain death. With only slightly different circumstances, that would likely be too nuanced to model, it may be in your best interest to stand up to the mob. IMO, those nuances make prediction of the outcome based on a game theory model difficult.
Again, just from a business standpoint, when you look at things like market behaviors, the organizations I've been around have had way better prediction outcomes with empirical approaches like A/B testing and test markets than they have with behavioral models.
I think what you can say is that people (individually or groups) that have a long track record of acting rationally, have a high probability (but not a certainty) of acting rationally in the future. People that have a track record of acting irrationally, have a high probability of continuing to act irrationally in the future. At a high level, isn't that what things like credit scoring are about - quantifying long term rational behavior?