Conflict

Conflict is an universal feature of the living world. It arises from the struggle to survive. All living things struggle to overcome the natural world which, it would seem most of the time, is trying to kill them: droughts, floods, fires, earthquakes, asteroids, pandemics and the sort.

Then there’s the struggle against other living things — the prey versus predator variety. Add to that, there’s the competition against one’s own kind for food and mates. Nature is, as often described accurately, red in tooth and claw.

For us humans there’s the universal struggle against nature, and the competition against others of our own kind. There’s one additional dimension: the struggle of man against himself. That’s the toughest of all. The great philosophies of the world have addressed that final bit — particularly the Sanatana, Buddhist and Jain dharmas.

Economists, as “worldly philosophers”, analyze human action and interaction as a major part of their discipline. They use the most important tool developed in the mid-20th century. It’s called “game theory.”

Game theory is a powerful analytical tool. The basic story (or model) used as an introduction is the so-called “prisoner’s dilemma.” Police catch two people who are suspected of a crime. The evidence the police have is insufficient to convict them but if one or both confess to the crime, then the police have a case. If neither confesses, then both will get a very minor sentence. If only one confesses, then the one who doesn’t confess will get a harsh sentence and the other goes free.

Given that everyone knows this, what will be the outcome? Prisoner A reasons that regardless of whether prisoner B confesses or not, it is best for A to confess. By symmetry, B also reasons that it is best for him to confess regardless of what A does. So they both end up confessing and the police have their case.

The point being that in such cases, what is rational for each (confess to the crime) is not optimal for the both of them.

The PD game is simple but its implications are profound and surprising. The discipline has advanced a great deal. The simplest model is a two-player, two strategy, full information, one shot PD. Variations on the theme involve multiplayer, incomplete information, repeated PD games.

Learning game theory was one of the more enjoyable part of my economics training. In fact, it is game theory that motivated me to study economics. I had randomly picked up a book titled “Micromotives and Macrobehavior” by Thomas Schelling at the Sunnyvale public library.

I used to think that economics was about money and finance; that book taught me otherwise. I realized that economics explains why and how humans act and interact. My previous training was in science and engineering. Atoms and objects don’t behave strategically. They don’t have volition, control and choice. The laws of physics dictate the world of inanimate things. Living things, particularly humans, are different.

I believe a well-rounded education should include an understanding of the fundamentals of game theory just as much as the fundamentals of mathematics, physics and evolutionary biology.

Some of the greatest minds of the last century have been the pioneers of game theory, including John von Neumann (1903 – 1957) and Thomas Schelling (1921 – 2016).

Neumann was arguably a genuine genius. The wiki notes that he was —

a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, integrating pure and applied sciences and making major contributions to many fields, including mathematics, physics, economics, computing, and statistics. He was a pioneer in building the mathematical framework of quantum physics, in the development of functional analysis, and in game theory, introducing or codifying concepts including cellular automata, the universal constructor and the digital computer. His analysis of the structure of self-replication preceded the discovery of the structure of DNA.

Schelling was no intellectual slouch either. Born in Oakland, CA (up the road from where I am writing this in San Jose, CA),  in 1944 he received his bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of California at Berkeley (my alma mater and spitting distance from Oakland), and his PhD in 1951 from Harvard University. Among his many awards is the 2005 Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences.

Schelling’s books include

• • • The Strategy of Conflict (1960)
    • Arms and Influence (1966)
    • Micromotives and Macrobehavior (1978)

The wiki notes that “Schelling was involved in the global warming debate since chairing a commission for President Jimmy Carter in 1980. He believed climate change poses a serious threat to developing nations, but that the threat to the United States was exaggerated.” In a 2007 article, he wrote:

Today, little of our gross domestic product is produced outdoors, and therefore, little is susceptible to climate. Agriculture and forestry are less than 3 percent of total output, and little else is much affected. Even if agricultural productivity declined by a third over the next half-century, the per capita GNP we might have achieved by 2050 we would still achieve in 2051. Considering that agricultural productivity in most parts of the world continues to improve (and that many crops may benefit directly from enhanced photosynthesis due to increased carbon dioxide), it is not at all certain that the net impact on agriculture will be negative or much noticed in the developed world.

If people paid a little more attention to Prof Schelling and a little less attention to Our Lady of Perpetual Climate Hysteria St. Greta, the world would be improved.

Getting back to conflict. Yes there’s conflict but there are good reasons to cooperate, and that cooperative solutions do emerge. Not all games are zero-sum games, and indeed there are unlimited positive sum games that can improve human flourishing.

I came across a video uploaded a few hours ago titled “What The Prisoner’s Dilemma Reveals About Life, The Universe, and Everything” by Vertasium on YouTube. I recommend it highly.

I was hoping that the video would mention Schelling but it didn’t. I did mention Johnny, though.

Finally, here’s a bit of advice from Christopher McDougall:

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle — when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”

I got to run. Bye.