A Political One
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/06/17/heres-how-game-theory-helps-explain-donald-trumps-strategies/?utm_term=.6885021af6c8 In a slightly outdated but ever relevant Washington Post article published during the 2016 presidential campaign, Steven J. Brams, a professor of politics at NYU, tries to determine strategies Trump is consciously (or unconsciously using) to always seemingly grab the upper hand in the election’s political climate. He begins by stating, “there are […]
How Network Theory Can Prevent Extinctions
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/423282/how-network-theory-can-prevent-extinctions/ In what might be considered one of the most controversial applications of network and graph theory, Northwestern University in Illinois professors Sagar Sahasrabudhe and Adilson Motter have come to the conclusion that human involvement could in fact help to save species from extinction in certain ecosystems. On a small scale, we can use network theory […]
Batman: The Dominant Strategy
link: http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/batman/253726/the-dark-knight-the-joker-and-game-theory Game Theory, as we have learned, is prevalent not just in economics or bargaining but also in board games and media. The Dark Knight is a perfect example of how game theory is included in films. The Dark Knight received widespread praise not only because of the outstanding acting and the great action […]
Gaming the System to Stay Relevant in the Phone Market
Earlier today, Apple held a press conference announcing the next generation of iPhone, confusing consumers everywhere by calling the ninth iteration the “iPhone X,” intended to be the Roman numeral for ten. They claim it’s simply to honor the tenth anniversary of the original iPhone, but that seems like a reach. In this article from […]
Living With the Facebook Mom Effect
Source: http://boffosocko.com/2017/07/11/the-facebook-algorithm-mom-problem/ Chris Aldrich ran into an interesting issue trying to promote his blog posts on Facebook. For some reason, his posts were only reaching a very small audience, despite the fact that he was putting out quality technical content that should have, at least in theory, attracted a much larger audience. The only attention he […]
Why weak ties are not so weak
Link: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/strong-and-weak-ties-why-your-weak-ties-matter We started out this course talking about ties such as strong and weak ties. This article differentiates what we would consider as strong and weak ties in the real world such that strong ties are friendships and weak ties are acquaintances. Most people tend to focus on the properties involving strong ties or […]
Cold War and Structural Balance
In the recent video “The Middle East’s cold war, explained,” Sam Ellis of Vox details the recent history of the unrest in Middle East. The Middle East is experiencing a cold war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, dating back to the 1970’s when the US was highly influential in both countries. More recently, rather than […]
Game Theory, The Drug World, and the Mexican Drug War
In many of the interactions that people have on a daily basis with one another, game theory can be applied. Since there are so many different types of game theory, it can be applied in virtually every situation where there are two or more parties, and where certain decisions are dominant over others. The interesting […]
Squirrel monkeys in social networks
Applying social network analysis to a social learning experiment on squirrel monkeys, researchers discovered that a squirrel monkey’s connections in a social network played a major role in the monkey’s ability for cultural learning. A clear box containing fruit was constructed with a door that could be opened with two different mechanics. Squirrel monkeys were […]
The Role of Emotions in Game theory and Rationality
Source: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/boneill/emotions.html The primary ideals that make up game theory lie around the basic economic fact that human beings make decisions rationally. In many situations this is true, that is why game theory exists. Unfortunately, game theory does not take into account the psychology and human emotion that goes into making rational decisions. Every decision […]
« go back — keep looking »