“Books are the compasses, telescopes, sextants and
charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of
human life.” – Jesse Lee Bennett
In
this book called “Rock, Paper, Scissors”, Len Fisher talks about the
applications of game theory in real life. He relates game theory to the
strategies and the means that people take to interact with each other on a
daily basis on different occasions. He talks about using game theory to develop
strategies for cooperation and social interactions in different environments.
That it helps us understand the holes in our interactions towards other people
that lead to broken promises and cheating. It is a guide on what to do in
situations like competitions and conflict. It is applied to different sectors
from business to military. Fisher then
talks about the two different sides of game theory: the cooperation and
collaboration side and the confrontation and competition side. In the field of
biology, it is shown in the cooperation involving in the evolution of nature.
While in the field of sociology and psychology, it is used to explain the
problems of cooperation and resolution in the social relationships between
people.
The
book started off in a quite slower pace than I had expected. In the first
chapter, Fisher gives an informative description about the Prisoner’s dilemma
and a somewhat negative notion of the Nash equilibrium being a logical trap.
Afterwards, he gives a lot of interesting examples and explanations. Fisher
then introduces the different concepts of minimax and fair division in the
second chapter. On the topic of fair division, he tells stories about how much
trouble he got in when he was shooting fireworks as a kid. It was then that he
arrived at an answer and now, he realized that it was an application of the
minimax principle. Fisher then gives a discussion on the principle of equal
division of the contested sum. Now, chapter three talks about seven of the most
interesting yet challenging game theory problems, some would even call them
deadly. In this chapter, a summary of these problems like the free rider issue
and the game of chicken is given. The title of the book is the focus of chapter
four. It talks about the “rock, paper, scissors” game and how it is being
played around the world. Here, Fisher explains how this game is a means of
conflict resolution; his reason being that this game has no pure strategy to
speak of. No strategy that purely dominates the others. So the situations and games
which look like they seem to be standing still can actually be solved through
strategies and looking at them as rock-paper-scissors situations. The fifth
chapter talks about the twin keys that can be used to resolve social dilemmas
and these keys are communication and negotiation. It is through these keys that
we can form alliances and share information and ideas though these also have
their negative sides. The rest of the chapter is focused on how to make the
communication between people more reliable, their negotiations fairer and their
alliances more stable. Chapter six is about trust. Fisher starts this chapter
by recalling a scene from the Peanuts cartoon. An unfortunate effect of both
the game theory and the real world is due to the fact that people don’t trust
each other. He talks about how he once did something nice for other people and
how they doubted his intentions. Communities are built on trust and the lives
of people would be easier and more fruitful with trust. He then uses the game
theory to prove his claim and to understand how people can prove their trustworthiness.
He believes that trust would lead to win-win situations. He then talks about
his social training as a child in chapter seven. He talks about the book he was
given when he was a child about two women whose personalities seemed to be
based on the game Tit for Tat which is a payback strategy that comes into play
when two people or groups are likely to meet repeatedly. There is a cycle of
retaliation and counter retaliation and in order to break this cycle, one side
must stop and just forgive. He then recalls more memories with his grandmother
relating to this topic. Another way to break the cycle is to just apologize. Fisher
then talks about the social norms and how they guide us to cooperation. Chapter
eight is about how to change the game to improve the chances of cooperation.
This can be done by introducing new players and using quantum mechanics to read
each other’s minds. Fisher then talks about how quantum game theory and
classical game theory provides us with a range of strategies to overcome social
dilemmas. Then in the last chapter, he reviews these strategies and creates a
top ten list of tips for strategies that can be used to promote cooperation.
This
book is a wonderful thing to read for me. While reading it, I didn’t feel like
I was reading something about mathematics or the feeling you get when you read
those types of academic and educational books. It was very insightful all
throughout and even comical at some points. It wasn’t a book on equations or
algebraic problems; it was more of a book about life for me and about how
people are in general. It was such an eye-opener; it made me see the problems
that society has and how the simple mathematics of game theory can be used to
explain it and even solve it. This book speaks about life so the reader can
really find a way to relate to it and therefore find reading it more
pleasurable. I learned a lot from this book about how to interact and deal with
people and how to develop a deeper relationship with others. It has a lot of
life lessons along with personal stories that made it easier to understand and
read. I would recommend this book to other people because its approach isn’t
too technical and doesn’t come across as too strong. It also comes with some mind-boggling
realizations and tips on how to achieve a better social relationship with other
people.
