[Noisebridge-discuss] Books on Game Theory: Recommendations?

Theron Trowbridge theron.trowbridge at gmail.com
Tue Jun 28 00:04:53 UTC 2011


It's a dense book, but Theory Of Games And Economic Behavior by John
von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern is the seminal work on the economics
side of things (and is an expansion of of the paper that created the
field of Game Theory).

A broader discussion of Game Theory (and a much more readable book)
can be found in The Prisoner's Dilemma by William Poundstone.  This is
a fine book, and I recommend it to everyone, regardless of
pre-existing interest in the field.

The classic treatise on game theory in general (setting aside
real-world social applications) can be found in the RAND Corporation's
report, Games Of Strategy - Theory And Application.  It was published
as a book in the 1960's that simplified some of the math and included
some great illustrations, but the original report is available as a
free download: http://www.rand.org/pubs/commercial_books/CB149-1.html


Don't know if this helps.  None of these directly deal with
psychology, except indirectly - von Neumann wanted to understand the
group behavior of collective entities like the stock market.

And while it might be argued that Von Neumann and the RAND Corporation
took the concepts of Game Theory to draw conclusions that may not be
particularly compatible with "peace, justices, and the good of
humanity," their work is nonetheless key in the field.


-Theron
^

On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Corey McGuire <coreyfro at coreyfro.com> wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> Looking for a book that bridges the subjects of psychology, business, and
> game theory.
>
> I have a friend who is applying such concepts for peace, justices, and the
> good of humanity, and I wanted to get them a resource they could study to
> understand such dynamics so that they may apply it toward progress...
>
> ...deets, of course, withheld.
>
> This is all about encouragement, reward, carrot dangling, feedback,
> teamwork, etc, etc.  Heck...even resource management and high scores.
>
> What'chu'got, Noisebridge?
>
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