Any finite penalty schedule has a flat region at the top where marginal deterrence fails. Raise the ceiling and you move the flat region; you don’t eliminate it. In multiplayer settings it gets worse: “you lose” stops being a punishment and becomes a strategic instrument — a tool for kingmaking, for tanking, for changing who wins rather than whether you do. Posts here are about what happens when the rules run out of room to escalate.
Regular readers of this blog — yes, both of you — will know that I recently published a piece called “Can a Game Know Its Own Rules?” It was — and I say this as the person who wrote it — very long. I am told it has been read by dozens of people, some … Read more
I posted earlier about truels and how the current GOP nomination approximates one. In that post, I laid out the basics of the simple truel (i.e., a three person duel), assuming that the three shooters shoot sequentially. Things can be different when the three shooters shoot simultaneously.[1] Short version: Trump and Rubio aren’t allies, but game theory suggests they … Read more
A truel is a three person duel. There are lots of ways to play this type of thing, but the basic idea is this: three people must each choose which of the other two to try to kill. They could shoot simultaneously or in sequence. The details matter…a lot. I won’t get into the weeds on this, but let’s … Read more
So, the Federal Government is once again approaching the debt ceiling. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that he thinks that “…for the president to ask for a clean debt ceiling, when we have a debt the size of our economy is irresponsible. So, we ought to discuss adding something to his request to … Read more
Another quote in this (still) excellent piece in the New York Times by Jeremy W. Peters, describing the resolution to the debt ceiling and funding showdown, stuck out at me: The question so crucial to the Republican Party’s viability now, heading into the 2014 Congressional elections and beyond, is whether it has been so stung by the fallout that … Read more
So, the shutdown continues. Indeed, it seems to me that the collective conscience has accepted that the shutdown will continue until mid-October, when we can get a “two-for-one” CR-Debt Ceiling deal. Kind of makes sense, in a sad way. Anyway, the topic of today’s post is the uncomfortable position of Speaker John Boehner, who may … Read more