[ Gmail did horrible things to the original post by giving it a base64 content transfer encoding, so [EMAIL PROTECTED] dropped it. It's just an off-topic digression, but I cared enough to resend anyway, fwiw. ]
On 6/14/07, Jörn Engel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Wed, 13 June 2007 14:33:07 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > The beauty of the GPLv2 is exactly that it's a "tit-for-tat" license, and > you can use it without having to drink the kool-aid. One could even add that "tit-for-tat" appears to be the best strategy in game theory for continuous runs of the prisoners dilemma.
Tit-for-tat is the best *deterministic* strategy when playing iterated prisoner's dilemma. But note that "deterministic" and "rational" are not adjectives that go well with "humans", and most real-world (social) situations are noisy environments -- miscommunication and misunderstandings are the usual noise. A double-D noise perceived by any player would throw a tit-for-tat-playing couple into a perennial spiral of D's, for example, which is clearly not a Pareto-efficient solution for either.
At times I wonder why game theory isn't taught in schools yet - it might shorten discussions like these.
Yes, and no. Yes - for teaching game theory (and its social relevance) in schools; and add behavioral economics to this list :-) No - it doesn't shorten discussions, however. And it shouldn't either. Human / social situations are complex, Jörn; tit-for-tat can win computer contests, for example, but it's not a behaviour one person would find as entirely agreeable in another. Satyam - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
