Got Game Theory?
Leave it to Hollywood to do something so unexpected as to popularize a brilliant idea that otherwise would never have been mainstreamed.
Until a few years ago, I’d never heard of John Nash. Then the movie A Beautiful Mind came out, featuring the most unlikely of characters — a schizophrenic mathematician — and it introduced to the general public John Nash’s revolutionary game theory for economics. It did this in a spectacular way — by illustrating its use in a bar, and how it could help him and his fellow college students pick up women.
Now, the example in the movie is flawed, because it doesn’t consider the women as part of the players in the “game.” They are merely portrayed as the prizes won through cooperation between competitors. Still, the point comes across loud and clear: the best strategy is to do what’s good for you AND the others in the contest.
Apparently this works in both economics and in dating. But the point is, this little tidbit of a brilliant idea has been gestating in the minds of everyone who’s watched the movie, myself included, and I’ve found myself making day-to-day life decisions based on the principals of Nash’s game theory. Why? Because it works.
In everything, do what’s best for yourself AND those around you. Not just for you, and not just for them. Everyone.
How could something so simple be so brilliant? I guess it took a genius to prove it mathematically before anyone would pay attention to it.
