American Indian Story: There was a party in the woods and suddenly there was a downpour of thunder and rain. Two young guys ran for about 10 minutes in the pouring rain, finally reaching their car just as the rain let up. They jumped in the car, started it up and headed down the road, laughing and of course, still drinking one beer after the other. Suddenly an old Indian man's face appeared on the passenger side and tapped lightly on the window! The passenger screamed, "Eeeeekkk! Look at my window!!! There's an old Indian guy's face there!" (Was this a ghost?!?!?!?) The old Indian man kept knocking, so the driver said, "Well open the window a little and ask him what he wants!" So the passenger rolled his window down part way and, scared out of his wits, said, "What do you want???" The old Indian softly replied, "You have any tobacco?" The passenger, terrified, looked at the driver and said, "He wants tobacco!" "Well give him a cigarette! HURRY!!" the driver replied. So he fumbles around with the pack and handed the old man a cigarette and yelled, "Step on it!!!" rolling up the window in terror. Now going about 80 MPH, they calm down and they start laughing again, and the passenger said, "What do you think of that?" The driver replied, "I don't know. How could that be? I was going pretty fast." Suddenly there was a knock on the window AGAIN and there was the old Indian man again. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa, there he is again!" the passenger yelled." Well see what he wants now!" yelled back the driver. He rolled down the window a little ways and in a shaky voice said, "Yes?" "Do you have a light?" the old Indian quietly asked. The passenger threw a lighter out the window at him, rolled up the window and yelled, "STEP ON IT!" They are now going about 100 MPH and still guzzling beer, trying to forget what they had just seen and heard, when again there was another knock!
"Oh my God! HE'S BACK!" He rolled down the window and screamed out in stark fear, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" The old man gently replied, "You fellas need some help getting out of the mud?" REH Meanwhile, three weeks before the end of WW I Wilifred Owen, England's great heart and truthspeaker died in battle. ----- Original Message ----- From: Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 12:50 PM Subject: The snipers' game > In case some FWers have been tempted to eschew the relevance of Game > Theory, let me briefly explain the difference between ordinary (ludic) > games and game-theory games. Games theory is already proving of great > importance and will continue to be, as and when new games are discovered. > > Ordinary games such as poker, chess, mah-jong are what are called zero-sum > games. There's always a winner and a loser. The sum of the results are > zero. Even if money is involved and it's a gambling game, nothing is gained > or lost at the end from the total of the initial assets of the > participants. (However, one might mention that mah-jong was once banned in > China for many years because too many sons of rich fathers gambled with > their family estates!) > > In games theory (which could be called 'model theory' just as aptly) the > experiments usually involve non-zero-sum games. One participant's gain is > not necessarily another's loss. The gains and losses do not sum to zero. > Sometimes both participants gain from adopting appropriate strategies. > Trade is a good example of a non-zero-sum game. > > Often these strategies involve co-operation between participants even > though, formally, they may be thought to be on opposite sides. (One example > of this is something that happened quite frequently in WW1 when English and > German snipers faced each other from trenches at quite close quarters. > Being continually harrassed by their respective officers to shoot as often > as possible, the shooters on both sides learned to aim at non-living > targets in the opposite trench. The German and English shooters were unable > to discuss this strategy with one another, of course, so they co-operated > by shooting at suitable targets repeatedly with great accuracy to show that > they weren't stray or random shots! While all this was going on, soldiers > on both sides could then afford to move about in their trenches with a > greater degree of safety than otherwise.) > > (For those who are not acquainted with the WWI, I'll also mention that > ludic games were also played between German and English soldiers on one > Christmas Day. When their officers were not around they played football > against each other. Naturally both were playing to win this time! The > officers were apoplectic when they found out!) > > If anybody wants to read a good book on the relevance of game theory in a > wide variety of situations, economic and otherwise, I recommend "Non Zero" > by Robert Wright, Little Brown, 2000) > > (Oh well! while I'm at it, here's another war story involving an incident > in WW2 this time which has no relevance to any sort of game -- but just > shows how courteous English people are. This was told me by the soldier > concerned and concerns WW2. He'd parachuted down at the Battle of Arnhem > Bridge and was part of a temporary occupation of troops in the town. He'd > been placed on guard outside a house in the basement of which his officers > were pouring over maps and trying to decide what to do next. As my friend > stood outside the door, a German soldier walked up to him with his hands in > the air to surrender. My friend took his rifle from him (propped it up > against the door!) and then went down to the basement to ask his officer > what to do with the prisoner. "Oh we're too busy. Tell him to bugger off!" > So my friend went back and dutifully told the German soldier to leg it. > Then he called him back: "Here you are. You forgot your rifle.") > > Keith Hudson > > > > > __________________________________________________________ > "Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in > order to discover if they have something to say." John D. Barrow > _________________________________________________ > Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > _________________________________________________ >
