Monday, June 21, 2010

(Man) Survivor

Anyone ever heard of a show called Survivor? Anyone remember where they were at when they first saw it? Daisy and I were lucky enough to see the first episode. It was our first night on vacation in Steamboat Springs, CO and we turned on the TV to see this wondrous sight. I mentioned some Bachelor/Bachelorette psychological theories that go hand and hand with the show’s premise. You may have heard this already but Survivor is based upon the Nash Equilibrium from John Forbes Nash (A Beautiful Mind).

“The concept is used to analyze the outcome of the strategic interaction of several decision makers. In other words, it is a way of predicting what will happen if several people or several institutions are making decisions at the same time, and if the decision of each one depends on the decisions of the others. The simple insight underlying John Nash's idea is that we cannot predict the result of the choices of multiple decision makers if we analyze those decisions in isolation. Instead, we must ask what each player would do, taking into account the decision-making of the others.
Nash equilibrium has been used to analyze hostile situations like war and arms races (see Prisoner's dilemma), and also how conflict may be mitigated by repeated interaction (see Tit-for-tat). It has also been used to study to what extent people with different preferences can cooperate (see Battle of the sexes), and whether they will take risks to achieve a cooperative outcome (see Stag hunt). It has been used to study the adoption of technical standards, and also the occurrence of bank runs and currency crises (see Coordination game). Other applications include traffic flow (see Wardrop's principle), how to organize auctions (see Auction theory), and even penalty kicks in soccer (see Matching pennies)”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium

Sidebar:

Anyone heard of Danny's Song by Loggins and Messina? It was going through my mind all weekend. I’ve heard that if you listen to a song on repeat in your head then you need to actually listen to the song in order to make it go away. I just did it so I hope it works. Another male titled song I like is Daniel by Elton John. Anyone else out there like name titled songs? How about Pamela by Toto?

By the way, am I wrong that there no songs about Hazel eyed people until Kelly Clarkson’s Behind These Hazel Eyes? All the blue, brown, and green eyed people are pure while we marbled color eyed-people are considered grotesque and unclean. Whew, that felt good to get off my chest. Thanks for hearing me out.

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