A search through the comments on this article turns up exactly zero instances of the term “Vietnam”.
Taking a hard look at what Schelling tried when faced with the real-world ‘game’ in Vietnam is enlightening as to the ups and downs of actually putting his theories—or game theory in general—into practice.
Fred Kaplan’s piece in Slate from when Schelling won the Nobel is a good start:
Terrible article in many ways—this is a very silly thing to say:
Schelling and McNaughton pondered the problem for more than an hour. In the end, they failed to come up with a single plausible answer to these most basic questions. So assured when writing about sending signals with force and inflicting pain to make an opponent behave, Tom Schelling, when faced with a real-life war, was stumped.
BTW, after a conversation with Eliezer at the weekend, I have just asked my employers to buy this book.
BTW, after a conversation with Eliezer at the weekend, I have just asked my employers to buy this book.
What do your employers do, that the book is relevant there? What they (assuming the CV on your web site is up to date) say about themselves on their web site is curiously unspecific.
I work for a computer consultancy; we do all sorts of things. The book is relevant because while we generally enjoy excellent relations with all our clients, it can sometimes happen that they muck us about, for example on rates.
I have the 1980 edition of “The strategy of conflict” from the library at the moment. It’s a reissue of the 1960 edition with an added preface by Schelling. Despite the Slate article closing by saying “Tom Schelling didn’t write much about war after that [the Vietnam War]. He’d learned the limitations of his craft.”, in his 1980 preface he judges the book’s content as still “mostly all right”.
A search through the comments on this article turns up exactly zero instances of the term “Vietnam”.
Taking a hard look at what Schelling tried when faced with the real-world ‘game’ in Vietnam is enlightening as to the ups and downs of actually putting his theories—or game theory in general—into practice.
Fred Kaplan’s piece in Slate from when Schelling won the Nobel is a good start:
http://www.slate.com/id/2127862/
Terrible article in many ways—this is a very silly thing to say:
BTW, after a conversation with Eliezer at the weekend, I have just asked my employers to buy this book.
What do your employers do, that the book is relevant there? What they (assuming the CV on your web site is up to date) say about themselves on their web site is curiously unspecific.
I work for a computer consultancy; we do all sorts of things. The book is relevant because while we generally enjoy excellent relations with all our clients, it can sometimes happen that they muck us about, for example on rates.
Thanks for that extra light.
I have the 1980 edition of “The strategy of conflict” from the library at the moment. It’s a reissue of the 1960 edition with an added preface by Schelling. Despite the Slate article closing by saying “Tom Schelling didn’t write much about war after that [the Vietnam War]. He’d learned the limitations of his craft.”, in his 1980 preface he judges the book’s content as still “mostly all right”.