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Game Theory and Peace

(Jerusalem Report) Prof. Yisrael Aumann interviewed by Steve Linde - Prof. Yisrael Aumann, 88, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2005 for his original work on conflict and cooperation via game theory analysis, said in an interview: "Shouting 'Peace, peace' may actually push peace away....It's very important to give the right signals to the other side or sides. The signals that you give to them are going to determine how the future unfolds." "Let's say you want to buy an apartment, OK? You don't want to spend too much money for it....So when you go and look at apartments and start negotiating a price, you don't necessarily want to tell the seller, 'This is a great apartment' and 'What a view!'...It might not be such a good idea, right, if you don't want to pay a lot of money for it. You don't want to start the negotiation over the price that way. So if you keep saying, 'We want peace, we want peace, we want peace,' you're not necessarily going to get it that way. Because the price keeps going up." "You have to say you're interested in it, but you can also say to the other side, 'You want peace? Fine. Let's make a deal. You don't want peace? That's fine too. It's up to you.' Then you get peace....If you want peace, you have to demonstrate a certain amount of toughness. Otherwise, you are giving incentive to the other side to be aggressive. You're motivating them to be aggressive. And you can't do that....The whole world is about incentives. That's it. That's the essence of game theory."
2018-07-30 00:00:00
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