The Games People Play -

As we move steadily into the era of Game Theory, a number of observations are apparent. The first is that 'game' cannot be defined, as Wittgenstein proved. It is a form known from before in the Kantian sense. That intrigues me. The second is that a proper game properly played is a moral exercise. In the area most popularized in Game Theory study, it is a moral and economic exercise. That pleases and surprises me.
During the golden age of Liberalism in the postwar period, there was much talk of man's inhumanity to man. Today we would say human beings' inhumanity to human beings. We have improved our language but vicious exploitation described in a PC vocabulary is still vicious exploitation. If a game is properly played to a moral precept then only in a failed game would inhumanity occur since no economic game could be inhumane by design or logic. It would make no sense and only make cents for a limited time.
We have apparent games going now that exploit human beings for the benefit of other human beings. There exists no morality of game play that permits this. These are failed games eating away at the fabric of society. Anytime you are cruel to another human being it is an aberration. It is not a game. It is not moral and it will not stand the test of economic success.
Be well and do good.

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Economics, Love and Morality

First the obvious, those are three different things. Economics we have all come to agree is a risk and reward market game played with money. Morality, as Game Theory is discovering, is a strategy in game play. Love, however, is an incommensurate universe to those two. Money influences people and there is such a thing as dominance and submission. Morality is supposed to constrain behavior and there is such a thing as moral authority, but Love is outside both of those conceptual realms.
Love is hormonal and beyond comprehension. Communication is dependent on some degree of hormonal synchrony and, as anyone who has had a pillow talk will tell you, communication there is at maximum and as cerebral as one cares to make it. Love is not economic and not moral. The heart goes where it will when it will and that is that.
Be well and do good.

If you'd love a little original analysis applied to your puzzles, I'm ready and able. See my website.
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American Postmodernism and the Consumerism Ethic

Consumerism is a household god in America and increasingly the world, the more money you spend the more money you have to spend. It's a simple ethic. However, like the economics of Keynes, it only operates in certain phases of the economic cycle. If you throw money at a recession, it improves. If you throw money at an innovation cycle, a rolling recession, it lasts longer and cuts deeper.
This is the conundrum facing postmodernism everywhere but especially in America. We are not doctrinaire and we are not socialist and we have clearly reached the limits of the transfer of wealth that drives Keynes, postindustrialism, and consumerism. We are pragmatists and we are, economically, at our wit's end as to what to do next.
I have no answer. The answer fairly clearly lies in Game Theory and Schumpeter but the one is embryonic and Schumpeter is at least two different people, Mark I and Mark II. That leaves us with a trial and error best guess problem solving process. We will undoubtedly make huge mistakes and pay huge prices. That is not an unusual scenario in the American dynamic. We must be as humane as possible. We are all a lost paycheck or a bad investment away from needing some comfort.
Be well and do good.

If you're looking to consume some original synthesis, this gun's for hire. Check my website.
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Markets and Intervention

First off, I want to be emphatically and absolutely clear about my personal, philosophical, and analytical position that the invisible hand of the market is NOT the hand of God. In the long run, and never ever forget Keynes' 'In the long run, we are all dead', markets are efficient but they are given to episodic insanity. A market is a lot like a pit bull, a magnificent animal but sooner or later it bites you.
There is no such thing as an efficient and friendly market. It one intervenes to make a market friendlier, less unstable, one reduces the efficiency of that market. Making a market really friendly puts it in Fantasyland and in Fantasyland markets fail massively as we have recently seen. There is no nice solution to the instability of markets. It is just the way it is. If we ever get a Game Theory model powerful and sophisticated enough to handle the stock market then rational adjustments can be made. If. And when.
Be well and do good.

If you're in the market for some original synthesis, this gun's for hire. Check out my website.
http://www.basilbrylcreem.com/

A Moment's Reflection

For those of us who have a generalist background, who lack a dogmatic loyalty to any political doctrine and who are paying attention to the large picture, there is present in these troubled times a sense that this is a critical moment in Western Civilization.
It is not a radical intrepretation of the history of Western Civilization that when the complexity of the social norm is raised, as the Greeks with mathematics and philosophy, it essentially raises the bar to meaningful participation in one's own society. When people find that the bar is over their heads, their knee jerk reaction is to do the limbo, to be a player in a game that is negatively referential to the social norm. They do this because they find themselves aggressed against by what is represented as civilization. Being the target of social aggression, they exhibit a counter aggression in a sort of psychological self-defense. This is the problem that all political address with the exercise of powers we have come to call counter-insurgency.
This is all comprehensible. What is not particularly comprehensible is the reaction of what we call liberals in Western Civilization, people who honestly care about the dispossessed. Their knee jerk reaction is to raise the bar further as though people doing the limbo to a higher bar would improve their social performance. The net result is that more people are dispossessed, aggression in social behavior is increased and at some level of significance, society endures but civilization is lost.
We have now empowering technology. We have the essential element in the construction of a society of minimal aggression, Game Theory. It will take twenty years for incremental advances in our knowledge of this paradigm to reach a critical mass sufficient to a General Game Theory. Which means we face twenty years of social aggression and counter-insurgency.
We are at a critical moment in Western Civilization, let us behave temperately, rationally and with compassion. It's for all the marbles.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on http://www.amazon.com/books

The New American Myth

J.M. here. When one looks at the philosophical mix that informs the American Mind, one finds an emergent Game Theory above all with various older constructions that are dated to the point of qualification, i.e. neo-Schumpeterian, post postmodernism. The stars are moving in the intellectual universe and where they will be when they are in conjunction is only a guess.
Still, in the midst of this vacuum and confusion, we build and we buy and we live productive material lives. What drives us? What myths ordain this heroic behavior?
For me, the metaphors of sport are significant in motivating and structuring my behaving. Football season is here and, while I don't memorize stats, I do follow the game. When I start a difficult project, I suck it up and fire out. When I face obstacles, I broken field run. I am metaphorically a player in a very large game and now there's Game Theory to back that up. Sport is the American mythology in my personal experience and it is translated in the best of American performances into Benjamin Franklin's succinct, 'Do well by doing good'.
Do well and be well.
'Chances', available on Amazon.com

The Postmodern World

Basil here. I'm going to let J.M. have a turn at blogging so get ready to think
What characterizes the postmodern world? Relative truth? I would argue with the radical view of a personal myth that social existence requires shared language, relevant to and descriptive of phenomena, shared databases, for lack of a better word, and shared experience.
I would argue that truth is a variable related to strategy in game theory and constrained by the rules of the complex multi-player game we call existence. The bold statement that delusion has truth value, that insanity is a legitimate reality, hasn't been openly stated since the 1950's. The EEG, the CT scan, and the MRI have all checked in on the question with the exact same observation. Without proper medication, the cerebral cortex is dysfunctional in the insane mind.
Of course you could hold to the radical view of relative truth if you think that very large lizards are capable of legitimate performance in legitimate human games. It's up to you. It's your quarter. You can call it anyway you want. That's the way of postmodernism, isn't it?
Do well and be well.