Game Theory

Game Theory is a deceptively named field of study which combines mathematics and logic with a little bit of classical philosophy. It's the sort of topic that sounds really cool to sign up for when you're looking for some easy credits to pad out your semester at college, only to find out that it doesn't involve much gaming at all and the exams are super hard. However, once you know enough about it as a field you understand that it pervades EVERYTHING, including gaming and war.

Among game theorists, one game enjoys the most popularity, that being the (again) disappointingly named Tit-for-Tat, which sadly has nothing to do with either tiddies or tattoos.

Tit-for-Tat explores what's known as the Prisoner's Dilemma, a mind exercise about whether it is preferable for rational actors to cooperate or betray each other. Substantial experimentation with computing, as well as studies of organisms in nature, have convinced the game theory community that generally speaking it is optimal for rational actors to enter an encounter with a another rational actor with the assumption that the other is not hostile. That is, that cooperation or ambivalence is more efficient than immediate aggression.