John Nash's Game Theory

Best Picture: Brian Grazer, Ron Howard
Best Director: Ron Howard
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Connelly
Best Screenplay: Akiva Goldsman

The movie portrayed the life story of John F. Nash. Although his contribution to the game theory was not all the movie was about, it was probably the only way that someone like me will ever have the slightest idea of what something like the game theory means. His deductions from what he was seeing in the situation made sense to me. Perhaps when the scientific world and the everyday world meet, as what happened with the making of this movie, people will use proven ideas instead of raw instincts to guide their decision making.

The Game Theory Society

The following quote is on the Game Theory Society web site, "Still, much real-world strategic interaction cannot be fully understood with current tools. To make further progress, the field needs to gain more experience in applications to the real world. Just as important, the theory needs to be further developed to take account of the complexity of many of those applications."(http://www.gametheorysociety.org/about.html)

A Not So Scientific Way of Looking at Things

I do not understand all of the mathematical formulas and the special language that each different group of scientist use in their specialty but I do understand real life. I understood Nash's sudden flash of ah ha when he saw the girls enter the bar (poolroom or what ever). All the boys had their eye on the one gorgeous girl. If they all (as they probably instinctively would) went after her, then her friends would get mad, she would not be able to pick, and they would all leave without the boys. That would be a very bad night for the boys! However, if each boy picked one of the other very attractive girls and left the gorgeous one alone, they would have better odds of having a very good night. Nash did not even stay to see what happened he had to rush off to write down his mathematical proof.

They Probably are just Good Ole' Boys and Girls that Did Not Stop to Think!

Now in real life, companies and people walk right over all the "attractive girls" and head straight for "the gorgeous ONE".

In the 80's wholesalers and/or manufacturers (the boys), who once depended on a set of retailers (the girls) equally, lined up to sell to one or two certain retailers (the gorgeous girl). They would do this by dropping the price so low to the "gorgeous" retailer that it was cheaper for the other retailers to buy from the "gorgeous" retailer than from the (the boys) wholesalers.

This would probably be the rantings of some of those other "girls" - Some of these well-known name brands want to claim their heritage that they threw to the wolves only a few years ago. Now if a GOLDEN chicken, once upon a time forced me to buy my eggs from another egg supplier, I'd sooner or later be free of that GOLDEN chicken, and find a regular chicken that supplied good old edible eggs; and to blazes with the GOLDEN chicken and his GOLDEN chicken egg supplier. The tides of the market do change and what goes around often comes right back around. If any company thinks this is about them, it must be their conscience bothering them because no one is naming names here.

Now Do the Math! But Where Are All Those Good Ole' Girls? A Lot were Young Entrepreneurs!

Now the math:
Five (boys) wholesalers meet six (girls) retailers.
The theory the wholesalers use is - you buy more, we will lower your cost (sounds good in theory).
One retailer ("gorgeous" girl) says, "I want all you can get to me" and the price goes way down for her. (Right here the other girls should have dropped out of the game but it is not that easy in real life!)
The other retailers get upset, but go along for a while. "She bought more so she should have a lower price."
However, after a while, the other girls start to think, "If they want her they can have her."
The five other retailers go out of business!

However, those businesses supported people and those people were the ones that were supposed to be buying from the "gorgeous" retailer and consuming the products of those wholesalers (boys). Now those people (girls) are out there and they do not buy from the "gorgeous" one now unless they really want to. Moreover, as for the big (boy) wholesalers, all the girls can take them or leave them, probably leave them. You do know how vindictive "girls" can be!