Game Theory
How choices interlock
Game theory is the study of what happens when outcomes depend on the choices of others. Almost every ecological decision has this shape: a fishery, an aquifer, an atmosphere. The mathematics is not a counsel of despair. It maps exactly where cooperation breaks down, which means it also maps where a rule, a signal, or a shared boundary would hold it together.
9 ways in
Prisoner's Dilemma
A situation in which each participant gains by defecting, yet all end up worse off than if every one of them had cooperated.
Open →Rational Decision Making
The model of an agent who ranks outcomes consistently and chooses the option that best serves those rankings.
Open →Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma
The same dilemma played repeatedly by the same participants, where today's choice shapes tomorrow's treatment.
Open →Bounded Rationality
Decision making under real limits of time, attention, and information, where good enough replaces optimal.
Open →n-person Prisoner's Dilemma
The dilemma scaled to many players, where each individual contribution is negligible and the temptation to free-ride is largest.
Open →Irrational Behavior
Choices that depart from consistent self-interest, whether through bias, emotion, habit, or principle.
Open →Cooperation versus Competition
The standing tension between acting for joint gain and acting for relative advantage.
Open →Spatial and Network Game Theory
Games played not against everyone at once but against neighbours on a lattice or a network.
Open →Evolutionary Game Theory
Game theory in which successful strategies reproduce and spread, rather than being chosen by a calculating mind.
Open →