@@whereisawesomeness Firearms expert Julian Hatcher studied falling bullets in the 1920s and calculated that . 30 caliber rounds reach terminal velocities of 90 m/s (300 feet per second or 186 miles per hour). A bullet traveling at only 61 m/s (200 feet per second) to 100 m/s (330 feet per second) can penetrate human skin.
As much as I love QI I'd pay good money to watch a non humorous version where Stephen Fry spent hours properly explaining topics like game theory and history to us.
Economist here. Banning tobacco advertisements helped *incumbent* tobacco firms. It damaged new entrants from making a name for themselves because they couldn’t advertise. So it saved existing firms expenses and protected them from competition. Yay, I guess.
But it also probably hurt them in the long run, because they probably got fewer new customers. Of course their business model is addiction, so their old customers stayed, but of of the purposes of advertising tobacco is attracting new smokers.
@@Friek555 Possibly? But I doubt it. All the anti-smoking ads run over the past 40 years seem to have had no effect. Advertisement isn't as influential as all that; stronger are role models we seek to emulate. Smoking is advertised to non-smokers by smokers, so if Camel retains a customer instead of losing them to a discount brand, they also retain advertising. Interestingly, the largest instrumental factor in stopping smoking is increases in income. By and large, rich people don't smoke. One potential explanation for this is that educated people get wealthy, and educated people don't smoke. But this doesn't bear out: high levels of education paired with low income generates higher levels of smoking than low education-high income. An alternative explanation is that richer people tend to weigh future consumption higher relative to poorer people. Their deferral of consumption means they'd rather be healthier when they're older, and that transforms into a preference against smoking, which promises a momentary high against the risk of future early disease and death. If the second hypothesis is true, it means that the reduction in smoking in the US over the last 70 years has been due to overall economic growth, not banning smoking ads, and not anti-smoking campaigns. And if that's true, then Big Tobacco's strategy to support bans on smoking ads to gain market share was the dominant strategy to maximize revenue in an exogenously shrinking market. Philip Morris, for example, generated less than 20% of its revenue in North America. But if you adjust that for regional differences in currency purchasing power (ie: Purchasing Power Parity), PM generates less than 7% of its revenue in the US. Domestic US advertising bans are not harming them.
@Dale Haygarth These are incidental to the main question, but I'll get them out of the way. "[middle class] seems to be shrinking at the present" The middle class, when defined by inflation-adjusted household income is shrinking in the US as a proportion of all households. So is the lower class. The single class which has grown as a proportion of households is the upper class. So while it's true that the middle class is disappearing, it's disappearing *up*. Strangely, this isn't mentioned, despite being a very good thing indeed. "Chinese more-money less-smoking" I haven't seen statistics for China, so I shouldn't opine. However, if pressed: while I was there the only people who didn't smoke were well-off. But even that anecdote is 20 years out of date.
@Dale Haygarth "what would be the best strategy to decrease smoking rates at a faster rate" I'm not entirely certain the elimination of smoking is a desideratum (I occasionally smoke a pipe, and less often a cigar), and I'm a former cigarette smoker (quit a long time ago) so I understand the appeal. Quite frankly: there never was a cigarette I didn't enjoy emmensely, and the most content my body has ever been in public was a post-meal cigarette. THAT BEING SAID As mentioned in my first comment, the burden of regulation falls hardest on local business who can't afford specialized regulatory compliance departments. This is particularly true of occupational licensure, which prevents individuals from hanging a shingle and opening their own business. Ostensibly this is done out of concern for the consumer. Effectively this rewards guilds who control the licensing process. So step one would be the conversion of licensing requirements into certification requirements. (Certifications not being required to conduct business, but as an assurance the proprietor has met certain measured standards of performance.) Large firms will still dominate industries characterized by large fixed costs, but they will lose a competitive edge against smaller local and regional competitors. Step two would be a modification of the tax code. The income tax in particular is, while seemingly progressive, in practice incredibly regressive: poor households receive a majority of revenue through paychecks while wealthy households generate revenue through capital assets. Restructure the tax code to generate revenue through expenditures, not revenues, and you greatly mitigate this issue. Associated benefits would be the elimination of incentives around marital status, and the awkwardness of government defining what is and what is not a lawful marriage. Step three is an overhaul of the welfare system to eliminate incentives against poor families increasing their income. The EITC is a model for how well this can work. Expanding the EITC would make sense if a federal income tax remained, not dissimilar from a UBI. I suppose the federal income taxes could be reduced to 0% for the purposes of distributing the EITC-like UBI. Note that this is not an elimination of welfare; I rather think more should be expended. But the way we're spending welfare dollars goes more to the administration than to the recipients, and money we're spending maintaining the regulatory state is detracting from funds that could be directed to individual families. Step four is the creation of a sinking fund to end social security. Adults will receive benefits proportionate to what they were taxed, but promises to provide for the future of twenty-somethings needs to stop. Everyone will have to bite the bullet on this. -------- You'll notice this isn't an anti-smoking scheme. It's purely a wealth-creation scheme. It's an attempt to allow the conditions which seem effective at getting people to stop smoking to form, which is personal income growth. Looking at the past 70 years of outlawing marijuana makes me think there is little the government can do to effectively stop a vice without serious trespass on the rights and dignity of the individual, and that error, far from being repeated with respect to tobacco, should be reversed with marijuana.
@@Friek555 Every time a child sees their parent smoke it's advertising. Every time they show someone on TV or the movies smoking it's advertising to children. Once the ball got rolling and enough idiots smoked because of the ads, the big companies really had no reason to do ads.
Yeah, the scenario is different if they take turns shooting until only one remains. Then I suppose it would be best to always try to shoot the one with best chance to hit you.
mamuburaa wow, it’s almost like that’s the entire point of his show. That is, to try and make it possible for anyone to learn from. Quite a shocking revelation, I know.
@@Diphenhydra If you're implying that MatPat makes an accessible form of "Game Theory", you are incorrect. He doesn't cover what mathematicians call "game theory" at all. He covers theories about videogames, which is a very different thing.
@@FortoFight I wasn't trying to imply he covers "game theory." But that he dives deeper into games and uses science to explain things. And then presents it in a way that anybody can grasp. It's like providing examples for certain things, like how he talks about dopamine, in a more relatable way.
He talks about Game Theory _once_ - on his video about Hunger Games over on the film theory Channel. It's hardly fair to complain that he doesn't explain game theory properly when that isn't even the goal. I get it's annoying when you want to learn about actual game theory and all you get are videos about FNAF or Undertale or whatever, but it should be clear by the title and the thumbnail that is hasn't shit to do with game theory.
it's very clever of them. hooking us with great clips and cutting off slightly early; so that we'll feel compulsion to go watch the full episode hahaha
that's because nearly the entire show is a continuation of topics. they rarely stop and switch topics at all, and the show is broken up into 4, maybe 5 distinct segments at most.
When you add in the factors that they are shooting one at a time, and each person only has one bullet, then the person going first cannot possibly win even if he was the 90%. The only favorable outcome for him at all is to survive, and the best way to do that is to leave both others alive. The second shooter has only one real option - aim for the only person that will still have a bullet.
You've got go guess who's going to shoot who really. If 2 people aim at 1 person he's fucked. If 2 aim at each other and you kill the one you predicted would win, that's the only way to survive. Or if you all shot each other and the one who aimed at u missed. You'd survive
90% can win if they go first by taking out the 60%. Then there's only the 10% guy left. 10% has the best chance because the others don't see him as the biggest threat so they "should" go for each other.
@@RubelliteFae No, Stephen explicitly points out that Alan shoots first. Although if they didn't take turns and all three of them shot at the same time, I don't think Alan would need to miss. If they shot at the same time, the 90% and 60% bois would be most likely to aim for each other regardless, as the 10% guy wouldn't be seen as a threat. So the 10% guy could aim at either of them with no worry of risk.
John Nash died a couple of years ago in an accident and that was terribly depressing, especially because it didn't make much news. RIP, the world has lost a beautiful mind.
Brilliant film in my opinion and despite the disappointingly negative jibe Stephen made about it, I thought Russell played the part beautifully. Deeply moving story and a reminder that people with brilliant minds should not be treated as outcasts just because their behaviour doesn’t fit neatly inside a ‘box’ that society can easily accept or brainwash.
@@Monkey80llx Yeah, I don't understand what his problem is with Russel Crowe. The movie is absolutely brilliant and his performance got him nominated for an academy award, back when those still meant something.
I don't understand the end part about advertisement money. But I do recommend watching 'Sean Lock carrot in a box' video. I think it demonstrates game theory.
Shadow Heart basically they are only advertising to counteract their competitors, it’s cheaper for no-one to advertise. It’s called a Nash equilibrium Also carrot in a box is fucking brilliant
@mandellorian The flaw I saw in it was that it assumed the number of people taking up smoking would remain constant. Depending on the product, advertising does little to make people change brands; it is all about getting people to chose a particular brand in the first place.
CVS Pharmacy in America does this. Walgreens pharmacy does the ads, and CVS just literally builds a store right across the street. Just look for a Walgreens on Google Maps and look across the street. 90% of the time, there's a CVS there.
It's usually represented in tables like this: | advertise | don't advertise _advertise_ | $800 | $1600 _dont advertise_ | $200 | $1000 It show if you (in italics) advertise or not, and if your competitor advertises or not. The money represents what you might expect to make depending on whether you and your competitor advertise or not. For instance if you _advertise_ and your competitor advertises, then you can expect to make $800 in profits - $1000 from revenue, but spending $200 in advertising - $800 in profits. If you _advertise_ and your competitor does not advertise, then you might expect to make $1800 in revenue and pay $200 in advertising costs - $1600 in total profit. Similarly if you _dont advertise_ and your opponent does advertise, and with neither advertising. You can see by looking at the advertising column - that is, if you assume your competitor will advertise, then it is best for you to _advertise_ too - $800 vs $200. If you assume your competitor will not advertise, then it is also best for you to _advertise_, $1600 vs $1000 in profit. So in this particular example, you can figure out that your best strategy is to always advertise - even though both companies might earn more combined if neither advertised, they both have an incentive to advertise and so reduce the overall profits of the market.
A White Spider - a theory is based on evidence supported by data. It is not just a wild guess. The shoot out analogy is weak, but in terms of economics or eliminating competition at a job it works all the time.
I mean, if we're talking restaurants, they usually have a deal with one manufacturer/supplier/distributor (I'm not actually sure where Coke and Pepsi fall in those terms, possibly some of each), which says you can't sell the other's (well, probably says you can't sell anyone else's, but that's mostly the same thing).
@@qrbital9861 Nope, the episode is from 2009. Even if it was, game theory has been around for decades as explained in the clip. Hell, A Beautiful Mind is from 2001...
Let's be real here, most people who think they know anything about game theory actually don't. Even at best of times they will only recall the prisoner's dilemma and take away that being selfish is good without considering that this is false for the iterated prisoner's dilemma.
Advertisement only works for the first buy, after that it's the quality and availability of the products that decides the actual sales. Don't advertise once you've built a demographic interested in your product, at least not as heavily.
No. Hitting a target (i.e., a given person) or not hitting them has only those 2 options; probabilities rely on a binomial distribution. But if you are shooting randomly or not at a target, you have an infinite number of options as to where the bullet could end up; calculating those probabilities would be a lot more complex than a binomial distribution.
If the person was covering every single part of empty space around Alan except for a small area, then yes. There’s a 90% chance he would miss the area he’s aiming at but it’s likely to still hit open air unless he’s aiming right next to the person.
@@robertrouthier2603 God yeah, of course! That was a fantastic movie! Not seen that one in a dogs age! - And, now I think about it, Gladiator was a real solid quality summer blockbuster style movie....But again it's been about 20 years since I saw it last. - He's reeally good, in the right role.
I'm surprised some people have a low opinion of Crowe, I understand why not everyone liked him in Les Miserables - although I did enjoy it - but I thought he was very good in A Beautiful Mind.
@@lewis9434 I’m with you, he has an enjoyable on camera presence. Haven’t disliked him in any role that comes to mind. People just love to hate I think.
IF the setup is really supposed to be 1 bullet, taking turns, and you're allowed not to aim at someone, then the percentages are a red herring. The first one to go will be rendered harmless regardless of accuracy, and the second one will always shoot the one with a bullet left. And you'll end up with at least two shooters standing and a threesome. Clearly something was misunderstood about this example. At first I thought this scenario would only be interesting if everyone had to take aim first, and shoot at the same time, AND you were the only one who knew the percentages. In that case, aiming at yourself (or air, if allowed) would make the other two not to aim at you. You'd be 90% likely to miss yourelf and the others would aim at each other. In this line of thinking, if everyone knew the percentages, you should aim at one of them because they wouldn't aim at you anyway. However, the above paragraph is wrong too, because if everyone shot at the same time, it wouldn't matter who you aimed at. Shooting someone wouldn't prevent them shooting you too. So in reality, I don't see a set-up where any serious theorising would be relevant. All that matters is you don't kill anyone with your first shot, leaving you the only target - but that's blatantly obvious.
I think in this example, as they set it up, it does matter what the first shooter does. And you won't always be left with two men. Say Alan went first and hit Shaun. That leaves Phil to shoot Alan and take Liza. The percentages were used to "gamify" it in a sense. Because if the shots were 100%, and Alan shoots in the air to make the other two aim at each other, they still don't fire at the same time, and you end up with Phil shooting Shaun, which leaves Alan and Phil alive with no bullets. So if everyone could see the odds of hitting, as you said, it would be advantageous to be the middle man - the one with neither the best nor worst shot. Assuming it goes in order of worst to best. In that scenario if by some fluke Alan does hit Shaun, then Phil shoots an unarmed Alan. If Phil is forced to shoot Shaun because Alan missed or fired into the sky, only then does it leave the Alan and Phil alive but with no bullets. And that's the scenario that Stephen was getting at - it would always be better for Alan's character to miss; as counterintuitive as it seems.
@@Shrivedh Oh yeah, you don't always end up with at least two men alive, that was careless of me. (But given the percentages, you probably will.) My point (as I try to recall it, quickly reviewing my post!) was that yes, it makes sense to shoot in the air, but the percentages are a distraction. Aren't they? There's never a case where you want to be the only target available. Whether you're the one with 10% or 90% accuracy, or everyone's at 100%. The scenario isn't very good because it isn't established whether they choose their targets before they start shooting, in any case. I'm not refuting Stephen's (and your) conclusion, but I suspect the original conundrum (wherever they go it from) must have been more sophisticated than this.
Olli yeah the percentage accuracy seems to be pointless, only making the game theory more redundant. If everyone had a perfect shot, the the best case would be for you to purposely miss as then the second shooter kills the third. If you have percentage accuracy and the second shooter misses then the third shooter could shoot either the first or second shooter with an equal outcome for them. This means that it’s only beneficial if the second shooter hits so having a chance of a miss is pointless (in this rendition).
When I was in my early 20's I read The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod which is all about Game Theory and the human condition. It's not just fascinating to read but has been incredibly useful to draw upon when I've had to mediate. 10/10 recommend.
This is so interesting to hear about, a clear layman's explanation and example. Unfortunately if you try to Google game theory it's nothing but extremely complicated maths and doesn't keep being fun for the dummies such as myself
There's a TED-Ed video called the three wizards riddle or something similar that restates this same problem more clearly & goes into more detail about the solution. It's worth a watch
The definition of _scientific_ theory means the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge - as opposed to the more common uses of the word "theory" implying that something's unproven or speculative. _This is at odds with the phrase 'Just a theory',_ which is better described as 'just a _hypothesis._ Scientific theories guide fact-finding rather than reaching goals, 'to theorise' is literally to develop such a body of knowledge.
I argue that from a psychological perspective, if Alan did shoot his foot as drawing the gun, and making a song and dance of the pain, then the others would naturally look to each other. I suspect that if you actually shoot to the air it wouldn't be obvious of the intent?
This assumes that everyone knows each other's percentages, makes the correct decision, each only get one shot and that an order was established in which they shoot, where the worst shot gets the first shot. Some of these rules we are told, some are implied and the most important one (one shot each) is only given in the answer. The only thing tested here, is whether or not the candidates are smart enough to inquire about the rules or if they go with some preconception of a duel, which usually allows reloads whenever turns are taken.
@@zanussidish8144 I'm going to spend the remainder of my life .......if you use real bullets , that ' remainder ' might not be as long as you think :))
Even better example are all the memberships you can get with store chains. You will get your membership at the stores you most likely buy at anyway, so in the end prices just goes up to pay for the expensive campaigns that are these membership deals.
Is it just me or is that piece of music at the end an excerpt from the music made for Red Dwarf's "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", as composed by Howard Goodall, who also composed the QI theme as well? Or am I just making things up as I go along?
It's from one of the spaghetti westerns with a Mexican standoff. Either A Fistful of Dollars or The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Music by the late Ennio Morricone
In Stephan’s example he missed an pretty important detail, the companies will always chose to advertise because if they don’t advertise and their rival company does they will lose out more than if both companies were to advertise.
that's the whole point, all the companies in the industry 'shouldn't' advertise, his example was with two companies which are more likely to come to an agreement unlike multiple companies which makes it harder, the second example was the banning of smoking ads which the companies were happy with as the playing field remained the same but they kept their money...
It's *John* Nash and campy horror's been done (e.g. Rocky Horror Picture Show), though I do prefer Stephen's version. Also want to point out that zero-sum game theory is limited, so its use by politicians is dangerously stupid. In real life the best solution would have been for all three men to drop their guns, then drop their trousers and hop in the sack with Liza.
The number of people saying "But that's just a theory" in the comments. 🙄 That's just a _hypothesis._ And yes, I know about the YT channel sign off. They don't seem to know the difference either!
In this situation, I would not point my pistol in the air and discharge it immediately. I would wait to see who the other two aimed at. If one or both my opponents aimed at me, then I would discharge my pistol in the air, but if the other two aimed at each other, I would wait to see the outcome, and If they did shoot at each other, I would be safe and still have a free shot.
Assuming they take turns, which isn't clear from Stephen's description, the scenarios are: Alan misses, Phil kills Sean - nothing is resolved Alan misses, Phil misses Sean, Sean kills Phil - nothing is resolved Alan misses, Phil misses Sean, Sean kills Alan - nothing is resolved Alan misses, Phil misses, Sean misses - nothing is resolved Alan kills Phil, Sean kills Alan - Sean wins Alan kills Phil, Sean misses Alan - nothing is resolved Alan kills Sean, Phil kills Alan - Phil wins Alan kills Sean, Phil misses Alan - nothing is resolved It doesn't sound like much will likely be accomplished at all.
There are two more scenarios, admittedly less likely, in which Alan misses and Phil kills Alan, with Sean then either missing or killing Phil. The latter of those two results in a second way that Sean can win outright. I suspect that the original question intended everyone to be actually taking aim at someone tbh. If Alan were to aim for Sean and did kill him then at that stage Alan has only a 40% chance of coming out of the truel aive (the odds of Phil missing). If Alan were to aim for Phil and did kill him then at that stage Alan only has a 10% chance of staying alive (the odds of Sean missing). I'd assume that if Alan aims at either but misses then he has more than a 40% chance of survival. Certainly if Alan misses then there are 6 scenarios that can arise, with 3 of them leading to Alan being killed. Two of those scenarios rely on Phil killing Alan and leaving himself with only a 10% chance of survival afterwards, hence they are unlikely to happen, whilst the third needs both Alan and Phil to miss and then Sean to arbitrarily choosing Alan to aim at and kill rather than Phil, even though the truel cannot be resolved whichever one he chooses at that point.
It's reasonable to assume the "10% chance of hitting target" refers to a small or human target from a distance. Otherwise the statement becomes contradictory and they could pull off incredible feats like knife throwing with confidence, which goes against their implied incompetence.
The one problem with this is, do they get another round? Like if this keeps going on and on and on, then I'd argue it's best to shoot Sean... But it would depend on who goes first. If it's Alan, Phil, Sean (why are British people always having 4 letter names... even Liza), then MISS. If it's Alan, Sean, Phil - OR - Alan, Sean & Phil all doing it at the same time, then you shoot at Sean.
who would you rather stand next too , someone who has just smoked 10 ciggies , or someone who has just drunk 10 pints or shots? ......( hidden info : the smoker smoked them 100 yards away, had a shower and got changed......the drinker had an argument with his girlfriend and looks furious ).
This whole time I thought game theory was this vague abstract boring area of mathematics that I never read into. Didn't realise it was such a straightforward thing. Missing seems like the obvious answer ha
Of course it may seem obvious in this case, but the calculations would take place in something like a 3 by 3 by 3 matrix (excluding a couple of the absurd options Alan proposed) and if the numbers were slightly different (Alan’s a bit higher or Phill’s a bit lower) then the probabilities may come out differently and the best strategy would be to shoot Sean. Sometimes the results can be quite unexpected.
Game theory is pretty much the pinnacle of applied mathematics. You need a good model first and after that it can explain incredibly much. Ever wondered why humans are so cooperative and generally very helpful but also vindictive? Iterative prisoner's dilemma. To give you the abstract: When you have 2 people (or other "players") choosing between cooperation and "defection", i.e. being selfish or helpful, it is very obvious that being selfish helps you out more. If this happens multiple times though, different strategies can have different success and being a selfish bastard all the time will fail you while the generally best approach is "tit-for-tat" - you start out nice and after that you always do what your opponent did the turn before. Evoluionarily speaking, it's the winning strategy: be kind to others, but when they give you shit, you retaliate. But not more than necessary.
No that doesn't hold water. That theory with game theory would only hold if they each got a single shot. If they get more shots, the number's change and different out comes based on advantage and interest occur.
They cut the video too short, never came to any sort of conclusion. Also, isn't weird that none of them have heard of game theory? Iam 24 and heard of it maybe 6 years ago.
Nash equilibrium wouldn't be the gunfight, but the advertising. It's simultaneously a Nash equilibrium (whatever the other side does, you're better off advertising) and a Prisoner's Dilemma.
well no, you all have one shot each and someone misses, why aim at him when he has no bullet to kill you with instead of the guy with a bullet? the percentage to hit is irrelevent.
They don't need to know the percentages, just the who is the better shot in general. If you think of it in non-math terms, you are essentially making sure you are as non threatening as possible for as long as possible. Admittedly you still have a very low chance of winning, but by missing until one of the other two are dead you have a 1/10 chance of winning instead of a 1/100 or 1/25.
If he misses on purpose, then it's more likely that he will survive because the two others will likely hit each other in a duel and not then threaten him.
Game theory is fascinating! There's a way for 100 prisoners to each make 50 guesses at numbered mailboxes, each with a random number 1-100 in them, looking for their own prisoner id number, and for them ALL to find it. About half the time anyway.
If Alan is such a bad shot he misses 90% of the time, if he deliberately tries to shoot nobody is there a high chance he could miss and could actually hit somebody instead. I know he could shoot the opposite way or into the sky, but still he's a bad shot.
Then that is not a pistol duel but something else entirely! The rules of duels are that each party fire one shot only. They don't carry on shooting until only one person is left standing.
Yes it was banned due to the harmful effects of smoking, as you say, but the unintended consequence of that was it meant that competition in the tobacco market stayed the same whilst suddenly costing the companies a lot less money to achieve that.
It's not that unintuitive. Even if everyone had 100% accuracy, the correct strategy would still be to miss, since this guarantees you survive. Or in a version with unlimited bullets, the strategy would simply be for everyone to repeatedly miss forever. It's a Mexican standoff.
I tought that tabacco advertising bit was common reasoning for 4-year olds and up. I mean, A LOT of the things that are for personal interest go against the benefit of the species.
Alan is the worst shot. If there are two opponents on Phil's turn, Phil will shoot Sean because Sean is a bigger threat to him. So Alan is safe. The same for Sean. Phil is a better shot than Alan, so if there's a choice, Sean will shoot Phil. Alan is safe. But if Alan were to actually hit either one of them, then he's not safe because he'd be the only opponent of the man still standing. If he deliberately misses, he has a better chance of survival (although still fairly low).
If they are completely rational actors then they would ignore Alan, even if he did shoot at them, and shoot the better shooter. So you should go for the guy who hits 90%.
Allen tries shooting in the air
90% chance to miss
Misses the air
Ends up shooting Phil
MATHS
@@bilbo3474 MAFS
.....Well, yes. The bullet would come down again on someone's head.
@@Bloodlyshiva not fast enough to do anything though
@@whereisawesomeness Firearms expert Julian Hatcher studied falling bullets in the 1920s and calculated that . 30 caliber rounds reach terminal velocities of 90 m/s (300 feet per second or 186 miles per hour). A bullet traveling at only 61 m/s (200 feet per second) to 100 m/s (330 feet per second) can penetrate human skin.
As much as I love QI I'd pay good money to watch a non humorous version where Stephen Fry spent hours properly explaining topics like game theory and history to us.
Google university. They have lecturers that provide the experience youve just described!
But he doesn't understand them either, he's just reading from an auto cue.
@@sarcasticstartrek7719 doesn't matter cause he reads very well.
Titled "IQ."
VI - Very Interesting
10% and 60% of hitting? Is this xcom?
If this were Xcom, the 90% guy would miss too
"On Overwatch!"
Or more realistically your soldier with 90% would miss and the alien with 10% would then get a critical
Probably more like Fallout
@@tbandmint I can hear the sound of VATS activation
RIP Sean Lock (April 22, 1963 - August 16, 2021), aged 58
You will be remembered as a legend
It's a bit ironic to say "long live" someone who's just died
With lots of love.❤❤❤❤❤❤
Economist here.
Banning tobacco advertisements helped *incumbent* tobacco firms. It damaged new entrants from making a name for themselves because they couldn’t advertise. So it saved existing firms expenses and protected them from competition. Yay, I guess.
But it also probably hurt them in the long run, because they probably got fewer new customers. Of course their business model is addiction, so their old customers stayed, but of of the purposes of advertising tobacco is attracting new smokers.
@@Friek555
Possibly? But I doubt it. All the anti-smoking ads run over the past 40 years seem to have had no effect. Advertisement isn't as influential as all that; stronger are role models we seek to emulate. Smoking is advertised to non-smokers by smokers, so if Camel retains a customer instead of losing them to a discount brand, they also retain advertising.
Interestingly, the largest instrumental factor in stopping smoking is increases in income. By and large, rich people don't smoke. One potential explanation for this is that educated people get wealthy, and educated people don't smoke. But this doesn't bear out: high levels of education paired with low income generates higher levels of smoking than low education-high income.
An alternative explanation is that richer people tend to weigh future consumption higher relative to poorer people. Their deferral of consumption means they'd rather be healthier when they're older, and that transforms into a preference against smoking, which promises a momentary high against the risk of future early disease and death.
If the second hypothesis is true, it means that the reduction in smoking in the US over the last 70 years has been due to overall economic growth, not banning smoking ads, and not anti-smoking campaigns. And if that's true, then Big Tobacco's strategy to support bans on smoking ads to gain market share was the dominant strategy to maximize revenue in an exogenously shrinking market.
Philip Morris, for example, generated less than 20% of its revenue in North America. But if you adjust that for regional differences in currency purchasing power (ie: Purchasing Power Parity), PM generates less than 7% of its revenue in the US.
Domestic US advertising bans are not harming them.
@Dale Haygarth
These are incidental to the main question, but I'll get them out of the way.
"[middle class] seems to be shrinking at the present"
The middle class, when defined by inflation-adjusted household income is shrinking in the US as a proportion of all households. So is the lower class. The single class which has grown as a proportion of households is the upper class. So while it's true that the middle class is disappearing, it's disappearing *up*. Strangely, this isn't mentioned, despite being a very good thing indeed.
"Chinese more-money less-smoking"
I haven't seen statistics for China, so I shouldn't opine. However, if pressed: while I was there the only people who didn't smoke were well-off. But even that anecdote is 20 years out of date.
@Dale Haygarth
"what would be the best strategy to decrease smoking rates at a faster rate"
I'm not entirely certain the elimination of smoking is a desideratum (I occasionally smoke a pipe, and less often a cigar), and I'm a former cigarette smoker (quit a long time ago) so I understand the appeal. Quite frankly: there never was a cigarette I didn't enjoy emmensely, and the most content my body has ever been in public was a post-meal cigarette.
THAT BEING SAID
As mentioned in my first comment, the burden of regulation falls hardest on local business who can't afford specialized regulatory compliance departments. This is particularly true of occupational licensure, which prevents individuals from hanging a shingle and opening their own business. Ostensibly this is done out of concern for the consumer. Effectively this rewards guilds who control the licensing process.
So step one would be the conversion of licensing requirements into certification requirements. (Certifications not being required to conduct business, but as an assurance the proprietor has met certain measured standards of performance.) Large firms will still dominate industries characterized by large fixed costs, but they will lose a competitive edge against smaller local and regional competitors.
Step two would be a modification of the tax code. The income tax in particular is, while seemingly progressive, in practice incredibly regressive: poor households receive a majority of revenue through paychecks while wealthy households generate revenue through capital assets. Restructure the tax code to generate revenue through expenditures, not revenues, and you greatly mitigate this issue. Associated benefits would be the elimination of incentives around marital status, and the awkwardness of government defining what is and what is not a lawful marriage.
Step three is an overhaul of the welfare system to eliminate incentives against poor families increasing their income. The EITC is a model for how well this can work. Expanding the EITC would make sense if a federal income tax remained, not dissimilar from a UBI. I suppose the federal income taxes could be reduced to 0% for the purposes of distributing the EITC-like UBI. Note that this is not an elimination of welfare; I rather think more should be expended. But the way we're spending welfare dollars goes more to the administration than to the recipients, and money we're spending maintaining the regulatory state is detracting from funds that could be directed to individual families.
Step four is the creation of a sinking fund to end social security. Adults will receive benefits proportionate to what they were taxed, but promises to provide for the future of twenty-somethings needs to stop. Everyone will have to bite the bullet on this.
--------
You'll notice this isn't an anti-smoking scheme. It's purely a wealth-creation scheme. It's an attempt to allow the conditions which seem effective at getting people to stop smoking to form, which is personal income growth. Looking at the past 70 years of outlawing marijuana makes me think there is little the government can do to effectively stop a vice without serious trespass on the rights and dignity of the individual, and that error, far from being repeated with respect to tobacco, should be reversed with marijuana.
@@Friek555 Every time a child sees their parent smoke it's advertising. Every time they show someone on TV or the movies smoking it's advertising to children. Once the ball got rolling and enough idiots smoked because of the ads, the big companies really had no reason to do ads.
The whole scenario changes when he finally tells you they only have one shot each.
Yeah, but thats common in duel, isn't it.
@@rehanmemon3969 it's not common to have three people in a duel though
Yeah, the scenario is different if they take turns shooting until only one remains. Then I suppose it would be best to always try to shoot the one with best chance to hit you.
no, it isn't. alan should still try to miss
@@globalincident694 maybe, maybe not, tomorrow if I'm not sick and bedridden I will sit down and calculate on it and see what I come up with.
Alan: "Shoot myself." Well there's a 90% chance you'll miss.
Yeah, shooting at nothing is highly risky!
Matpat looks different
ccjesper too bad this isnt an actual game
mamuburaa wow, it’s almost like that’s the entire point of his show. That is, to try and make it possible for anyone to learn from. Quite a shocking revelation, I know.
@@Diphenhydra If you're implying that MatPat makes an accessible form of "Game Theory", you are incorrect. He doesn't cover what mathematicians call "game theory" at all. He covers theories about videogames, which is a very different thing.
@@FortoFight I wasn't trying to imply he covers "game theory." But that he dives deeper into games and uses science to explain things. And then presents it in a way that anybody can grasp. It's like providing examples for certain things, like how he talks about dopamine, in a more relatable way.
He talks about Game Theory _once_ - on his video about Hunger Games over on the film theory Channel.
It's hardly fair to complain that he doesn't explain game theory properly when that isn't even the goal.
I get it's annoying when you want to learn about actual game theory and all you get are videos about FNAF or Undertale or whatever, but it should be clear by the title and the thumbnail that is hasn't shit to do with game theory.
Don't know why but this is my favourite segment of QI ever. May be the subject matter or the guests themselves, but I really engaged with it.
The clips seem to get cut off before they've completely finished the topic.
it's very clever of them. hooking us with great clips and cutting off slightly early; so that we'll feel compulsion to go watch the full episode hahaha
that's because nearly the entire show is a continuation of topics. they rarely stop and switch topics at all, and the show is broken up into 4, maybe 5 distinct segments at most.
It's so you go watch it on Netflix
@@kenopsia9013 wish I could watch it on Netflix :( not in my country
Phil's gun appeared in an earlier clip
When you add in the factors that they are shooting one at a time, and each person only has one bullet, then the person going first cannot possibly win even if he was the 90%. The only favorable outcome for him at all is to survive, and the best way to do that is to leave both others alive. The second shooter has only one real option - aim for the only person that will still have a bullet.
You've got go guess who's going to shoot who really. If 2 people aim at 1 person he's fucked. If 2 aim at each other and you kill the one you predicted would win, that's the only way to survive. Or if you all shot each other and the one who aimed at u missed. You'd survive
90% can win if they go first by taking out the 60%. Then there's only the 10% guy left.
10% has the best chance because the others don't see him as the biggest threat so they "should" go for each other.
@@RubelliteFae No, Stephen explicitly points out that Alan shoots first.
Although if they didn't take turns and all three of them shot at the same time, I don't think Alan would need to miss. If they shot at the same time, the 90% and 60% bois would be most likely to aim for each other regardless, as the 10% guy wouldn't be seen as a threat. So the 10% guy could aim at either of them with no worry of risk.
@@littlefieryone2825 lol, I don't understand my own comment. 😅
@@RubelliteFae Eh no worries :)
Hello internet, welcome to game theory
Yes!
I came here to leave this comment
That's just a theory, aaaaand cut!
Is Alan actually DEAD?
@@jongensspelenspellen5471 Alan is actually SANS!
Target the player with 90%; they'll take the most knockback.
For Alan's neutral special, he uses GUN.
Stephen was actually Nes the whole time
John Nash died a couple of years ago in an accident and that was terribly depressing, especially because it didn't make much news. RIP, the world has lost a beautiful mind.
Brilliant film in my opinion and despite the disappointingly negative jibe Stephen made about it, I thought Russell played the part beautifully. Deeply moving story and a reminder that people with brilliant minds should not be treated as outcasts just because their behaviour doesn’t fit neatly inside a ‘box’ that society can easily accept or brainwash.
@@Monkey80llx agreed.
Did he shoot himself?
@@Monkey80llx Yeah, I don't understand what his problem is with Russel Crowe. The movie is absolutely brilliant and his performance got him nominated for an academy award, back when those still meant something.
So a mathematician won the Nobel Prize. So what did he win the Nobel Prize in? Because there is no Nobel Prize for mathematics.
I don't understand the end part about advertisement money. But I do recommend watching 'Sean Lock carrot in a box' video. I think it demonstrates game theory.
Shadow Heart basically they are only advertising to counteract their competitors, it’s cheaper for no-one to advertise. It’s called a Nash equilibrium
Also carrot in a box is fucking brilliant
I see. I'll read more into it.
Cheers, mate.
@mandellorian
The flaw I saw in it was that it assumed the number of people taking up smoking would remain constant.
Depending on the product, advertising does little to make people change brands; it is all about getting people to chose a particular brand in the first place.
CVS Pharmacy in America does this. Walgreens pharmacy does the ads, and CVS just literally builds a store right across the street. Just look for a Walgreens on Google Maps and look across the street. 90% of the time, there's a CVS there.
It's usually represented in tables like this:
| advertise | don't advertise
_advertise_ | $800 | $1600
_dont advertise_ | $200 | $1000
It show if you (in italics) advertise or not, and if your competitor advertises or not. The money represents what you might expect to make depending on whether you and your competitor advertise or not. For instance if you _advertise_ and your competitor advertises, then you can expect to make $800 in profits - $1000 from revenue, but spending $200 in advertising - $800 in profits. If you _advertise_ and your competitor does not advertise, then you might expect to make $1800 in revenue and pay $200 in advertising costs - $1600 in total profit. Similarly if you _dont advertise_ and your opponent does advertise, and with neither advertising.
You can see by looking at the advertising column - that is, if you assume your competitor will advertise, then it is best for you to _advertise_ too - $800 vs $200. If you assume your competitor will not advertise, then it is also best for you to _advertise_, $1600 vs $1000 in profit. So in this particular example, you can figure out that your best strategy is to always advertise - even though both companies might earn more combined if neither advertised, they both have an incentive to advertise and so reduce the overall profits of the market.
Always suspected that Alan was a stormtrooper.
Allen?
But that's just a theory
A GAME THEORY
A FILM THEORY
A GAY THEORY
*A GAME THEORY*
A White Spider - a theory is based on evidence supported by data. It is not just a wild guess. The shoot out analogy is weak, but in terms of economics or eliminating competition at a job it works all the time.
"it's the greatest advertising opportunity since the invention of cereal" - Mad Men on the Tobacco advertising ban
My favourite ad was in the movie The Invention of Lying:
Pepsi. For when they dont sell Coke.
I mean, if we're talking restaurants, they usually have a deal with one manufacturer/supplier/distributor (I'm not actually sure where Coke and Pepsi fall in those terms, possibly some of each), which says you can't sell the other's (well, probably says you can't sell anyone else's, but that's mostly the same thing).
I find it hard to believe that none of those folks ever heard of game theory!
This was filmed before RUclips I believe
@@qrbital9861 Nope, the episode is from 2009. Even if it was, game theory has been around for decades as explained in the clip. Hell, A Beautiful Mind is from 2001...
Let's be real here, most people who think they know anything about game theory actually don't. Even at best of times they will only recall the prisoner's dilemma and take away that being selfish is good without considering that this is false for the iterated prisoner's dilemma.
Right? I'd have thought they'd at least know what a zero-sum game is.
i was really hoping this video would be stephen explaining the five nights at freddy's lore
I am not throwing away my shot
It's in your best interest to do so.
zedoomeloo Musical reference, not strategy
Pity Hamilton died anyway
Just like my country I'm young, scrappy and hungry
@@pivinne5536 Yeah, because at the end he *did* throw away his shot ;)
Advertisement only works for the first buy, after that it's the quality and availability of the products that decides the actual sales.
Don't advertise once you've built a demographic interested in your product, at least not as heavily.
At what point does he specify that there is only one bullet each? Or did I miss it?
That's the point of a duel (or truel in this case), you only get one shot.
He mentions it twice. 0:39 and I'm too lazy to look for the other
If Alan tries to miss, is there not a 90% chance he’d actually a person?
No. Hitting a target (i.e., a given person) or not hitting them has only those 2 options; probabilities rely on a binomial distribution. But if you are shooting randomly or not at a target, you have an infinite number of options as to where the bullet could end up; calculating those probabilities would be a lot more complex than a binomial distribution.
If the person was covering every single part of empty space around Alan except for a small area, then yes. There’s a 90% chance he would miss the area he’s aiming at but it’s likely to still hit open air unless he’s aiming right next to the person.
Crowe is really good when he's in _the right kind of movie for him_ ( *Master & Commander* (2003) and *Nice Guys* (2016) spring immediately to mind)
LA Confidential as well
@@robertrouthier2603 God yeah, of course!
That was a fantastic movie! Not seen that one in a dogs age!
- And, now I think about it, Gladiator was a real solid quality summer blockbuster style movie....But again it's been about 20 years since I saw it last.
- He's reeally good, in the right role.
I'm surprised some people have a low opinion of Crowe, I understand why not everyone liked him in Les Miserables - although I did enjoy it - but I thought he was very good in A Beautiful Mind.
@@lewis9434 I’m with you, he has an enjoyable on camera presence. Haven’t disliked him in any role that comes to mind. People just love to hate I think.
@@lewis9434 yeah, the script was an embellishment on reality (big surprise there), but I think the movie was well acted
10% chance of hitting? He's a storm trooper!
Are you nuts! At 10% he's far better!
IF the setup is really supposed to be 1 bullet, taking turns, and you're allowed not to aim at someone, then the percentages are a red herring. The first one to go will be rendered harmless regardless of accuracy, and the second one will always shoot the one with a bullet left. And you'll end up with at least two shooters standing and a threesome. Clearly something was misunderstood about this example.
At first I thought this scenario would only be interesting if everyone had to take aim first, and shoot at the same time, AND you were the only one who knew the percentages. In that case, aiming at yourself (or air, if allowed) would make the other two not to aim at you. You'd be 90% likely to miss yourelf and the others would aim at each other. In this line of thinking, if everyone knew the percentages, you should aim at one of them because they wouldn't aim at you anyway.
However, the above paragraph is wrong too, because if everyone shot at the same time, it wouldn't matter who you aimed at. Shooting someone wouldn't prevent them shooting you too. So in reality, I don't see a set-up where any serious theorising would be relevant. All that matters is you don't kill anyone with your first shot, leaving you the only target - but that's blatantly obvious.
I think in this example, as they set it up, it does matter what the first shooter does. And you won't always be left with two men.
Say Alan went first and hit Shaun. That leaves Phil to shoot Alan and take Liza. The percentages were used to "gamify" it in a sense. Because if the shots were 100%, and Alan shoots in the air to make the other two aim at each other, they still don't fire at the same time, and you end up with Phil shooting Shaun, which leaves Alan and Phil alive with no bullets.
So if everyone could see the odds of hitting, as you said, it would be advantageous to be the middle man - the one with neither the best nor worst shot. Assuming it goes in order of worst to best. In that scenario if by some fluke Alan does hit Shaun, then Phil shoots an unarmed Alan. If Phil is forced to shoot Shaun because Alan missed or fired into the sky, only then does it leave the Alan and Phil alive but with no bullets. And that's the scenario that Stephen was getting at - it would always be better for Alan's character to miss; as counterintuitive as it seems.
@@Shrivedh Oh yeah, you don't always end up with at least two men alive, that was careless of me. (But given the percentages, you probably will.)
My point (as I try to recall it, quickly reviewing my post!) was that yes, it makes sense to shoot in the air, but the percentages are a distraction. Aren't they? There's never a case where you want to be the only target available. Whether you're the one with 10% or 90% accuracy, or everyone's at 100%.
The scenario isn't very good because it isn't established whether they choose their targets before they start shooting, in any case. I'm not refuting Stephen's (and your) conclusion, but I suspect the original conundrum (wherever they go it from) must have been more sophisticated than this.
Olli yeah the percentage accuracy seems to be pointless, only making the game theory more redundant. If everyone had a perfect shot, the the best case would be for you to purposely miss as then the second shooter kills the third.
If you have percentage accuracy and the second shooter misses then the third shooter could shoot either the first or second shooter with an equal outcome for them. This means that it’s only beneficial if the second shooter hits so having a chance of a miss is pointless (in this rendition).
Glad to see Liza in such things. Last of her was Watching ( a splendid series).
Eat your heart out, MatPat.
When I was in my early 20's I read The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod which is all about Game Theory and the human condition. It's not just fascinating to read but has been incredibly useful to draw upon when I've had to mediate. 10/10 recommend.
This is so interesting to hear about, a clear layman's explanation and example. Unfortunately if you try to Google game theory it's nothing but extremely complicated maths and doesn't keep being fun for the dummies such as myself
There's a TED-Ed video called the three wizards riddle or something similar that restates this same problem more clearly & goes into more detail about the solution. It's worth a watch
Why are you afraid of math?
Basics of game theory are really simple though. It's mostly just common sense.
Always interesting. QI
The end of this video describes what’s likely to happen with gambling advertising.
But HEY! Thats just a theory...... *A GAME THEORY*
The definition of _scientific_ theory means the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge - as opposed to the more common uses of the word "theory" implying that something's unproven or speculative. _This is at odds with the phrase 'Just a theory',_ which is better described as 'just a _hypothesis._
Scientific theories guide fact-finding rather than reaching goals, 'to theorise' is literally to develop such a body of knowledge.
Hmm, I wonder how long it'll be before someone makes a comment about Matpat? Wait...damnit!
I liked Russell Crowe in a beautiful mind thank you very much Steven.
I argue that from a psychological perspective, if Alan did shoot his foot as drawing the gun, and making a song and dance of the pain, then the others would naturally look to each other.
I suspect that if you actually shoot to the air it wouldn't be obvious of the intent?
RIP Sean
But what happens if they all miss. Is it then a four-way with lisa?
Thanks
This assumes that everyone knows each other's percentages, makes the correct decision, each only get one shot and that an order was established in which they shoot, where the worst shot gets the first shot. Some of these rules we are told, some are implied and the most important one (one shot each) is only given in the answer. The only thing tested here, is whether or not the candidates are smart enough to inquire about the rules or if they go with some preconception of a duel, which usually allows reloads whenever turns are taken.
Larry Lawton Laughing - the rules of a 'gentleman's duel' are that each competitor only gets 1 shot.
Otherwise it's just an uncouth gun fight.
If al has a 90% chance to miss, then if he aims to miss he's more likely to hit
you're twisting my melon
I'm going to spend the remainder of my life working out, hypothetically, if this is true or not.
@@zanussidish8144 I'm going to spend the remainder of my life .......if you use real bullets , that ' remainder ' might not be as long as you think :))
@@richard6440 Indeed, that's why I said hypothetically.
@@zanussidish8144 indeed , thats why i said...' might
Even better example are all the memberships you can get with store chains. You will get your membership at the stores you most likely buy at anyway, so in the end prices just goes up to pay for the expensive campaigns that are these membership deals.
I hate those schemes.
First heard of game-theory watching Starship troopers.
Is it just me or is that piece of music at the end an excerpt from the music made for Red Dwarf's "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", as composed by Howard Goodall, who also composed the QI theme as well? Or am I just making things up as I go along?
It's just a generic western style piece of music
It's from one of the spaghetti westerns with a Mexican standoff. Either A Fistful of Dollars or The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Music by the late Ennio Morricone
1:19 What's the sudden quality climax
i kept thinking the same thing, sounds like edited in laughter ontop.
Does Lisa have a say in all this?
She's a woman, so of course not.
after 2 or 3 loud gunshots , she says that she has a headache.
Okay so, let's ban all advertising. Everyone wins
3:18 nice toothbrush there Sean
i dont get it..
ah.. thanks for taking the time to explain :)
Game theory is fun.
Fine, ban all advertising. In fact, don't even let advertisers advertise that they advertise.
This sounds like an interesting form of Russian roulette. Alan has a one out of ten chance to hit you and then he shoots at people in a ring.
I'm glad this isn't about a certain clickbait RUclips channel.
(But then, it's QI, from which I always expect a higher standard.)
In Stephan’s example he missed an pretty important detail, the companies will always chose to advertise because if they don’t advertise and their rival company does they will lose out more than if both companies were to advertise.
that's the whole point, all the companies in the industry 'shouldn't' advertise, his example was with two companies which are more likely to come to an agreement unlike multiple companies which makes it harder, the second example was the banning of smoking ads which the companies were happy with as the playing field remained the same but they kept their money...
A good example of this theory is the movie , The good The bad the ugly final shootout scene😅
It's *John* Nash and campy horror's been done (e.g. Rocky Horror Picture Show), though I do prefer Stephen's version. Also want to point out that zero-sum game theory is limited, so its use by politicians is dangerously stupid. In real life the best solution would have been for all three men to drop their guns, then drop their trousers and hop in the sack with Liza.
Well if he has that high a chance of missing, he could aim at Sean and hit Phil.
Tobacco companies didn't stop advertising all together, they still advertised in magazines and billboards with a health warning.
Depends where you live, in several countries they cannot advertise anywhere.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tobacco ad in any form. I don’t look at many magazines but I’ve definitely never seen them on billboards.
Matt Patt is going to have something to say about this episode.
Delope is quite an interesting word.
The number of people saying "But that's just a theory" in the comments. 🙄
That's just a _hypothesis._
And yes, I know about the YT channel sign off. They don't seem to know the difference either!
In this situation, I would not point my pistol in the air and discharge it immediately. I would wait to see who the other two aimed at. If one or both my opponents aimed at me, then I would discharge my pistol in the air, but if the other two aimed at each other, I would wait to see the outcome, and If they did shoot at each other, I would be safe and still have a free shot.
Smoking cigarettes is like watching Star Wars. Very few people who didn't do it in their youth take it up later on in life.
Best option is to miss both of them right?
I know game theory. But hey, that’s just a theory. A game theory.
*BUT THAT'S JUST A THEORY!*
A GAME THEORY
happygolucky ornot no thats a law
r/woooosh
happygolucky ornot *A GAME THEORY*
That's just a _hypothesis!_
You only get one shot
Do not miss you chance to blow
The opportunity comes
once in a lifetime
3:18 I always had the feeling sean was a second coming of hitler
the shadow of Hitler
They got the setup wrong. That scenario only works if they all have to shoot shoot at once (like in a normal duel).
"I just simultaneously wiped and nae naed!"
Game theory = Never try.
That only works if they have one round each... If they continued until there was only one person left standing, Alan is likely a gonner anyway.
In pistol duels, the rules are that each party fire one shot only. They do not continue until only one person is left standing.
Good thing he said they only have one round each.
Is that a Boston Red Sox lapel pin I see?
Assuming they take turns, which isn't clear from Stephen's description, the scenarios are:
Alan misses, Phil kills Sean - nothing is resolved
Alan misses, Phil misses Sean, Sean kills Phil - nothing is resolved
Alan misses, Phil misses Sean, Sean kills Alan - nothing is resolved
Alan misses, Phil misses, Sean misses - nothing is resolved
Alan kills Phil, Sean kills Alan - Sean wins
Alan kills Phil, Sean misses Alan - nothing is resolved
Alan kills Sean, Phil kills Alan - Phil wins
Alan kills Sean, Phil misses Alan - nothing is resolved
It doesn't sound like much will likely be accomplished at all.
There are two more scenarios, admittedly less likely, in which Alan misses and Phil kills Alan, with Sean then either missing or killing Phil. The latter of those two results in a second way that Sean can win outright.
I suspect that the original question intended everyone to be actually taking aim at someone tbh. If Alan were to aim for Sean and did kill him then at that stage Alan has only a 40% chance of coming out of the truel aive (the odds of Phil missing). If Alan were to aim for Phil and did kill him then at that stage Alan only has a 10% chance of staying alive (the odds of Sean missing).
I'd assume that if Alan aims at either but misses then he has more than a 40% chance of survival. Certainly if Alan misses then there are 6 scenarios that can arise, with 3 of them leading to Alan being killed. Two of those scenarios rely on Phil killing Alan and leaving himself with only a 10% chance of survival afterwards, hence they are unlikely to happen, whilst the third needs both Alan and Phil to miss and then Sean to arbitrarily choosing Alan to aim at and kill rather than Phil, even though the truel cannot be resolved whichever one he chooses at that point.
If you have a 10% chance of hitting, wouldn't an attempt to deliberately miss have a 90% chance of failure? 🤣
It's reasonable to assume the "10% chance of hitting target" refers to a small or human target from a distance. Otherwise the statement becomes contradictory and they could pull off incredible feats like knife throwing with confidence, which goes against their implied incompetence.
@@matthewchampion8214 it’s also reasonable to assume that the original comment was a joke.
The one problem with this is, do they get another round? Like if this keeps going on and on and on, then I'd argue it's best to shoot Sean... But it would depend on who goes first.
If it's Alan, Phil, Sean (why are British people always having 4 letter names... even Liza), then MISS.
If it's Alan, Sean, Phil - OR - Alan, Sean & Phil all doing it at the same time, then you shoot at Sean.
Duels have only one shot - it's in the rules. 😬
And yet alcohol is still allowed to be advertised even though it causes so many accidents, takes so many lives and destroys so many families.
who would you rather stand next too , someone who has just smoked 10 ciggies , or someone who has just drunk 10 pints or shots? ......( hidden info : the smoker smoked them 100 yards away, had a shower and got changed......the drinker had an argument with his girlfriend and looks furious ).
This whole time I thought game theory was this vague abstract boring area of mathematics that I never read into. Didn't realise it was such a straightforward thing. Missing seems like the obvious answer ha
Of course it may seem obvious in this case, but the calculations would take place in something like a 3 by 3 by 3 matrix (excluding a couple of the absurd options Alan proposed) and if the numbers were slightly different (Alan’s a bit higher or Phill’s a bit lower) then the probabilities may come out differently and the best strategy would be to shoot Sean. Sometimes the results can be quite unexpected.
if Alan misses deliberately, does that mean he has a 90% chance of missing a miss?
Only after you learn that they only have one bullet.
Game theory is pretty much the pinnacle of applied mathematics. You need a good model first and after that it can explain incredibly much. Ever wondered why humans are so cooperative and generally very helpful but also vindictive? Iterative prisoner's dilemma. To give you the abstract: When you have 2 people (or other "players") choosing between cooperation and "defection", i.e. being selfish or helpful, it is very obvious that being selfish helps you out more. If this happens multiple times though, different strategies can have different success and being a selfish bastard all the time will fail you while the generally best approach is "tit-for-tat" - you start out nice and after that you always do what your opponent did the turn before. Evoluionarily speaking, it's the winning strategy: be kind to others, but when they give you shit, you retaliate. But not more than necessary.
No that doesn't hold water. That theory with game theory would only hold if they each got a single shot. If they get more shots, the number's change and different out comes based on advantage and interest occur.
*numbers
*they get different outcomes
Then it's a good thing he said they only get one shot.
They cut the video too short, never came to any sort of conclusion. Also, isn't weird that none of them have heard of game theory? Iam 24 and heard of it maybe 6 years ago.
If you only heard of game theory 6 years ago then the panellists heard of it long before you did as this episode was first broadcast 10 years ago.
That isn’t quite Nash equilibrium
Nash equilibrium wouldn't be the gunfight, but the advertising. It's simultaneously a Nash equilibrium (whatever the other side does, you're better off advertising) and a Prisoner's Dilemma.
Heh, assumes that the other two know the percentages as well
well no, you all have one shot each and someone misses, why aim at him when he has no bullet to kill you with instead of the guy with a bullet? the percentage to hit is irrelevent.
missed the bit about "first shot"
They don't need to know the percentages, just the who is the better shot in general.
If you think of it in non-math terms, you are essentially making sure you are as non threatening as possible for as long as possible.
Admittedly you still have a very low chance of winning, but by missing until one of the other two are dead you have a 1/10 chance of winning instead of a 1/100 or 1/25.
If he misses on purpose, then it's more likely that he will survive because the two others will likely hit each other in a duel and not then threaten him.
Did Stephen call him Michael Nash? I thought his name was John Nash. At least it was in the book I read.
It sounded like “a man called Nash” to me 🤷🏻♀️
The only way to win is not to play at AIl
Game theory is fascinating! There's a way for 100 prisoners to each make 50 guesses at numbered mailboxes, each with a random number 1-100 in them, looking for their own prisoner id number, and for them ALL to find it. About half the time anyway.
If Alan is such a bad shot he misses 90% of the time, if he deliberately tries to shoot nobody is there a high chance he could miss and could actually hit somebody instead. I know he could shoot the opposite way or into the sky, but still he's a bad shot.
That's not how being a bad shot works dummy...
You can still deliberately miss.
Ngl if you're aiming to miss with only 10% accuracy you're more likely to hit them
Now what is the best move if they are packing 6-shooters?
Then that is not a pistol duel but something else entirely! The rules of duels are that each party fire one shot only. They don't carry on shooting until only one person is left standing.
I don't think tobacco advertising was banned because of the costs to the companies... it was the cost to people's lives that was the problem.
Yes it was banned due to the harmful effects of smoking, as you say, but the unintended consequence of that was it meant that competition in the tobacco market stayed the same whilst suddenly costing the companies a lot less money to achieve that.
It's not that unintuitive. Even if everyone had 100% accuracy, the correct strategy would still be to miss, since this guarantees you survive. Or in a version with unlimited bullets, the strategy would simply be for everyone to repeatedly miss forever. It's a Mexican standoff.
Duels don't have unlimited bullets, they have one.
Game theory is why we pay bureaucrats huge amounts of money to be ready for crises, like pandemics, oh fuck that was wasted money.
Yeah, unfortunately, the pandemic response team was disbanded before the pandemic hit.
Or just quit the relationship.
I tought that tabacco advertising bit was common reasoning for 4-year olds and up.
I mean, A LOT of the things that are for personal interest go against the benefit of the species.
I still dont get it, who again should Allan shoot and why?
Alan is the worst shot. If there are two opponents on Phil's turn, Phil will shoot Sean because Sean is a bigger threat to him. So Alan is safe.
The same for Sean. Phil is a better shot than Alan, so if there's a choice, Sean will shoot Phil. Alan is safe.
But if Alan were to actually hit either one of them, then he's not safe because he'd be the only opponent of the man still standing. If he deliberately misses, he has a better chance of survival (although still fairly low).
Then Alan has to hope he's better at a scuffle
Alan should shoot no one. Then let the other 2 shoot at each other.
What is the solution of the truel when we think of game theory ?
If they are completely rational actors then they would ignore Alan, even if he did shoot at them, and shoot the better shooter. So you should go for the guy who hits 90%.
No, cause theres 10% chance you wont miss, and if you don’t miss theres 60 percent chance that you get shot.
But that's just a theory, a game theory