good old non-credible days

the world has changed so much. some non-credible threats have now become so credible. in a hijack-game in undergrad class today, the prof referred to the game as being played in pre 9/11 days. that one sentence held so much information for a game theory student. it made me smile, despite the underlying gloom in its meaning. there was a time in this world when killing oneself (with killing others) was considered an incredible threat, by theorists at least. even though the people threatened often took it seriously and thus obeyed. though this started to change in parts of the world even before 9/11, it was 9/11 that left no doubt about the credibility of such threats. since then, blowing oneself up in order to blow others, is no longer seen as having a negative payoff for the perpetrator of the threat. in fact, sometimes the suicide bomber may not need the excuse of his demand not being fulfilled to threaten to bomb. the bombing may in itself be an end result to him/her. and what's scary is that, in such situations, for reasons still bewildering and half unknown, there may in fact be a positive and dominant payoff to the bomber.

so the prof changed the payoffs to represent a present-day scenario for comparison. subgame perfect: bomb no matter what.

the be-nice-to-strangers is beyond me. how can she paste that smile on her face for so long while checking so many people out, and greet everyone with the same pleasantness. and then make small talk, "enjoying the sunshine? i'm loving every minute of it". how can she love the sunshine when she is indoors the entire day beeping objects and cards and smiling and saying, "thank you, have a great day". i guess its nice to be nice and to have people being nice to you. but did anyone wonder about the dipping curve of the marginal utility of niceness.