Many Moves Ahead
There’s a common scene in a lot of movies.
Sometimes they’re actually playing chess.
Other times they’re using chess metaphors.
The metaphors are centered around who’s got the best strategies.
Like one guy will say, “I’ve got you in five moves.”
But then the other guy will say, “Yeah, I’ve got you in three moves.”
Sometimes they’ll say things like seeing several moves ahead.
The mathematical structure of Game Theory is all about this kind of thing.
My favorite is why there are no tobacco commercials on TV.
The general belief is our government, concerned for our well being, made cigarette commercials against the rules.
But this isn’t quite accurate.
They did, officially, but they got out-gamed.
Who’s The Boss?
The government is almost always out-gamed by large corporations.
Anyhow, back in the day, there were two big tobacco companies.
We’ll call them A and B.
This was right when TV ads were starting to be a thing.
So each company, on its own, did a game theory analysis.
If A spent money on TV ads, and B didn’t, A would spend money but gain market share.
This would be unlikely.
B had the same idea.
If B spent money on TV ads, but A didn’t, B would spend more and get more market share.
If both spent money on TV ads, they’d each spend more money, but each would have the same market share.
Since there would be an equal number of commercials for A and B.
So the each came up with the independent solution.
If neither A nor B spent ads, they would keep their same spend and market share.
But what if somebody else came along and started spending money on TV ads?
They’d each have to spend MORE MONEY just to keep even.
So the natural solution was to lobby the government to make TV ads for tobacco ILLEGAL.
This was in the best interests of the Tobacco people.
NOT the innocent citizens who might be seduced into smoking by their TV.
Most people only see simple relationships.
A happens and B happens.
Complex Systems
But as economics Bastiat said a couple hundred years ago, it’s not what you see, it’s what you DON’T see that really drives things.
This is why dudes who play chess study the board for a while before making a move (at least when they aren’t playing blitz, where they only have a small window of time.)
While they are staring at the board, they are thinking:
If I do this, and he does this, then I can do this, in which case he might do this.
See the world this way, and only YOU will understand why you’re so successful.
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