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Hi! My name is Michael Chwe
and this is my book,
"Jane Austen, Game Theorist."
Jane Austen wrote her six novels
two hundred years ago in England
but now she is loved throughout the world.
Here in Los Angeles,
you can see Austen's first editions,
walk through an English garden,
and even visit the seaside,
a very important location in Austen's novels.
Austen is one of the most popular
and beloved writers of all time.
Some love Austen because of her language.
Some love Austen because they love
Regency England—
its fashion, manners, and dances.
I love Austen because she is a game theorist.
Game theory is the mathematical study
of strategic thinking:
how people make decisions
in anticipation of the actions of others.
Game theory as an academic subject
started in the 1940s and 50s.
The life story of John Nash
was popularized in the movie,
"A Beautiful Mind."
In its early days,
an important center for game theory
was the RAND Corporation,
the think tank parodied
in the movie Dr. Strangelove.
>>Dr. Strangelove: I commissioned, last year,
a study of this project
by the BLAND Corporation.
Game theorists model
strategic situations mathematically.
For example, in the Cuban missile crisis,
the US decides whether to invade Cuba or not.
If the US invades, the Soviet Union then chooses
whether to respond by firing nuclear missiles.
The US must choose anticipating
what the Soviet Union will do.
The final outcomes are represented
by numerical "payoffs."
When two sides can either
escalate or back down,
this is called a game of "chicken":
neither side wants to back down
but if both escalate, disaster results.
Game theory helps us
analyze many situations.
For example, will a gay NFL player
choose to come out publicly?
His decision depends on
what he expects others will do in response—
for example, whether other players
will come out or not,
and whether advertisers
will avoid him or celebrate.
Austen's understanding of human behavior
is strikingly game-theoretic.
Austen emphasizes choice and
defends young women's right to choose.
Even under intense emotional stress,
Austen's heroines make good choices.
>>Charles Musgrove: Anne, what are we to do next?
>>Anne Elliot: Carry her to the Harvilles'.
But gently! Gently!
Austen had many names for strategic thinking,
including "penetration" and "foresight."
Her novels contain many schemes;
for example, at the beginning of Pride and Prejudice,
when Jane Bennet is invited to Netherfield,
her mother has Jane travel there on horseback,
anticipating that because of the rain,
the Bingleys will invite her to stay the night,
>>Mrs. Bennet: Now she will have to stay the night,
exactly as I had predicted.
thus enabling her to spend more time
with the eligible bachelor Mr. Bingley.
>>Elizabeth Bennet: Thank you
for tending to my sister so diligently.
She is in far better comfort here
than she would have been at home.
>>Mr. Bingley: It's a pleasure—
it's a pleasure that she is here, being ill.
Austen even sometimes uses numbers
to talk about feelings;
for example, she mentions how
dread can be measured by
sleepless nights.
Two hundred years ago,
long before game theory became an academic field,
Austen was way ahead of us.
But people have actually been talking about
strategic thinking for centuries.
For example, African American slave folktales
such as Flossie and the Fox,
in which the little girl Flossie
manipulates the more powerful Fox,
illustrate strategic thinking beautifully.
This strategic wisdom was essential
in the US civil rights movement,
in which civil rights strategists
including Wyatt Tee Walker
manipulated the police chief Bull Connor
into clumsy and horrific actions,
generating international press coverage,
and thus successfully pressuring the federal government
into passing the Civil Rights bills.
Today we are still catching up
with Austen's insights.
Austen was particularly good at understanding
why sometimes people do not think strategically,
why they fail to anticipate the actions of others.
I call this "cluelessness."
>>Cher: Oops! My bad!
For Austen, high-status people have difficulty
putting themselves in the minds of low-status people
and thus have difficulty
understanding them as strategic.
>>Lady Catherine: So you are Elizabeth Bennet.
>>Elizabeth Bennet: I am, your ladyship.
Thus high-status people are easily manipulated.
I use Austen's analysis of cluelessness
to understand US military blunders
in Vietnam and Iraq.
If you love Austen,
I hope my book provides
a new way to love Austen and her novels.
If you are new to Austen,
I hope I can convince you that
she is one of our best social theorists.
If you are new to game theory,
I hope I can show you how
useful game theory is
for understanding Austen
and for understanding many things in life.
Thank you!