bother, virgin, games

bother
after 15 days of running, is big becoming a bother for most of the neighbors?

virgin
from a newspaper cut-up i had from a few days ago. the rector of the virgen de guadalupe sanctuary in Mexico DF has signed a contract of exclusivity with a US mercadology company over the image rights of the mexican virgin. The virgin agent has signed with viotran until 2005. In the contract the agent assumes the obligation of giving a "bendición especial" [special blessing] - by him or by the archbishop - to every article to be merchandised... The basílica will receive in exchange 12.5 million us dollars, plus a 50% of all sales...

games
is it this way how they still make their politics? Or might Condoleeza Rice have brought some further enlightenment?

Here we go:
John von Neumann was arguably the most influential but least famous scientist in history... fundamental contributions to... game theory... the development of the atomic bomb... and interconinental ballistic missile.

... von Neumann told one of his pals, during a taxicab ride in London, that "real life consists of bluffing, of little tactics of deception, of asking yourself what is the other man going to think i mean to do. And that is what games are about in my theory."

Game theory is based on several assumptions: that the players are in conflict, that they must take action, that the results of the actions will determine which player wins according to definite rules, and that players are expected to always act "rationally" by choosing the strategy that will maximze their gain regardless of the consequence to others. These are the kind of rules... that attract economists, because they map onto the behaviour of observable phenomena like markets, arms races, cartels and traffic.

After wolrd war 2, [Hiroshima and so on...], von Neumann joined other mathematicians and economists to brainstorm game theory at a mundane building... near Santa Monica beach. The RAND Corporation was the first think tank, where intellectuals... thought about... the craft of thermonuclear war strategy. Because the arms race seemed to be closely related to the kind of bluff and counter bluff described by game theory, [i guess not so much for the 23 millions dead in the 149 wars held between 1945 and 1992, data after unicef], the new field became popular among the first nuclear war strategists. In 1950, Rand researchers came up with four fundamental elements of Morgenstern- and von Neumann-style games: Chicken, Stag Hunt, Deadlock and Prisoner´s Dilemma...

quoted from: Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs, 2002 [p:41], comments and italics by osfa

abducción, abducción, abducción!!!
[see, if you can, J. Martín Barbero]

Posted by osfavelados at February 17, 2003 03:00 PM