Composite games: coalition/positioning/looting
From Ben's Writing
A paper for Philosophy 3411 - Game Theory [Fall 04]
Analyse a real-word coalition/positioning/looting game.
First, there is the game of speeding; more precisely, speeding meanwhile avoiding a radar ticket. We can think of tickets as buying the right to speed for the few seconds the radar gun is on us. As such, not paying this ticket can be seen as looting the city of possible income. This looting is accomplished is by cooperating with another speeder in maintaining a close proximity to each other. This closeness kept in order to lessen the effectiveness of the radar gun, which cannot distinguish between two closely moving vehicles. The positioning portion of this game is the speed of your vehicle relative to the posted limit. Since you are dead-set on speeding it make sense that you should try to maximize the speed you are traveling at, since if you do get caught, you might as well have made it worth your while; however, if you exceeded the limit by too much, the cops will not bother with the radar gun, and will chase you.
The second game that occurred to me was in relation to the sale of illicit drugs. Positioning in this game is the key. You must first decide on the drugs you wish to peddle, the harder the drug, the harder the time. Secondly, it's all about location location, location, location. You must have access to a large number of easily accessible clients all the while maintaining a discreet enough position within the existing drug trade networks to enable yourself to grow. The looting game in this instance is obvious, you are selling drugs. And as for cooperation, you need the cooperation of your suppliers to make you business a success. You also need the support of the neighbourhood you are situated in. This may seem a little strange, but if you pick a neighbourhood in which there will always be a drug dealer (think: inner-city), then you can offer to be a nicer more friendly drug dealer than the rest , another positioning game.
The last game that occurred to me was the game I'm currently working my way towards playing. This game involves me, the school and the future job market. By giving me a degree at the end of my stay the school is cooperating with me in that it is vouching for my abilities in my chosen area of study. The positioning in this game is up to me: If I choose something "just for fun", I might end up a McDonald philosopher; then again, if I choose something practical, I may end up managing a team of McDonald philosophers. The looting game here is a little more complicated since it is directly reliant on the positioning game. By attending school, I hope to increase my earning potential (read: looting ability), but the extent of this potential gained is governed by the job market's interest in my chosen field. Thus, maximizing the looting game may come at the expense of a not-so-enticing position.
After thinking about all of these, it struck to me that there might be another game I could write about. It's the game I'm currently playing as I write this; it's the same game you are taking part in by reading what I've written. I'm hoping that by presenting you with several options for these types of games you will be more convinced that I have retained sufficient information from this class to be worthy of a good mark. I am soliciting the cooperation of the above games in order to get a good mark. A good mark that will, of course, come at the expense of others in the class (read: looted from), since if I get an astonishingly good mark, it means the class marks cannot be scaled and those at the bottom may not have the luxury of a minor scaling of their marks. Of course, to fit all these games in to one paper, I've had pick a position that exceed the 500 word recommendation in order to illustrate my points completely. Furthermore, I am going to thank you at this point for the wonderful class in the hopes that my repositioning along the brown-nosing spectrum may effectively seal the good-mark deal.
