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A comment on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today. Parent comment

Re:Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today by davidgerard on Monday March 16, 2015 @04:27AM (#9210385)
Strategy of Conflict is one of THE BEST books for ANYONE to read. Schelling is one of the guys whose job it was to do game theory when "I know that you know that I know" had nuclear annihilation at the other end if you get it wrong. He came up with the Red Telephone between the White House and the Kremlin.

As a book that is literally about negotiating your way out of terminal nuclear war, I've also found it an excellent practical guide to raising a toddler.

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Re:Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today by eru on Monday March 16, 2015 @10:02AM (#9211437)
Indeed. Schelling constantly brings up the applications to child rearing.

I read his later books, too. They are good, but not as great.

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Re:Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today by davidgerard on Monday March 16, 2015 @10:11AM (#9211486)
Dude helped save us all from being flash-fried, I'll give him some slack ;-)
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Re:Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today by eru on Tuesday March 17, 2015 @12:11AM (#9216241)
Some people argue mutual assured destruction brought us closer to the abyss than anything. (See Dr Strangelove.)

Schelling wrote well, I am not sure about his actual effect on policy. There were other hawks, like von Neumann, another geeks' hero.

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Re:Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today by davidgerard on Tuesday March 17, 2015 @04:47AM (#9216854)
Dr Strangelove is actually a treatise on why Smart Contracts are a terrible idea nobody should want - the plot is literally an unstoppable Smart Contract gone wrong.
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