Game Theory

Game theory is a throughline across Kyle’s strategy and defense reading, with John von Neumann as its origin point. The Man From The Future treats von Neumann’s minimax theorem and Theory of Games as the book’s load-bearing concept, traces its descent into Cold War nuclear strategy (counterforce, the Polaris arc, RAND), and registers its darker side — von Neumann’s late “I feel the opposite of nostalgia” as “an honest reckoning with what the math actually said about human cooperation,” a dim, Hobbesian read that is “the political-philosophy underpinning of why deterrence works.” Nuclear War — a Scenario carries that forward into the present tense: deterrence, “use them or lose them,” and Thomas Schelling’s bargaining-as-diplomacy are “the strategic-interaction frame underpinning the whole scenario.”

The concept also surfaces in older and softer registers. The Art of War is read game-theoretically — “All warfare is based on deception,” and Wellington framing his plans entirely on the opponent’s expected moves. Stories of Your Life and Others (Ted Chiang) turns it gentle: human-heptapod contact as a “non-zero-sum game,” with the daughter asking for “the math word” for when both sides can win. And in Naval Ravikant — The Angel Philosopher, Naval names microeconomics and game theory “fundamental” — you can’t succeed in business or modern capitalist society without a grasp of supply and demand, labor vs. capital, and game theory — even as he dismisses macroeconomics as junk science.

For a from-scratch grounding there is Yale’s full introductory course, Game Theory with Ben Polak (Yale ECON 159) — 24 lectures by Ben Polak, recorded in Fall 2007 for Open Yale Courses, covering dominance, backward induction, Nash equilibrium, evolutionary stability, commitment, asymmetric information and signaling. It surfaced through a September 2025 post from @hamptonism, I just found Yales entire… (tweet), which called it possibly “the most important Lecture Series you ever watch.”

Context: Game theory is the mathematical study of strategic decision-making among rational actors, formalized by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s 1944 Theory of Games and Economic Behavior; it became central to Cold War nuclear-deterrence strategy and to modern economics.

Where this appears

• The Man From The Future — von Neumann’s minimax theorem and the game theory behind nuclear deterrence and its dim view of human cooperation.
• Nuclear War — a Scenario — deterrence, “use them or lose them,” and Schelling’s bargaining frame.
• The Art of War — strategy framed on the opponent’s expected moves; “all warfare is based on deception.”
• Stories of Your Life and Others — the “non-zero-sum game” frame on human-heptapod contact.
• Naval Ravikant — The Angel Philosopher — game theory and microeconomics as “fundamental” to business and modern life.
• Game Theory with Ben Polak (Yale ECON 159) — Yale’s 24-lecture introductory course by Ben Polak (YouTube playlist).
• I just found Yales entire… (tweet) — the 2025 tweet that surfaced the course.