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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jttmab who wrote (122326)	12/28/2003 9:15:17 AM
From: Copperfield	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Maybe the best move is not to play .. like in the movie War Games. Libya just decided that they don't want to play any more. Russia doesn't want to play but feels insecure so they have not disarmed. I think I remember Iraq saying over and over before the invasion that they had no WMD and and didn't want to (fight). North Korea says thay have WMD (but of course they have no oil) Lets not forget that the United States has, and has used WMD. This discussion began when genocide was proposed as a possible solution (Once the ememy is all gone we win (all their oil?). The only thing is there are other countries watching like China, Russia and the rest of the world. ......................................................... From a movie review of "War Games" jimloy.com Let's think about tic-tac-toe and global thermonuclear war. The games are different in many respects. In tic-tac-toe, we can win, lose, or draw. And if both players have any skill at all, then all games end in draws. A child sees that is a flaw in the game; the game is too simple. In global thermonuclear war, we can also win, lose, or draw (from some perspectives). Presumably, we are going to war for some purpose. If we achieve that purpose, then we win, with or without war. From the computer's perspective, that is not true. We are already at war, and the objective is to win. How do we define "win?" Do we win if more damage is done to the enemy than to us? Presumably, that is the definition that the computer uses at the beginning of the movie. Then there are two types of draws, either inflicting equal damage on each other or refusing to play. But we know differently, don't we? We know that nobody wins a global thermonuclear war. It is obvious, even to Generals and Presidents, even to war mongers. There is a shift in perspective between the simplistic definition of "win" that the computer is using, and our definition. Winning is not possible, only degrees of loss. The game is flawed, in a different way than tic-tac-toe. But we can still draw, by choosing to not playing the game. And so, in the movie, we go back to tic-tac-toe. Perhaps the lesson learned by playing tic-tac-toe is not that the game is flawed, but that within the game draws are logical and acceptable. Wins and losses are illogical, showing a poor grasp of the game. We want draws, so we can shake hands and say, "Well played." Does that attitude carry over to global thermonuclear war? Yes. But from the computer's point of view, I would say "No." It carries over to global thermonuclear war, only because we have redefined the word "win." So, the lesson we have to teach the computer is not that draws are logical and acceptable, but that in global thermonuclear war, no one wins. Then we can argue that draws are acceptable. In the movie, the computer apparently did shift its definition of "win." Apparently, it did come to realize that there are no winners in the game it was playing. But it did not learn that from tic-tac-toe, or from any other event that we can see in the movie. And I consider that a flaw in the logic of the movie. Someone should have said, "Joshua, we contend that if your opponent loses worse than you do, that you have still lost. By the way, would you like to play tic-tac-toe?"