
Thomas Schelling, New Nobel Laureate (2005) - Hooke
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/10/schelling_and_a_1.html
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sopooneo
I was fascinated by the idea of "Schelling Points" a few years back and made a
sort of reality show demo based on it. Full disclosure, Mr Schelling agreed to
watch the video at one point and was extremely gracious, but clearly not
impressed. So I think it is safe to say the video does not well represent his
ideas.

Regardless:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU0WKM96eLM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU0WKM96eLM)

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schoen
I imagine Schelling saw much larger applications to this idea, where the
finding people in a city was only a throwaway example for him. (For example,
he talks about how it provides a basis for relatively stable agreements
between groups that are at war with each other.) But it's a memorable one, and
your video looked like a really fun project! It would be interesting to repeat
this periodically and see how different teams do.

I enjoyed the team walking right past the other team's sign, and the clip of
the knife juggler.

Edit: it's interesting that the teams in your experiment didn't _exactly_
pursue the kind of strategy that Schelling suggested (which is basically to
meet in the most "obvious" place at the most "obvious" time: maybe the city's
best-known landmark at noon?). In Schelling's version of the scenario, the
people trying to meet weren't necessarily allowed to write each other messages
or ask strangers for help, just to decide on a (single?) time and place. With
that restriction, there would be a stronger motivation to think harder about
what appears "obvious". But they were still relatively successful with the
approach of going to some of the most famous landmarks like Faneuil Hall,
which both teams ultimately thought of.

~~~
ghaff
FWIW, I took a crack at what some obvious focal points might be a while back.

[http://bitmason.blogspot.com/2015/03/focal-points-culture-
an...](http://bitmason.blogspot.com/2015/03/focal-points-culture-and-cities-
with.html)

It's worth noting that knowing any shared context between groups trying to
find each other is important. In the original Grand Central clock example, the
subjects were Yale students, so Grand Central was a pretty obvious meeting
place--it's where the trains from New Haven arrive in the city. And you don't
even have to know Grand Central to immediately realize the clock/information
booth is where'd you meet someone.

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tgb
I'd definitely have put City Hall as the obvious meetup point in Philadelphia.
All the subway and trolley lines meet there, it's visually central in the city
and has a pretty obvious "center" spot in the middle of the courtyard where
you'd see someone. Though if I had to meet out-of-towners, the liberty bell
would be a solid choice, too.

~~~
ghaff
As I say, although I grew up about an hour west, there are probably at least a
dozen cities in the US I know better than Philly :-) Not sure if I've ever
even been to City Hall.

Again, it does come back to the context though.

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eumoria
Adam Curtis created a documentary that features interviews with Thomas
Schelling and others quite a bit; talking about MAD and the nuclear strategy
of the US during the cold war. The whole series is incredible IMO but part 2
is probably the best of them.

Pandora's Box "To the Brink of Eternity"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TRHcNDYpFU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TRHcNDYpFU)

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westoncb
I started looking into Schelling after seeing this post, and had some
difficulty locating a sample of his work (broken links all over for some
reason). Eventually I came across his Tanner lecture "Ethics, Law, and the
Exercise of Self-Command"—which is very interesting and amusing:
[http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/s/schelling...](http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/s/schelling83.pdf)

