

How Game Theory Solved a Religious Mystery - ilike
http://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2008/06/10/how-game-theory-solved-a-religious-mystery/

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leelin
A neat twist to the standard pro-rata division we see a lot in bankruptcies.

What I like best is this method penalizes the creditor for extending too much
credit. Note that the ones who are hurt most by the divide-contested-amount
method are the creditors who over-estimated the debtors assets, while the
creditors lending smaller amounts get a small bonus over pro-rata.

Edit: I think the (estate_size == 150) case sucks for the 200 and 300
creditors, though, because they correctly believed the estate would be worth
more than 100. It is "pairwise-consistent" as the article defines it.

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DannoHung
What about the situations where the 300 or 200 lender made the loans first
though?

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tlholaday
A lending contract can specify that all subsequent loans be subordinate, so
the lender who lent first had the option of making such a specification.

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RiderOfGiraffes
Here's the discussion from the last time this was submitted:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=461076>

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alfredp
Poker players would instantly recognize the similarity of the money splitting
problem to negotiating a deal at the final table of a poker tournament (say
final 2, 3, 4). It isn't always about dividing the payouts proportional to
size of your stack and there are human factors involved.

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ihodes
Great article, but I couldn't help thinking the whole time that while game
theory certainly and apparently can be used to describe the split of the
estate, so could simple pattern-finding: the contested sum(s) is(/are) split
evenly, and the uncontested amount (if any) is given to the one owed the most
money.

But perhaps game theory makes the pattern more evident, Regardless, it was a
good read.

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dejb
This is a pretty lame 'religious mystery' in my view. There doesn't seem to be
any real wisdom in the method of splitting the debt and the explanation seems
fairly straight forward. It isn't even new. Why people find this interesting
is beyond me. What's next 'A numerical analyses of the Book of Revelations and
Daniel'?

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sethg
Even though the Talmud is a religious document, the discussions in it cover a
wide range of topics, including theology, ritual law, civil law (which, for
observant Jews, _is_ religious), medicine, demonology, funny stories about
what happened when Rabbi So-and-So got drunk, etc., etc. It’s like fifth-
century Usenet.

