• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Petty moves from a petty man.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Bark louder, little dog.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Books / Early Morning Open Thread: A Mind Ahead of Her Time

Early Morning Open Thread: A Mind Ahead of Her Time

by Anne Laurie|  April 23, 20135:36 am| 49 Comments

This post is in: Books, KULCHA!, Open Threads

FacebookTweetEmail

The immortal Miss Austen can command allegiance from the most unlikely sources, per a NYTimes review:

It’s not every day that someone stumbles upon a major new strategic thinker during family movie night. But that’s what happened to Michael Chwe, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, when he sat down with his children some eight years ago to watch “Clueless,” the 1995 romantic comedy based on Jane Austen’s “Emma.” …

Mr. Chwe set to doing his English homework, and now his assignment is in. “Jane Austen, Game Theorist,” just published by Princeton University Press, is more than the larky scholarly equivalent of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” In 230 diagram-heavy pages, Mr. Chwe argues that Austen isn’t merely fodder for game-theoretical analysis, but an unacknowledged founder of the discipline itself: a kind of Empire-waisted version of the mathematician and cold war thinker John von Neumann, ruthlessly breaking down the stratagems of 18th-century social warfare.

Or, as Mr. Chwe puts it in the book, “Anyone interested in human behavior should read Austen because her research program has results.”

Modern game theory is generally dated to 1944, with the publication of von Neumann’s “Theory of Games and Economic Behavior,” which imagined human interactions as a series of moves and countermoves aimed at maximizing “payoff.” Since then the discipline has thrived, often dominating political science, economics and biology departments with densely mathematical analyses of phenomena as diverse as nuclear brinkmanship, the fate of protest movements, stock trading and predator behavior.

But a century and a half earlier, Mr. Chwe argues, Austen was very deliberately trying to lay philosophical groundwork for a new theory of strategic action, sometimes charting territory that today’s theoreticians have themselves failed to reach…

***********

Apart from enjoying the classics, what’s on the agenda today?

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « I Need Some Help
Next Post: 911 is a Joke »

Reader Interactions

49Comments

  1. 1.

    MrSnrub

    April 23, 2013 at 5:46 am

    Sick. Sick since the weekend. Tried to tough it out at work yesterday, left an hour early. Trying to decide whether to work from home, or just take a full sick day. I hoard my PTO almost as jealously as Smaug hoards gold.

  2. 2.

    Valdivia

    April 23, 2013 at 5:47 am

    Because the NYT didn’t have enough with the Dowd piece they now have two reporters saying the same thing? Obama’s fault. Because all the Republicans who voted against it don’t count, only the dems. Just wow.

    Not a way to start the morning. Grrrr.

    I liked your link though.

  3. 3.

    Valdivia

    April 23, 2013 at 5:53 am

    @MrSnrub:

    hope you get better soon.

  4. 4.

    raven

    April 23, 2013 at 6:18 am

    @Valdivia: I hate to report on Morning Joe but he is going nuts threatening to destroy the people that derailed the gun bill.

  5. 5.

    Schlemizel

    April 23, 2013 at 6:25 am

    @raven:

    My first thought was “aw, thats cute. He thinks he has some power.” But then I began to wonder who his ‘targets’ would be. I assume he will name several Dems. ANy excuse in a storm

  6. 6.

    Valdivia

    April 23, 2013 at 6:26 am

    @raven:

    I love when you report though, because I can’t watch and you give me a sense of what the Villagy Villagers are saying.

    How is your bride?

  7. 7.

    Schlemizel

    April 23, 2013 at 6:27 am

    .

    werebear

    Thanks for the alt-click tip yesterday. That works great & clears up one daily annoyance with chromebook. I had no idea.

  8. 8.

    MrSnrub

    April 23, 2013 at 6:32 am

    @Valdivia: thanks! I hope I feel better soon too. Also.

  9. 9.

    WereBear

    April 23, 2013 at 6:41 am

    @Schlemizel: So glad I could help. There’s LOTS of handy in the keyboard:

    Ctrl+Alt+/

    Brings up a graphic; hold down Ctrl or Alt or whatever to see what each key does.

    I have a tendency to have multiple tabs going on, and Ctrl 1, 2, 3 goes to the various tabs. Great for when I’m working in Full Screen mode, and can’t see the tabs.

  10. 10.

    TheMightyTrowel

    April 23, 2013 at 6:42 am

    Today is my 7th anniversary and Mr. Trowel is on another continent. Neither of us is really into the whole hearts and flowers thing, but I am really really missing the cuddles right now.

    Sigh.

  11. 11.

    PsiFighter37

    April 23, 2013 at 6:47 am

    I think someone had too much time on their hands. I’m mildly curious to read this study, but I can’t imagine Jane Austen was intentionally setting out to do anything related to game theory. Then again, maybe I’m prejudiced, because I don’t think her books are that great (and I actively read all of them…so that I could be better prepped for my Quiz Bowl team. Lame? Quite possibly so).

  12. 12.

    Baud

    April 23, 2013 at 6:48 am

    I always felt like the best part of Jane Austen novels were the math formulas.

    @Schlemizel:

    I assume he will name several Dems. ANy excuse in a storm

    Yep.

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    April 23, 2013 at 6:51 am

    All hail women who are intellectual giants. Another was the math genius who was Lord Byron’s daughter.

    It’s astonishing that prejudice keeps us from the fruits of everyone’s mind; sex, color, station.

    On the other hand, Republicans keep wanting to make the pool shallower and shallower; so they look like the giants.

  14. 14.

    Valdivia

    April 23, 2013 at 6:51 am

    @TheMightyTrowel:

    :( many sighs along with you. hope you get a great big hug (and more) and he returns.

    I see that it is not only the NYT but a deluge of articles now saying its Obama’s fault the senate is an obstructionist institution. This is why Dowd’s column mattered. She set the conversation and now this is the verdict. Gah.

  15. 15.

    Dan

    April 23, 2013 at 6:58 am

    All the people on Facebook that said we shouldn’t use the Sandy Hook victims as props are posting photos of Martin Richard and Krystle Cambell (of course NOT the Chinese girl).

  16. 16.

    WereBear

    April 23, 2013 at 7:03 am

    @Valdivia: I see that it is not only the NYT but a deluge of articles now saying its Obama’s fault the senate is an obstructionist institution. This is why Dowd’s column mattered. She set the conversation and now this is the verdict. Gah.

    Old Media cannot die soon enough.

    While it’s too bad newspapers are Teh Sukk and TV “news” is populated by puppet heads, it’s also not working. By offering no substance, no teaching, no explanation, it’s become a wall of noise that fewer and fewer pay attention to.

    That’s kind of heartening, actually.

  17. 17.

    Schlemizel

    April 23, 2013 at 7:04 am

    @WereBear:

    Heard a blip on NPR yesterday about a Yale Prof who went to Yale ER with a badly cut hand. She explained she was a quilter & needed the hand Dr. went to work as normal. Then one of her students saw her & refered to her as “Professor”. When the Dr. found out she was a Yale prof he brought in the top hand guy & they saved everything.

    The point of this womans books was that prejudice is not always hurting the unfavored group but is more often favoring the preferred group. That seems so obvious in retrospect but it is something worth examining.

    otOH – is there a place that gives hints about these keyboard short cuts? Thanks again

  18. 18.

    WereBear

    April 23, 2013 at 7:08 am

    @Schlemizel: Here’s a handy list of Chromebook keyboard shortcuts:

    http://support.google.com/chromeos/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=183101

  19. 19.

    Baud

    April 23, 2013 at 7:09 am

    @WereBear:

    Agree. The pushback has been nice to see.

  20. 20.

    WereBear

    April 23, 2013 at 7:10 am

    @Schlemizel: When the Dr. found out she was a Yale prof he brought in the top hand guy & they saved everything.

    That is absolutely shocking. Reminds me of the guy in Sicko who got asked which finger they could put back on; he couldn’t afford both!

  21. 21.

    TheMightyTrowel

    April 23, 2013 at 7:20 am

    @Valdivia: Thanks :) Only 9 days left.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    April 23, 2013 at 7:23 am

    @The Mighty Trowel

    So he’s out-continent.

    And you’re in-

     

    Never mind.

  23. 23.

    Joey Maloney

    April 23, 2013 at 7:29 am

    Working extended hours because the rest of the department is at a trade show this week. But working at home so I can do it in my PJs, plus have the time to cook some glass. I have a couple of impressionistic outer-spacey suncatcher designs cooling in the kiln right now.

    Oh, and I put the cat on Prozac this week.

  24. 24.

    Valdivia

    April 23, 2013 at 7:36 am

    @WereBear:

    I know it’s just noise (as we saw in the last election) yet this is how ‘narratives’ get set. I really just get exasperated by it. Incredible how these people can write whole articles without mentioning the 60 vote senate we now have!

  25. 25.

    raven

    April 23, 2013 at 7:38 am

    @Valdivia: She’s struggling with not being able to be the dynamo she usually is!

  26. 26.

    Joseph Nobles

    April 23, 2013 at 7:39 am

    Mr. Chwe reminds me of someone I knew, a college music student taking Theory who got stoned at a party and wouldn’t let anyone change the CD player from the Bee Gees. Any decent story that accurately portrays human beings will be able to be described by game theory, and the better the story, the more insightful the analysis. I’m not surprised Jane Austen could show game theorists a thing or two.

  27. 27.

    dmsilev

    April 23, 2013 at 7:39 am

    This morning, I’ll get to finish the bodged-together contraption that a coworker and I mostly built at the end of the day yesterday. Step 1: Find old VGA cable, cut in half, and strip two of the exposed leads. Step 2: Graft one end of “adapter cable” to several thousand dollars worth of electronic instrumentation. Step 3: Graft other end to laser.

    Step 4, of course, is Profit.

    Science!

  28. 28.

    Punchy

    April 23, 2013 at 7:39 am

    Something about Jane Austen just doesnt add up. She seemed more of a divider than a unifier, and the sum total of her worth subtracts from authors of her period. Maybe we should integrate her stories into modern movies to fully multiply the effect of her influence.

  29. 29.

    Valdivia

    April 23, 2013 at 7:42 am

    @raven:

    oh I know that’s frustrating for you and her. When my mom was limited in her mobility because of stress fractures in her spine it was so hard on her, but a little patience went a long way because now she is running around like a spin top :)

  30. 30.

    aimai

    April 23, 2013 at 7:48 am

    @Joseph Nobles:

    As I read that amazing line about how “sometimes, you know, people have different understandings of the situation or an illusory power in the situation”–Lady Catherine deBurgh I just cracked up. The guy has discovered feminism, queer theory, and anthropology–in fact he quotes James Scott’s “Weapons of the Week.” He could have read some Hobsbawm, too. Or anything on race relations and slavery. Really? Dyou think? Could it be that slaves interests and understanding were not identical to that of their masters? What happens when he reads Bre’r Rabbit?

    I read the article to Mr. Aiamai and he said Professor Chwe reminded him of Mr. Collins–only now his new patroness is Jane Austen.

  31. 31.

    aimai

    April 23, 2013 at 7:50 am

    Also I meant to say that any Cop show demonstrates to you that Prisoner’s Dilemma is not, in fact, a game that is played within two rooms between two evenly matched partners. Definitionally there are the groups that imprisoned the notional prisoners, and an imbalance of power and knowledge right there in the experimental situation. There’s a good Leverage Episode where they explore the Prisoner’s Dilemma through that lense.

  32. 32.

    raven

    April 23, 2013 at 8:11 am

    @Valdivia: Thanks, we’re pushin that approach.

  33. 33.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    April 23, 2013 at 8:12 am

    Many of those who disparage Jane don’t think of the mating game as a war. Which it is – part of Mrs. Bennet’s manner is from sheer panic she and her daughters will be poor and homeless. However, Mr. Chee needs to read more. I suggest he start next with Henry Fielding. Or even Samuel Richardson. He’ll get major props from me if he just finishes Sir Charles Grandison.

  34. 34.

    Linda Featheringill

    April 23, 2013 at 8:16 am

    @Schlemizel:

    The Yale professor:

    Since daughter’s SO moved us both here to live with him at this relatively spiffy address, I’ve noticed a definite improvement in the service I get everywhere. Delivery people are more eager to please and cops are less authoritarian. Medical personnel are less judgmental. And so on.

    Hmmm. Strange. And my intrinsic worth to the universe is no greater than it was before the move.

  35. 35.

    gogol's wife

    April 23, 2013 at 8:39 am

    Jane Austen is da bomb! (I’m dating myself)

    And another great lady turns 85 today. Happy Shirley Temple’s Birthday!

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/shirley-temple-style-photos_n_3134059.html

  36. 36.

    gogol's wife

    April 23, 2013 at 8:44 am

    And — she’s on TCM right now, all day until 7:15 PM. But unfortunately it’s grown-up Shirley.

    Sing along with Shirley, “Oh, the world owes me a living”:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHPWjaSCXTw

  37. 37.

    Schlemizel

    April 23, 2013 at 8:44 am

    @WereBear:

    A certain amount of healthcare is a crap shoot. When I fractured my pelvis they tried to patch me together with traction. Fortunately that didn’t work and I was turned over to a guy who happens to be one of the leading ortho surgeons in the country. 11 Screws & 2 plates later I was back together in ways that would not have happened had I been left to the first bunch.

    I was shocked to hear this womans story though

  38. 38.

    gene108

    April 23, 2013 at 8:50 am

    @gogol’s wife:

    Happy Shirley Temple’s Birthday!

    How did someone that cute and adorable turn into a Republican?

    Mysteries of the Universe…

    Anyway Happy Birthday Ambassador Temple-Black.

  39. 39.

    Betsy

    April 23, 2013 at 9:00 am

    @Joseph Nobles: that’s right, and he gets to coattail on Austenmania. Big benny for an academic.

    Of course one can find endless new theories in Austen; she’s good, like Shakespeare that way.

  40. 40.

    Betsy

    April 23, 2013 at 9:02 am

    @aimai: cool comment. Very cool.

  41. 41.

    YellowJournalism

    April 23, 2013 at 9:04 am

    @gogol’s wife: Yay! Must go DVR everything on TCM this morning.

  42. 42.

    gogol's wife

    April 23, 2013 at 9:14 am

    @gene108:

    She was the kind of Republican who’d be a blue dog Democrat now. She was an environmentalist, for one thing.

  43. 43.

    Emily

    April 23, 2013 at 9:16 am

    @Cheryl from Maryland:I suggest he start next with Henry Fielding. Or even Samuel Richardson.

    Shakespeare might be good, too.

  44. 44.

    handsmile

    April 23, 2013 at 9:24 am

    @aimai:

    “Weapons of the Week.” [sic] Is that a NRA contest or sales pitch? James Scott would be alarmed to know that his book on peasant resistance movements had been so abused.

    Like last week’s “retreading Proust,” your un(?)intentional misspellings are quite amusing. (Please know this is not an exercise in picayune pedantry. If anything, it reveals how closely I read your comments.)

    Your mention of “Prisoner’s Dilemma” prompts me to recommend the fiercely intelligent, albeit formally conventional, novels of the brilliant Richard Powers, probably best known for Galatea 2.2. While his second novel, Prisoner’s Dilemma, in fact has little to do with game theory, it presents a deeply affecting portrait of Midwestern family trauma, the American culture industry, and World War II. Astounding, like all of Powers’ fiction.

  45. 45.

    Elizabelle

    April 23, 2013 at 9:29 am

    @Valdivia:

    James Fallows had a terrific blogpost about the filibuster that dare not speak its name. Examples from your MSM, that should know better.

    For the love of God, just call it a filibuster

    (Face it, Fallows has a terrific post about anything he addresses.)

  46. 46.

    jayjaybear

    April 23, 2013 at 10:20 am

    @gogol’s wife: “That Hagen Girl”? Only a channel that hates Shirley Temple would play “That Hagen Girl” on her birthday. *shudder*

  47. 47.

    gogol's wife

    April 23, 2013 at 11:55 am

    @jayjaybear:

    Yes, unfortunately most of her films after puberty are pretty bad. She was still cute, but her prodigy talents had faded.

  48. 48.

    Mnemosyne

    April 23, 2013 at 12:29 pm

    @gogol’s wife:

    I don’t think it’s that her talents had faded. It’s that behavior and mannerisms that were cute in a 4 or 6-year-old were not cute in an 18-year-old, and Temple had a hard time developing an adult persona. IMO, that was in large part because a big chunk of her appeal as a child actress was that she was the “little mother”/wise old soul who was smarter than all of the adults around her, so it was hard to create an adult persona from that.

  49. 49.

    smintheus

    April 23, 2013 at 1:18 pm

    I’m trying to figure out how game theory doesn’t apply at least as well to Homer’s Odyssey.

    And what’s with the popularity of the film Clueless? As far as I can see, it treats an incestuous relationship between brother and sister as something to strive for.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - BarcaChicago  - Off the Gunflint Trail/Boundary Waters 8
Image by BarcaChicago (7/11/25)

World Central Kitchen

Donate

Recent Comments

  • Geminid on Open Thread: ‘Look, Everyone Dies’ (Jul 12, 2025 @ 2:11am)
  • Msb on Fox News Friday Open Thread (Jul 12, 2025 @ 2:11am)
  • The Republic of Stupidity on Fox News Friday Open Thread (Jul 12, 2025 @ 1:57am)
  • AlaskaReader on War for Ukraine Day 1,233: Another Day, More Russian War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity (Jul 12, 2025 @ 1:54am)
  • Jay on War for Ukraine Day 1,233: Another Day, More Russian War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity (Jul 12, 2025 @ 1:43am)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
No Kings Protests June 14 2025

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

Feeling Defeated?  If We Give Up, It's Game Over

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!