Why we do the things we do
All of us have asked ourselves: “Why do other people often make such odd decisions?’’ The more honest among us go on to inquire: “Why do I often make such odd decisions?’’ Freud was once thought to have some answers, but his theories are now in deep eclipse. Currently, three of the foremost contenders for successfully explaining our species’ folly and weirdness are game theory, complexity theory, and evolutionary psychology. Here are three lively and well-written books, each offering an introduction to one of these new approaches to human strangeness.
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s “The Predictioneer’s Game’’ is a profoundly irritating book. This, I hasten to say, has nothing to do with the book’s quality. It is full of stimulating examples and clear explanations. Nor is it the author’s personality: Bueno de Mesquita is genial and - even though most of the book’s case studies tell of the triumphs of his consulting company - not at all self-important. But he has done, by my lights, the unforgivable: He has challenged one of my cherished beliefs. I am a moralist, and he suggests, with distressing plausibility, that moralists are superfluous.
The author is an expert in game theory. Over the years, Bueno de Mesquita’s assignments have involved getting a corporate client off a legal hook; helping a retiring CEO engineer with the selection of a successor; predicting the outcome of the Oslo negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization; picking the next Chinese and Pakistani heads of state; persuading the North Koreans to eliminate their nuclear weapons; and saving Earth from global warming. In approaching such problems the game theorist asks four questions: Who has an interest in the decision? What outcome does each want? How important is it to each? How much influence can each exert? Every question is assigned a numerical answer; the numbers are plugged into an algorithm, then fed into a computer; and the result, however counterintuitive, represents Bueno de Mesquita’s best forecast of how various parties will act and what will happen.
The game theorist does not ask: What should happen? The premise is that “people won’t cooperate or coordinate with each other unless it is in their individual interest. No one in the game-theory world willingly takes a personal hit just to help someone out . . . we’re [all] looking out for numero uno.’’ Generosity, solidarity, self-sacrifice - not to mention an overmastering passion for beauty - do not seem to exist in this world.
The algorithms seem to work, though. Bueno de Mesquita claims an astonishing success rate for his predictions and negotiating strategies, and I believe him. Perhaps we idealists should bite the bullet, pool our pennies, and hire him to figure out how to give humanity’s moral evolution a nudge.
Game theory fits neatly into classical economic theory, with its axioms of rational choice, utility maximization, and homo economicus. Evolutionary psychology has complicated this picture. “Classical economics,’’ Michael and Ellen Kaplan write in “Bozo Sapiens,’’ “has left out the concept of the norm: the social constraints that keep us from acting any old how. Even in aggregate, people have assumptions about the right way to behave - assumptions not purely rational.’’ In a “social enterprise’’ - and what isn’t? - “notions like fairness and purpose can skew the calculations of utility.’’ There is, it appears, something the Kaplans call “strong rationality: an intrinsic human willingness to sacrifice personal advantage in order to reward the kind and punish the unkind. It is, and probably always has been, the force that makes informal economic life possible.’’ Hmm . . . maybe we moralists aren’t completely useless after all.
But although “Bozo Sapiens’’ gives us humans credit for at least some right feeling, it is pretty hard on our frequent failures of right thinking. “Error is pervasive: it seeps into thought, word, and deed,’’ they observe. And in response they offer a compendium of common fallacies that picks up where Aristotle’s celebrated handbook “On Sophistical Refutations’’ leaves off. Thanks to evolutionary theory, though, they can do more than scold and shake their heads over the perennial spectacle of “basic stupidity.’’ They can, with tact and humor, go some way toward explaining it.
Len Fisher’s “The Perfect Swarm’’ doesn’t worry much about human selfishness or stupidity. In fact, it doesn’t seem at first to be much concerned with humans at all. But after reviewing some fascinating research about the group activities of ants, bees, and locusts, Fisher makes intriguing connections to the behavior of human crowds, using a new branch of mathematics called “complexity theory.’’ A final chapter, “Simple Rules for a Complex World,’’ demonstrates that statistics don’t always lie, and sometimes even tell important truths.
George Scialabba is the author of “What Are Intellectuals Good For?’’ 
