The Game at War with the World- S.M. Amadae on the powers behind the prisoners' dilemma (EoP02)

From military strategy to the corporate imaginary, from public policy to the worldview of Big Tech, game theory has dramatically reshaped power and the way live. On this second episode of THE EXPLOITS OF PLAY we speak with S. L. Amadae about how game theory and its elemental puzzle, the prisoner's dilemma, won the war for our hearts and minds, and the dire consequences for our world. More information: weirdeconomies.com/podcasts/exploits-of-play THE EXPLOITS OF PLAY is a 10-episode podcast about how games and play have moved from the margin to the centre of global capitalism. It is produced by Weird Economies and hosted by Max Haiven. Dr. Sonja Amadae teaches in the Department of Political Science at the University of Helsinki and works as a research affiliate at MIT. Dr. Amadae writes on the foundations of liberalism and the philosophy and history of political economy. Her 2016 book, Prisoners of Reason: Game Theory and Neoliberal Political Economy as well as an earlier book, Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism shows us the world that game theory built and how this model of human behavior became so prevalent. Max Haiven is a writer and teacher and Canada Research Chair in the Radical Imagination. His most recent books are Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire (2022), Revenge Capitalism: The Ghosts of Empire, the Demons of Capital, and the Settling of Unpayable Debts (2020) and Art after Money, Money after Art: Creative Strategies Against Financialization (2018). Haiven is editor of VAGABONDS, a series of short, radical books from Pluto Press. He teaches at Lakehead University, where he directs the ReImagining Value Action Lab (RiVAL).