Hey,

Remember the Nash Equilibrium scene from A Beautiful Mind ? I have been analyzing it and found out
the following observations:
It was infact a Maximin strategy and not a Nash equilibrium (Cant blame the poor director; he
never mentioned that it was a Nash equilibrium). Nash was very conservative. He had the choice
of getting a blonde or getting nothing. But he chose the 2
nd
best solution which is having a
brunette instead. That was pretty conservative indeed. This can be proved by computing the
case in a suitable payoff matrix as shown below:


Remember that Nash assumes that if everyone approaches the blonde, no one would get her.
Wrong assumption. A rational woman would choose the best among them. Nash assumed all of
them to be equally virtuous. Even in that case, she would choose one man or else she would
remain pairless.
So, a person who feels he is the best among the lot should be approaching the blonde inspite of
the inspiring speech by Nash. Then a Nash equilibrium shall be established because the best
among them would get the girl and the rest would settle for the brunettes. This is again shown
in the matrix above as the Nash equilibrium
But what happens if more than one of them feels he is the best among the lot???

Principle: In competition, one should do what is best for himself along with what is best for the
group

About the argument that they knew what each other else was going to do: Each of them will
never be sure that the other is going to Nashs words. And so there is still some information
asymmetry at any given point of time.


Extending this case to choosing electives at IIMB:
If everyone wants RMD, then all the students will give up all their points for RMD.
According to the movie, the best solution should be going for the 2
nd
best alternative