Are You an Atheist or a Jew?

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i've considered myself an atheist ever since i was about 15. It's nice to be around other secular people with a secular world view. The rise of the nuns in america has been encouraging. Maybe this is a gate way to game theory really, you know, what's the purpose of religion? What does it do? I think there's fairly good evidence that religion helps people kind of form a community and co operate with each other - even if you don't believe in a godhead. And how do you pronounce your name? Just tas eres! So let me ask you the same question again: How do you say 'eres' or 'eris'? You can

Shermer, Hoffman, and Yoeli discuss: the problems game theory was developed to solve • How rational or irrational an animal are we? • the evolutionary logic of game theory • Alan Fiske’s four relationships • kin selection, altruism and reciprocal altruism • deception and self-deception • costly signaling theory • pirate rationality • virtue signaling • Putin, Russia, and Ukraine • Israeli-Palestinian conflict • justice, self-help justice, norms and laws • chemical weapons/nuclear weapons taboos/norms • dueling: what problem did it solve? • beliefs: first-order vs. second-order.

Moshe Hoffman is a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, a research fellow at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and a lecturer at Harvard’s department of economics. His research focuses on using game theory, models of learning and evolution, and experimental methods to decipher the motives that shape our social behavior, preferences, and ideologies. He lives in Lubeck, Germany.

Erez Yoeli is a research scientist at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, the director of MIT’s Applied Cooperation Team (ACT), and a lecturer at Harvard’s department of economics. His research focuses on altruism: understanding how it works and how to promote it. Yoeli collaborates with governments, nonprofits, and companies to apply the lessons of this research towards addressing real-world challenges. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.