The fact that we see some people doing what appears to be good civic-minded deeds may be because that is their true intention, and it may be that that is their best way to hold onto power in a setting where they have to depend on a lot of people. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita appearcivicdeed share on social
If you're running a dictatorship, you don't really have to worry about the welfare or the property rights of the ordinary citizen. Only the people who keep you in power, a very small group, matter. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita citizendictatorshipgroup Change image and share on social
In order to predict effectively, we need to use science. And the reason that we need to use science is because then we can reproduce what we're doing; it's not just wisdom or guesswork. And if we can predict, then we can engineer the future. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita effectivelyengineerfuture share on social
I think almost all strategic problems could at least be improved upon if people would do more careful game-theoretic analysis. The reason game theory works in predicting is because people intuit how to behave game-theoretically. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita analysisbehavecareful share on social
There is an interesting interplay between power corrupting and corruption empowering. The causality does not go one way. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita causalitycorruptcorruption Change image and share on social
There are lots of people shaping decisions, and so if we want to predict correctly, we have to pay attention to everybody who is trying to shape the outcome, not just the people at the pinnacle of the decision-making pyramid. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita attentioncorrectlydecision share on social
I'm not engaged in predicting random number generators. I actually get phone calls from people who want to know what lottery numbers are going to win. I don't have a clue. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita callclueengage Change image and share on social
We really can't tell the difference between people who might seek power for some greater good and people who seek power just to aggrandize themselves. For example, all revolutionaries say that they want to uplift the downtrodden. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita aggrandizedifferencedowntrodden share on social
Pretty much, you point to a problem and good reasoning about why people are doing what they are doing and what constraints they face in terms of how others will behave, and you're looking at a problem that could be improved upon by game-theoretic reasoning. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita behaveconstraintface share on social