That was an interesting read aiia.

Russia had more reason to fear annihilation than we did during the missle crisis. I never read about that in any history book.

Nevertheless, their posturing was a reasoned act calculated to exact a specific response. There was risk that thier calculations were off, and the penalty for being wrong would have been irreparable. I can't say whether I think they made the right choice, but they still made thier choices believing them to be reasoned out, rational and sane.

I think there might be some connection, perhaps weighing the results of how your oppenent would behave if he expected you to behave irrationally, that has some bearing on why discarding the seemingly rational choice could give better results.

With a reward disproportionate to the penalty, the incentive to promote irrationality (for yourself and your opponent) increases. Even knowing this, you can have the expectation that rational beings know when to rationally behave irrationally without any feedback loop. I guess my main confusion is once you decide that behaving rationally is out, how can you come to a strategy that you will have any confidence will be better than any other? Its one thing to rationally feign irrationallity, but to rationally decide to behave irrationally and come out ahead? My brain is exploding.