Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Negotiating with crazy people
Sometimes, apparent irrationality belies underlying rationality. The idea is that if you appear crazy the other side will be less willing to push to the brink. This is known in strategy circles as, er, the rationality of irrationality. See, for instance, Thomas Schelling's Arms and Influence, probably the seminal work on coercion and negotiation, for an extended discussion of the subject.
Other times, irrationality is just plain nuts.
2 Comments:
By 
Georg Felis, at
Wed Jul 05, 08:07:00 PM:
Well, that explains a lot of North Korea...
By Fausta, at
Thu Jul 06, 10:44:00 AM:
You're assuming that NK is operating alone.
