Shanks and Praise

via Slate Magazine by Tim Harford on 10/18/08

In March 1959, a promising young Harvard economist delivered a lecture in Boston on "The Theory and Practice of Blackmail," drawing on the then-young branch of economics and mathematics called "game theory." Strictly speaking, his subject wasn't just blackmail—the threat to reveal damaging information in order to get what you want—but the broader practice of extortion or coercion.

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