Word: neumanns
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...people in the Pan Am bombing. A reckoning of sorts now looms: on May 3 the two Libyans charged with blowing up the aircraft will stand trial in the Netherlands. Once that trial concludes, the long ban on U.S. commercial activity with Libya could be lifted. Says Ronald Neumann, the top State Department official in charge of Middle East affairs: "Change can now be imagined." Indeed, a quiet but intense lobbying campaign for detente has been launched by U.S. businessmen with ties to both the current Administration and that of former President George Bush...
Alas, unlike Francis Crick, I can't claim to have discovered the secret I'm touting. It was discovered half a century ago by the founders of game theory, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern. They made a distinction between zero-sum games and non-zero-sum games. In zero-sum games, the fortunes of the players are inversely related. In tennis, in chess, in boxing, one contestant's gain is the other's loss. In non-zero-sum games, one player's gain needn't be bad news for the other...