🌍♟️ Game Theory #5: The World Game - why do states rise and fall?

Video discussion - watch beforehand. No screening.

Short summary

Most history gets told like a story of great men, bad luck, wars, inventions, and the occasional dramatic collapse. Game theory asks a colder question: What if some of this is about incentives? States rise. States fall. Leaders cooperate, betray, overreach, bargain, centralize, fragment, and make choices that may look irrational until you see the game they think they are playing. This discussion is built around the Predictive History video “Game Theory #5: The World Game,” where Professor Jiang uses game theory to explain how states rise and fall. That is the room I want. Not a history trivia night. Not a geopolitics doom-scroll session. Not everyone pretending they could run an empire better from a library chair in Vancouver. A real conversation about power, coordination, trust, institutions, collapse, and why large human systems are so hard to keep alive once the incentives start rotting.

A few questions already sitting in my head

• “Do states collapse because leaders make bad choices, or because the game around them changes?”
• “When does cooperation become fragile?”
• “What makes a society strong: shared values, institutions, force, wealth, geography, trust, or some unstable mix?”
• “Why do powerful states often seem to create the conditions for their own decline?”
• “Can game theory explain too much and miss the human mess underneath?”
• “What part of modern public life feels like a bad game with bad incentives?”
• “If you were trying to predict decline, what would you look at first?”

How the afternoon will go

Come having watched the video beforehand. It is about 57 minutes, so this is doable prep. We’ll start with one question: “What is one incentive that quietly shapes history more than people admit?” Then we’ll stay close to the video: states, power, cooperation, conflict, incentives, institutional failure, and the bigger question of why some systems hold together while others break. No screening at the event. Not a lecture. Not a debate about every empire ever. Not a YouTube comment section with chairs. A real discussion.

Watching

Predictive History - “Game Theory #5: The World Game” Video link

Package to read

When and where

🗓️ Date: Sunday, August 23rd, 2026 🕒 Time: 11am 📍 Location: Vancouver Central Library 350 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC 9th floor, left of the elevators when you exit.

Cap

12 attendees. Come ready to think about history as a game people keep losing while insisting they are winning.

Weekend RSVP policy

Our weekend events regularly have waitlists of 20 or more people. If you can no longer attend, please update your RSVP by Thursday evening. This gives someone on the waitlist enough time to make plans and take the available spot. Members who remain marked as attending and miss two events without cancelling may be removed from the group. Emergencies happen; if something unavoidable comes up, please message the organizer. Keeping your RSVP accurate helps limited seats go to people who can actually attend.