Collective action possible?

Jan van Eijck is Senior researcher at CWI (SEN1) and professor of Computational Linguistics at Uil-OTS (Utrecht University).

In his 'Talks and Courses 2007' he has done some interesting research :

• Collective Rational Action: Is It Possible? CUNY, May 17, 2007.
• Game Strategies, Promises, and Rational Choice. CUNY, May 18, 2007.
• Is Collectief Rationeel Handelen Mogelijk?. Maagdenhuis op Maandag Lezing, 19 februari 2007.

In 'Collective Rational Action' van Eijck states that individual rational action consists of:

• knowing what you want,
• knowing the rules of play for achieving your goals,
• taking the right steps to achieve your goal, or get as close to it as you can.

These are skills that can be learnt.
Soft tools: creative visualisation, psychotherapy, . . .
Hard tools: risk analysis, decision theory, probability calculus, gametheory.

It is all about your risk, your profit, your strategy to prosper as much as possible.