Development as Neo-Colonialism
for a more understandable version, check out There You Go by Oren Ginzburg for Survival International
Aparna Reddy
Game Theory
Prisoner's Dilemma is a famous paradoxical-ish thought experiment type example given to try and explain Game Theory. Two partners in crime have been captured and held separately and charged with various crimes. They are given an opportunity to exonerate themselves, by snitching on the other guy. The outcomes are that either both prisoners don't snitch and they both get a shorter sentence for the crimes committed, or one of them snitches and goes free while the other gets a long jail term, or they both snitch on each other and they both go to jail for long jail terms.
Aparna Reddy
Comparative Advantage
When trade became more widespread and countries started mass-producing goods, it became important to figure out which goods to produce for export in exchange for what. Each country obviously has the potential to create all the products it needs, but we'd rather trade for profits. Comparative advantage comes in here and as the name suggests, it is a theory that posits that it would be more profitable to produce more or less of a good based on its cost of production compared to the cost of importing.
Aparna Reddy
Fermi Paradox
Enrico Fermi was a Nobel prize-winning physicist. He is also regarded as the architect of the nuclear era and apparently created the first nuclear reactor. I found this out googling him but what I already knew about him was the Fermi Paradox. According to the paradox, where the fuck is other intelligent life?
Aparna Reddy