STUNSPOT Stunspot's Guide to Game Theory

Canon Map — Stunspot’s Guide to Game Theory

The Strategic Systems Canon maps game theory as a practical systems language: how agents act when their outcomes depend on one another, how those interactions stabilize or fail, and how rules can be engineered so private incentives produce more useful collective outcomes.

This page explains the report sequence. It is not a separate report corpus. The canonical source files live in knowledge-packs/by-report/.

Four-Volume Architecture

Compiled Volume Reports Function
Vol. 1 — Foundations of Strategic Reality A-C Establishes the ontology, epistemology, and representation layer: interdependence, equilibrium, information, matrices, trees, and type spaces.
Vol. 2 — Major Operating Domains D-G Covers the central strategic domains: sequence, commitment, bargaining, repeated interaction, reputation, cooperation, punishment, and mechanism design.
Vol. 3 — Constraint and Specialization Layers H-J Extends the canon into evolutionary dynamics, network externalities, systemic inefficiency, and strategic failure diagnosis.
Vol. 4 — Diagnostic and Execution Layers K-L Turns analysis into applied method: reconstruction workflows, validation, decision support, institutional evolution, and long-run strategic ecology.

Source Report Sequence

Code Report What It Owns
A The Geometry of Strategic Conflict — An Ontology of Incentives, Interdependence, and Equilibrium The primitive shift from isolated decision-making to strategic interdependence. Establishes players, strategies, payoffs, utility, information, best responses, and equilibrium as the canon’s load-bearing vocabulary.
B Equilibrium and Information — Stability, Beliefs, and Strategic Knowledge Systems The epistemic layer: how beliefs, knowledge, information asymmetry, common knowledge, and uncertainty shape strategic stability.
C Strategic Representation and Formalization — Modeling Strategic Reality with Matrices, Trees, Information Sets, and Type Spaces The modeling layer: how to choose the right strategic representation without erasing timing, observability, agency, or hidden types.
D Sequential Strategy and Dynamic Commitment — Timing, Credibility, and Subgame Structure The temporal layer: sequence, backward induction, subgame perfection, credible threats, promises, warnings, and commitment devices.
E Bargaining, Coalition Pressure, and Surplus Division — Strategic Settlement Under Conflict and Mutual Dependence Strategic settlement: negotiated dependence, surplus division, coalition pressure, outside options, win-sets, and bargaining breakdown.
F Repeated Interaction, Reputation, and the Shadow of the Future — Cooperation, Punishment, and Relational Stability Cooperation over time: repeated games, reputational capital, punishment, reciprocity, relational trust, and endgame unraveling.
G Mechanism Design and Institutional Engineering — Designing Rules So Incentives Produce Desired Outcomes Reverse game theory: designing rules, message spaces, transfers, audits, defaults, matching systems, and incentive-compatible institutions.
H Evolutionary and Population Game Dynamics — Strategy Without Deliberation Population-level strategy: replicators, selection, imitation, evolutionary stability, invasion resistance, and order without deliberate optimization.
I Networked Games, Externalities, and Systemic Inefficiency — Coordination Failure, Congestion, and the Price of Anarchy Network structure and spillovers: congestion, cascades, externalities, systemic inefficiency, public goods, and topology-driven failure.
J Strategic Failure and Diagnostic Analysis — Hidden Incentives, Fragility, and System Reconstruction The diagnostic inversion: given visible dysfunction, infer the hidden game, distinguish symptoms from transmission mechanisms, and identify root causes.
K System Reconstruction and Applied Strategic Method — Modeling Workflow, Validation, and Decision Support Applied method: reconstructing strategic systems, choosing abstraction levels, validating models, comparing interventions, and supporting decisions under uncertainty.
L Institutional Evolution and Strategic Ecology — Long-Run Adaptation, Succession, and Civilizational Stability The long-run scale: institutions as strategic complexes, adaptation, lock-in, succession, legitimacy, resilience, and civilizational stability.

Reading the Sequence as a System

The canon progresses through four moves:

  1. Name the strategic field. Reports A-C define what counts as a player, action, strategy, payoff, information state, and model.
  2. Model strategic operation. Reports D-G examine how conflict unfolds through time, negotiation, reputation, and engineered rules.
  3. Add constraint and scale. Reports H-I move beyond clean rational-agent encounters into populations, networks, externalities, and systemic inefficiency.
  4. Diagnose, reconstruct, and evolve. Reports J-L turn the canon into a method for reading failures, rebuilding models, validating interventions, and understanding institutional persistence.

For AI/RAG use, preserve this order. Later reports depend on earlier primitives, but they also reinterpret them at larger scales and under harsher real-world constraints.

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