Two drivers speed toward each other. Who swerves first?
Two cars race straight at each other. Swerve first and you look weak but survive. Neither swerves and you both crash. The other driver swerves and you 'win.' Both of you are rational, and both of you want to win. What should you actually do?
Reveal the answer
There's no single right answer — it's a genuine standoff with two stable outcomes (you swerve and they don't, or vice versa), and the player who can credibly convince the other they absolutely will not swerve wins. Game theorists named it after exactly this teenage dare and used it to model nuclear brinkmanship during the Cold War, where each side's challenge was convincing the other it would rather crash than back down.
— Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict — 1960
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