Game Theoretic Nightmare=Great Television

The reason economists are often so smug about their ability to analyze human behavior is because they slice off the easy portion of it where one can generally safely assume the behavior is motivated by economic self-interest.

Of course, the world is much more complex once one has to examine where preferences change and that is the beauty of the

The Wire

And then there’s "The Wire" (Sundays at 9:30 p.m. on HBO, with repeats throughout the week), a richly textured universe unto itself, populated by detectives, drug dealers, longshoremen, politicians and lawyers who have motives so diverse, surprising and complicated, each scene seems to reveal a new layer of depth and complexity. Watching this series is like navigating the streets of a genius-level SimCity — it takes a while to grasp just how far from the TV-land basics creator David Simon is willing to wander.

Since Homicide went off the air, I’ve been aching for another show that qualifies as Best Damn Show on Television and we have a winner in another show set in Baltimore and not surprisingly, involves David Simon on the creative team.

Let’s hope this doesn’t spawn another frightful rant by creationist sounding Megan McCardle over what is truly social science.

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