I quite agree, and think that anyone who participates on Hacker News would probably get a lot out of reading Schelling's book The Strategy of Conflict.
Indeed. However, it's probably worth pointing out that Schelling's approach didn't work very well for the US in Vietnam. That old bastard McNamara, reflecting on the same period in The Fog of War, suggests that understanding your opponent's feelings is a lot more important than understanding the negotiation in a game-theoretic way.
Well, not knowing what your opponents payoff matrix looks like or not even knowing how many separate opponents you have sort of precludes doing much in an abstract game-theoretic way.
