YouLoveMe

Once, Harmony was the dominant type, There were deep implications in its rule, Rough games were the ones the field liked to hype, But the headlines were wrong, Nature was cool. Now, the Battle of the Selves rules the roost, Harmony is not gone but it's rarer, Inequality has gotten a boost, Entro is real, Nature is unfairer. All of this happened in 2016, The very same year as Brexit and Trump, The logic of the universe turned mean, Nature's breast revealed its malignant lump. My new love is great and doomed and perverse, There are times I miss my old universe.

Do evolved humors solve ev'ry game-- Not just the PD, but all of the rest? In my model, the key humor was shame, Melancholy 'splained shared success the best. I needed to tackle asymmetry, Twelve games became 144, Battles of the Selves troubled HJV, Rue still ruled o'er rage, calm, love--shame helped more. I needed to include Entro and Emp, That meant 2304 games, Each deserving a blouse of silk or hemp, Each one calling out for stories and names. I'm sad not to write a poem for each one, I'm glad I did for sixteen types.   I'm done.

Economists are lib'ral nowadays, The rise of game theory's the reason why, Econs now say, "The peeps don't get our ways, Our games explain how markets fail and die." In that truth lies a tri'al for cgt, "You, crits of games, are objective righties, Your crit corpus is con, it's clear to see, You wear a crewcut and tightie-whities!" We can protest--"We are lefter than thou!" Attack lib'ralism as compromise, We can defect--"We refuse to kowtow! Better Chicago than your moral vise." For what it's worth, what I hope we will do: Seek friends from all camps, to our work be true.

Will critical game theory find a home, A place where its votaries can profess? Or will we be fore'er foredoomed to roam, To wander the world with no fixed address? With the mainstream should we seek equiv'lence, Or should we always be a goad to them? About our goals, I feel an ambiv'lence, P'raps our role is just to make STEAM from STEM. Yes to a flow'ring field of crit studies, cgt would mix with other visions, Lefties and righties would be thorned buddies, Fomenting funky fusions and fissions. May we seed and grow a riotous field, May our flow'rs and us to death calmly yield.