Harvard: Saving the Planet One Full House at a Time

You’d expect that kind of thing from one of the world’s leading universities — a plan to create international peace. What you wouldn’t expect is for Harvard to come up with a strategy that centers around poker.

Yeah, the card game.

Harvard Law School professor Charles Neeson believes the centuries-old pastime is the cure for what ails our rotting global society. Next week, Neeson will attend a conference on virtual worlds and cyberspace in Singapore. It’s at that conference that he’ll explain how to save the world through pot-odds.

“Poker teaches people to think for themselves, it is a key component of individuality and a prime aspect of managing resources,” Prof Nesson said, admitting that some of these instincts for survival hardly encouraged notions of mutual trust.

Business dealmakers could learn from poker the art of avoiding making the first offer, he added, while teenage tearaways could take from it life skills such as patience, composure, respect for their foes and understanding someone else’s point of view. Law graduates would understand the law of evidence and diplomats could apply the art of bluffing to international relations.

As an avid poker enthusiast, I’ve long advocated implementing a similar plan, though far more silently. (ed. note: Not true. He says this stuff all the time. We just tune him out). Because, really, who has time to shoot someone or spread pestilence or freak out about which religion is superior when you’re bellied up at the table waiting on the river? I mean, screw off Iran, I’m trying to hit my flush here.