Obviously, it is vitally important in the war of attrition that individuals should give no inkling of when they are going to give up. Anybody who betrayed, by the merest flicker of a whisker, that he was beginning to think of throwing in the sponge, would be at an instant disadvantage. If, say, whisker-flickering happened to be a reliable sign that retreat would follow within one minute, there would be a very simple winning strategy: ‘If your opponent’s whiskers flicker, wait one more minute, regardless of what your own previous plans for giving up might have been. If your opponent’s whiskers
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