The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition • Hacker News Board

Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition

#111

Post by mrrrgn » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 3:57 AM UTC

petra wrote: post #21

Modern Life is so complex. And in many situations , telling whether they're zero sum, is uncertain, and hard. Look at the debates here for example. So people default to what they already generally know. They know that society is very competitive. The job market is very competitive. The mating market is very competitive. Zero sum games are everywhere. So it's no wonder they have this cognitive bias.

We sort of live in a finite universe in terms of matter and energy right? Conservation laws seem to imply that. So at a large enough scale life would have to be zero sum. I guess what people may actually be arguing about is at what scale the finite aspects of the universe actually matter?

On an anecdotal level, while thinking that everything is zero sum all the time probably isn't good, I find that the majority of the people I interact find it very difficult to imagine that anything is "zero sum." Since they associate "zero sum" with mean things like harsh competition. It seems like that's its own sort of "bias."

Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition

#112

Post by username90 » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 4:01 AM UTC

Men making games for men doesn't prevent women from making games for women, but somehow people always assume that the incumbents must adapt to serve the entire market. Why don't people see this as a great opportunity for women to carve out their own place in the industry? Literature already works like this, we have erotic romance novels with explicit descriptions of men's bodies catering to women and we have action novels with explicit description of women's bodies catering to men.

Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition

#113

Post by conanbatt » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 4:04 AM UTC

mrrrgn wrote: post #110

pessimizer wrote: post #64

I see this most clearly in people who will not trade in a board game like Monopoly unless the deal is extremely slanted in their favor. They simply can't understand that people who trade will always beat people who don't, and the easiest way to trade is to trade fairly. If four people are playing a game of Monopoly, and two trade with each other but the other two refuse, now two people are playing Monopoly and the ot…

Monopoly is a zero sum game. So perceiving it as such shouldn't be the bias that leads to poor strategy. (edit: it seems that it may be possible to play monopoly in a way that generates infinite money and with no win condition)

It technically isn't, because if everyone forgives each other's expenses they can be infinitely rich as the bank never run out of money.

Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition

#114

Post by e3b0c » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 4:14 AM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #85

godelski wrote: post #51

One of my favorites is the economy. People constantly talk about there only being a finite number of resources or money. While this is true, there is not a finite amount of wealth. The whole point of an economy is to generate new wealth and goods. Inventions and innovations. It is easy to see when you take the historical perspective, that the vast majority of us are living much better off than those a hundred years a…

While this is true, there is not a finite amount of wealth. The whole point of an economy is to generate new wealth and goods. Inventions and innovations. This is a frustrating hand-wave that I've been subjected to for far too long. It's absolutely possible that there is a finite amount of wealth. Moreover, even in an economy with positive growth, if a small fraction of individuals capture a large enough amount of th…

If by the wealth you mean land, then yes it's finite. But the ownership of man-crafted things is not. You can always create new apps or websites that generate values. Those man-crafted things can become useless someday as well. For example, a 3.5" floppy disk drive probably isn't worth what it used to be anymore.

Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition

#115

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 4:28 AM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #85

godelski wrote: post #51

One of my favorites is the economy. People constantly talk about there only being a finite number of resources or money. While this is true, there is not a finite amount of wealth. The whole point of an economy is to generate new wealth and goods. Inventions and innovations. It is easy to see when you take the historical perspective, that the vast majority of us are living much better off than those a hundred years a…

While this is true, there is not a finite amount of wealth. The whole point of an economy is to generate new wealth and goods. Inventions and innovations. This is a frustrating hand-wave that I've been subjected to for far too long. It's absolutely possible that there is a finite amount of wealth. Moreover, even in an economy with positive growth, if a small fraction of individuals capture a large enough amount of th…

[deleted]

Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition

#116

Post by Meai » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 4:33 AM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #85

godelski wrote: post #51

One of my favorites is the economy. People constantly talk about there only being a finite number of resources or money. While this is true, there is not a finite amount of wealth. The whole point of an economy is to generate new wealth and goods. Inventions and innovations. It is easy to see when you take the historical perspective, that the vast majority of us are living much better off than those a hundred years a…

While this is true, there is not a finite amount of wealth. The whole point of an economy is to generate new wealth and goods. Inventions and innovations. This is a frustrating hand-wave that I've been subjected to for far too long. It's absolutely possible that there is a finite amount of wealth. Moreover, even in an economy with positive growth, if a small fraction of individuals capture a large enough amount of th…

...that depends on how you define wealth but you know, there is the infinite vastness of space. So to say that wealth is finite doesn't even make sense when talking only about raw resources. Then add to that the potential scientific innovations, machines and other things humans can invent and produce from all those raw resources and it's pretty infinite as far as we'll ever know, certainly in our lifetimes times a trillion.

Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition

#117

Post by mrrrgn » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 4:42 AM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #113

mrrrgn wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopoly is a zero sum game. So perceiving it as such shouldn't be the bias that leads to poor strategy. (edit: it seems that it may be possible to play monopoly in a way that generates infinite money and with no win condition)

It technically isn't, because if everyone forgives each other's expenses they can be infinitely rich as the bank never run out of money.

Well I'll be. I'd thought that the rules were more strict. It appears that even if the bank does run out of bills more can be created by writing on pieces of paper.

Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition

#118

Post by eropple » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 4:45 AM UTC

username90 wrote: post #112

Men making games for men doesn't prevent women from making games for women, but somehow people always assume that the incumbents must adapt to serve the entire market. Why don't people see this as a great opportunity for women to carve out their own place in the industry? Literature already works like this, we have erotic romance novels with explicit descriptions of men's bodies catering to women and we have action n…

Men absolutely losing their minds and filling women game designers' inboxes with death threats because they wanted to make games that didn't cater exclusively to men is a thing that already happened.

Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition

#119

Post by TTPrograms » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 4:47 AM UTC

biql wrote: post #92

TTPrograms wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those markets are really zero-sum. People value different things in all of those markets (jobs etc). Zero-sum is an edge case.

In dating market, attractive people get most of the attention [1], thus it would be safe to assume that attractiveness is highly valued by the majority and they compete with each other, knowingly or not. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170127222943/https://blog.okcu...

Attractiveness is not a one-dimensional scale, it is a two-party phenomena.

Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition

#120

Post by TTPrograms » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 4:47 AM UTC

petra wrote: post #79

TTPrograms wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those markets are really zero-sum. People value different things in all of those markets (jobs etc). Zero-sum is an edge case.

Interesting answer. The people aiming for a certain position or role mostly care about similar things though. So don't they play a zero sum game ?

If you had two job offers, one salaried at $100,000 and one at $100,001, I assume you would pick $100,001 with zero consideration for any other factors?