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Non-Zero-Sum Games

nonzerosum.games

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Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#11

Post by skibidithink »

Lots of interesting insights, but their affirmative action take is a miss.

> Critics of affirmative action often commit the fallacy of letting a failure in one area doom the entire enterprise. This ignores the interdependent nature of affirmative action. [1]

Affirmative action sets up a zero-sum game where fixed resources like university admissions and employment offers are redistributed to people with the "correct" demographics. The conflict is not a disagreement over effectiveness. It's a misalignment between meritocracy and equity.

[1]: https://nonzerosum.games/unlockingsolutions.html

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#12

Post by oersted »

clrflfclrf wrote: post #10
oersted wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make sense to me, our current prosperity is founded on an enormous mountain of collaboration and shared beliefs. Usually not out of selflessness of course, often guided and forced by strong leadership and/or strong institutional structures to bend selfishness into selflessness (like capitalism to a degree). Poor countries tend to stay poor not due to fundamental resource constraints but due to self-reinf…

> Poor countries tend to stay poor not due to fundamental resource constraints Sometimes highly shrewd rich countries infiltrate the power structure of poor countries through N-pronged strategy to keep them stuck in a rut so that they don't become future threat, also extract their resources in the meantime.

Indeed, the way out of that is also broad collaboration, sometimes not peaceful or clean.

And the last century showed that this also works at a large scale, we all got a lot richer as a global community by letting poor countries develop and doing business with them, instead of exploiting them to death.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#13

Post by cryptica »

clrflfclrf wrote: post #10
oersted wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make sense to me, our current prosperity is founded on an enormous mountain of collaboration and shared beliefs. Usually not out of selflessness of course, often guided and forced by strong leadership and/or strong institutional structures to bend selfishness into selflessness (like capitalism to a degree). Poor countries tend to stay poor not due to fundamental resource constraints but due to self-reinf…

> Poor countries tend to stay poor not due to fundamental resource constraints Sometimes highly shrewd rich countries infiltrate the power structure of poor countries through N-pronged strategy to keep them stuck in a rut so that they don't become future threat, also extract their resources in the meantime.

Yes, strongly believe this is the case. The corrupt leaders are rarely chosen by the people; they are installed by foreign powers. There are many cases you can dig into which are absolutely atrocious; like people getting paid big money by western leaders to assassinate their friends to take power and pass laws which facilitate the extraction of resources by foreign corporations.

Like the story of Thomas Sankara's assassination by his trusted childhood friend Blaise Compaoré is quite disturbing. It seems like Compaoré was leader for a very long time and is still in politics... I cannot think of a more morally deprived individual. If game theory was as claimed; nobody should want to work with such deeply disloyal and psychopathic individual. It's just like I say; people have a strong tolerance, even attraction to abusers. If you look at the real story, you notice this pattern over and over... but we are so badly gaslit about such things (aka 'PR') that we don't notice.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#15

Post by clrflfclrf »

cryptica wrote: post #13
clrflfclrf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Poor countries tend to stay poor not due to fundamental resource constraints Sometimes highly shrewd rich countries infiltrate the power structure of poor countries through N-pronged strategy to keep them stuck in a rut so that they don't become future threat, also extract their resources in the meantime.

Yes, strongly believe this is the case. The corrupt leaders are rarely chosen by the people; they are installed by foreign powers. There are many cases you can dig into which are absolutely atrocious; like people getting paid big money by western leaders to assassinate their friends to take power and pass laws which facilitate the extraction of resources by foreign corporations. Like the story of Thomas Sankara's ass…

Ed Witten here : "So first of all thanks very much. I'm very honored to have the chance to give this talk. Of course Nima and I both wish we could do more for peace than just to give talks at an online meeting for peace. Unfortunately we know that there are lots of bad things happening in the world and we hope that there will be better days ahead. Hopefully as one would say in Hebrew [..] which means soon in our own day.

https://youtu.be/Ta5Dx327KQc?t=4899

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#16

Post by 578_Observer »

cryptica wrote: post #4

I think a major flaw of all these models is that they underestimate: 1. How easy it is to start fresh and shed your past reputation if you get caught doing something bad. 2. How forgiving people are and how tolerant they are to deception, abuse and immorality. I hate to say it but a lot of people are attracted to abusers. They keep going back to the same kinds of people who will abuse them over and over. These same p…

Writing from Japan. You are absolutely right about the "Finite Game". If you can reset your reputation and start over, "Cheating" is indeed the winning strategy.

However, here in Japan, we have a different operating system called "Shinise" (companies lasting over 1,000 years). They play an "Infinite Game". Their reputation is tied to a "Noren" (shop curtain) or a family name that has been built over centuries. You cannot simply discard it and respawn.

There is a movie hitting theaters here in Tokyo right now called "KOKUHO" (National Treasure). It depicts Kabuki actors who inherit a "Name" (Myoseki) with 400 years of history. Watching it, I realized: In their world, cheating doesn't just mean losing a job. It means "killing the Name" for all ancestors and future generations. The penalty is infinite.

When the "Reset Button" is removed from the game, "Honesty" and "Sanpo-yoshi" (Three-way satisfaction) naturally become the mathematically dominant strategies. Cheating only works when you plan to exit.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#17

Post by cryptica »

oersted wrote: post #6
cryptica wrote: post #4

I think a major flaw of all these models is that they underestimate: 1. How easy it is to start fresh and shed your past reputation if you get caught doing something bad. 2. How forgiving people are and how tolerant they are to deception, abuse and immorality. I hate to say it but a lot of people are attracted to abusers. They keep going back to the same kinds of people who will abuse them over and over. These same p…

This doesn't make sense to me, our current prosperity is founded on an enormous mountain of collaboration and shared beliefs. Usually not out of selflessness of course, often guided and forced by strong leadership and/or strong institutional structures to bend selfishness into selflessness (like capitalism to a degree). Poor countries tend to stay poor not due to fundamental resource constraints but due to self-reinf…

> the best play tends to be "to be unjust while seeming just"

Yep this is a huge problem now. I think wealth inequality is also making this worse because people often turn a blind eye to the bad behaviors of people who have power over them. This is an extremely powerful effect; it's everywhere. For example, Christians turning a blind eye to certain negative character traits of God as he appears in the old testament. Employees turning a blind eye to the immoral actions of their boss and coming up with justifications to keep them on a pedestal...

The social structure is not determined by morality; it's the other way round; morality is determined by the social structure.

It reminds me of an old French fable in which a lamb tries to reason with a wolf why he should let him live... The wolf listens to the lamb's logic but then he eats it anyway and the story ends with a sentence like "The reason of the strongest is always the best one."

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#19

Post by oersted »

cryptica wrote: post #17
oersted wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make sense to me, our current prosperity is founded on an enormous mountain of collaboration and shared beliefs. Usually not out of selflessness of course, often guided and forced by strong leadership and/or strong institutional structures to bend selfishness into selflessness (like capitalism to a degree). Poor countries tend to stay poor not due to fundamental resource constraints but due to self-reinf…

> the best play tends to be "to be unjust while seeming just" Yep this is a huge problem now. I think wealth inequality is also making this worse because people often turn a blind eye to the bad behaviors of people who have power over them. This is an extremely powerful effect; it's everywhere. For example, Christians turning a blind eye to certain negative character traits of God as he appears in the old testament.…

My point (and Plato's) was rather that some people will definitely cheat, because it's locally rational, and it's actually better for everyone if they are "classy" about it and don't flaunt it too much. A minority will get away with terrible things, but somewhat bounded by conspicuousness, and at least the majority remains blissfully (willfully?) unaware and propping up the civilized system which is so much better for all of us.

It is quite a cynical point of view of course. It's a hard balance, when it gets bad sometimes it's better to air the dirty laundry and go through the pain of purging those cheaters.

But the worse thing is to have people be loud and proud cheaters, which is happening more and more. That's a deadly virus to a civilized society, everyone starts thinking they are dumb for not cheating, and we quickly go back to the dark ages.

It's a bit like calling out the bank for being a fraud because they don't have all the money in a vault, and rushing to get your cash out. If people start taking the red pill and shouting that society is just a game of pretend, which it kind of is, then our very real prosperity can vanish overnight.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#20

Post by aprilthird2021 »

skibidithink wrote: post #11

Lots of interesting insights, but their affirmative action take is a miss. > Critics of affirmative action often commit the fallacy of letting a failure in one area doom the entire enterprise. This ignores the interdependent nature of affirmative action. [1] Affirmative action sets up a zero-sum game where fixed resources like university admissions and employment offers are redistributed to people with the "correct"…

But those resources are already redistributed (from a distribution that somewhat aligns with demographics) with things like personal relationships (think legacy admissions or a father's buddy handshake internship). AA is meant to correct historical instances of this which snowball into familial / generational wealth and (most difficult to diffuse) social capital that was distributed unfairly.

That's the argument for it, not my belief. The argument for AA is that the so-called meritocracy had/has its own unequal distributions.

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