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Non-Zero-Sum Games

nonzerosum.games

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Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#61

Post by Xirdus »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #53
wek wrote: post #14

A bit hard to read but some fun images and examples. I appreciated his post on capitalism as not a zero sum game.

Capitalism is 100% a zero sum game and capitalists love to try to pretend that it’s not The fact of resource extraction from society and externalities like pollution not being counted by capitalist because they “can’t count them “and just bundle them as externalities demonstrably destroy any concept of non-zero sum game There are limited resources on the planet and that’s the sum. If you want to take it even further…

That's a very reductionist view of economy. For starters, it ignores the entire services sector, which is like half of GDP of most developed capitalist countries. Services are an extremely clear example of positive sum - no resources disappeared from the world, as much money was gained as was spent, but on top of it somebody got something of value.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#62

Post by firejake308 »

skibidithink wrote: post #59
jrm4 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

University admission is a zero-sum already deeply unfair game (with slots going to the rich and privileged) AA just pushes against THAT, for better or worse.

AA doesn't prevent the rich from buying admissions. It redistributes slots from middle and lower class folks with the wrong ethnicity.

I went to a school in the suburbs with kids from middle class families and lower-middle class families. Many of us wanted to get into the Ivy League schools, but what I saw was that, presumable because of AA, the middle class kids from over-represented minorities (Asian, white) did not get into the Ivies, and the 1 or 2 who did get in were middle class kids from under-represented minorities (Black, Hispanic). But their families were still pretty well-off. Under no circumstances did a kid from a lower-middle class family make it into an Ivy, regardless of race. I really don't get why AA has to be about race, if we just did AA based on parental income alone, I would support it 100%. I think most concervatives would be happy because it wouls support poor whites, and most liberals would also be happy because it would in actuality URMs would still be the most benefited because they are the majority of low-income families. My only assumption is that it doesn't leave any openings for the rich and powerful to game the system, so people with the power to make changes will never make that change.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#63

Post by kashyapc »

The article on "effortocracy"[1] is pretty very well done. Quoting the end of the article:

"... if you take anything away from this, it is to recognise that if meritocracy is based on achievement only, then we must be sure not to confuse it with effortocracy when it comes to its moral weight."

Related reading: The Tyranny of Merit, by Michael Sandel (I was hoping the article would reference this, and it does.)

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

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#65

Post by AndrewKemendo »

Xirdus wrote: post #61
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is 100% a zero sum game and capitalists love to try to pretend that it’s not The fact of resource extraction from society and externalities like pollution not being counted by capitalist because they “can’t count them “and just bundle them as externalities demonstrably destroy any concept of non-zero sum game There are limited resources on the planet and that’s the sum. If you want to take it even further…

That's a very reductionist view of economy. For starters, it ignores the entire services sector, which is like half of GDP of most developed capitalist countries. Services are an extremely clear example of positive sum - no resources disappeared from the world, as much money was gained as was spent, but on top of it somebody got something of value.

You should read about Baumol cost disease if you want to understand why what you just said is totally misguided

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

If I pay somebody to dig a ditch and I pay somebody else to fill it in was something of value created? Unequivocally no.

Whether or not that allowed somebody to survive and feed their family is entirely orthogonal to the question of the zero-sum nature of the universe

Nothing is free

energy comes from somewhere and you have to eat food which takes from the environment, that somebody else can’t eat or some other process can’t utilize, so by a function of your existence you cost energy to maintain that would’ve otherwise gone to some other mechanical process

No free lunch theorem describes this mathematically and you can go all day reading about that

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#66

Post by SapporoChris »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #60
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fact of resource extraction from society and externalities like pollution not being counted by capitalist because they "can’t count them" and just bundle them as externalities demonstrably destroy any concept of non-zero sum game The article explicitly addresses this: The fact that Capitalism is non-zero-sum doesn't mean it is necessarily positive-sum. An economy that gets out of balance can produce very negativ…

[flagged]

If capitalism is zero sum then how do countries with capitalism manage to succeed and grow for hundreds of years?

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#67

Post by cowpig »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #60
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fact of resource extraction from society and externalities like pollution not being counted by capitalist because they "can’t count them" and just bundle them as externalities demonstrably destroy any concept of non-zero sum game The article explicitly addresses this: The fact that Capitalism is non-zero-sum doesn't mean it is necessarily positive-sum. An economy that gets out of balance can produce very negativ…

[flagged]

Calling people ignorant and naive while doing nothing to address the actual arguments isn't going to convince anyone.

In the passage you linked to, the author argues that property is impossible, which seems like a rather different argument than the one you are making.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#68

Post by esafak »

firejake308 wrote: post #64

The only way for cooperation to be a winning strategy in a prisoner's dilemma is if people have memory/reputation/trust. However, that is very difficult to build in the modern digital world where everyone is a faceless username. https://nonzerosum.games/cooperationvsdefection.html

Computers make it easy to track such things. eBay's success -- enabling strangers throughout the world to trade with confidence -- was built on it.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#69

Post by AndrewKemendo »

SapporoChris wrote: post #66
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If capitalism is zero sum then how do countries with capitalism manage to succeed and grow for hundreds of years?

By pillaging and conquering nations that have abundant resources through violence and coercion

Like this is the entire history of capitalism and it’s not even close

the fact that other organizations (USSR, China) do the same thing (horde property and then use consolidated resources to enforce economic heirarchy) but don’t call it capitalism doesn’t make it any less true

They can say “communism” all day but if the functional properties of the system of the Russian Federation or CCP are that Property control is limited to a small group of elites who then use those resources to create a command economy that is purely capitalist philosophy.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#70

Post by AndrewKemendo »

cowpig wrote: post #67
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Calling people ignorant and naive while doing nothing to address the actual arguments isn't going to convince anyone. In the passage you linked to, the author argues that property is impossible, which seems like a rather different argument than the one you are making.

in fact it’s the opposite

If you read Prudhon thoroughly you’ll understand that his critique is that the entire concept of capitalism is based on the concept of property (undisputed) and the concept of property is an entirely made up mythical thing (disputed)

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