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Non-Zero-Sum Games

nonzerosum.games

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Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#121

Post by sokoloff »

steveBK123 wrote: post #100
cgannett wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is further complicated by the difference between direct and indirect value. I build a thing that produces n value and is directly attributable to me. I also do things that help 100 others produce 10% more value themselves but most of that is attributed to themselves producing 10 * n value overall. How will I be rewarded if at all? Most likely as someone who produced n value.

This is the inherent friction of most overly “scientific” management systems. A decent line manager is aware of who on their team lifts up the team with glue & peer acceleration type soft work. Systems that try to get too “objective” fail to recognize this as most KPIs are on direct outcomes that are easy to measure, though often less important. No joke I once worked at a company with multi-category numeric ratings t…

I got a review with that exact method and amount of (false) precision in an engineering team that was under 30 total people.

To that boss’ credit, the text feedback was actually useful, but the numeric scores were comical.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#122

Post by unholiness »

Loving the blog in both style and content, hope to have time to read more in the future!

A random note in case Non-Zero-Sum James is looking: It's frustrating that reading footnotes[0] requires scrolling back and finding your previous place. A link from the footnote back to the original place in the text or something that reveals a footnote in-place (e.g. on hover) is fairly universal and very helpful!

[0] e.g. https://nonzerosum.games/emergencespirals.html#notes

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#123

Post by ultrasounder »

Wow!. Such an original piece of "non-AI slop" content in a long time. Kudos for making this as I myself tipping my toes to explore this concept after hearing about it from multiple sources(Naval Ravikant incl). Thanks for making this and looking forward to more podcast episodes. Cheers

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#124

Post by constantcrying »

Just aesthetically one of the worst websites I have ever seen.

It is obviously impossible to engage with every single idea proposed at once, but I think the main thrust of the argument is encapsulated in

>"Personally, I feel like the world might be a happier, more cooperative place if situations were by default framed as Stag Hunts."

Which is just so bizarrely and obviously false. Especially when just sentences before the issue of climate change came up, which certainly is not a positive sum game and we would be lucky if it was a zero sum game, but given all evidence it is very obviously a negative sum game, where governments get to talk about who has to bear the most pain. (And it isn't clear that cooperation even is the best opportunity for survival)

The optimism strikes me as so blindingly naive that it makes it hard to take anything said seriously. Maybe this is just a generational divide, many of the older people I know, in their 40s or older, seem much more optimistic about the state of the world. And the attempt to justify affirmative action is just so bizarre. If historic grievances are legitimate arguments for preferential treatment, then you will never get me to accept that this is anything but a brutal race to the bottom, which is about who can make the other suffer most. No, the world is not a positive sum game and I will never live under the delusion that it is.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#125

Post by cgannett »

sokoloff wrote: post #121
steveBK123 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the inherent friction of most overly “scientific” management systems. A decent line manager is aware of who on their team lifts up the team with glue & peer acceleration type soft work. Systems that try to get too “objective” fail to recognize this as most KPIs are on direct outcomes that are easy to measure, though often less important. No joke I once worked at a company with multi-category numeric ratings t…

I got a review with that exact method and amount of (false) precision in an engineering team that was under 30 total people. To that boss’ credit, the text feedback was actually useful, but the numeric scores were comical.

ugh what a pain

Another issue is that often effort is the only lever one has in providing value as what tasks you are assigned constrains potential value output.Hypothetically, If my boss assigns me a stupid project destined to failure and tells me to shut up when I push back I'm really not going to get much value regardless of how much effort I put in... unless I was wrong in my assesment which is admittedly possible. Good management I suppose would then use effort as a proxy to try to find projects with potential to match one's effort.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#126

Post by hirako2000 »

jmward01 wrote: post #118

One thing I have always thought was missing in game theory (and it is probably there but I just haven't looked hard enough) is a mathematical framework for how to build trust to increase the infinite payout for everyone. If in the decision making the idea of an offering is added in then it brings up the possibility of gauging trust and building trust so that future actions can capture more value until an optimal infi…

Nature already solved that and implemented it. It's all around us with relationships. Not just among humans. They typically last over a single interaction. Especially if you don't ignore the rules of the game.

But the game theory of nature also leaves room for other sort of players to somehow win over fair play. I thought this was a bug but over time realised it is a feature, critical to making players as a whole stronger. Without it there would be no point for anyone to be creative.

If you can solve the issue and make a playbook so that everyone do tic for tac, it won't take long for a bad actor to exploit it, then more, then you are back to where we are now.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#127

Post by RobotToaster »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #113
RobotToaster wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. If that was the case it would be based on family wealth/income.

Social capital is not measured in family wealth / income, but it can very easily translate into jobs and other valuable things (like when your father knows someone who can get you an interview)

I'd argue that they're very highly correlated. It would be an unusual outlier for someone to have high social capital but low wealth/income.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#128

Post by autoexec »

VinLucero wrote: post #89
zozbot234 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we actually want an effortocracy. Why should we aim to reward pointless, Sisyphean tasks at the expense of actual achievement? There's no inherent moral worth to futile effort that doesn't actually yield any reward, regardless of how laborious it might be.

Then why do we have books on grit? And why is grit such a good indicator of successful founders?

I'd be willing to bet that grit has a lot less to do with successful founders than luck and/or access to a lot of money. There are way more unsuccessful founders filled with grit than successful ones.

The reason there are so many books on grit is because it's a very compelling lie that anyone can succeed if they just try hard enough without giving up. It's useful for the person who hasn't succeeded because it gives them hope. It's useful for the person who has succeeded because it implies that they earned/deserve what they have because they were better than others or tried harder than others did. These are lies, but they are comforting to a lot of people and so they sell a lot of books. Books that say things like "Be born to wealthy parents, preferably in a rich nation or your odds of success are highly unlikely, then also get really lucky" just aren't going to sell as well.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#129

Post by benlivengood »

jmward01 wrote: post #118

One thing I have always thought was missing in game theory (and it is probably there but I just haven't looked hard enough) is a mathematical framework for how to build trust to increase the infinite payout for everyone. If in the decision making the idea of an offering is added in then it brings up the possibility of gauging trust and building trust so that future actions can capture more value until an optimal infi…

With an optimal way of determining fair splitting of gains like Shapley value[0] you can cooperate or defect with a probability that maximizes other participants expected value when everyone act fairly.

The ultimatum game is the simplest example; N dollars of prize to split, N/2 is fair, accept with probability M / (N /2) where M is what's offered to you; the opponents maximum expected value comes from offering N/2; trying to offer less (or more) results in expected value to them Trust can be built out of clearly describing how you'll respond in your own best interests in ways that achieve fairness, e.g. assuming the other parties will understand the concept of fairness and also act to maximize their expected value given their knowledge of how you will act.

If you want to solve logically harder problems like one-shot prisoners dilemma, there are preliminary theories for how that can be done by proving things about the other participants directly. It won't work for humans, but maybe artificial agents. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.5577

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley_value

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#130

Post by elliotto »

jmward01 wrote: post #118

One thing I have always thought was missing in game theory (and it is probably there but I just haven't looked hard enough) is a mathematical framework for how to build trust to increase the infinite payout for everyone. If in the decision making the idea of an offering is added in then it brings up the possibility of gauging trust and building trust so that future actions can capture more value until an optimal infi…

This is the TCP backoff algorithm, specifically the slow start to find the optimal bandwidth. In your analogy, it would find the optimal amount that a person is willing to reciprocate.

Not only does this algorithm exist, but we're using it to communicate right now!

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

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