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Non-Zero-Sum Games

nonzerosum.games

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Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#131

Post by when_creaks »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #80
cowpig wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Your assertion that "energy comes from somewhere" seems to be borrowing a concept from thermodynamics and apply it, at the scale of the entire universe, to an opinion about the properties of economic/po…

Humans can’t convert sun energy into biological energy. We aren’t plants. However we eat plants and we eat the things that eat plants. So do you consider plants and animals part of your environment or not? Is the basic requirements for having an economy being a set of humans in a society that has language and culture and exchange? There’s no free lunch Human activity takes from the non-human environment. Under an abs…

In your opinion which society / nation / government in human history is closest to your ideal of how things should be?

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#132

Post by zahlman »

didibus wrote: post #90
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"…

It depends, there were a lot of studies that showed prejudice and bias in the meritocratic process. You had examples of CVs with woman names removed getting more callbacks, and anonymous interviews having higher rates of hire and such. Due to this, people considered affirmative actions to correct for this skew. That would actually make it a meritocratic motivated AA. And then you have the idea of missed potential. Th…

> It depends, there were a lot of studies that showed prejudice and bias in the meritocratic process.

A meritocratic process by definition is not prejudiced or biased. There were studies that claimed to show processes to not actually be meritocratic. In my experience, these findings either haven't reproduced or don't appropriately account for confounders; and if they held up they would be pointing at things that are already illegal (and irrational).

> It's similar to when black athletes weren't allowed in sports. We thought we had a meritocratic process

What? How do you come to the conclusion that "we" thought any such thing? The term (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy) was coined in the 50s for socialist criticism invoking satire. The discourse had nothing to do with race and was about disputing how merit is measured, not about supposed prejudices (except perhaps class privilege). Nor did coaches, managers etc. imagine any inferiority on the part of black athletes in regards to physical prowess. Segregation was to keep the peace; see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_color_line :

> Before the 1860s Civil War, black players participated in the highest levels of baseball.[2] During the war, baseball rose to prominence as a way to bring soldiers from various regions of the country together. In the aftermath of the war, baseball became a tool for national reconciliation; due to the racial issues involved in the war, baseball's unifying potential was mainly pursued among white Americans.[3]

Anyway,

> You wouldn't know if it works or not unless you give it at least one if not two generations to take effect.

This time lapse isn't required for a moral judgment, however.

> Equity doesn't mean give those that suck a boost. It means give those that weren't given the environment to develop their full potential a chance at it, they may end up being even better than the alternative.

An employer, or a college admissions officer, cannot provide what was missing from someone's "environment" during the formative years, and should not be expected to try; nor ought they shoulder the risk of anyone's "full potential" being absent. Everyone might as well hire randomly from the general population at that point.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#133

Post by michaeljx »

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…

Look into cooperative game theory. If I remember correctly, trust is modelled as a way of exchanging information and influencing the probabilities that other players place on your next action

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#134

Post by zozbot234 »

autoexec wrote: post #128
VinLucero wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

The thing is, an "unsuccessful" startup founder filled with grit has many side-opportunities after the fact despite her "failure". Founding a startup is so risky that these side benefits are actually a far bigger part of the draw, since success is ultimately just as rare as a winning lotto ticket - compare the number of failed startups with the handful of unicorns, and it's pretty much in the same ballpark.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#135

Post by autoexec »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #44
anon84873628 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you disagree that some critics of AA are committing that fallacy? AA is being used as an example of the failure mode where: "The failure of a single component does not mean the program is fatally flawed; rather, it highlights the need for a comprehensive, coordinated approach" Indeed, I'm sure the author would agree that part of the comprehensive solution is to increase the amount of university admission slots.

>Indeed, I'm sure the author would agree that part of the comprehensive solution is to increase the amount of university admission slots. A large part of the value of elite education is its scarcity, and adding more slots dilutes that value.

> A large part of the value of elite education is its scarcity,

That's a stupid thing to value. Nothing worthwhile is gained by limiting education to a select few. The value of an elite education should be the actual education. Plenty of very wealthy idiots get a golden ticket to an "elite education" and are still uneducated idiots afterwards. If a large part of the value is nothing more than giving others the perception of having a lot of money or connections we should probably come up with other ways to signal that.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#136

Post by didibus »

robocat wrote: post #98
didibus wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends, there were a lot of studies that showed prejudice and bias in the meritocratic process. You had examples of CVs with woman names removed getting more callbacks, and anonymous interviews having higher rates of hire and such. Due to this, people considered affirmative actions to correct for this skew. That would actually make it a meritocratic motivated AA. And then you have the idea of missed potential. Th…

You are stawmanning. You are attempting to say what they think meritocracy is - and your basing your thoughts on your own stereotypes. > You had examples of CVs with woman names removed getting more callbacks That is not meritocracy.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. These systems claimed to be meritocratic but empirically weren’t. AA was introduced as a corrective, not a rejection of merit. Was it successful at correcting it, did it introduce other defects, I don't know, but you can see that implementation of AA can result from wanting to be more meritocratic, not less.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#137

Post by zozbot234 »

zajio1am wrote: post #107
wijwp wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you need effort + the ability to create value, not one or the other. Some people have one but not the other and seek out help to bridge the gap.

Yes, also effort is something a person can influence directly, while ability cannot or only indirectly (education ...) so it makes sense to focus on things people can influence, but but achievement is the ultimate target.

I don't believe in the least that the only thing a person can influence directly is brute effort, and that's the argument you'd need to make in order to build a case for "effortocracy" over rewarding good outcomes. A whole lot of effort out there in the real world is wasted due to entirely preventable errors and mistakes.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#138

Post by MontyCarloHall »

autoexec wrote: post #135
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Indeed, I'm sure the author would agree that part of the comprehensive solution is to increase the amount of university admission slots. A large part of the value of elite education is its scarcity, and adding more slots dilutes that value.

> A large part of the value of elite education is its scarcity, That's a stupid thing to value. Nothing worthwhile is gained by limiting education to a select few. The value of an elite education should be the actual education. Plenty of very wealthy idiots get a golden ticket to an "elite education" and are still uneducated idiots afterwards. If a large part of the value is nothing more than giving others the percep…

I agree it's incredibly stupid. Just saying that our current society's valuation of scarcity makes access to an elite education very much a zero-sum game.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#139

Post by willturman »

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?

> And why is grit such a good indicator of successful founders?

Based on what? Biographical accounts by successful founders?

Nassim Taleb's Fooled By Randomness [1] covers the topic of mis-attribution of some causal factor X (i.e. grit) to some phenomena (i.e. business success) that can be effectively explained solely by randomness. In the specific case of successfully starting a business, causal factors are often mis-attributed post-facto through a lens that blatantly ignores survivorship bias [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fooled_by_Randomness

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#140

Post by jmward01 »

elliotto wrote: post #130
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

I have noticed this algorithm in many places which is why I think it is a missing piece in game theory and why formalizing it could be powerful. People use this instinctively in their interactions with others and algorithms (like the one you pointed out) have been created using the basic concept so a formalization of the math is likely in order. Consider the question of how big the offering should be. What if all parties are actually getting the optimum result, what mechanism stops the increase/why? Does it stop? Could this lead to both parties paying the other larger and larger sums forever? It is a fun thing to think about at least.
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