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Non-Zero-Sum Games

nonzerosum.games

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Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#191

Post by sethammons »

willturman wrote: post #139
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?

> 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 mi…

is grit not required to make it to land in the survivorship bias pool? If your first failure is too hard on you and you quit, then, by definition, you can't succeed. Maybe grit doesn't count when everything goes your way always. I'm not sure anyone has experienced success without grit, but I could be entertained by anecdotes.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#192

Post by TheMiddleMan »

unholiness wrote: post #122

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…

FYI your browser back button should bring you back where you were.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#193

Post by voidhorse »

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…

I wouldn't put so much stock in a mathematical model like game theory.

Humanity has accomplished a lot with the notion of number, quantity, and numerical model, but in nearly all these cases our success relies on the heavy use of assumptions and more importantly constraints—most models are actually quite poor when it comes to a Laplacean dream of fully representing everything one might care about in practice.

Unfortunately I think our successes tends to lead individuals to overestimate the value and applicability of abstract models. Human beings are not automatons and human behavior is so variable and vast that I highly doubt any mathematical model could ever really account for it in sufficient detail. Worse, there's a definite quantum problem. The moment you report on predicted behaviors according to your model, human beings can respond to those reports, changing their own behaviors and totally ruining your model by blowing the constraints out of the water.

I actually believe that many of humanity's contemporary social issues actually stem from overreliance on mathematical models with respect to understanding human behavior and making decisions about economics and governance. The more we can directly acquire insight into individuals rather than believe in their "revealed preferences" the better off we'll be if we really want a system in which people's direct wants are represented (rather than telling them "you say you want X but when I give you only Y as choice you choose Y so you must want Y"—it's totally idiotic).

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#194

Post by AndrewKemendo »

Xirdus wrote: post #163
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t believe I wasted my time thinking through that thoughtful response to you Thats on me

I'm very open to a serious discussion. But only if it's actually serious. I don't consider reducing economy to thermodynamics to be serious. Any statement about any economy is meaningless if you're ignoring services. Especially when discussing the totality of an economic system, such as the question whether capitalism is zero-sum. I am happy to hear actual arguments how the value of services always, necessarily, by d…

The only reason people work is that they can have food so that their thermodynamic process of biology maintains consistent - if you do not account for this then you have not even begun to think about an economy

I have a degree in econometrics

that has nothing to do with reality

economists are totally completely capitulated to capitalism as a religion

there is no other possible thing that institutional economics talks about

so if your entire point is that you wanna stay within the frame of institutional economics then like I said there’s nothing else to be said here

If you really wanna go fully into this then you can read my paper that pulls all of it together:

https://kemendo.com/GTC.pdf

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#196

Post by AndrewKemendo »

stackghost wrote: post #178
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re describing positive-sum outcomes in subjective preference space. I’m describing conservation laws in physical state space. Preference gains don’t violate thermodynamics, but they also don’t escape zero-sum reality once you include energy, ecology, and time. You’re doing what I’m complaining about separating Economics from ecology - there’s a very firm reason why climate changes the most important topic of our…

"Everything in economics is zero-sum because the resources on the plane are finite" is an unimaginative undergraduate-level position that adds nothing of substance to the discussion. If you want to have a constructive conversation about pricing environmental externalities then by all means, but you need to drop this "I'm smarter than you" attitude if you want better reactions to your comments, especially if you're ju…

"Everything in economics is zero-sum because the resources on the plane are finite"

This is literally the position of the field of ecology and the field of cybernetics

I live day-to-day inside of that world because that is the real world

the fact that few others live live day-to-day inside the field of ecology and Cybernetics is precisely the problem I’m pointing out

the fact that you want to deny this means that you’re ignoring the intersectionality between climate change, social and structural dynamics, industrial production, financial production, Infrastructure and all this other stuff as though they are separate they are not separate

Is pure projection to say that it’s reductive for me to demand an accounting for all possible externalities in order to have a coherent system

I’m telling you to do 10 to 100 times more work in evaluating any of these actions structurally then is currently happening and you’re trying to induce that I’m collapsing the problem into some kind of single state variable and I’m saying no you need thousands of more variables to be tracking in your head at all time and on ledgers at all time then we currently do because all of these externalities have been dumped into the ocean and nto the atmosphere effectively

When the global food supply collapses and there’s blight and drought and famine because we overextended resource extraction without identifying the long-term effects of that literally no other argument is going to hold sway

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#197

Post by zahlman »

didibus wrote: post #171
zahlman wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Historically, institutions were widely believed to be selecting the best available candidates within the accepted social boundaries of the time. They did not call it meritocracy, but it was assumed. AA advocacy exposed cracks in systems that claimed to be merit based and pushed reforms like anonymization and structured evaluation, which made selection more merit based, not less. Merit is noisy and ties are unavoidabl…

> within the accepted social boundaries of the time

Pulls a lot of weight there.

> AA advocacy exposed cracks in systems

No; it proposed a supposed justice for those former social boundaries.

> and pushed reforms like anonymization and structured evaluation

No, these are clearly not anything to do with AA programs as actually observed today. It's extremely disingenuous to attribute the "colourblindness" of the 90s to "AA" and then use that to justify the explicitly race-conscious policies of today.

> You can disagree with that choice, but it is coherent to see it as pro merit rather than anti merit.

No, it is not. It completely ignores what the word "merit" means.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#198

Post by stackghost »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #196
stackghost wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everything in economics is zero-sum because the resources on the plane are finite" is an unimaginative undergraduate-level position that adds nothing of substance to the discussion. If you want to have a constructive conversation about pricing environmental externalities then by all means, but you need to drop this "I'm smarter than you" attitude if you want better reactions to your comments, especially if you're ju…

"Everything in economics is zero-sum because the resources on the plane are finite" This is literally the position of the field of ecology and the field of cybernetics I live day-to-day inside of that world because that is the real world the fact that few others live live day-to-day inside the field of ecology and Cybernetics is precisely the problem I’m pointing out the fact that you want to deny this means that you…

>the fact that you want to deny this means

That's not an honest representation of what I wrote.

Thanks for signalling you aren't ready to discuss in good faith, bye.

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#199

Post by hackable_sand »

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

It's not

Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games

#200

Post by NonZeroSumJames »

ultrasounder wrote: post #123

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

Thanks ultrasounder!
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