RSS feed is broken
I think I've fixed it now... it's working in my reader, please let me know if it's still not working for you.
Non-Zero-Sum Games
201–210 of 218 posts
Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games
#202This website seems really well made, and the posts are interesting, thanks for sharing!
Thanks max-amb, it's a bit clunky in places.. but with a little crowd-sourced bug-fixing it's getting there!
Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games
#203Loving 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…
Thanks unholiness—fair point on the footnotes, I'll put that on my to-do list. As you can see, it's all very hand-made, so some of those basics are missed sometimes.
Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games
#204Just 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 befor…
I love this response.
Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Critics are typically saying that giving out scholarships limited by race is racially discriminatory.
This doesn't address the question and adds to it a misrepresentation of the facts.
Which facts are misrepresented?
The point is that the author picks some arbitrary critique and calls them fallacious, when the core of the disagreement is elsewhere.
Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games
#206Looks really nice! However, the rss feed seems broken. Probably a missing/malformed character somewhere
Where do you find the RSS feed? I can't see a link to it anywhere
Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games
#207This website seems really well made, and the posts are interesting, thanks for sharing!
I personally found the text hard to read (both because of the typeface and the small size), the animations distracting during scrolling (while I'm trying to skim the content), and the background colors too dark for dark text on them with jarring full white (#FFF) colored text. I understand they're trying to go for a whimsical and fun feeling, but imo as implemented it is far from "really well made".
I just found reading it fun, but I didn't skim it so I can imagine its a bit much when skimming, I am not much of a designer. I like the style of whimsy, but I think its just a matter of preference.
Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games
#208Looks really nice! However, the rss feed seems broken. Probably a missing/malformed character somewhere
Where do you find the RSS feed? I can't see a link to it anywhere
You can find it toward the bottom. And yes, the link is copied to the clipboard. Not sure if it was fixed after posting, but there was def a broken link.
Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Not GP author. I'd like to continue the conversation though. However, be warned that my view is actually closer to reducing the economy to thermodynamics. I don't intend to overturn every single point you've made, but I hope this doesn't preclude a productive discussion. > 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 t…
There is a big difference between being zero-sum and the sum being zero. A zero-sum game cannot end with any other outcome but the sum of zero. Non-zero-sum games can end with the sum of zero but can also end with other sums. This last part is what makes capitalism not zero-sum, even if in practice the sum is zero (which it isn't but that's a separate point).
I focused on zero-resources-needed services because they're the easiest example. They don't make much of the overall economy, but they do exist - tutoring, standup comedy, basic massage to name a few. Because no resources are used, you don't have to quantify the value to prove the sum is positive, you just need to prove the service isn't completely pointless. A proof for services that do use resources is also possible, but far more complicated and requires quantification of value, which is always a very contentious topic in and of itself. Like, you already contended it before I even invoked this concept, that's how contentious it is.
Externalities exist, sure. And are often omitted in pro-capitalism arguments, sure. But to argue that externalities make capitalism zero-sum is to argue externalities always exactly match whatever value was gained by capitalist transactions. Which is even harder to prove than the already dubious argument that externalities are larger than the value of capitalism.
I only brought up GDP to highlight that services are a big part of modern economy, so any model of economy that assigns no value to services is a wrong model, because it will not match the actual flow of money within a real world economy. I strongly believe models ought to be useful.
Re: Non-Zero-Sum Games
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I, unfortunately, do not have a degree in economics. I don't have the knowledge necessary to digest your whitepaper. It would be useless of me to read it (I tried). I'm sorry.
My objection to the thermodynamic argument is that it means that no value can ever possibly be gained from any action whatsoever, both at micro and macro scale. Life is pointless, nothing matters, etcetera etcetera. While undisputably true, it doesn't make for an interesting discussion.
Capitalist model, even if fundamentally wrong, at least makes it possible to talk about value and its changes. And even if it doesn't describe real world, it still describes some kind of world. Taken purely as a mathematical construct, the world of the capitalist economic model can be analyzed in terms of game theory. And at least when I do the analysis, it comes as non-zero-sum. Not only because of services, but also because of processed goods - even if thermodynamic balance is the same, some arrangement of atoms have more value than others, usually because of their utility (copper lumps vs. copper wires, for example).
Taking away parts of the model in order to show that it's zero sum isn't very convincing - what if it's only zero sum because you took away parts that make it non-zero-sum? A much more convincing argument would be to add to the model - accept what the economists say as is, but expand on how externalities are being ignored and that if you account for them, the sum does indeed end up zero.
Note that I'm not claiming capitalism is good. I'm only claiming that in game theory terms, it is not an example of a zero sum game. The only way it could possibly be true is if there was some inherent law that any . It's much easier for me to believe the world will be destroyed in 30 years due to capitalism than that the world being eventually destroyed is a mathematical consequence of zero-sumness of capitalism.