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This is the same topic of Eliezer Yudkowsky's recent book "Inadequate Equilibria" [0], reviewed by Scott Aaronson here [1]. That book does a good job explainin

This is the same topic of Eliezer Yudkowsky's recent book "Inadequate Equilibria" [0], reviewed by Scott Aaronson here [1]. That book does a good job explaining why not every inefficiency can be eliminated - because getting out of a bad nash equilibrium requires coordinated changes, and for large enough groups you can't convince enough people to make a change at the same time. 0: https://equilibriabook.com/toc/ https://equilibriabook.com/toc/ 1: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3535 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3535

madhadron 9y ago
Or you could read short book on game theory, think for ten minutes about perverse incentives, and get to the same results without the conceptual diarrhea that Yudkowsky insists on. Why he had to try to drag a concept of free energy into it with no justification, I don't know.
- daveguy 9y ago
  "Read a short book on..." Is a pretty high bar for conceptual simplicity. Why wouldn't those who have had exposure to the concept of free energy prefer that metaphor to yours? You may be biased having exposure to more game theory than free energy. One person's conceptual diarrhea is another person's cleanest explanation.
  - alasdair_ 9y ago
    >"Read a short book on..." Is a pretty high bar for conceptual simplicity. Take five minutes and read the wikipedia page on the prisoner's dilemma then. Even in a two player game, it's clear why individually optimizing for personal gain leads to poor outcomes for everyone, yet if there was a way to force people to act in a particular way, the total outcome for everyone would be better for all.
    - ucaetano 9y ago
      Except that the one forcing people will inevitably force people to act in a way that maximizes his/her personal gain.
      - taneq 9y ago
        Which is fine if that is also a way which maximizes those peoples' personal gain as well.
        ucaetano 9y ago
        But is rarely or never the case. See pretty much every dictatorship in history.
        crpatino 9y ago
        Which is impossible by definition. If the goal of the leader is to maximize, not merely increase, his own gain; then the gain of the others will never be maximized, because the leader will naturally try to grab a bigger share of the bigger pie. Others, specially key workers and allies that help the leader keep his status as leader, will see their own gains increased, but rarely by a percentage equal or greater than the total growth. Most players will see only marginal increases if at all, since most are content to not see his own share decrease. Finally, players that land in a bad position in the social hierarchhy, those that lack options and cannot easily walk away, will see their share decrease and be blamed on "the economy" or some other abstract boogieman.
    - TimPC 9y ago
      Except people tend to solve the prisoner's dilemma problem well enough that many research experiments lead to cooperative strategies. So it's a poor model of the real world. It's a dilemma for people who believe everyone's a rational optimizer.. for lack of a better word let's call them economists. There are variations of coordination problems that are actually complex enough to go unsolved in the real world and in some cases they don't even necessarily require irrational decisions, they just require a large amount of coordination to adjust the state to something where each individual decision has justified payoff.

madhadron 9y ago

Or you could read short book on game theory, think for ten minutes about perverse incentives, and get to the same results without the conceptual diarrhea that Yudkowsky insists on. Why he had to try to drag a concept of free energy into it with no justification, I don't know.

daveguy 9y ago
"Read a short book on..." Is a pretty high bar for conceptual simplicity. Why wouldn't those who have had exposure to the concept of free energy prefer that metaphor to yours? You may be biased having exposure to more game theory than free energy. One person's conceptual diarrhea is another person's cleanest explanation.
- alasdair_ 9y ago
  >"Read a short book on..." Is a pretty high bar for conceptual simplicity. Take five minutes and read the wikipedia page on the prisoner's dilemma then. Even in a two player game, it's clear why individually optimizing for personal gain leads to poor outcomes for everyone, yet if there was a way to force people to act in a particular way, the total outcome for everyone would be better for all.
  - ucaetano 9y ago
    Except that the one forcing people will inevitably force people to act in a way that maximizes his/her personal gain.
    - taneq 9y ago
      Which is fine if that is also a way which maximizes those peoples' personal gain as well.
      - ucaetano 9y ago
        But is rarely or never the case. See pretty much every dictatorship in history.
      - crpatino 9y ago
        Which is impossible by definition. If the goal of the leader is to maximize, not merely increase, his own gain; then the gain of the others will never be maximized, because the leader will naturally try to grab a bigger share of the bigger pie. Others, specially key workers and allies that help the leader keep his status as leader, will see their own gains increased, but rarely by a percentage equal or greater than the total growth. Most players will see only marginal increases if at all, since most are content to not see his own share decrease. Finally, players that land in a bad position in the social hierarchhy, those that lack options and cannot easily walk away, will see their share decrease and be blamed on "the economy" or some other abstract boogieman.
  - TimPC 9y ago
    Except people tend to solve the prisoner's dilemma problem well enough that many research experiments lead to cooperative strategies. So it's a poor model of the real world. It's a dilemma for people who believe everyone's a rational optimizer.. for lack of a better word let's call them economists. There are variations of coordination problems that are actually complex enough to go unsolved in the real world and in some cases they don't even necessarily require irrational decisions, they just require a large amount of coordination to adjust the state to something where each individual decision has justified payoff.