4 ms·

Nitpick but this implicitly requires I buy-in to a zero sum system

• bonoboTP 6y ago
  It's enough that you understand that others have that view. You don't make the rules. The view of others shapes the incentive landscape. Things aren't zero sum, but our psychology has developed for a more or less zero sum environment. There was no exponential growth or constant innovation in every generation in those times. It is valuable to learn what drives people and what interpersonal forces elevate some strategies and suppress others.
• minikites 6y ago
  Many things are in fact zero-sum systems.
• cowpig 6y ago
  It doesn't; it requires you buy into the economics of monopoly. Your neighbor doesn't want your cow to die, it's the megacowcorp trying to charge four times the equilibrium price for milk.
• jholman 6y ago
  No, it does not. Just mathematically the thing you said is clearly false. Suppose I say that, for some system, the return to each player is a function of the number of players: r(n) = 100 / (n+1). One player makes 50, two players make 33 each for a total of 66, three players make 25 each for a total of 75. Clearly not zero-sum, but I can still move up in the world by killing someone else's cows. One might observe that much of the world is like this; not truly zero-sum, but with payoff matrices that incentivize hurting or helping strangers. Note that almost all traditional microeconomics is this kind of curve-following system, one way or another. I'm not saying that kind of economics is right or wrong, just that it's a very traditional model, worth understanding as a starting point.
• theptip 6y ago
  What is being described is a net-negative sum strategy. Value is destroyed, and the monopolist is able to extract more rent because there is less competition.
• theamk 6y ago
  Nitpick on nitpick: .. or it could be a complex non-zero-sum game. A kills B's cow, so that milk supply decreases, price increases, and C pays more to A for the milk.