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The world is very much not zero sum and never has been. If it was then we'd be stuck in the stone age because every advancement that benefits one person would h
by xmprt 2y ago
The world is very much not zero sum and never has been. If it was then we'd be stuck in the stone age because every advancement that benefits one person would hurt the rest. Instead we see that over the course of history the average wealth of the world has gone up. There are certainly some negative intangibles that come from that (eg. climate change or ecosystem collapse) but it's hard to quantify if that makes it zero sum and even so, the context of this thread is about human vs human zero sum games.
- jltsiren 2y agoThe world was effectively a zero-sum game until the industrial revolution. For most of human history, the average growth per capita was something like 0.01%/year. There was some growth, but you could not see it in a single lifetime. Which is why conquering your neighbors, taking their possessions, and enslaving them was such a popular form of business.
- xmprt 2y agoI'm not sure I even agree with this. If by conquering your neighbors, your civilization grows 5x (as opposed to just having you + your neighbors), then doesn't that by definition mean it's not zero sum?