24 ms·

Relevant for a lot of geopolitical and corporate strategic situations as well. The whole Mideast situation we're in now is because we were in zugzwang and a co

Relevant for a lot of geopolitical and corporate strategic situations as well. The whole Mideast situation we're in now is because we were in zugzwang and a couple leaders felt the compulsion to move. Taiwan is a similar situation: the best policy is "strategic ambiguity", which is holding for now, but is a bit of an unstable equilibrium. More relevant to a business site, this is the situation many large corporations find themselves in. Say you're Google and you own an immensely profitable monopoly. The very best thing you can do is nothing; anything you do risks upsetting the delicate competitive equilibrium that you're winning. If you're an executive, how do you do nothing? You can't very well hire thousands of employees to do nothing and pay them to do it. But if you don't have thousands of employees, and your job is doing nothing, how do you justify the millions that they're paying you? The strategy many executives use is to set different parts of their organization at odds with each other, so that they each create busywork that other employees must do. Everybody is fully utilized, and yet in the big picture nothing changes. Oftentimes they will create big strategic initiatives that are tangential to the golden goose, spending billions on boondoggles that don't actually do anything, because the whole point is to do nothing while seeming like you need thousands of people to do it. And the whole reason for that is because most people are very bad at sitting still, and so if you didn't pay them a whole lot to do nothing useful, the useful stuff they'd be doing would be trying to compete with and unseat you. (You can also see this in the billion dollar paydays that entrepreneurs get when they mount a credible threat of unseating the giant incumbent.)

shermantanktop 6mo ago
Geopolitically, the no-action move is rarely unavailable. The motivation to do something rash like start a war out of the blue is often down to the decision of a single person. That leader may have political reasons to do it but they aren’t being forced to do it, as they would in a turn-based game.
pmontra 6mo ago
Two teams, one digs holes, the other one fills holes. Maybe an advice by Keynes during the Great Depression.
- gzread 6mo ago
  people mock communism for this, but capitalism also does it all the time
  - Nifty3929 6mo ago
    Capitalism DOES do this all the time, but bankruptcy is the safeguard against this among private companies in a capitalist system. If your outputs are not more valuable than your inputs over a long enough period of time, you will be bankrupt. There is no such safeguard among publicly run, financed, incented, funded, etc companies or organizations. Their outputs can remain less valuable than their inputs over an indefinite period of time.
    - merry_flame 6mo ago
      Not if you consider externalities. Privatizing profits and socializing losses and all that…
colechristensen 6mo ago
>Relevant for a lot of geopolitical and corporate strategic situations as well. The whole Mideast situation we're in now is because we were in zugzwang and a couple leaders felt the compulsion to move. Taiwan is a similar situation: the best policy is "strategic ambiguity", which is holding for now, but is a bit of an unstable equilibrium. This isn't the case at all. Obama HAD a deal with Iran that Trump tanked in his first term. Israel did not have to respond to a terrorist attack with genocide. Trump could have said No to Netanyahu who clearly threatened to attack Iran with or without us, it turns out we could indeed put pressure on them not to attack, but TACO. Everything that's happening in the middle east is a series of blunders by fools.
- alex43578 6mo ago
  And on the flip side, Iran could choose not to pursue a nuke and violate the NPT. Hamas could choose not to kill 800-some civilians and take 250 hostages, etc.
  - gzread 6mo ago
    why would Iran not make a nuke when America keeps bombing countries that don't have nukes, and avoids bombing countries that have nukes (most notably North Korea)? They have all the incentives to have a nuke so they'll stop getting bombed. Obama negotiated to avoid this but Trump ripped it up and bombed them, so they're definitely not going to trust any agreements with the west ever again. From their perspective, their only path to not getting bombed to shit involves having several nukes. It's quite rational for them to do that.
  - Sardtok 6mo ago
    That nuke they are apparently working has been just around the corner for over 30 years according to Israeli propaganda.
  - colechristensen 6mo ago
    Certainly, I was only talking about one side of the conflict, the errors in our own house.
  - 6mo ago
alex43578 6mo ago
That’s a bit cynical to view every corporate action through that lens. There’s certainly the innovator’s dilemma, and plenty of busy work, but to your Google example, plenty of tasks and developments are needed to keep the thing running. Detect and counter black hat SEO, build or acquire a new product you can spread ads to (Maps, YouTube), create a chatbot that can eventually get ads if search is supplanted. These things support or maintain that monopoly/equilibrium you’re talking about.
sobellian 6mo ago
If you would lose even if you didn't move, that is not zugzwang. Zugzwang is when, because you must move per the rules of the game, you lose. I don't really see that dynamic in foreign policy. Any country has the option of maintaining its current policy. Whether or not it's wise, the option exists.
- akmann 6mo ago
  Ofcourse not every situation is zugzwang, but there might be geopolitical situations that fit… Just the other day Iran offered to open the straight of hormuz, keeping the USA in a state of „they have to respond“ because its expected by their population. In this situation there might be no good choice, so you could call it a zugzwang. But as usual in the states, the administration can just tell some bullshit and get off with it haha

shermantanktop 6mo ago

Geopolitically, the no-action move is rarely unavailable. The motivation to do something rash like start a war out of the blue is often down to the decision of a single person. That leader may have political reasons to do it but they aren’t being forced to do it, as they would in a turn-based game.

pmontra 6mo ago

Two teams, one digs holes, the other one fills holes. Maybe an advice by Keynes during the Great Depression.

gzread 6mo ago
people mock communism for this, but capitalism also does it all the time
- Nifty3929 6mo ago
  Capitalism DOES do this all the time, but bankruptcy is the safeguard against this among private companies in a capitalist system. If your outputs are not more valuable than your inputs over a long enough period of time, you will be bankrupt. There is no such safeguard among publicly run, financed, incented, funded, etc companies or organizations. Their outputs can remain less valuable than their inputs over an indefinite period of time.
  - merry_flame 6mo ago
    Not if you consider externalities. Privatizing profits and socializing losses and all that…

colechristensen 6mo ago

>Relevant for a lot of geopolitical and corporate strategic situations as well. The whole Mideast situation we're in now is because we were in zugzwang and a couple leaders felt the compulsion to move. Taiwan is a similar situation: the best policy is "strategic ambiguity", which is holding for now, but is a bit of an unstable equilibrium. This isn't the case at all. Obama HAD a deal with Iran that Trump tanked in his first term. Israel did not have to respond to a terrorist attack with genocide. Trump could have said No to Netanyahu who clearly threatened to attack Iran with or without us, it turns out we could indeed put pressure on them not to attack, but TACO. Everything that's happening in the middle east is a series of blunders by fools.

alex43578 6mo ago
And on the flip side, Iran could choose not to pursue a nuke and violate the NPT. Hamas could choose not to kill 800-some civilians and take 250 hostages, etc.
- gzread 6mo ago
  why would Iran not make a nuke when America keeps bombing countries that don't have nukes, and avoids bombing countries that have nukes (most notably North Korea)? They have all the incentives to have a nuke so they'll stop getting bombed. Obama negotiated to avoid this but Trump ripped it up and bombed them, so they're definitely not going to trust any agreements with the west ever again. From their perspective, their only path to not getting bombed to shit involves having several nukes. It's quite rational for them to do that.
- Sardtok 6mo ago
  That nuke they are apparently working has been just around the corner for over 30 years according to Israeli propaganda.
- colechristensen 6mo ago
  Certainly, I was only talking about one side of the conflict, the errors in our own house.
- 6mo ago

alex43578 6mo ago

That’s a bit cynical to view every corporate action through that lens. There’s certainly the innovator’s dilemma, and plenty of busy work, but to your Google example, plenty of tasks and developments are needed to keep the thing running. Detect and counter black hat SEO, build or acquire a new product you can spread ads to (Maps, YouTube), create a chatbot that can eventually get ads if search is supplanted. These things support or maintain that monopoly/equilibrium you’re talking about.

sobellian 6mo ago

If you would lose even if you didn't move, that is not zugzwang. Zugzwang is when, because you must move per the rules of the game, you lose. I don't really see that dynamic in foreign policy. Any country has the option of maintaining its current policy. Whether or not it's wise, the option exists.

akmann 6mo ago
Ofcourse not every situation is zugzwang, but there might be geopolitical situations that fit… Just the other day Iran offered to open the straight of hormuz, keeping the USA in a state of „they have to respond“ because its expected by their population. In this situation there might be no good choice, so you could call it a zugzwang. But as usual in the states, the administration can just tell some bullshit and get off with it haha