Incidentally, zero-sum games are the kind of thing that isn’t analogous with the sense of “positive sum” you are discussing.
Also, increasing the size of the pie isn’t incompatible with making pieces of the pie some of the pieholders have smaller (in absolute and not just relative terms). This is technically a “positive sum” interaction, but doesn’t seem to fit the narrative. A concept that might fit better is Pareto improvement, a change that leaves everyone concerned better off. (Which can never be achieved by changes of strategy in zero-sum games.)
It is an important problem how to make sure that when the pie grows no one’s part gets smaller. Because if you don’t solve this, you get people who oppose the growth, for obvious reasons.
(If I remember correctly, in Eliezer’s dath ilan, everyone immediately considers how to compensate the people who would get hurt by a generally-positive change. The fact that this is common knowledge probably makes its effect even more powerful.)
I’d take it even further and say that if you do not think about how to compensate the people hurt by the change, how can you even be sure that the change is generally positive? I mean, maybe it is, and maybe it just seems so because you are looking at the positive effects (which happen to you), and ignoring the negative ones (which happen to someone else).
Incidentally, zero-sum games are the kind of thing that isn’t analogous with the sense of “positive sum” you are discussing.
Also, increasing the size of the pie isn’t incompatible with making pieces of the pie some of the pieholders have smaller (in absolute and not just relative terms). This is technically a “positive sum” interaction, but doesn’t seem to fit the narrative. A concept that might fit better is Pareto improvement, a change that leaves everyone concerned better off. (Which can never be achieved by changes of strategy in zero-sum games.)
It is an important problem how to make sure that when the pie grows no one’s part gets smaller. Because if you don’t solve this, you get people who oppose the growth, for obvious reasons.
(If I remember correctly, in Eliezer’s dath ilan, everyone immediately considers how to compensate the people who would get hurt by a generally-positive change. The fact that this is common knowledge probably makes its effect even more powerful.)
I’d take it even further and say that if you do not think about how to compensate the people hurt by the change, how can you even be sure that the change is generally positive? I mean, maybe it is, and maybe it just seems so because you are looking at the positive effects (which happen to you), and ignoring the negative ones (which happen to someone else).