So… I think this is one of the most important posts I’ve read lately (it feels like it crystalizes and gives clarity to some key societal problems).
Unfortunately… “Battle of the Sexes” is a super distracting name, and a confusing one. I think it’s reasonable for LW to not go out of their way to cave to this week’s internet fashions. But, when I’ve tried to get other people to read this post, even people who care about game theory (but aren’t necessarily super well versed in it), they had a very different expectation of what Battle of the Sexes meant. (They assumed this post had something to do with gender, which I suspect contributed to them bouncing off of it)
I’m not actually sure what to do because there isn’t another great name for Battle of the Sexes. Bach vs Stravinsky is another name it has used, which at least has the advantage of not obviously suggesting any particular interpretation. It also has the same abbreviation as Battle of the Sexes, so it’s a bit more resilient to summarizing.
So I weakly suggest changing the title to replace Battle of the Sexes with Bach or Stravinsky. I’m not super confident because it is a more complicated sounding title that’s already pushing the boundary of complexity, but I think probably better on net.
(I think it should probably be basically required reading for LW users to know PD, SH and BoS games as core game theory concepts, but apparently we’re away aways from that world)
I think I will probably write a variation on this post with a title something like “which stag hunt are you coordinating on?”, approaching the content from a slightly more actionable angle while also summarizing the key pieces here. But, meanwhile I like that this post focuses explicitly on the game theory connections.
I changed to Schelling Pub, but the overall result feels like even more of a mess (because I inserted an explanation of what Schelling Pub is, awkwardly, at the beginning).
This post badly needs (a) a major re-write (b) someone to write other, better posts making the same / related points.
There are a number of problems with how this post is communicated..… it’s even possible that I chose the wrong central narrative for the whole post. A different central narrative could be “what are coordination problems?”—pointing out that people jump to prisoner’s dilemma as the central example of coordination problem, but there are multiple things “coordination problem” can mean. I could then examine the different notions of communication problem, and consider which problems seem most common in practice.
If I had to name the game from scratch (which maybe we should), I intuitively jump to something like “Schelling pub game”—two friends would prefer to encounter each other at the pub, but they each have different favorite pubs. Which pub should each select?
FYI, “most Stag Hunts are Schelling Pubs” left me a bit confused because I don’t have that association with “pub” (maybe because I’m not british? although neither are you AFAICT). I thought it was something about “public” or “publishing.” But I guess that’s approximately as obscure as Bach vs Stravinksy and fewer syllables meanwhile.
In a conversation with John Wentworth recently, it came up that maybe Battle of the Sexes should be called The Schelling Problem, because the general class of game is that there isn’t an obvious schelling point. “Most Stag Hunts are Schelling Problems” is… maybe slightly clearer if you already know what Schelling points are.
But really there needs to be a separate post that just says “hey, Battle of the Sexes has a shitty name but also you should know what it is. We should rename it X”
I think in general we should notice when things have bad names and change them, at least if it’s not too costly, but especially when it’s cheep. for example cost disease isn’t a good name, we should call it something like cost inflation.
LW team members today were confused by “schelling game” because the whole problem is there are multiple schelling points. I think maybe “Multi-Schelling Game” might work?
I do think “Schelling Cafe” might also be a fine name.
So… I think this is one of the most important posts I’ve read lately (it feels like it crystalizes and gives clarity to some key societal problems).
Unfortunately… “Battle of the Sexes” is a super distracting name, and a confusing one. I think it’s reasonable for LW to not go out of their way to cave to this week’s internet fashions. But, when I’ve tried to get other people to read this post, even people who care about game theory (but aren’t necessarily super well versed in it), they had a very different expectation of what Battle of the Sexes meant. (They assumed this post had something to do with gender, which I suspect contributed to them bouncing off of it)
I’m not actually sure what to do because there isn’t another great name for Battle of the Sexes. Bach vs Stravinsky is another name it has used, which at least has the advantage of not obviously suggesting any particular interpretation. It also has the same abbreviation as Battle of the Sexes, so it’s a bit more resilient to summarizing.
So I weakly suggest changing the title to replace Battle of the Sexes with Bach or Stravinsky. I’m not super confident because it is a more complicated sounding title that’s already pushing the boundary of complexity, but I think probably better on net.
(I think it should probably be basically required reading for LW users to know PD, SH and BoS games as core game theory concepts, but apparently we’re away aways from that world)
I think I will probably write a variation on this post with a title something like “which stag hunt are you coordinating on?”, approaching the content from a slightly more actionable angle while also summarizing the key pieces here. But, meanwhile I like that this post focuses explicitly on the game theory connections.
I changed to Schelling Pub, but the overall result feels like even more of a mess (because I inserted an explanation of what Schelling Pub is, awkwardly, at the beginning).
This post badly needs (a) a major re-write (b) someone to write other, better posts making the same / related points.
There are a number of problems with how this post is communicated..… it’s even possible that I chose the wrong central narrative for the whole post. A different central narrative could be “what are coordination problems?”—pointing out that people jump to prisoner’s dilemma as the central example of coordination problem, but there are multiple things “coordination problem” can mean. I could then examine the different notions of communication problem, and consider which problems seem most common in practice.
Interesting.
If I had to name the game from scratch (which maybe we should), I intuitively jump to something like “Schelling pub game”—two friends would prefer to encounter each other at the pub, but they each have different favorite pubs. Which pub should each select?
FYI, “most Stag Hunts are Schelling Pubs” left me a bit confused because I don’t have that association with “pub” (maybe because I’m not british? although neither are you AFAICT). I thought it was something about “public” or “publishing.” But I guess that’s approximately as obscure as Bach vs Stravinksy and fewer syllables meanwhile.
In a conversation with John Wentworth recently, it came up that maybe Battle of the Sexes should be called The Schelling Problem, because the general class of game is that there isn’t an obvious schelling point. “Most Stag Hunts are Schelling Problems” is… maybe slightly clearer if you already know what Schelling points are.
But really there needs to be a separate post that just says “hey, Battle of the Sexes has a shitty name but also you should know what it is. We should rename it X”
I think in general we should notice when things have bad names and change them, at least if it’s not too costly, but especially when it’s cheep. for example cost disease isn’t a good name, we should call it something like cost inflation.
My cultural version would be “coffee shop”, but I felt like “pub” was the more universal reference (based on my media exposure).
I also considered “the Schelling game”… maybe I’ll just expunge “pub” from the title.
LW team members today were confused by “schelling game” because the whole problem is there are multiple schelling points. I think maybe “Multi-Schelling Game” might work?
I do think “Schelling Cafe” might also be a fine name.
Schelling Dilemma? (though all three—Schelling pub, Schelling Cafe, and Schelling Game—sound fine to me. pub/cafe probably more than game)