I agree with the thrust of Johns’ response, IE, the stag hunt is a stand-in for a more general class of coordination problems, pointing at the property there are multiple equilibria, and some are Pareto improvements over others. The stag hunt is kind of the minimal example of this, in that it only has 2 equilibria. I generally agree that using Stag Hunt unfortunately may connote other properties, such as this only-2-equilibria property.
However, it seems to me that you think real coordination problems almost never have this all-or-nothing flavor. I disagree. Yes, it’s rarely going to be literally two equilibria. However, there aren’t always going to be solutions of the sort you mention.
For example, if your family is having a day out and deciding where to eat, and Uncle Mortimer categorically refuses to go to the Italian place everyone else wants to go to, often the family would prefer to follow Mortimer to some other place, rather than letting him eat on his own. Everyone but Mortimer eating at the Italian place is seen as a “failed family day”—each person individually could go to the Italian place on any day (this is like hunting rabbit), but they wanted to do something special today: a family meal.
Many cases where people take a vote are like this; particularly in cases where you vote yes/no to pass a resolution / go forward with a plan (rather than vote between a number of alternatives). An organization might be able to handle one or two solid refusals to go along with the vote outcome, but a sizable minority would be a serious problem. The reason people are willing to go along with the outcome of a vote they don’t agree with is because the organization remaining coherent is like stag, and everyone doing their own thing is like rabbit.
I agree with the thrust of Johns’ response, IE, the stag hunt is a stand-in for a more general class of coordination problems, pointing at the property there are multiple equilibria, and some are Pareto improvements over others. The stag hunt is kind of the minimal example of this, in that it only has 2 equilibria. I generally agree that using Stag Hunt unfortunately may connote other properties, such as this only-2-equilibria property.
However, it seems to me that you think real coordination problems almost never have this all-or-nothing flavor. I disagree. Yes, it’s rarely going to be literally two equilibria. However, there aren’t always going to be solutions of the sort you mention.
For example, if your family is having a day out and deciding where to eat, and Uncle Mortimer categorically refuses to go to the Italian place everyone else wants to go to, often the family would prefer to follow Mortimer to some other place, rather than letting him eat on his own. Everyone but Mortimer eating at the Italian place is seen as a “failed family day”—each person individually could go to the Italian place on any day (this is like hunting rabbit), but they wanted to do something special today: a family meal.
Many cases where people take a vote are like this; particularly in cases where you vote yes/no to pass a resolution / go forward with a plan (rather than vote between a number of alternatives). An organization might be able to handle one or two solid refusals to go along with the vote outcome, but a sizable minority would be a serious problem. The reason people are willing to go along with the outcome of a vote they don’t agree with is because the organization remaining coherent is like stag, and everyone doing their own thing is like rabbit.