daedalus2u

Karma: 32

daedalus2u Jul 20, 2010, 10:45 PM
5 points
on: Fight Zero-Sum Bias
You have neglected the negative-sum lose-lose situation being mislabled as win-lose.

War is the classic lose-lose situation that is mislabeled as win-lose. No one “wins” a war. After a war, everyone is worse off, just some are more worse off than others.

I think the problem is that the zero-point shifts, where if you survive a war, you feel like you have won something where in reality you just didn’t lose your life.

daedalus2u Jul 20, 2010, 9:40 PM
4 points
in reply to: multifoliaterose’s comment on: Fight Zero-Sum Bias
That was my first post on less wrong. I posted before understanding the ground rules and how karma worked, and how precise people like things to be. I will try to be more careful and will edit my comment.

I did mean only some conservatives and now realize that was not really the right term and did not really express what I was trying to convey. I was thinking about the free lemonade example. I was thinking much broader than money when I posted that, in particular I was thinking about social power, in a top-down social power hierarchy (which is always zero-sum), where money is only one of the fungible zero-sum exchange media.

daedalus2u Jul 19, 2010, 11:12 AM
2 points
in reply to: Jonathan_Graehl’s comment on: Fight Zero-Sum Bias
Jonathan, you are discribing a situation that never happened. The gender ratio is about 1:1. The average number of children is 2 because a different number than 2 results in numbers of humans we know did not happen.

If one man had 100,000, then 49,999 men would have to have zero to make the averate equal to 2.

daedalus2u Jul 19, 2010, 1:38 AM
2 points
in reply to: Nic_Smith’s comment on: Fight Zero-Sum Bias
Regarding the anathema some people have for giving away things for free. There was a recent article by Terry Savage in the Chicago Sun Times on some children giving away free lemonade at a lemonade stand. She proceeded to lecture them that they couldn’t give away the lemonade for free, and then used that anecdote to explain all the problems of the nation on the idea that giving away things for free was ok. The mindset that she expressed is what I was thinking about when I wrote what I did.

The story was picked up and there are are a number of responses that show her logic to be somewhat flawed. If you google it you can find them.

daedalus2u Jul 19, 2010, 1:18 AM
0 points
in reply to: Nic_Smith’s comment on: Fight Zero-Sum Bias
You don’t have infinite pies, but if you can only consume one pie, a pie and a half might as well be infinite. If everyone has a pie and a half and no one can consume more than one pie, then there is zero value attached to the extra half pie that everyone has. There is even negative value attached to it because the excess pie needs to be disposed of or it will attract vermin and become moldy.

If you can thwart the pie-making abilities of others, such that they can only make half a pie, then your pie and a half is worth more. Thwarting the positive sum efforts of others is part-and-parcel to success with a zero-sum mindset.

If you make infinite pies and give them away for free, then pie-making skills do become valueless.

This is classic monopoly activity. If you have a monopoly, you can extract a disproportionate share of the value added from that monopoly and use that monopoly power to expand into other areas by giving away products,, driving competitors out of business and then charging for what had been given away for free.

To use another example, suppose you have a monopoly in an operating system. You can use revenues from that monopoly to subsidize developing and giving away a web browser. Because of the barriers to entry for web browsers, no one can compete with you with a stand alone browser unless they have revenues from some other source. If no competitors develop a browser (from which they can derive no income), then you have another monopoly and can begin to charge a monopoly premium for your web browser.

If there are a multitude of browsers, some of which are given away, then there is no value associated with a proprietary browser and so there is no monopoly.

The browser market is approximately zero-sum (over the short term). There are a finite number of computers needing a browser, once that need is satisfied there is no additional need. A zero-sum mindset with a monopoly then causes obsolescence so more browsers are needed. A positive-sum mindset makes something new so now there is a browser and something that does something else, a wowser, then a flowser, a smowser, a growser and all manner of other -owsers.

daedalus2u Jul 18, 2010, 5:29 PM
1 point
in reply to: Roko’s comment on: Fight Zero-Sum Bias
I am quite sure you are correct and the mode is 0.

If males who died in childhood are included it almost certainly has to be correct. It must be correct if childhood mortality is 50% or greater.

daedalus2u Jul 18, 2010, 5:15 PM
−1 points
in reply to: Roko’s comment on: Fight Zero-Sum Bias
The average number is 2. For every man that had more, other men had fewer.

daedalus2u Jul 18, 2010, 4:03 PM
−5 points
in reply to: Roko’s comment on: Fight Zero-Sum Bias
Zero sum bias is an extremely important issue. I think it is the dominant issue adversely affecting economic growth.

During evolutionary time there were many, many things that were all zero-sum. It is hard to think of any that were not. You have to remember that over evolutionary time, the average number of children that each person had was 2. The average woman had 2 children, the average man had 2 children. We know the average was 2 because if the number was different than 2, then over 1,000 generations humans would have expanded to levels we know did not happen, or humans would have gone extinct. (1.025^1,000 = 5e10).

Territory is zero-sum. That is, there is only so much territory and if one person has it, another person doesn’t.

The number of fertile mates per generation is fixed, and so is subject to zero-sum allocation.

Social status is also zero-sum. There are a fixed number of individuals. In the social hierarchy, you are either above someone or below them. If one person moves up, other people have to move down. There is no “absolute” social status, social status is only relative. Social status is only zero-sum.

The dominant mindset in a zero-sum system is to generate a monopoly of a necessity, then use that monopoly in one zero-sum system to get things that are in another zero-sum system. To the extent that zero-sum things are fungible, one zero-sum thing can be traded for another. Money can be used to get mates, territory, social status, food, etc. But only when money is zero-sum (short term limit), when there is hyperinflation, money is not zero-sum and it doesn’t work.

This strategy only works when there are multiple systems that truly are zero-sum. If a system is not zero-sum, then supplies of it are not as limited and so it is of much less value in trading for things that are limited.

This is the mindset of those who are trying to acquire power in a top-down social hierarchy; to compel things to exist only in zero-sum systems where another zero-sum system (money) must be used to exchange for other things (health care, food, living space, internet access, education).

This is why the concept of “free” is so anathema to those who are trying to acquire power in a top-down social hierarchy. If people can get what they want/need for free, then zero-sum property/systems have no special value and in the limit have no value.

This relates to a recent blog, where I discuss my ideas of what causes xenophobia.

http://daedalus2u.blogspot.com/2010/03/physiology-behind-xenophobia.html

I see xenophobia as the feeling that someone is at the bottom of the social power hierarchy, below the cut-off where someone is sufficiently like you to be considered to be “human-enough” to treat well and with respect. Moving people down the hierarchy causes you to move up.