Talk:Zero-sum
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- The economics of a purely hunter/gatherer society have zero-sum properties because the supply of goods such as food is fixed by what nature has to offer. If one person suceeds in obtaining food, there is less food to go around for everyone else, so that one person's benefit implies a cost to others.
(I disagree. This assumes that the hunter/gatherers gather all of nature's resources. In truth they're in competition with other animals and even bacteria, and can collect more or better food via greater effort. --Belltower)
I also disagree, if hunter-gatherers cooperate as a hunting pack they have more food per person than if they would hunt individually. I also think that this article should not be under 'Zero-sum' but under 'Zero-sum game' as the word is hardly used in any other context. You can then start the article with the more logical "A zero-sum game is a game where ..." -- JanHidders
The comment about mating being zero sum is also not strictly accurate since many species allow multiple fathers. -- TedDunning
- Genetically you can have only one father! (although now medicine has made two mothers possible.)
- Yes, but it is possible for a single female to be bearing the offspring of more than one male at a single time. It's even happened with humans! Also, mating doesn't always lead to pregnancy, so multiple partners can increase the reproduction rate in the aggregate. --Belltower
- The optimal strategy for non-zero-sum games is Tit for Tat.
This is completely and utterly false even for repeated prisoner's dillema! True, for some repeated games this is a very good strategy, assuming many other players are ready to cooperate. But even in this game, almost any "bad boy" strategy will kick tit for tat.
- er, that's not actually right, unless you have managed to falsify Robert Axelrod's findings (in which case, congratulations - a Nobel prize coming your way, and probably a sainthood, as not only have you rewritten game theory, you've also managed to falsify evolution, so the Pope will be pleased). In iterated prisoners' dilemmas, "bad boy" strategies invariably do worse than "good boy" strategies - see Richard Dawkins, Robert Axelrod, Daniel Dennett, Carl Sagan et al, ad nauseam, for a thorough analysis. Tit for tat is the archetypal good boy strategy. If the defectors won, we'd still be amoebas in a primordial soup.
- In any case the tit-for-tat remark, as currently rendered, didn't make any sense in the context so I have deleted it. ElectricRay 23:42, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
The section about complexity is problematic because it does define the term complexity. My feeling is that said complexity just means that the interdependencies between activities and parties are so many that the human faculty cannot deal with them. So in an effort to analyze one situation it becomes hard to isolate it from the rest of the universe because of "complexity". That does not mean that the situation in question is non-zero-sum. The quote by Bill Clinton does not help a lot. When two economic interests strike what they call a win-win deal, it usually means that they have found a way of joining forces in the competition against others.
Also, the argument about non-zero-sum due to complexity, only serves the upper economic strata. They need a way to explain that their exuberant lifestyles does not imply a cost to the rest of us. First, they will tell you "It's not a zero sum game" and then they will explain the "trickle-down effect". Meanwhile Hennes & Mauritz supplier Goldfame pays 5 cents a t-shirt to their workers in Cambodia while your pension funds may be lost in an artificial bankruptcy.
- Disagree here - this is pretty clearly non-zero sum, even as you describe it. The comparative advantage to H&M is obvious (as I'm sure you'd agree). The comparative advantage to the Cambodian worker (assuming he's being rational and not being compelled to contribute his labour) is that that 5c per shirt is a better return for his time than he'd get elsewhere (ie he's get 3c for the same time spend in the paddy field). ElectricRay 23:42, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Non-zero-sum economics? Come up with something solid, or suffer deletion! Geir Gundersen 12:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
- agreed here - I have rewritten - briefly - and removed all the rubbish about farmers, futures, tit for tat etc, all of which looked highly original and pretty clearly wrong. ElectricRay 23:42, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
