Game Theory | Publishing articles on Substack | Occasionally cynical | Exceed the Equilibrium. | Business inquiries: [email protected]
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Joined October 2022
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One of the most important articles I’ve written so far.
Manipulation is everywhere, especially on the internet.
Game theorists call it information design: choosing what the other person gets to see before they can decide.
And no one is truly safe.
structuralist.substack.com/p…
Incentivising retweeted
According to game theory, you must never underestimate a weaker player, especially when the game involves at least three players. A weak player can still hold strategic power, such as resources or relative influence. Whenever two strong players of equal power engage in conflict, it results in a stalemate; the “weak” player can turn into a “kingmaker”: their strategic power may be weak, but it's enough to tip the scales. Suddenly, the weak player gains exponential, previously unheard-of leverage. You might want his favors. Remember this: a player's strategic importance is determined not merely by how much power they possess, but by how much their participation changes the outcome of the game.
There are three central skills you need to succeed:
1. Adaptability, which is basically law.
2. Strategy to anticipate. It directly builds on adaptability.
3. Social Skills. It doesn't even need to be charisma. Just learn to convey ideas. Then add basic persuasion and some wit, and you're good to go.
P.S. Your morning routine is absolutely insignificant to your success. Waking up at 4am doesn't make you more successful than a disciplined bum who wakes up at 12pm.
According to game theory, you must never underestimate a weaker player, especially when the game involves at least three players. A weak player can still hold strategic power, such as resources or relative influence. Whenever two strong players of equal power engage in conflict, it results in a stalemate; the “weak” player can turn into a “kingmaker”: their strategic power may be weak, but it's enough to tip the scales. Suddenly, the weak player gains exponential, previously unheard-of leverage. You might want his favors. Remember this: a player's strategic importance is determined not merely by how much power they possess, but by how much their participation changes the outcome of the game.
I also publish weekly long-form articles on game theory.
Insights into the structures that will help you see the rules that shape your social circles and industry.
structuralist.substack.com
Game-theoretic analysis of the Paris riots and their implications.
About 2,500 arrests over the weekend, around 1,000 officers injured, and an estimated 3,000 businesses damaged/looted.
France's issue right now is simple: compliance is a group coordination game. Humans obey because they expect others to obey, and that creates an equilibrium.
But that equilibrium is crumbling.
Each act of non-compliance lowers the threshold for the next person to defect.
Time is an important vector in this equation. Every riot exposes more individuals to non-compliance, indirectly making them more likely to be the next defectors.
The state has failed to contain the riot in its infant stage, so the development from a protest to an all-out riot should've been foreseeable to the officials.
Yet, the interior minister admitted that police “lost control.”
If the state now answers each round with escalation, escalation shapes a new baseline, and the next deterrent has to be bigger.
The resulting retaliation from rioters should also be expected to grow at least semi-proportionally to the deterrence used by the state: deterrence filters out opportunistic protestors, but it doesn't affect the fanatics. If you allow those to coordinate for too long, they'll adapt and could potentially form “resistance groups.”
They're now in an attrition war.
Paris to shut down the Louvre, other tourist attractions over fears of violent Saturday protests trib.al/ObdtWsw
Incentivising retweeted
if you're a founder, print this out and pin it to
your bathroom mirror
your bedroom ceiling
your refrigerator
and computer
Game theory shows that the long game isn't a strategy most people can execute. That's because it tends to require a negative short-term position in exchange for a real advantage later. Most people cannot commit to this because their threat-detection system reads current loss as an existential failure. And that's vicious short-sightedness. It leads them to optimize for visible progress and sacrifice their real position. The people who constantly win rarely have better information. Instead, they accept that losing now will pay off later. Never quit a game before it starts.
Game theory shows that the long game isn't a strategy most people can execute. That's because it tends to require a negative short-term position in exchange for a real advantage later. Most people cannot commit to this because their threat-detection system reads current loss as an existential failure. And that's vicious short-sightedness. It leads them to optimize for visible progress and sacrifice their real position. The people who constantly win rarely have better information. Instead, they accept that losing now will pay off later. Never quit a game before it starts.
One of those articles you should really read thoroughly. Positioning is what works for you while you still sleep.
Life, business, or even politics.
Without it, your effort goes to waste. That’s the ugly reality.
structuralist.substack.com/p…
The problem with democracy is its short-term horizon. Every 4 years, the paradigms shift, and a new politician is voted into office. Subsequently, the masses preach that “it's going to be different now.” As the term progresses, things get worse again. 4 years pass, and a new politician comes along. Cyclical and cynical, yet this process is still considered sacred. The only way to be free of this disappointment is to accumulate resources for yourself so that you (and the ones you care about) do not have to put up with this game anymore.
Society's growing obsession with photos and selfies should terrify you. It exemplifies the inability to take in the world in its present state. Whenever the initial reaction to seeing something beautiful is to take out your camera, you're not living in reality anymore. You're manufacturing an ideal, something you want others to see for the sole reason of being seen. And ironically, you hand the beauty to others, who admire it in the picture, while you, the person standing there, are unable to experience it for yourself.
You must learn to adapt to your level of leverage. If you're the “new guy,” keep a low profile and build a support net. Once you've accomplished that, expand your independence accordingly. If you're already in a position of leverage, do the exact opposite. Instead of building and expanding, you must focus on reorganizing and integrating the whole support net, placing yourself at the center. Adaptation is law.
You must learn to play dumb in dangerous environments. Ask questions and request clarifications. Never show your intelligence outright. Force the others to overexplain and gather some information before making your move. In the wrong room, being a smartass can end horribly.
If you need to explain yourself to someone repeatedly, you have already lost them. It shows that either your communication style or your general attitude does not align. This is especially true for friends and relationships, where topics tend to be more emotional and loaded rather than precise and dry. Every time you insist on explaining yourself, you drift further away. At first, it's a minor inconvenience. By the fifth time, it's an annoyance. By the tenth, a volatile disagreement. What some tend to call a "matching aura" is therefore real, though it exists as a far drier psychological concept: shared reality.