This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“Still, data are often of little or
no cost and great benefit; swapping them is one of the oldest forms of
non-zero-sum interaction. People by
their nature come together to constitute a social information processing system
and thus reap positive sums. The
fandango, the academic conference, and the Internet are superficially different
expressions of the same deep force.” – Robert Wright, Chapter Two: The Way
We Were, Page 29
“The impetus gets even stronger when we add one more factor:
our old friend from the previous chapter, war.
How would war encourage agriculture?
In primitive war, few things come in handier than sheer manpower. And agriculture supports much larger
settlements than hunting and gathering does.
One of the earliest known farm towns, the ancient, excavated village of
Jericho, housed hundreds of people on around six acres. Not huge by modern urban standards, but
compare it to what lies beneath: remnants of a hunter-gatherer camp one-fifth
as large. Imagine a battle between these
two villages, and you’ll see that farming was a compelling lifestyle. Whether or not early farmers thought about
the military edge their lifestyle offered, war would have helped the lifestyle
spread.” – Robert Wright, Chapter Six: The Inevitability of Agriculture, Page 88
“That brings us to the second source of chiefly demise: popular discontent. One of the great misunderstandings about evolved human nature is that people are sheep; that, because we evolved amid social hierarchy (true), we are designed to slavishly accept low status and blindly follow the leader (false). People by nature seek the highest status they can attain, under the circumstances, and they accept leadership only so long as it seems to serve their interest. When it doesn’t, they start to grumble.” – Robert Wright, Chapter Seven: The Age of Chiefdoms, Page 99
Is This An Overview?
Different people are motivated to cooperate, when each benefit
from the interaction. A nonzero sum
outcome, a positive sum interaction. There
is more to gain from cooperation than not cooperating. People can also cooperate to avoid negative
sum interactions, in which all who interact lose. Nonzero interactions can motivate
cooperation, but that does not mean that cooperation is without conflict. The division of benefits and the effort of
individuals can be a motivator for conflict.
What creates friction and disables cooperation are zero-sum interactions. Zero-sum interactions require someone to
benefit at the expense of another’s loss.
What someone loses, another gains.
Sharing information is a non-zero-sum interaction, for
sharing costs little to the sharer but benefits others. Communities form to share information to enable
members to benefit from other people’s information. Commerce fosters tolerance of other peoples,
as the other peoples are or can become customers. People accept hierarchies, when the
hierarchies support the interests of the people. When leaders exploit the people, the people
reject the hierarchies. War motivates
people to come together, for together the people can have a higher chance of
defeating the threatening rival than should they fight alone.
Caveats?
This book is based on many examples. The examples are diverse, and do express the
concept of nonzero. But the concept
itself is explained quickly. The concept
is derived from game theory, but no background information in game theory is
needed. This book serves as a validation
of the idea.
