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I have been thinking for a while lately and society in general has always aggravated me and my thoughts. First of all, why is it that people perceive well-being to be a zero-sum game? I find good and intelligent people being indoctrinated by a third-world barbaric outlook of life concerning two absolutes; winners and losers, a truly black and white world where the process of our world is influenced upon the operations of people existing within these two paradigms.
It seems my friends, that people are unwilling to question authority. From everything from journals to scientific publications, people are always interested in the social implication of things. This is where this zero-sum game mentality comes into play. I never understood people sometimes, I always thought that life was so much more complex then people gaining something; where at the same time, it is this complexity that influences such gains. Yet of all the miraculous things that happens, the majority of people still view this world as black and white. Is it unwillingness to question and change societal definitions? I have asked many people and some of them do believe there is more to life, but then at the same, they're quickly influenced by people, return back to this darwinistic philosophy and show how superficial they really are.
I ask you, do you believe in a zero-sum game of life?
Do you think that life is too complex to be a zero-sum game and we should adhere and attempt to understand the gears behind it?
What are you're thoughts behind this?
If you do believe in a black and white world of winners and losers, why do you do so?
Has pursuing life with such ideals given any success or guaranteed success to any of you or anyone you know?
Do you believe that, this is something inherent in society?
Another interesting thing I noticed about people and society is that when someone has something and another someone doesn't have something, and the person without the something complains about it, the person with the something is right. If something was wrong about the special thing that the person had and the process by which it was acquired, then the wrongness of "said" object is discarded by the masses because of the fact that a person has acquired it. Very paradoxical and interesting human behavior.
  
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god there are so many intelligent posts these days,
i feel somewhat out of place
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Depends what facet of life we're applying the term zero-sum to. Are we talking about money, happiness, love, or something else? For the abstract areas, life could possibly be argued to be zero-sum; however, it's definitely not the case for money or social status. Ex: Just look at the huge gap between the number of rich and poor people in all countries. Personally, I don't think any part of life is zero-sum, just because of the crazy variance.
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If life was a zero-sum game then no one would trade.
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It isn’t. I think that the belief that life is a 'zero sum' game is one of the natural downfalls of humanity. At the same time, I feel that though the belief may be present, the actual occurrence of it is decreasing as an aspect of evolution and progress. As our societies and economies develop and grow in complexity, we can no longer determine a clear winner and a clear loser. Why? Nothing is as straightforward anymore. If we look at the state of ‘global’ economy two centuries ago (as limited as it was), it was easy to discern who wanted what and who could produce what. The supply and demand cycle was very simple. That’s not the case anymore: the world around us has progressed immensely and grown to a complexity in which we cannot easily discriminate these simple facts. What we are realizing now is that to fully progress, we must cooperate and collaborate as a society. To go back to the economics example, we no longer have a ‘limit’ to what we can do (our population is increasing and as a result the demands will infinitely increase) and by cooperating everyone in the population benefits.
If competition is fierce and only one individual out of a hundred can succeed, how is that benefiting a society? True, that one individual succeeds in life and is satisfied. But what about all the others? The argument does not have to be one about collectivism versus individualism: if we eliminate competition and focus on the benefit of society as a greater whole, will we not be positively affected as well being part of that society? Everyone is a winner.
I feel the mentality of "It's not enough that we win; all others must lose" (Larry Ellison) is detrimental to society and on a deeper level, the individual. Is there really a sense of gratification in winning over everyone else? Perhaps, but it’s temporary; in the end, the only question that remains is ‘so what?’
tl;dr : It isn't because life is too complex.
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This may seem like an interesting discussion topic but to me it seems ridiculously pointless.
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btw, here is an interesting book on the topic
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No it isn't, if everything was black and white it would be pretty fucking boring don't you think?
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The answer is simple: No.
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I think that someone just got dumped in favour of a jerk.
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I think the impossibilities are really endless when it comes to living your life. I don't think any one person has the right to call anyone else a loser really. What I mean is that not every man and woman is created equally in their wants and needs. Everyone has personal agency and they all interpellate culture and live in their own ways. If being a winner is defined only as success in a free market capitalist society, or having more stuff than other people, then you ignore individual desires.
As humans we have the power to control our future by walking towards it. I feel life will always be about connecting with other people. The concept of our self would be completly meaningless without others. Nothing would matter so for me life is like (Population to the exponent of population) cuz shits crazy. Every day is different and I believe your life could change at any given second.
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I think it's negative; first on economy, every country is in debt somehow to other countries. And there are more poor people than rich
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in class, i learned that when people trade, both parties benefit. everyone is better off because they each have more utils than they would if they didn't trade so both of them are gaining.
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On December 23 2008 14:57 nimysa wrote:
I have been thinking for a while lately and society in general has always aggravated me and my thoughts. First of all, why is it that people perceive well-being to be a zero-sum game? I find good and intelligent people being indoctrinated by a third-world barbaric outlook of life concerning two absolutes; winners and losers, a truly black and white world where the process of our world is influenced upon the operations of people existing within these two paradigms.
It seems my friends, that people are unwilling to question authority. From everything from journals to scientific publications, people are always interested in the social implication of things. This is where this zero-sum game mentality comes into play. I never understood people sometimes, I always thought that life was so much more complex then people gaining something; where at the same time, it is this complexity that influences such gains. Yet of all the miraculous things that happens, the majority of people still view this world as black and white. Is it unwillingness to question and change societal definitions? I have asked many people and some of them do believe there is more to life, but then at the same, they're quickly influenced by people, return back to this darwinistic philosophy and show how superficial they really are.
I ask you, do you believe in a zero-sum game of life?
Do you think that life is too complex to be a zero-sum game and we should adhere and attempt to understand the gears behind it?
What are you're thoughts behind this?
If you do believe in a black and white world of winners and losers, why do you do so?
Has pursuing life with such ideals given any success or guaranteed success to any of you or anyone you know?
Do you believe that, this is something inherent in society?
Another interesting thing I noticed about people and society is that when someone has something and another someone doesn't have something, and the person without the something complains about it, the person with the something is right. If something was wrong about the special thing that the person had and the process by which it was acquired, then the wrongness of "said" object is discarded by the masses because of the fact that a person has acquired it. Very paradoxical and interesting human behavior.
That's how we are. Evolution does not "choose", it is. Asking "why" something happens to be like asking: why is there any matter in the universe in the first place? There just is.
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Of course, not every gain by an individual is at the expense of another individual, there are lots of mutually beneficial processes in society with each party giving something and getting something, confident that their gain is greater than their loss. But people do get ripped off much too often. And swindlers are often called winners anyway, i feel.
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Life is not a zero-sum game simply because in order for one to win something, another one doesn't have to lose it. And this is because what one has to gain, doesn't have to be materialistic (even if it would, it would only be true if one couldn't create the thing(s) he needs, but a set number of goods had to be distributed).
From my life experience, never did anyone get "happiness" by gaining money or goods. "Happiness" (which I will assume is what we should perceive as the "win scenario" in life) is an internal thing and a very subjective one as well. So, how can there be winners and losers when each and every one can fall into any of these categories, requiring just his own self and mind power?
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On December 23 2008 16:46 Hyperbola wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2008 14:57 nimysa wrote:
I have been thinking for a while lately and society in general has always aggravated me and my thoughts. First of all, why is it that people perceive well-being to be a zero-sum game? I find good and intelligent people being indoctrinated by a third-world barbaric outlook of life concerning two absolutes; winners and losers, a truly black and white world where the process of our world is influenced upon the operations of people existing within these two paradigms.
It seems my friends, that people are unwilling to question authority. From everything from journals to scientific publications, people are always interested in the social implication of things. This is where this zero-sum game mentality comes into play. I never understood people sometimes, I always thought that life was so much more complex then people gaining something; where at the same time, it is this complexity that influences such gains. Yet of all the miraculous things that happens, the majority of people still view this world as black and white. Is it unwillingness to question and change societal definitions? I have asked many people and some of them do believe there is more to life, but then at the same, they're quickly influenced by people, return back to this darwinistic philosophy and show how superficial they really are.
I ask you, do you believe in a zero-sum game of life?
Do you think that life is too complex to be a zero-sum game and we should adhere and attempt to understand the gears behind it?
What are you're thoughts behind this?
If you do believe in a black and white world of winners and losers, why do you do so?
Has pursuing life with such ideals given any success or guaranteed success to any of you or anyone you know?
Do you believe that, this is something inherent in society?
Another interesting thing I noticed about people and society is that when someone has something and another someone doesn't have something, and the person without the something complains about it, the person with the something is right. If something was wrong about the special thing that the person had and the process by which it was acquired, then the wrongness of "said" object is discarded by the masses because of the fact that a person has acquired it. Very paradoxical and interesting human behavior. That's how we are. Evolution does not "choose", it is. Asking "why" something happens to be like asking: why is there any matter in the universe in the first place? There just is. You could say that about any 'why' question if you believe in determinism, which many people do. But that would make for dry answers to alot of interesting questions. Also, if you believe in free will, we have the power to change the course of things and answering these why questions instead of taking everything for granted can help us to do that.
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On December 23 2008 16:57 SchOOl_VicTIm wrote:
Life is not a zero-sum game simply because in order for one to win something, another one doesn't have to lose it. And this is because what one has to gain, doesn't have to be materialistic (even if it would, it would only be true if one couldn't create the thing(s) he needs, but a set number of goods had to be distributed).
From my life experience, never did anyone get "happiness" by gaining money or goods. "Happiness" (which I will assume is what we should perceive as the "win scenario" in life) is an internal thing and a very subjective one as well. So, how can there be winners and losers when each and every one can fall into any of these categories, requiring just his own self and mind power?
Expanding upon this: The zero-sum mentality doesn't apply to materialistic things either. When one works materials into something more useful, that person has created value - value being defined as something's worth to people. The difference between resources and products is the hours that are put into this, and in this way value is created. It is easily seen then, that the total amount of value in the world is increasing. Value can also be lost, like destruction in war, but no value is necessarily lost, so in this sense value is not zero sum.
Of course when you work material into something you lose the opportunity to work it into something else, so I'm not sure how that factors in. Someone smarter could make sense of this.
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EPT
