What is a zero-sum game?
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A zero-sum game is an activity that distributes rewards/punishments so that they even out to nothing overall. No net-gain or net-loss when you take *everyone* into account.
* If I win a ranked chess game against you, I might take 5 ELO rating points from you. I go +5 and you go -5.
* If I have $100, and share $50 with you, then that means I am down $50.
* If I fire Alice to hire Bob, the same work gets done and the same amount of money is paid overall.
Zero-sum games are typically ‘win-lose’ scenarios like this.
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It’s easy to think that every ‘game’ is like this. However, not always. Often, one side wins or loses more than the other loses or wins, or maybe both sides win, or maybe both sides lose:
Some positive-sum “games” might be:
* I’m choking on some food and will die, but you do some first aid and save my life. You spent some minor effort in trying to save me, and if it works, you save my entire life. I gain far more than you lost.
* Imagine that there is a nearby forest that we use as a supply of lumber. I know how to make chairs, and you know how to start fires (and neither of know the other skill). If we didn’t cooperate, I’d sit in a chair in the cold, and you’d sit on the ground next to a warm fire. If we cooporate, we can both sit in chairs by the fire. Cooperation costs us little-to-nothing and we both benefit.
* We play a game of chess and both have a fun time. That’s a win-win, in a sense.
Some negative-sum games might be:
* You accidentally burn down our shared forest. Neither of us have any lumber now, so we both lost.
* We get into a fight over who gets to use the last of the firewood. We both fatally wound each other and die from our injuries. We both lost.
* A protest is a lose-lose, at least in the short-term. The protestors bear the inconvenience of protesting instead of doing other things like study/work/hobbies/leisure/rest/etc, and the protest inconveniences others (perhaps the government).
* Strikes are similar to protests. The workers forgoe the chance to working and collect their wage, and the employer doesn’t get the labor of its workforce.
* We play a game of chess, but neither of us like chess, so the time spent on it is lost and we got no enjoyment from it.
* EDIT: and of course wars, where overall there is a loss of life and wealth and materials, and at most one side wins, but they win less than both sides lost collectively.
Note that ‘lose-lose’ games aren’t always bad. Often they are, but I think protests and strikes can be very good forces for change, but they are, in the short term, lose-lose. I think the value of them is in proving that you’re willing to take a lose-lose, and hence pressure the other side to change in order to stop their losses.
I have an apple and you want it. We play rock, paper, scissors and the winner gets the apple. There is only one apple, so only one person can win by taking from the other person.
Zero sum game is when you fight for the pizza with your brother. If you get more pizza, your brother gets less.
An example of non zero sum game is when you go to steal some apples from neighbor with your brother. You can compete against your brother, but the amount of apples you pick does not hinder the amount of apples your brother can pick as there are plenty.
In that example the neighbor gets less apples, so to include him to the equation makes it zero sum game again. And that is how it is often in the world. However, consider picking lingonberries, there are plenty in the forest and if nobody picks them up, they just rot.
A zero sum game is when every time someone gains something, another person loses that same something. In other words there is a fixed amount.
In negotiation sometimes people think they need to trick or manipulate people to get what they want because they think they can only win if someone else looses. But skilled negotiators try to find a way where everyone is better off. A win-win situation is not zero sum because the total amount of “utility” is increased by cooperation.
In other words, in a zero sum game a pie is divided. In a non-zero sum game size of the pie can be increased (or decreased) so everyone gets more pie.
I always thought of it as betting in roulette. 5 on black, 5 on red. You *should* break even. No loss, no gain. EXCEPT if it lands on green.
This is one of those things that might be better understood by looking at an example of a non-zero sum. Understand that ‘game’ simply refers to a model with multiple participants. Politics can be considered a ‘game’ in this context.
Economics is often non-zero sum. For instance if I buy a widget from you for $5, I would have to value that widget above $5 to rationalize handing over the money, and you would have to rationalize the value of the widget at less than $5 to rationalize handing over the widget. Even though we’re $5+1 widget at the start and end, we don’t value it that way. The act of transferring the widget increased its value from you, who presumably can make them for less than $5 to me who presumably *can’t* make them for $5 or less. But that’s harder to see. You have to measure things in the right way to assess whether it’s zero sum or not.
Another classic example is I have two left shoes and you have two right shoes. At the start we have a total of 2 pairs of shoes, but they are effectively worthless to each of us. If we trade one left for one right, we have the same 2 pair of shoes at the end, but now they have value for both of us. In material terms zero sum. In value terms positive sum.
So a zero sum game is *any* game where the outputs are equal to the inputs and the process of the game is nothing more than redistributing those inputs among the participants. There are also negative sum games. Wars are often negative sum. You end up with less than you started – lost lives, destroyed infrastructure, etc. One party might have more at the end than they started with (territory, etc.) but the sum of both parties is lower at the end than at the start. That may still justify the war, though. They may also value the inputs differently – lives lost, etc. A lot of colonialization was industrialized countries securing raw materials that the colonized country didn’t have the technology to make value of.
You see a lot of zero sum in politics, and that should set up alarms. “Immigrants are taking our jobs” is a zero sum argument – that there are a fixed number of jobs being distributed between immigrants and non-immigrants. It presumes that there can’t be new jobs. We know from economic history that immigrants almost always add jobs – and also add other value. If you hear a zero sum argument in politics it’s almost always not just wrong, but wrong and disingenuous.
A zero-sum game is a mathematical concept in game theory where one player’s gain is exactly balanced by the losses of the other player. In other words, in a zero-sum game, the total benefit among all players in the game is always zero, meaning that for every winner, there must be a loser.
Some common examples of zero-sum games include:
Chess: In chess, one player wins while the other player loses, meaning the total benefit of the game is zero.
Poker: In poker, one player wins while the other player(s) lose, meaning the total benefit of the game is zero.
Bitcoin: NEGATIVE SUM GAME, it used to be a zero sum until most transactions are on platforms which charges a transaction fee.
A contrasting example is the stock market, which can be a positive sum game, where all participants can benefit from the growth of the market from technological advances or economic growth.
If you’ve ever played the game Sorry, and after rounds of craziness, you and every other player end up going back to the same spots you started in
Zero sum is essentially when only one person wins and gets everything as opposed to a win-win scenario where each party wins something of value. It’s typically used as a ruse in the political arena to convince people that if you give to ‘cause a’ there is nothing left to give to ‘cause b’. Ie. if you fund Medicare there’s nothing left for social security when in fact this is untrue and funding either effects neither. When in fact funding one thing does not necessitate the taking from something else. It’s super common and used a lot in politics to muddy the waters. It’s also used emotionally. Ie. If you love 1 child ‘x amount’ that leaves nothing for other children. When in fact love is boundless. In gaming it denotes a play format in which one player takes everything such as in a poker match where there is only one winner.
A zero-sum game is an activity where you can only win something by winning it from someone, and you can only lose something by losing it to someone. For example, poker is a zero-sum game, because every dollar you win was won from someone, and you can only lose money if someone wins it from you.
If you and a friend contribute seeds to sowing on a farm and then split the harvest at the end of the season, that’s a positive-sum game because you both ended up better off without taking your gains from someone. If you and a friend take turns hitting each other with sticks, that’s a negative-sum game because you both end up worse-off without having improved anyone’s situation.
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