The Game of Gotcha
by Win Wenger, Ph.D.

One simple thing could make ours a hugely better worldIf more
people had the basic concepts which would allow them to recognize and use the
opportunities around them for cooperative gain, while developing a sense
which allowed them to better avoid being destructively exploited or "conned."
The relevant concepts have, in fact, been around for a half century or
longer, in the branch of game theory known as "non-zero-sum games." They are usually associated with discussions of something called "The Prisoner's Dilemma," a very negative context which most people don't identify with (I hope!), or pay it much
attention. Thus relatively few of even those few people who encounter the
concept are likely to transfer the relevant understandings into their own,
hopefully more positive, lives and circumstance. And yet ...
The basis of "non-zero-sum games" is one of the utterly vital truths of
human society which ought to be one of the major cornerstones of the
educational curriculum from pre-K and Head Start on through college. |
As yet this should-be educational cornerstone has not made it even into
American high schools, much less elementary and pre-schools. A few have
encountered it in specialized college courses or in independent reading,
including some who are presently reading these lines now. But certainly not
even a majority of college students and graduates, or the reading public, has even an inkling.
Most of the rest of this particular Winsights article is a set of
instructions or "lesson plan" for teaching this cornerstone concept to a
class in social studies, economics, political science, history, civics,
behavioral science....or even to a Sunday school class!

What is a "non-zero-sum game" situation?
A non-zero-sum game situation is very different from and also a lot more
frequent in occurrence thanthe zero-sum game that the unthinking public
reflexively considers most situations to be. And that difference is
critical, crucial indeed throughout most areas of life. To understand
non-zero-sum games both positive and negative, first consider the zero-sum, which
is where the sum together of all wins and losses = 0. If someone wins,
someone else has to lose. Most people still believe you can't really get
ahead without beating someone else down in the process.
Yet most economic transactions (and most other transactions as well),
especially between partners of relatively equal bargaining position, are in
fact positive-sum games. The (voluntary) sale would not occur if both buyer
and seller didn't each stand to gain from that trade. The cash from a sale of
bread is worth more to the store owner than is that bread; the bread is worth
more to the buyer than is that amount of cash. In fact, human organizations
and institutions exist mainly to actualize some of the opportunities people
have to benefit from working together in some form of cooperation.
The inefficiencies and unproductivity of coercive command structures have long since
consigned both slavery and the communist "dictatorship of the proletariat"
to history's dustbin. (Such rescue services as the police or military are
specialized for fast-response situations andin civilized countries at
leastare careful to defer to civilian policy which has somewhat
better checks on the decisions arrived at.)
Even such games as football, basketball and chess, which officially have
one winner and one loser, actually have strong non-zero-sum components. If the
object of the game were only to determine who won and who lost, a flip of the
coin would suffice. How excitingband on the sidelines, 70,000 screaming
fans, 11 players on each teamjust to decide the whole outcome with but the
flip of a coin! The non-zero-sum elements include the excitement of the contest
itself; the opportunities to hone one's own skills against an opponent; the
opportunity to learn from a skilled opponent; the opportunity to capture
imagination and admiration; the adrenaline rush..... And why would schools
form cooperative athletic leagues with "their most hated and bitterest
rivals" except for both these non-zero-sum elements and the added revenues such
long-standing rivalries generate in attendance?
So it is possible, in most real-life situations and most games, to have
win-win instead of merely win-loss, and also to have loss-loss, as the late
Cold War for so long threatened to become. (What would you
call a nuclear war which only ten Americans survived but only one Russian
survived? A stunning victory?)
And what difference does it make in your dealings with other people, in
how you treat other people, and the kinds of situation you can move
effectively in, if you understand most situations to be win-win opportunities
instead of assuming that to win you must make someone else lose?

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