Re:Internal competition can often be the most dangerous kind
by webmaven on Saturday June 19, 2021 @04:10PM
(#27563989)
> What is your incentive to do that? I see that as the key. In a company, employees needs an incentive to work together and be constructive. They are not friends.
It all depends on what game you are playing. On one level you can characterize it as zero-sum vs. positive sum, on another level as closed (play once) vs. open ended (keep playing).
When your goal is to keep playing and improving iteratively as a player, it is definitely to the advantage of each player to help their counterpart improve, regardless of who is currently 'winning'.
You can also pose the whole thing as an iterated prisoner's dilemma, where the best overall strategy is tit-for-tat with generosity (default to cooperation as a starting move) and forgiveness (occasionally cooperate even if the other defects).
There are additional iterative loops that could be going on too, like opponent/partner selection even when the game is ostensibly zero-sum (eg. "nobody likes a sore loser"), and finally there is the meta-game of game selection, which can be characterized as 'culture'.
It all depends on what game you are playing. On one level you can characterize it as zero-sum vs. positive sum, on another level as closed (play once) vs. open ended (keep playing).
When your goal is to keep playing and improving iteratively as a player, it is definitely to the advantage of each player to help their counterpart improve, regardless of who is currently 'winning'.
You can also pose the whole thing as an iterated prisoner's dilemma, where the best overall strategy is tit-for-tat with generosity (default to cooperation as a starting move) and forgiveness (occasionally cooperate even if the other defects).
There are additional iterative loops that could be going on too, like opponent/partner selection even when the game is ostensibly zero-sum (eg. "nobody likes a sore loser"), and finally there is the meta-game of game selection, which can be characterized as 'culture'.