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Re:Math writing is dull when it neglects the human dimension by araes on Friday March 29, 2024 @02:48PM (#39867573)
> c)

Is there a field of math that's something like "local actors put in what appear to be rational choices, yet to external observers it often appears 'broken' or 'bad'"? Seems like a field of game theory or something. Many times, those internal view the situation as acceptable.

Politics in America seems like it is almost always this type of result. All local actors, all take rational choices, and all America says politics is a ______ (choice of 50 negative words) https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-fe...

Re:Math writing is dull when it neglects the human dimension by SilasX on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @11:16AM (#39918573)
That's generally referred to as a Prisoner's Dilemma situation, where locally the incentives are to do something that makes it worse for everyone. The SlateStarCodex author generalized the concept into Moloch:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/