Win-Win: Not All Games Need a Loser

I don’t like cooking. I am okay it, but I’m always worried I’ll ruin it. In a world where everyone feels like me, we’d have a problem. Someone would have to cook and that person wouldn’t enjoy it. Perhaps we’d agree to clean the bathrooms, or buy the shopping. Perhaps we’d pay them. Luckily we don’t live in that world.

In the real world, I’ve often lived in houses where people enjoy cooking, but hate the washing up. One friend so preferred cook that she literally didn’t know how to use the dishwasher. I must admit, I was impressed. They cooked, I washed up. Win win.

It is clear the real world works like this. There are many times when working together we can do far more than working apart. I do not cut my own hair (thank goodness).

And it’s true of social situations too. If my actions upset someone, I can ask them what went wrong and we can change our behaviour. It would be easy to see this as win-lose, but after our initial changes we both gain. In the short term I don’t make jokes about his driving and in the long term we both know each other better and grow closer.

And yet so often on important issues, we fall into win-lose thinking. Sometimes called “zero-sum”, this is the idea that if one person gets more the other must get less. In relationships, “if I change, they should change the same amount”. In politics, “if we don’t leave lockdown soon, the economy will suffer”. In raising our children “I can’t admit Nathan junior might be right, he’ll lose respect for me”.

Let’s imagine for a moment that this is true — that it’s the real state of the world. For every gain someone else must lose. What about farming? If I grow crops rather than hunting and gathering, I am gaining. Who exactly is losing here? The ground? The world is sometimes win-win.

Human lives have gotten so much better in the last 400 years. We have become kinder to our children. We have become better friends, partners, spouses. We have instituted better democratic processes. We write books and songs of a quality and quantity that would have shocked our ancestors. And in the meantime, who has lost out?

The world has improved massively even in the last 30 years

I’m not saying things are perfect, or that gains are split equally. I want weaker groups to get more of the gains of capitalism, easier publishing, less washing up. But let’s acknowledge that there can be gains without losses. We can alter the household chores in a way everyone prefers. New businesses can make processes simpler and cheaper. We can help muslims, women, business owners without anyone losing out.

Not always, but sometimes.

We think we live in a never ending game of chess. You win, I lose. I have so you don’t. But it’s an illusion. Bake a cake with your friend — see that everyone bakes and everyone eats. Some things are win-win. And lucky for us, it’s more things than we think.

Further reading (please comment with more)

• https://ncase.me/trust/ — a great minigame around trust and games

Examples of “win-lose” thinking

• “I don’t want immigrants using our health service and taking our jobs”. But people who have immigrated may have paid more into the health system and created more jobs than those they have taken
• “If we get a cleaner it will save my partner more time than it saves me”. The arguments it avoids are wins to both parties
• “I don’t want to spend money on drug addicts”. Helping drug addicts might save money in healthcare and be better for those poeple

Counterexamples

• If you are competing for a promotion with a coworker, them doing better is worse for you