2024-01-28

• an idea to chew on. Some people say stuff like “how you do anything is how you do everything” or “how you take care of the little things is how you take care of the big things”. I think there’s some truth to that (and a good amount of nuance). One thing I’m realizing is maybe a more interesting angle on the same idea is: “how you play games is how you do everything.” Was thinking about this based on learning to play Magic The Gathering with a friend (great game, my friend is a great teacher, it’s amazing, I can’t believe I didn’t play this before). One thing that I realize really stands out to me is around in-game choices where there is a “zero-sum” option vs a “positive-sum” option. In this case, I would note that most of the informational value lies with looking at the decision maker. And in particular, in situations where you could go a zero-sum way that benefits you vs a positive-sum way that benefits yoursef/others (often along different dimensions, often with somewhat less benefit to yourself), it’s likely very informational to pay attention to those choices in yourself and others. For me, I realize, at this point in my life, I am pretty unlikely to enjoy playing repeated iterations of games with people who choose the zero-sum path, bc I am so much more interested in exploring positive-sum paths through games. This is true for me, even if it means I will “lose” the game at the end of the exploration. Some things are worth “losing” an advantage.

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