To some extent “technical” might be the word for a domain where Game-1 is stably dominant. There are technical subjects, political subjects, and subjects somewhere in between. If so, then “this is only possible in technical domains” is a truism, and the question is whether we can make other important domains technical. Economics was in a sense an attempt to make politics, or a large part of politics technical. Philosophy was an attempt to make a different part of politics that touched civic religion and origin myths into a technical subject.
I think that armies under severe short-term performance pressure can use Game-1 within their domains, even though there’s a lot of managing humans involved. Preserving Game-1 under conditions of local abundance is harder. It was known to be a major unsolved problem as early as the writing of Plato’s Republic.
I think I’d filter my “technical” requirement a bit further. Not “only possible in technical domains”, but “only possible for those parts of technical domains for which jargon and terms of art have been developed and accepted”. Technical domains that are changing or being explored require a lot of words and interactive probing before any sort of terse communication is possible.
Even armies and trained emergency workers are very limited in the types of information they can transfer quickly and correctly, and that’s AFTER a whole lot of training and preparation so that most commands are subroutine triggers, not idea transfers.
I sympathize with the desire to “make important domains technical”, but I suspect it’s a mix of levels that is ultimately incoherent. In domains where there is a natural feedback loop to precision, it’ll happen by itself. In domains where the feedback loops _don’t_ favor precision and territory-matching, it won’t and can’t. One could claim that is the difference between an “important” domain and one that isn’t, but one would be falling for the very same problem we’re discussing: the word “important” doesn’t mean the same thing to each of us.
Note that small groups of shared-context individuals _CAN_ have technical discussions on topics that are otherwise imprecise and socially constructed. It’s just impossible for larger or more heterogeneous groups to do so.
To some extent “technical” might be the word for a domain where Game-1 is stably dominant. There are technical subjects, political subjects, and subjects somewhere in between. If so, then “this is only possible in technical domains” is a truism, and the question is whether we can make other important domains technical. Economics was in a sense an attempt to make politics, or a large part of politics technical. Philosophy was an attempt to make a different part of politics that touched civic religion and origin myths into a technical subject.
I think that armies under severe short-term performance pressure can use Game-1 within their domains, even though there’s a lot of managing humans involved. Preserving Game-1 under conditions of local abundance is harder. It was known to be a major unsolved problem as early as the writing of Plato’s Republic.
I think I’d filter my “technical” requirement a bit further. Not “only possible in technical domains”, but “only possible for those parts of technical domains for which jargon and terms of art have been developed and accepted”. Technical domains that are changing or being explored require a lot of words and interactive probing before any sort of terse communication is possible.
Even armies and trained emergency workers are very limited in the types of information they can transfer quickly and correctly, and that’s AFTER a whole lot of training and preparation so that most commands are subroutine triggers, not idea transfers.
I sympathize with the desire to “make important domains technical”, but I suspect it’s a mix of levels that is ultimately incoherent. In domains where there is a natural feedback loop to precision, it’ll happen by itself. In domains where the feedback loops _don’t_ favor precision and territory-matching, it won’t and can’t. One could claim that is the difference between an “important” domain and one that isn’t, but one would be falling for the very same problem we’re discussing: the word “important” doesn’t mean the same thing to each of us.
Note that small groups of shared-context individuals _CAN_ have technical discussions on topics that are otherwise imprecise and socially constructed. It’s just impossible for larger or more heterogeneous groups to do so.