My understanding of zero-sum is: assume a pie of a fixed size that will be eaten, entirely, by several people. The size of any given person’s slice and only be made larger but making at least one of the other slices smaller.
Positive-sum would be settings where the interactions of the eaters could increase the size of the pie—or perhaps number of pies to eat. Negative sum is just bad all around—stay away ;-)
Yes, I am familiar with the general usage of the term “zero-sum”. What was not clear to me was how it applies in this case.
For example: are we envisioning “status” as a single pie, which must be shared by everyone in the hierarchy? However, consider the case of adding more people to the bottom level of a hierarchy (or creating a new bottom level, below the current bottom, with a bunch of new people occupying that new lowest level). Is the entire pie now bigger? Or is it the same size, and everyone’s share has been recalculated? How much of the pie (whether enlarged or unchanged) do the new peons consume? Does it matter how many there are (i.e., is each new peon’s share fixed, or is the entire peon class’s share fixed)? (Note that in the real world, if I am the CEO of a company with 50 employees, and 100 employees join the company, resulting in me being CEO of a company with 150 employees, it seems to be the case that my status within the company has increased, and my status in the greater society has also increased.)
These questions undoubtedly have answers, but not obvious answers. Possibly the answers differ by situation; possibly there are other nuances. This is the sort of thing that should be considered carefully, and with precision and rigor, when attempting to apply concepts like “zero-sum” to such matters as social status.
My bad. I thought you were saying the term itself was not something you were familiar with.
I agree that it is difficult to understand in what settings status would fit the “X-sum” structure. My general thinking is perhaps it is more of the mindset for the person in the situation (in this case, the author) than some external objective metric outside observers would all be able to confirm.
That said, I took the zero-sum as an assumption “for the sake of argument” type rhetoric. I was interested in the bits about heuristics though it seems the main focus is really about how to deal with workplace relationship, in the context of status, which doesn’t greatly interest me or shed much light on the value of heuristics as rule and why they may be more valuable than attempts as some rational calculus in making one’s decisions in certain aspects of life.
My understanding of zero-sum is: assume a pie of a fixed size that will be eaten, entirely, by several people. The size of any given person’s slice and only be made larger but making at least one of the other slices smaller.
Positive-sum would be settings where the interactions of the eaters could increase the size of the pie—or perhaps number of pies to eat. Negative sum is just bad all around—stay away ;-)
Yes, I am familiar with the general usage of the term “zero-sum”. What was not clear to me was how it applies in this case.
For example: are we envisioning “status” as a single pie, which must be shared by everyone in the hierarchy? However, consider the case of adding more people to the bottom level of a hierarchy (or creating a new bottom level, below the current bottom, with a bunch of new people occupying that new lowest level). Is the entire pie now bigger? Or is it the same size, and everyone’s share has been recalculated? How much of the pie (whether enlarged or unchanged) do the new peons consume? Does it matter how many there are (i.e., is each new peon’s share fixed, or is the entire peon class’s share fixed)? (Note that in the real world, if I am the CEO of a company with 50 employees, and 100 employees join the company, resulting in me being CEO of a company with 150 employees, it seems to be the case that my status within the company has increased, and my status in the greater society has also increased.)
These questions undoubtedly have answers, but not obvious answers. Possibly the answers differ by situation; possibly there are other nuances. This is the sort of thing that should be considered carefully, and with precision and rigor, when attempting to apply concepts like “zero-sum” to such matters as social status.
My bad. I thought you were saying the term itself was not something you were familiar with.
I agree that it is difficult to understand in what settings status would fit the “X-sum” structure. My general thinking is perhaps it is more of the mindset for the person in the situation (in this case, the author) than some external objective metric outside observers would all be able to confirm.
That said, I took the zero-sum as an assumption “for the sake of argument” type rhetoric. I was interested in the bits about heuristics though it seems the main focus is really about how to deal with workplace relationship, in the context of status, which doesn’t greatly interest me or shed much light on the value of heuristics as rule and why they may be more valuable than attempts as some rational calculus in making one’s decisions in certain aspects of life.