I like this a lot and it has some great content, but the title worries me. Which of course it would.
The title here clearly refers to winning zero-sum games, as opposed to cooperating in positive-sum games. Many people think of the term ‘winning’ that way but there’s also the ‘rationality is systematized winning’ or getting-what-you-want sense of winning, which is very different from winning-as-having-more-than-you-do. Which the article does a great job of going into detail about, and coming down clearly on the side of the good kind of winning.
What I worry about is that I want winning to refer to good winning. I know that out there in the world it refers to both. We have hugely positive connotations around winning and winner and win and so on, and people like the idea of having won in any sense quite a bit, so whatever gets labeled as a ‘win’ in someone’s head is going to get reinforced a lot.
Thus, the title worries me, because if winning is bad, then by implication winning means the bad kind of winning rather than the good kind of winning, and if you disagree, that makes you a loser, which is a term of endearment at Ribbonfarm but not to most people. Then I worry that might end up overriding the message that the good kind of winning is the real winning.
(I do realize it’s probably way too late to change the title given it’s on Ribbonfarm as well)
It probably wouldn’t help the general connotation much, but forming distinct concepts/terms along the lines of “relative success” and “absolute success” might be a step in the right direction.
I like this a lot and it has some great content, but the title worries me. Which of course it would.
The title here clearly refers to winning zero-sum games, as opposed to cooperating in positive-sum games. Many people think of the term ‘winning’ that way but there’s also the ‘rationality is systematized winning’ or getting-what-you-want sense of winning, which is very different from winning-as-having-more-than-you-do. Which the article does a great job of going into detail about, and coming down clearly on the side of the good kind of winning.
What I worry about is that I want winning to refer to good winning. I know that out there in the world it refers to both. We have hugely positive connotations around winning and winner and win and so on, and people like the idea of having won in any sense quite a bit, so whatever gets labeled as a ‘win’ in someone’s head is going to get reinforced a lot.
Thus, the title worries me, because if winning is bad, then by implication winning means the bad kind of winning rather than the good kind of winning, and if you disagree, that makes you a loser, which is a term of endearment at Ribbonfarm but not to most people. Then I worry that might end up overriding the message that the good kind of winning is the real winning.
(I do realize it’s probably way too late to change the title given it’s on Ribbonfarm as well)
It probably wouldn’t help the general connotation much, but forming distinct concepts/terms along the lines of “relative success” and “absolute success” might be a step in the right direction.