https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/the-two-big-games [https] Overcoming Bias SubscribeSign in Share this post [https] Overcoming Bias Overcoming Bias The Two Big Games Copy link Facebook Email Notes More The Two Big Games [https] Robin Hanson Dec 02, 2024 24 Share this post [https] Overcoming Bias Overcoming Bias The Two Big Games Copy link Facebook Email Notes More 9 5 Share Imagine a business meeting which will decide if a new project goes forward, or decide key priorities about it. There are two games that folks in this business might play re this meeting. In the consensus game, people want to be seen has having favored the immediate winning side. Whatever decision is made by the end of the meeting, or in the next few days afterward, they want to seem to have favored that decision, and if possible also to have substantially influenced that decision. In the outcome game, people want to be seen as having favored the decision that gave the best outcome in the long run. If the project is approved and goes well, they want to have favored its approval, but if the project goes badly, they want to be seen as having opposed approval. Good strategies for the consensus game include holding a pre-meeting with enough allies to ensure that your alliance gets the outcome it pushes for. Or if the outcome is truly uncertain, wait until the decision is leaning a bit one direction and then throw your weight in to ensure that becomes the decision. Good strategies for the outcome game are to study the fundamentals, estimate long term outcomes, and then "plant your flag" via a clear recommendation, preferably in writing. Even better if you can arrange to make (decision-conditional) bets on the outcome. Now often the leader of an org that holds such a meeting sets a rule: while it is fine to voice objections during a meeting, once a decision is made, everyone must fully support it. Thus all references to having opposed the decision must disappear, and so no one should play the outcome game. Such a rule is often justified as helping the leader play his own outcome game. The leader is trying to make good decisions, that will make him look good later when his outcomes are evaluated by superiors, and he can't do this well if his subordinates don't fully support him. And so playing the outcome game is often a status marker. Most ordinary people low in orgs, or without much wealth, must mostly try to please folks around them, by seeming to agree with them and to influence them. But once you rise high enough in orgs, or accumulate enough wealth, then you may be allowed to play more outcome games. Of course even people high in orgs play more consensus than outcome games, just among a higher set of associates. And most people with wealth to invest focus on copying the investment behavior of others, instead of trying to make their own independent investment judgments. We can see "contrarians" as people who insist on playing outcome games even when others focus on consensus games. Thus contrarians tend to lose consensus games. Most rewards in academia come via consensus games. One wins by getting jobs, grants, and publication now based on what prestigious folks think now of your work, or your proposals for work. Long term citations count for little, as does publishing well before others, but in low ranked journals. Many orgs probably rot via consensus games slowly displacing outcome games. At first the founders and first employees are betting on the firm, but later folks are betting on rising in the firm, not so much on the firm itself. Plausibly the key strength of capitalism is that it makes outcome games matter more. People good at consensus games resent that, and want to cut capitalism to prevent it. Prediction markets are an attempt to make outcome games matter more than they now do. And so they are plausibly opposed by those who have invested in learning to do better at consensus games. Many of my other institutional reform proposals can also be seen as trying to make outcome games matter more. Please help if you can. 24 Share this post [https] Overcoming Bias Overcoming Bias The Two Big Games Copy link Facebook Email Notes More 9 5 Share Discussion about this post Comments Restacks [https] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [https] Steven 4h The requirement that all subordinates must publicly support the plan once the decision is made is an entirely logical one since they will be responsible for motivating their own subordinates in actually executing the plan and it would put their subordinates in a lose-lose position if it is known that the Boss and Boss's Boss disagreed. Which is not to say that accurate agreement/disagreement records can't be noted and tracked for outcomes within that higher echelon as an input to performance evaluations, bonuses, and promotions. I suspect that you're up against an even bigger challenge than is apparent. For example, our elections are secret ballot and clearly the outcomes matter to everyone, so they logically SHOULD be strictly outcome games, yet even a cursory examination of voter behavior (and politician behavior) suggests that both prioritize being "wrong strong" (being seen as part of the majority, even if that majority made a mistake) rather than willing to stake out unpopular positions on the conviction that they'll have the better outcomes, thus making them more resemble consensus games. The penalty for being responsible for poor outcomes seems less than the penalty for being "not a team player", perhaps because the majority is better able to diffuse responsibility and mutually defend each other from accountability. Even when preference cascades finally result in the majority flipping to the better policy, those who were the early dissidents against the worse policy are rarely rewarded for having been right ahead of the crowd, they're more often still damaged by the retaliation they suffered before the cascade and, at best, they are belatedly restored to good standing, having gained nothing compared to those who supported the worse policy and waited until the shift was clear to flip later. Expand full comment Reply Share [https] Jack 16mEdited Many years ago when we had Prophit at Google, I became very impressed by the potential for an internal prediction market. But I knew it wouldn't last. There was too much awkward dissonance between company goals and what the market had to say. (Prophit was right, but that's cold comfort when you're being shut down.) I empathized with the senior execs trying to motivate action in the face of what could easily be interpreted as a public vote of no confidence. I still wonder how the technology will find its path. Option 1 is to say: Let's build a company culture that discourages "cooperation game"-players from shutting down such things. This might be hard to do given human nature. Option 2 is to say: Let's find a way to make it not ruffle quite as many feathers, but still be useful. Robin you're one of the experts on this: Are there any case examples of orgs doing this well? Expand full comment Reply Share 7 more comments... Top Latest Discussions No posts Ready for more? [ ] Subscribe (c) 2024 Robin Hanson Privacy [?] Terms [?] Collection notice Start WritingGet the app Substack is the home for great culture Share Copy link Facebook Email Notes More This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts