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People and organizations are all playing some game that has different ways of gaining status and power

These games are usually on very long time scales. Playing the same game is the only way people can align for extremely long time scales. These long time scales make it so that people and organizations need to create proxy games. People create proxy games for long term or hard-to-measure games

These games are how Institutions shape how individuals interact, so it follows that All institutions are coupled to at least one game.

  • Alignment between people playing different games can happen on finite time scales

For anybody who has played Magic - The Gathering, it’s analogous to different win conditions. Some decks are trying to reduce opponents life to zero, but then some decks are trying to deck their opponent.

Related

  • carseFiniteInfiniteGames2012
  • The returns to politics is higher at large organizations - Stake v Rank
  • Academia is the game where you gain status by getting attention for new knowledge
  • The game in national labs is roughly the same as academia but with different constraints
  • Internet people are playing a game to maximize engagement
  • Having more separate games is good for society
  • What are proxy games that lead to more awesome sci-fi shit?
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  • Who Wants to Play the Status Game? | The Point Magazine
  • “have your cake and eat it too” life-games have led to a toxic society
  • §Institutions and Games

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Institutions shape how individuals interact

Shadows of the Future

Institutions are the second level of a group selection evolutionary system

Alignment between people playing different games can happen on finite time scales

People want to be loved and be lovely

Academia is the game where you gain status by getting attention for new knowledge

IBMs proxy game is publishing patents

DARPA Program managers have a tenure of four to five years

§Institutions and Games

Reaper functions beat culture decks

Playing the same game is the only way people can align for extremely long time scales

All funding organizations are research organizations

Academics are incentivized to do peer-reviewed publishable work

Research requires intrinsic motivation

What if you did skin in the game analyses on institutions?

National labs and other government research centers are a research alternative to universities

The idea that you need to make a lot of money in software before you can work on sweet sci fi shit is false

‘Have your cake and eat it too’ life-games have led to a toxic society