Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site grkermit.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!grkermit!chris From: chris@grkermit.UUCP (Chris Hibbert) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Life as basis for good vs evil - (nf) Message-ID: <472@grkermit.UUCP> Date: Fri, 1-Jul-83 13:09:48 EDT Article-I.D.: grkermit.472 Posted: Fri Jul 1 13:09:48 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 1-Jul-83 19:37:05 EDT References: ucbcad.134 <337@mit-eddi.UUCP> Organization: GenRad Inc., Concord, MA Lines: 18 This idea (using the model of a zero-sum game as a metaphor for life and society) is not new. Lester Thurow of MIT wrote a book recently called "The Zero Sum Society." I haven't read the book, I just mention it as an example of how common the idea is. The problem with this formulation is that life and society are almost always a positive sum game if there is any cooperation at all. This is the basis of the industrial revolution. Any invention (or even any small good idea) improves the lot of the person or people who make use of it, and as long as other people's right to their own property is respected, they are made no worse off. If people generally don't respect rights, then the whole system is a negative sum game. If people can't count on being able to benefit from their labor or ideas, then they will learn not to bother trying. Only in the case of "every man is an island" does life become a zero sum game. And the proverb says that just doesn't happen.