Positive Sum Games & Compromise:

Illimitable Man:

>As much as some may viscerally recoil at and reject the idea of "compromise" - as if to compromise is to dilute oneself and thereby lose authenticity (an entirely understandable sentiment), there are scenarios in which compromise *IS* in fact the preferred or optimal outcome.

Firstly and most chiefly, the easy part - you should always try to align someone else's interests with your own, in order to create a mutually shared interest so you can play positive sum games.

If I want something, and you want that same thing, and us working on it together increases the probability we both get it, that's easy cooperation - no negotiation is required, because nobody has to sacrifice anything (other than their time, and potentially, reputation risk) to engage in the shared endeavour.

Playing win-win positive sum games requires no compromise, only the capacity to find common ground and then agree to work towards said shared goal.

However, there are scenarios where incentives cannot be aligned, and someone must in fact lose out, with lose out being defined as "not getting what they want" We are of course talking about zero sum games - which is the default way those who are not very successful, who live in a very low trust/criminal society, or owing to deficit of personal temperament view the world. To them, zero sum games are the only games. Someone is winning, and someone is losing. And they don't intend to lose. Which means if they see someone who wins a lot, they think that person is a bad person because it's not possible for someone to win that much without making so many other people lose, even though they too wish to win (this moral hypocrisy is lost on them).

... However, not all zero sum games are equal, and essentially boil down to two components: 1. One side gets everything they want at the expense of the other side getting nothing they want ... 2. Each side gets something they want, but not everything they want (generally what the vast majority of marriages look like, hence their near religious advocation for compromise) Either way, someone is losing something so the other can have something, *BUT* the degree and proportionality to which this is true differs. Getting everything I want without giving them anything they want" is not the optimal outcome when whoever loses out incurs a level of resentment that motivates them to rebel, cause unrest or see violence as an attractive option for conflict resolution because more diplomatic and moral options have proven ineffective.

Because no matter what your interests are or where your loyalties lie, most people wish to live safe, positive and productive lives that allow them to indulge in worldly pleasures and improve the substance of their form (their being) until their time on this plane expires. And so whenever two unaligned interests are in negotiations, the optimal outcome for both short of a mutually agreed upon loss where both walk away and nobody gets anything they want, is "I get something I want and you get something you want, without either of us hating each other for not getting *EVERYTHING* we wanted". So ideally we both get what's important to us, and forego some luxuries ... <