Moloch

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It happens when "In some competition optimizing for X, the opportunity arises to throw some other value under the bus for improved X. Those who take it prosper. Those who don’t take it die out. Eventually, everyone’s relative status is about the same as before, but everyone’s absolute status is worse than before. The process continues until all other values that can be traded off have been – in other words, until human ingenuity cannot possibly figure out a way to make things any worse." - Scott Alexander

Scott Alexander  linked the name to the concept in his eponymous post, Meditations on Moloch.  The post intersperses lines of Allan Ginsberg's poem, Howl, with multiples examples of the dynamic including: the Prisoner's Dilemma, dollar auctions, fish farming story, Malthusian trap, capitalism, two-income trap, agriculture, arms races, races to the bottom, education system, science, and government corruption and corporate welfare. 

Scott Alexander  linked the name to the concept in his eponymous post, Meditations on Moloch.  The post intersperses lines of Allan Ginsberg's poem, Howl, with multiples examples of the dynamic including: the Prisoner's Dilemma, dollar auctions, fish farming story, Malthusian trap, capitalism, two-income trap, agriculture, arms races, races to the bottom, education system, science, and government corruption and corporate welfare. 

The topic of Moloch receives a formal treatment in the sequence Inadequate Equilibria, particularly in the chapter Moloch'Moloch's Toolbox.

Scott Alexander   linked the name to the concept in his eponymous post, Moloch.   The post intersperses lines of Allan Ginsberg'Ginsberg's poem, Howl, with multiples examples of the dynamic including: the Prisoner'Prisoner's Dilemma, dollar auctions, fish farming story, Malthusian trap, capitalism, two-income trap, agriculture, arms races, races to the bottom, education system, science, and government corruption and corporate welfare.  

From Allan Ginsberg'Ginsberg's Howl:

Moloch is the personification of the forces that coerce competing individuals to take actions which, although locally optimal, ultimately lead to situations where everyone is worse off. Moreover, no individual is able to unilaterally break out of the dynamic. The situation is a bad Nash equilibrium. A trap.

The topic of Moloch receives a formal treatment in the sequence Inadequate Equilibria, particularly in the chapter Moloch'Moloch's Toolbox.

Scott Alexander   linked the name to the concept in his eponymous post, Moloch.   The post intersperses lines of Allan Ginsberg'Ginsberg's poem, Howl, with multiples examples of the dynamic including: the Prisoner'Prisoner's Dilemma, dollar auctions, fish farming story, Malthusian trap, capitalism, two-income trap, agriculture, arms races, races to the bottom, education system, science, and government corruption and corporate welfare.  

From Allan Ginsberg'Ginsberg's Howl:

See also: Eldritch Analogies, Game Theory, Group Rationality

Moloch is the personification of situations of competition wherethe forces that coerce competing individuals are forced to take actions which, although locally optimal, ultimately lead to situations where both the individual and group areeveryone is worse off. Moreover, no individual is able to unilaterally break out of the dynamic. The situation is a bad Nash equilibrium. A trap.

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