Note that this is NOT an "unfair" or even "EXTREMELY unfair" coin. It's not a fixed bias or even a wear pattern or other understandably-moving probability.  There is no possible way for a real coin to have that distribution.

It would be a more interesting prediction challenge if the range of posssible patterns were known.  "I've coded something that doesn't make sense; go!" is not that helpful.  Or even just say "predict the output of this program, which is absolutely not a coin".

The two statements are different in content, in important ways.  "Broccoli is good for you" can encompass MANY dimensions and mechanisms of goodness, and asserts that the good parts outweigh any bad parts.  "Broccoli reduces cholesterol" is much more specific, and implies (but does not explicitly state) that this is the primary benefit, and if you don't particularly care about your cholesterol, you shouldn't seek out broccoli.

I think you're reading more into the framing differences than there is for most conversations or food decisions.  My standard recommendation: "if it matters, use more words".  The times I've had similar experiences, it was never (as far as I could tell) intentional about value vs fact, but simply an attempt to speak at a useful level of abstraction with the listener.  And again, when there was confusion or disagreement, it required more depth.

I really like this categorization.  I'm not sure I fully agree, but it's great to be exploring it.

It would be helpful for me if you could describe what parts of the stock market are positive-sum, and what parts are zero-sum.  In one sense, every voluntary trade is (expected to be) beneficial to both - they each think they're better off with the exchanged values.  In another sense, every stock trade (with possible exceptions of initial funding or issuances) is zero-sum: the value gained by a buyer of a stock which rises is exactly the value lost by the seller.  

I think of such games as "mixed" - there are elements and subgames which are fixed-sum, and others which are variable-sum, and optimizing among them is part of the overall outcome.  "Cohabitative", to my ear, is more about shared environment than about the kinds of in-game interaction and optimizations which are being made.

My friends enjoy co-op games as well - Pandemic (though more fun with the bioterrorist IMO ;) ), Forbidden {Island,Desert,Sky}, etc.  They tend to suffer from the quarterback effect, as you say - one player often has stronger opinions and is telling others what to do (and often why), turning it into a group-consensus exercise rather than individual optimization.

I'd need to expand "The Mindset" to understand what you mean there, but for myself and the groups I game with, the risk/reward/learning-feedback elements are simply nowhere near as strong in pure cooperative games, as it is in competitive games with cooperative elements.  

None of your other candidates are the point either.  The point that can be named is not the true point.

It's an important observation that most, if not all, human activities have more than one benefit, often at different levels of abstraction and on different timeframes.  "the point" is an ambiguious framing - you should think more like "one point of most boardgames is to win".  Another point is to practice a specific mix of zero-sum and non-zero-sum subgames, to learn about optimization, cooperation, and competition.  Another point is to have fun with people and grow your bonds.  Another point is ...

There is no "real objective", there are only different weights (over time and across participants) put on the many reasons to do something.

I've played a fair bit of 18xx ("train games", but more about stock-manipulation) games with a specific group of friends.  These games contain zero external randomizers, beyond the initial selection of turn ordering (which then changes based on in-game effects).  We played to win, and it would be un-fun if we didn't.  That includes competitive aspects like blocking others' routes and "thushing" their stock.  Optimizing one's outcomes in the absence of smart, motivated, adversaries does not excercise the same learning or enjoyment.

But we certainly did not play because each of us expected to win, and certainly saw good value in the game even when not winning (which sometimes could be known early, and certainly felt like it to all of us, even the winner, at various points in the course of a game).  But the details, strategy, conversation, and experimentation toward winning was the driver for most of the other value.

I've also played a lot of cash and tournament poker, with friends and strangers.  It's hard to claim that winning isn't the primary goal of the game, and my primary motivation for playing in public cardrooms (where I don't know the other players well enough for bonding and shared joy to be the motivator).  But even then, there will be plenty of losing hands, too many losing sessions, and not enough immediate feedback to make "long-term profit" the only element of the game that matters.  It matters on one level - if I lost consistently, I'd make the financial choice to stay away.  On another level, the analytic and "what-if" optimization of individual sub-hand decisions, as they affect both later streets and later hands, are fascinating and fun, regardless of outcome of that hand.

Partly, I'm old and it was a different world then.  But I've done a bunch of interviewing and hiring for very large companies, and it still does happen that smart, self-aware people come into software development somewhat indirectly.   I started as a laborer in the summer after high school, with a full-time year after dropping out of state college (where I thought I was studying chemistry, but after 2 years realized 1) I didn't care that much and 2) I was going to need to be in school a LONG time to get anywhere.  Oh, and 3) the university asked me not to return, given my poor attendance and grades).

A fair number of labor-intensive jobs are well-suited for part-time or intermittent work, so possible to do while going to school for the basics (community college or some state schools).  There are still lots of small businesses who need computers set up and administered, often as a side-gig for some other job you're doing for them.  If you're good at it, you can ladder that to full-time sysadmin, sometimes with light development or app customization work.  I started a PC-assembly company, which still exists (though it's not particularly successful), and then got hired by a customer.  I worked as sales-support for an accounting and small-manufacturing MRP system, and wrote truly horrific add-on bits for labor planning and job tracking, because a customer needed it and it scratched an itch.Those jobs didn't pay more than laborer, but they were a lot more fun, and indoors, and I could see myself there long-term (either in the computer side, or in the business side - I ALMOST went and got my PMI cert in order to manage shop floors of manufacturing/assembly companies).  

I figure it probably cost me 12-15 years post high-school of bouncing around and self-directed education and improvement to get to a medium-sized "real" software developement job, compared to the typical CS degree that costs 4 years but gets a good starter software job and puts you on the right track immediately.  However, that extra decade was CRITICAL to my later success (PE at a large company for many years, now Distinguished Engineer at a smaller company).  I wasn't able to take school seriously enough to really learn the important lessons behind the nominal material.  Actually working at real jobs both freed my curiosity to learn the details and applications of CS (even when it wasn't my job), and to let me see the behaviors and decision-criteria that actually matter to business.  

I really hesitate to generalize - I don't want to downplay the amount of luck I've had, and I don't think I'm anywhere near modal in my capabilities or drives.  But I think one of the keys to my ability to work hard was doing things that have SOME impact on the real world and real people.  It turns out it doesn't (for me) need to be world-changing or particularly heroic, it just needs to be real.

I'd absolutely NOT recommend my path to anyone.  If at all possible, get your head straight and go with a conventional school/work/growth-in-career model.  But if you can't do that, there are an infinite amount of alternatives that still lead to pretty good results.  Maybe not even software - I still know a bunch of fairly smart but too-hard-partying and not-particularly-ambitious laborers who went to tech school and are now pretty comfortable senior construction people (electricians, carpenter/project managers, masons, some back to school for (non-software) engineering or architecture.

Ok, I follow.  I read the intro paragraph as EXACTLY the (pretty bad) situation where the group had eliminated A and implemented B, and someone had proposed switching from B to C, and your analysis being mostly about why that proposal was wrong.  Which caused my confusion when it didn't compare B and C very directly.

I'm still a little unsure of your reasons for those current orderings (both A<B and C<B (transitively) surprise me, if considering only effectiveness and not convenience or other factors.  Considering social equilibria, any ordering could apply to a given group).  I would put myself at B < C < A.  

There are (at least) two channels at play.  Unvaxed people are more likely to spread Covid.  Visible acceptance of anti-vax sentiment is more likely to attract more unvaxed people (and likely to reduce boosters among the ambivalent vaxed).  When you're not checking vax cards, you can adopt policies that make vaxx the default, obvious preference, even without formal enforcement.