Game design thoughts:

Missing information or a too-complex information environment is a big part of where I'm excited about cohabitive game design. The market works to summarize many many preferences. Large WoW guilds run into problems of organizing information.

I'm musing about some kind of fog of war chess game. Each player controls one piece, and can see all of the squares they can move to. They can't see the whole board, and can only communicate to the king how badly they want to move, and the king decides. This would be a team competitive game, but the idea of adding small side goals for pieces (such as, you get 2 points if your team wins, and 1 point if you're alive at the end win or lose) could make for an unusually focused cohabitive design space.

In general a lot of my cohabitive game design ideas come out in the form of having larger player bases. I should try and make a really tight two player cohabitive setup.

(Very tangentially related but if you want to talk Cohabitive Game Design stuff, I'll be hanging around at Metagame.games this weekend.)

I kinda wish the subsequent back and forth between you and Habryka and Ben hadn't happened yet downthread here, because I was hoping to elicit a more specific set of odds (is "pretty high" 75%? 90%? 99%?) and see if you wanted to bet. 

I can sympathize with the feeling where it seems an interlocutor says false things so often if they said it was sunny outside I'd bring an umbrella. I also haven't been tracking every conversation on LessWrong that involves you, but that said even in a world where Habryka was entirely uncorrelated with truth I'd have remembered the big moderation post about the two of you and guessed Duncan at least would have said something along those lines. 

So it is in fact straightforwardly true to say that there are zero examples of “top author X cites Said as a top reason for why they do not want to post or comment on LW” turning out to just be straightforwardly true.

I'm having trouble modeling you here Said. When you wrote there were zero examples, what odds would you have put that nobody would be able to produce a quote of anyone saying something like this? What odds would you currently put that nobody can produce a similar quote from a second such author?

You say "the count now stands at one example" as though it's new information. Duncan in particular seems hard to have missed. I'm trying to work out why you didn't think that counted. Maybe you forgot about him saying that? Maybe it has to be directly quoted in this thread?

Why would Bella reply by invoking this sort of abstract, somewhat esoteric, meta-level concept like “setting the zero point”, instead of saying something more like “… uh, Chloe, are you ok? you know we don’t have 15 cows to divide, right?”.

Because she's in a silly shortform dialogue that's building up to the esoteric, meta-level concept like the game theory in the third part mostly. I wanted some kind of underhanded negotiating tactic I could have Chloe try, I came up with asking for way more than is reasonable to set the stage for "compromise," and then I noticed that the tactic had a good conceptual handle and I referenced it.

This makes me suspect that whatever this fictional conversation is a metaphor for, is not actually analogous to dividing six spherical cows between two people.

It's pretty generic, abstracted negotiation and Chloe is being pretty blatant and ambitious. Asking for value that the other person didn't even think was on the table is a negotiation move I've seen and heard of though, sometimes successfully. For a more realistic version, compare a salary negotiation where the applicant asks for 10% higher salary, gets told the company doesn't have that much to pay employees, and then tries for a couple weeks extra vacation time or more company stock instead. 

I think the math at the end still works even if the two sides don't agree on how many cows are actually available.

4 should be there not because it's what Cameron thinks is fair but because it's what they're offering.

How about "4 because that's what you say is fair for you to get"? Cameron isn't offering 4 to Bryer, it's a 2:4 split with 4 to Cameron.

(I want to make sure I get this part right, and appreciate the edit pass!)

That's only the right thing to do if Camerons know that the fair split is actually 3:3 (it's unclear why they'd be unhappy about it if they think it's fair: are they unhappy because they were interacting with someone who couldn't be convinced to give up some of the cows?). If Cameron thinks the fair split is 4, they are supposed to still offer 2:4. (They could also offer 3:3 with a bit under 2/3 chance and walk away otherwise, but they don't need to do it here.)

In these stories, the Cs are not aiming at a fair split (or to the extent they are, it's more of an "all's fair in love, war, and spherical cow negotiations" kind of fair.) They are aiming at getting as many cows as they can. This is not stated explicitly and I do think there's a valid reading of the text where the Cs are just really badly calibrated on what's fair, but in my head I was writing it with a mind to "okay, what's some really annoying low hanging fruit for aggressive negotiation tactics?" Cameron is written as unhappy because in the author's head, their attempts to get some 'free' extra cows failed.

Depending on context, I don't think the Cs are doing something morally wrong- if I go to buy a used car from a dealer, I expect them to try this kind of thing on me and I'll do it right back to them if I can. If I'm negotiating salary with a standard corporation, I expect them to try this kind of thing on me and I'll to it to them too. But it's not behavior I want from people on my team within the team.

The internet's^[1] lack of tone-of-voice claims another victim.

1. ^{^}

   I agree the internet actually can convey tone-of-voice. I also stand by calling it the internet here instead of "text communication" or "forum software" because the opportunity to make this pedantic footnote amused me.

I have added a footnote: "I agree this is actually Pathfinder. I also stand by calling it D&D here because I expect calling it Pathfinder would confuse more people than it enlightens, Pathfinder's close enough to round to D&D for these purposes, and I guess I can add this footnote."

I'm curious if this satisfies you?

(I'm also amused that I see the "It's not D&D, it's Pathfinder" point brought up repeatedly but don't think I've run across someone making the "It's not BDSM, those are abusive relationships" point.)

Bob and Carl are about to negotiate. Conveniently, the thing they're negotiating over is the division of six spherical cows. Each of them would ideally like all six for themselves.

Bob considers the situation and opens by saying "I think the reasonable thing to do here is go with 3 each. That seems fair."

"I'd rather have 5," says Carl breezily. 

"That doesn't seem fair at all," says Bob, a little surprised. "That's not compromising." 

"Hrm, tell you what. I'll compromise, and I'll have 4." Carl says with good cheer.

"I- what? No, the fair thing is 3 each." Bob sounds a little angry now. 

"Now who isn't compromising?" Carl asks, and Dean (who started watching the discussion recently, but wasn't around long enough to have a good sense of what their goals are) nods in agreement.

"Fine, I'll take 2," Bob splutters. But he's not happy about it.

Bella and Chloe are about to negotiate. Conveniently, the thing they're negotiating over is the division of six spherical cows. Each of them would ideally like all six for themselves.

"I want 6," Bella says, "do you want to just meet in the middle?" 

"That's hardly fair," Chloe says. "You're not giving anything up."

"I said I wanted 6. I can compromise. You want 6 as well, right?" Bella asks.

"How about I get 15?" Chloe proposes as though that's a reasonable number of spherical cows to be given out of the six at hand.

"I- what?" Bella is baffled. "Is that what you want or what you suggest as a compromise?"

"I suppose I'll be generous. I'll take 5." 

"I'm sorry, but no. That's not fair at all." Bella says, starting to get annoyed.

"Why not?" asks Darla, who has been watching long enough to hear the conversation but not long enough to have a sense of their goals, or of the range of spherical cows. "Chloe is offering a lot more to go from 15 to 5 than you are to go from 6 to 1."

"You can't actually expect me to take her getting 15 as a reasonable starting position. That's blatantly setting the zero point." Bella argues, getting heated.

"I suppose I accept your apology, but to make up for it can we compromise at least on me getting 4?" Chloe says, with an air of resignation.

"See Bella? Chloe is offering to compromise again," Darla points out, trying to be helpful. "And you did say sorry, which sounds like you agree you made a mistake."

"That's not- you know what, fine, whatever," Bella says. But she's not happy about it.

Bryer and Cameron are about to negotiate. Conveniently, the thing they're negotiating over is the division of six spherical cows. Each of them would ideally like all six for themselves.

"I think the fair thing is 3 each." Bryer says. 

"Well, I think-" Cameron starts, but Bryer interrupts them.

"And since both of us know the standard way to divide gains, you know I'll randomly reject divisions that stray from that with a probability proportionate to how unfair it seems to me," Bryer finished.

". . . I get 4?" Cameron suggests.

"If that's your final offer I'll accept with slightly less than 3/4 probability. 3 because that's what I think I is fair for you to get, 4 because that's what you think is fair for you to get," Bryer says.

"That's a weird bit of math you just suggested, and I'm not sure it's applicable," Cameron says.

"It's not that weird," Dakota says. Dakota wasn't really paying attention, at least not long enough to know what everyone's goals are, but who did pay attention to the math. "We all learn that in school, usually by the time we're ten. And if we didn't, we pick it up from the Dungeons and Dragons^[1] BDSM fanfiction that's required reading for everyone in our subculture. I was as surprised as you were when the rightful caliph declared it was required reading, but we did all read it. And there's a short version to point people at if they don't know it."

Cameron opens and closes their mouth a few times. They say "3 then." But they're not happy about it.

1. ^{^}

   I agree this is actually Pathfinder. I also stand by calling it D&D here because I expect calling it Pathfinder would confuse more people than it enlightens, Pathfinder's close enough to round to D&D for these purposes, and I guess I can add this footnote.

First time I'd seen There's A Reason You Don't Know. I'd be fascinated to hear how well that works for them, because oh boy does it not really work some groups. (It's rationalists, we're some groups)