
Coordination Problems: What It Takes to Change the World - feross
https://fs.blog/2020/06/coordination-problems/
======
chriswarbo
I think most of the desirable aspects of government can be framed in terms of
such coordination problems; i.e. as a mechanism for groups to enforce
collective decisions on members, where deviations benefit that individual but
make everyone worse off on average.

For example, _I_ can benefit from polluting (e.g. saving money by using cheap,
poorly refined fuels). My pollution costs other people, but it's only small,
since I'm just one person. Hence it's rational for me to pollute.

However, I don't want _other_ people polluting, since that will cost me. Since
there are lots of other people, it may even add up to more than I would gain
by being the only polluter (saving money versus, say, getting cancer).

From the perspective of individuals, this is a coordination problem. The
categorical imperative (what we would like everyone to do) is to not pollute;
but this is unstable, since there is incentive to deviate (e.g. save money).
In a competitive environment, polluters have an advantage, so the polluting
strategy will dominate.

Collective government is a mechanism to solve such problems. The group decides
(e.g. by vote) that freedom _from_ pollution is worth more than freedom _to_
pollute, and agrees to punish polluters, disincentivising that activity, and
thus changing the payoff calculation.

Of course, collective government _itself_ introduces all sorts of new
coordination problems, like corruption, revolving-doors, watching-the-
watchmen, a disconnected political class, etc. (many of which are particularly
evident right now!)

------
jkhdigital
Very surprised this article doesn't mention Schelling points, a concept which
earned Thomas Schelling the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (among other
achievements): [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-
equil...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-
and-schelling-points)

Actually, I'll even say that this article is _deficient_ precisely because it
doesn't mention Schelling points, which are essential to understanding the
kind of society-wide coordination problems discussed here.

------
fsflover
See also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem)

------
tpetrina
Another fantastic take on coordination issue is Scott Alexander's Meditations
on Moloch [0].

0 - [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-
moloch/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

~~~
nicbou
It's a very long read, but it's worth it. This post gave me a lot to chew on.

~~~
slx26
yes, the title and introduction don't seem too compelling from the outside,
but once it gets into the topic it's indeed a great discussion of _the
problem_ witholding us from a better world.

so, I have to ask. maybe we haven't coordinated well enough to solve this, but
can we coordinate well enough to at least get some bibliography on the topic,
attempts at improving the situation...? or is people convinced this is
unsolvable? is there any place, site, book or organization seriously trying to
tackle this? (I'll search more later, but maybe someone can already add
something useful)

~~~
mistermann
There are a fair amount of people assembling in numerous loosely associated
Discord servers, each of which tends to have it's own take/ideology on the
overall situation, but you could probably categorize them all under the
"Game-B" movement.

~~~
3pt14159
I'd like to join these servers. Where can I find them? Googling for "Game-B
Discord Servers" doesn't return any useful results.

~~~
mistermann
Some of them are listed here:

[https://theportal.wiki/wiki/The_Portal_Discord_Servers](https://theportal.wiki/wiki/The_Portal_Discord_Servers)

The CoffeeHouse is probably a good place to start as it's a bit of a main hub,
and over time you will get invited to other ones.

Fair warning though, there is a significant amount of religion/spirituality,
psychological woo woo, ironic overconfident naivete, etc. Not really all that
different than you'll find in any community consisting of human beings, but
the flavor and magnitude in these communities is likely quite distinctly
different than what the HN culture is likely familiar with. They could sure
use some more strictly rational people, and they definitely need folks with
advanced technical skills, particularly programmers.

------
082349872349872
I'm guessing the reason we had all these named revolutions is because the
something that inspires the name —phrygian caps, carnations, laban signs, etc—
help coordinate the perception that a minority (Outer Party members?) actually
believes in Moloch.

But I've never lived through one of these — anyone on HN with firsthand
experience?

(Yugoslavia was, I guess, what one gets when coordination is intense but not
universal)

------
mcaswell
That idea of a Nash equilibrium is very interesting. I wonder if there really
are multiple Nash equilibriums for many systems. At least in the prisoner
example the article talked about it seemed more like there is a single optimal
N.E. and it only changed once the circumstances/system changed

~~~
tomrod
Equilibria concepts in game theory are many and varied. A system may have many
Nash Equilibria, in mixed strategies and in pure strategies. Nash equilibria
are where no one player has an incentive to deviate from their current
strategy.

Game theory is a fascinating topic I highly encourage interested folks to
investigate.

------
generated
What are the best software driven coordination systems for promoting
collective action? Would love less mainstream examples.

Seems like there's more opportunities than feedback mechanisms (ratings),
pooled auctions (Kickstarter), and market making (Uber, eBay, Amazon).

What can we do with pre commitment?

~~~
slx26
yep, I thought the same about pre-commitment, but I guess the problem is not
software itself: for proposals that don't need general consensus, but only a
certain threshold of support, the problem seems to be getting enough
attention. Kickstarter does well in this area, but I don't think the pre-
commitment involving money is such a big deal in the collective coordination
aspect. I mean, you could post a call to action on a random blog, and if it
gathered enough attention you would have managed to promote collective action.
That requires nothing new. It has more to do with the inability to gather the
attention of enough people on a single focus when there are so many other
potential focuses fighting for that same attention. In my opinion, the
deadlines in Kickstarter are more interesting than the pre-commitment for
coordination.

And then for proposals that require general consensus, it seems to be even
more complicated. In theory democracy is about this, and we kinda accept the
idea of democratic consensus, but in practice things end up having to be
implemented by or pass through the hands of individual actors, and it's there
where everything starts to rot. So you need to make sure the distance between
consensus and its practical application is short enough too? Also, as the
article says, you'd like to guarantee that "those who take a different course
of action will not suffer negative consequences". But this is kinda
contradictory with general consensus. And you get different groups
"coordinating" in different directions. Ahhh... and the less power you have,
the bigger your consensus group needs to be.

~~~
zozbot234
The benefit of the Kickstarter-like crowdfunding model is that it solves the
coordination problem. When you bid/pledge on a threshold-funded project, your
bid is _only_ paid if the project reaches its preset funding threshold-- if
the threshold is not met, you pay nothing. Thus, it is _individually_ rational
to pledge on a project if you expect that your pledge will meaningfully
contribute to the threshold being reached and you derive individual benefit
from the project itself; each contributor is essentially "matching" others'
pledges. The project creator herself can then strategically choose the
threshold amount and the scope of her project to improve their appeal to
prospective contributors.

(There are a few emerging problems with this model, but they're generally
related to having to trust that the project will be correctly fulfilled. These
problems have nothing to do with the basics of collective fund-raising; they
would also arise in the exact same way whenever an individual agent is
contracting with a third-party for any sort of good or service. The fact that
these are by far the _most_ commonly-cited issues with the threshold-based
crowdfunding model is itself proof that the funding aspect works quite well
indeed.)

~~~
slx26
I like your comment. I think this point you mention is very relevant for more
complex cases:

> if you expect that your pledge will meaningfully contribute to the threshold
> being reached

Kickstarter solves the coordination problem for _their_ case (which is great),
but coordination is harder or easier depending on the scale. Kickstarter here
deals with a "rather simple" coordination problem: value proposition and
conditions are very clear and straightforward, risks are low, there are no
opposing parties / colliding interests, and thresholds are low enough that
individual contributions can be quite meaningful. So even if they have an
interesting business around solving that coordination problem, and they
managed to reach the critical mass for it to work (which I highlight as
trickier than the actual software)... as programmers would say, the solution
doesn't generalize. (Even if it might be a good place to start looking).

------
Nasrudith
I wonder about the proverbial "friction force" to the dynamics of deception
and misinformation and how that could fit in the model. It is certainly
possible to generate personal gains through such actions, trivially just pump
and dump schemes.

Verification can counter that some but in addition to the burden of fact
checking there is the "want to believe" aspect of emotionally motivated
thinking causing them to believe something merely because of how it makes them
feel even if it is an absurdity.

~~~
mistermann
Deception and misinformation can do a lot more than just generate personal
gains, done properly it can also control the thoughts of the population to a
very significant degree. As an example, look at how the public's _extremely
passionate_ opinion (both imprecise aggregate opinion, as well as precise
individual opinions) on the _absolute necessity_ of social distancing seems to
have changed dramatically in the last two weeks.

> there is the "want to believe" aspect of emotionally motivated thinking
> causing them to believe something merely because of how it makes them feel
> even if it is an absurdity

This one is particularly interesting, because it is damn near impossible for
one to 100% accurately perceive whether they are falling victim to various
mental shortcomings (motivated reasoning, state dependent memory, post-hoc
rationalization, etc etc etc) themselves - there are just way too many
variables and neurological processes (that we have little understanding of)
involved, and most processing is not (so they say) done in the conscious mind.
If you take the example above, if you were to ask people who happened to hold
extremely hardline positions on social distancing 2 weeks ago, their mind
would instantaneously be able to produce an absolutely righteous and flawless
(in their mind's evaluation) reason for the complete 180 in their stance. And
from a more meta-perspective, I suspect there will most likely be some of this
very thing happening as some people read these words. This is just how
humanity works, for the time being at least.

Perhaps this phenomenon has something to do with the difficulty in changing
the world.

