I like this model but I think a more interesting example can be made with different variables.
Imagine x and y are actually both good things. You could then claim that a common pattern is for people to be pushing back and forth between x and y. But meanwhile, we may not be at the Frontier at all if you add z. So let’s work on z instead!
In that sense, maybe we are never truly at the frontier, all variables considered.
Your comment also reminded me of Robin Hanson’s idea that policy debates are typically like tug of war between just two positions, in which case it may be best to “pull the rope sideways”. Hanson writes: “Few will bother to resist such pulls, and since few will have considered such moves, you have a much better chance of identifying a move that improves policy.”
That seems very similar to the idea that we may be at (or close to) the Pareto frontier when we consider only two dimensions, but not when we add a third, so it may be best to move towards the three-dimensional frontier rather than skating along the two-dimensional frontier.
Nice! I would argue though that because we do not consider all dimensions at once generally speaking and because not all game theory situations (“games”) lend themselves to this dimensional expansion we may, for all practical purposes, sometime find ourselves in this situation.
Overall though, the idea of expanding the dimensionality does point towards one way to remove this dynamic.
I like this model but I think a more interesting example can be made with different variables.
Imagine x and y are actually both good things. You could then claim that a common pattern is for people to be pushing back and forth between x and y. But meanwhile, we may not be at the Frontier at all if you add z. So let’s work on z instead!
In that sense, maybe we are never truly at the frontier, all variables considered.
Related to this line of thinking: affordance widths
Your comment also reminded me of Robin Hanson’s idea that policy debates are typically like tug of war between just two positions, in which case it may be best to “pull the rope sideways”. Hanson writes: “Few will bother to resist such pulls, and since few will have considered such moves, you have a much better chance of identifying a move that improves policy.”
That seems very similar to the idea that we may be at (or close to) the Pareto frontier when we consider only two dimensions, but not when we add a third, so it may be best to move towards the three-dimensional frontier rather than skating along the two-dimensional frontier.
Nice! I would argue though that because we do not consider all dimensions at once generally speaking and because not all game theory situations (“games”) lend themselves to this dimensional expansion we may, for all practical purposes, sometime find ourselves in this situation.
Overall though, the idea of expanding the dimensionality does point towards one way to remove this dynamic.