[As an adult, I’ve come to believe that being consistently kind, compassionate, and selfless—as we’re taught in kindergarten or by religious scriptures—is not only virtuous but often leads to the best personal outcomes. While some may find the ideas in this blog to be obvious, it took me a long time to fully grasp and apply these concepts in my own life. The aim of this explainer isn’t to push readers to radically change their entire decision-making process but to gently nudge them towards viewing their actions with a more collaborative, long-term, and pro-social mindset.]

A few years ago, the book Finite and Infinite Games became a hit in Silicon Valley. While I found the book nearly unreadable (I gave it 1/5 stars), its central idea, or the two sentence version of the book, is intriguing: viewing each interaction as a one-time game you’re trying to win often leads to worse outcomes than seeing those interactions as part of a long sequence with no specific benefit in mind. Instead of trying to “win” each interaction, bringing good vibes, intention, and kindness can often lead to a better trajectory.

This concept initially struck me as somewhat woo woo. While it sounded nice in theory, I struggled to incorporate it into my life, given the temptation to be goal oriented and optimize each situation I encounter. However, my perspective shifted after hearing a recent podcast with Zvi Mowshowitz, where he shared:

“If I had to teach one principle of rationality…I would say it’s Functional Decision Theory. It’s the idea that when you go about making decisions, you want to think about more than just the direct impact of exactly what your decision will physically have the impact on, and think about all the decisions that correlate with that decision, and choose as if you are selecting the output of the decision process that you are using.”

In another recent blog post, Zvi argued that the standard form of decision theory is “the gravest genuine mistake that people make.”

As a long-time reader of rationalist blogs, I was surprised. I had heard of FDT before, but only as a theoretical concept relevant to potential superintelligences, not as a practical life tool. Zvi’s framing prompted me to reconsider how I think about “winning” interactions and revisit the concept of infinite games.

I’ve come to see a strong connection between infinite games and FDT. Both concepts shift decision-making from isolated events focused on winning to a cohesive strategy for navigating a complex, interconnected world over the long term. Here, “winning” in the conventional sense isn’t the main goal; instead, it’s about adopting a mindset that provides greater benefits over the course of your life, even if the path to these benefits are more abstract and less legible. Specifically, living in a way that makes others see you as cooperative, pro-social, authentic, honest, and reliable—even when there’s an immediate temptation to seek a short-term advantage—has substantial personal benefits.

As a brief explainer:

1. Causal Decision Theory (CDT): The standard “rational” approach. You do what has the best consequences for you. It’s more akin to the mindset of playing a finite game where you try to “win” in the standard sense.

2. Functional Decision Theory (FDT): What I’ll call “positive-sum decision theory.” You do what would have the best outcome if everyone knew you’d make that choice/act that way in similar situations. It’s more akin to the mindset of playing an infinite game, where you are not always trying to “win”.

Constantly trying to “win” or exploit situations brings several practical drawbacks:

1. It sours your outlook and vibe, which has the dual impact of making you feel worse and come across less positively to others, impairing your ability to have positive interactions.
2. It stifles authenticity and honesty, limiting your capacity to connect deeply with others, or for people to know your true interests. Deep connections, which arise from true resonance, are far more valuable than superficial ones. When you’re less authentic, you miss opportunities to connect with people who might align with your true self, leaving them unaware of your genuine interests and strengths.
3. It obscures the true source of good fortune. Many of life’s best opportunities arise unexpectedly, not from winning known interactions. To increase your exposure to positive outcomes, you need to cultivate numerous latent positive relationships. By consistently being kind, dependable, and enthusiastic, you make others more likely to engage with you and bring opportunities your way.

Success often doesn’t come from being the best at conventional tasks or fitting highly in-demand roles; it emerges from finding opportunities perfectly suited to your unique skills or those not widely advertised. Positive relationships with people who understand your strengths and interests increase the likelihood of life-changing opportunities and serendipitous encounters.

A fundamental truth I’ve realized: almost everything good in the world arises from positive-sum cooperative dynamics.

I believe most people drastically underestimate the returns from avoiding prisoners’ dilemmas and embracing positive-sum approaches. In zero-sum scenarios, the benefits to the “winner” are often minimal (e.g., 1.1x). In contrast, solving a collective action problem can yield enormous benefits for everyone involved (e.g., 100x). By consistently behaving in a way that assures others you will act harmoniously, reliably, and cooperatively, more individuals and groups will trust and want to cooperate with you, where together, you can jointly benefit from more solved collective action problems.

I believe the benefits of solving collective action problems can be so significant that even though your actions will only infrequently be the difference between a solved, cooperated prisoners’ dilemma and an unsolved one, the expected value of a few additional solved collective action problems in your life is so substantial that it will greatly outweigh victory in nearly all zero-sum, finite games.

Scott Sumner describes the “Zero Sum Death Spiral“:

1. Zero-sum thinking causes bad economic policies.
2. Bad policies lead to poor economic outcomes.
3. Poor outcomes reinforce zero-sum thinking.

Rinse and repeat.

There is also what I refer to as the conflict doom loop:

One party to a conflict views some earlier grievance against the other party to be so severe that no bad conduct they do now is relevant or unjustifiable. The other party, pointing to all the bad conduct they are receiving, believes that their past and continued bad conduct is now justifiable. Rinse and repeat.

In both cases, a small subsidy of trust and cooperation could break these cycles. But when everyone expects others to defect, the negative equilibrium persists.

This feels very apparent to me as someone who travels extensively, often to developing countries where a lack of trust so obviously leads to worse outcomes than I know are possible based on what I’ve observed elsewhere. It also seems that these situations would require only a small increase in trust and cooperative behaviour to nudge various dynamics over the threshold to unleash positive-sum benefits.

To use a simple but illustrative example, take the frequent experience in developing countries of standing in a queue for ages, packed so tightly you’re in constant physical contact with others, perpetually vigilant lest someone try to cut in line ahead of you. This is dumb, frustrating and a direct and obvious product of a lack of cooperative trust.

Often, the difference between a solved and failed collective action problem is razor-thin. By consistently choosing cooperation and building a reputation for trustworthiness, you dramatically increase the likelihood that others will be willing to solve collective action problems together with you. It also has the enormous pro-social benefit of helping proliferate this mindset, which, by bringing about wonderful outcomes for those around you, will make your environment even more conducive to flourishing. This creates a virtuous cycle:

1. You consistently choose cooperative, reliable, and pro-social actions.
2. Others notice your reliable, positive-sum approach.
3. They become more likely to cooperate with you (and others) in future interactions.
4. This cooperation extends to your broader community or network.

By focussing less on singular finite wins, and instead prioritizing a consistent pro-social framework for engaging with the world across all your decisions, you can achieve better overall outcomes. This ripple effect can transform not only personal relationships but entire communities or nations. By adopting and consistently applying this mindset, we can not only improve our own lives but also contribute to building a more cooperative and flourishing society.