Stickman Charles — Zero-Sum Games
2026/6/1 GMT-4 Hello, I am Stickman Charles.
What is a zero-sum game? A zero-sum game is a framework where one participant's gain is exactly equal to another participant's loss. If there is a game where winning earns you one apple, then my loss means I lose that same apple. One side gains, the other loses, and the total sum remains zero.
In this sense, many competitive systems behave like zero-sum games. There is only one first place in a math competition. There is only a limited number of promotions or salary increases in a workplace—if someone gets it, others do not.
Why are zero-sum games so common? We often hear that happiness is not absolute, but comparative. One reason for this may be evolutionary: for most of human history, resources were scarce. If you ate, someone else went without. That logic of scarcity became embedded in how we perceive competition.
In modern society, many systems are still constrained—not by physical resources, but by attention. Organizations, companies, and institutions cannot continuously evaluate everyone in depth. They rely on standardized, quantifiable signals to judge value. Exams like Gaokao or the SAT are essentially products of this constraint: a simplified way to rank people under limited evaluative capacity.
So the structure is still scarcity, only shifted from material resources to attention and evaluation bandwidth.
Do you like playing zero-sum games? When people think about exams or promotions, they often imagine competition, comparison, and psychological fatigue. This is not an individual flaw—it is a property of the system itself.
In a zero-sum environment, total gains are fixed. No matter how much effort you put in, someone else's gain often implies your loss. Some people enjoy the feeling of winning—it feels energizing, almost like a stimulant. But like any stimulant, it comes with side effects: exhaustion, anxiety, and the awareness that there is always someone better.
What if I don't like zero-sum games? The opposite of a zero-sum game is a positive-sum game.
A positive-sum game is where interaction creates additional value. You have an idea, I have an idea, and through exchange we both end up with more than we started with. The total value expands rather than being redistributed.
Positive-sum systems are less dramatic. They feel slower, less intense, but over time they tend to build more stable growth in both capability and mindset.
Can I avoid zero-sum games entirely? Probably not.
Most systems still require you to pass through zero-sum filters before entering positive-sum spaces. Applications to universities or jobs are examples: they function as gate mechanisms that test and rank value before granting access to collaborative environments.
Instead of rejecting this reality, it is more useful to treat these zero-sum stages as entry tickets into broader positive-sum systems.
Ultimately, the most reliable strategy is to focus on internal progress—becoming slightly better than yesterday. That is the only compounding process that remains stable across both systems.
Thank you for reading. If you have thoughts or critiques about zero-sum games, feel free to reach out at charlesisworkinghard@gmail.com.
Keep thinking, and take care.