news.ycombinator.com• Dec 30, 2019• 1 min read
The Fundamental Theorem of Politics?Here's my game-theory-style explanation of politics:Let "A" and "B" represent individual candidates, political parties or both.A and B want to win elections.A wins the election.Question: What does B --the loser-- need to do in order to win the next election? Case 1: A has bad ideas and may or may not be competent B can win the next election by staying out of the way, allowing A to push their agenda forward. A will deliver negative results and people will elect B at the next possible opportunity. Case 2: A has middle-of-the-range ideas and may or may not be competent B has to do just enough to ensure A's outcomes are negative. Without this subtle influence A could get lucky. If B can nudge A into delivering negative results, B can win. B has to interfere and sabotage while making sure they are not connected to the failures. Case 3: A has excellent ideas and is quite able to deliver B's only option is war against A. This means character destruction, interference, sabotage, time-wasting,
