5/7/2023 0 Comments Optimism bias definition![]() Blame: By claiming a vassal is doing something wrong, another vassal may be able to take power away from that vassal, sometimes getting a share of that power for themselves.There are a few strategies vassals can use to use pessimism to claim more resources. (Of course, it's also in their class interests to have things actually be going well in their regions, so the praise doesn't get too out of hand, and criticism is sometimes accepted) At this point, it's conventional for vassals to always praise each other and punish vassals who denigrate other regions. Vassals notice that it's in their interest to join this coalition, since (as mentioned before) it's in the interests of the vassals as a class to have more praise overall, since that means they're less likely to get replaced. Meanwhile, the actual state of affairs has gotten worse in almost all regions, though the regions prop up their lies with Potemkin villages, so the gullible king isn't shocked when he visits the region.Īt some point, a single praise coalition wins. Prying too closely into a region's actual state of affairs (and, especially, sharing this information) is considered a violation of privacy. It's considered impolite to reveal certain forms of information that could imply that things aren't actually going as well as they're saying it's going. Since praise coalitions lie, they also suppress the truth in general in a coordinated fashion. (However, having more praise overall helps the vassals currently in power, as it means they're less likely to get replaced with other vassals). While these "praise coalitions" are locally positive-sum, they're globally zero-sum: any gains that come from them (such as resources and territory) are taken from other regions. These alliances also make sure to keep denigrating those not in the same coalition. That way, both vassals mutually benefit, as they both get more resources, expansion, etc compared to if they had been denigrating each other's regions. Vassals that ally with each other promise to say only good things about each other's regions. So, they start forming alliances with each other. At this point, the vassals face a problem: while they want to exaggerate their own region and denigrate others, they don't want others to denigrate their own region. Soon, these distortions become ubiquitous, as the king (unwittingly) encourages everyone to adopt them, due to the apparent success of the regions distorting information this way. This results in their own region getting more territory and resources, and their practices being adopted elsewhere. But, some vassals get the idea of exaggerating how well things are going in their own region, while denigrating other regions. Initially, this works well, and good practices are adopted throughout the kingdom. This behavior makes sense if he's assuming he's getting reliable information: it's better for practices that result in better outcomes to get copied, and for places with higher economic growth rates to get more resources. When he thinks things are going poorly in some region of the kingdom (in a long-term way, not as a temporary crisis), he gives the vassal fewer resources, contracts the region controlled by the vassal, encourages others not to copy the practices of that region, possibly replaces the vassal, and so on. When he thinks things are going well in some region of the kingdom, he gives the vassal more resources, expands the region controlled by the vassal, encourages others to copy the practices of that region, and so on. He is quite gullible, so he usually believes these reports, although not if they're too outlandish. These reports detail how things are going in these different regions, including particular events, and an overall summary of how well things are going. ![]() The king gets reports from different regions of the kingdom (managed by different vassals). Imagine a kingdom ruled by a gullible king. People often want to suppress criticism but less often want to suppress praise in general, they hold criticism to a higher standard than praise.People often avoid looking at horrible things clearly.People often think their project has an unrealistically high chance of succeeding.People often believe that it's inherently good to be happy, rather than thinking that their happiness level should track the actual state of affairs (and thus be a useful tool for emotional processing and communication).It's conventional to answer the question "How are you doing?" with "well", regardless of how you're actually doing.
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