I have found the game Settlers Of Catan to be useful for illustrating basic economic principles like gains from trade,
I agree with the rest of your post, but not this part. Catan is zero-sum (someone wins); real economies are not. When you trade with someone in Catan, you're not making a traditional Pareto improvement; rather, it's basically a test of who is more accurately gaging the "consumer surplus" of the other party. Except for the cases where you have to team up against a near-victory player (and then, only temporarily), you're basically hoping the other party doesn't realize how much more advantageous the trade is for you.
So in this respect, it doesn't model the dynamics that are at play in an actual economy, in which both parties become better off and generally don't have to have to center their concerns on "what do they see that I don't?"
(Note: in a previous article, I showed how another game failed to capture the actual dynamics responsible for markets' anti-cartel tendencies and yet a professor used it as an illustrative example anyway.)
I imagine that most trades in Catan are beneficial to both players, which makes sense only because only two players get the benefit from the trade. If one played 2-player Catan, which seems sort of boring anyway, there would be no trading because every trade would be of the "trick the opponent" type you describe.
It's traditional in many parts of the world to buy (or make) presents for at least the closest members one's family around this time of the year. I would like to know if anyone here has ideas for presents to give to people from college age to middle age who are not rationalists, but not completely closed off to the idea.
So far I've considered mostly things that would help rid them of various superstitions, particularly astrology and the 2012 apocalypse myth. For this purpose I've looked at books and videos on
Has anyone else on LW faced this sort of situation before? Or does anyone here have general advice on this topic?