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James Stephen Brown — LessWrong

James Stephen Brown

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James Stephen Brown

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I write and talk about game theory, moral philosophy, ethical economics and artificial intelligence—focused on non-zero-sum games and their importance in solving the world's problems.

I have admitted I am wrong at least 10 times on the internet.

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James Stephen Brown

I write and talk about game theory, moral philosophy, ethical economics and artificial intelligence—focused on non-zero-sum games and their importance in solving the world's problems.

I have admitted I am wrong at least 10 times on the internet.

Top postsTop post

Unlocking Solutions—by understanding coordination problems

The following is a post introducing coordination problems, using the examples of poaching, civilisational development, drug addiction and affirmative action. It draws on my experience as a documentary filmmaker. The post is available for free in its original format at nonzerosum.games and is available in audio on the Non-Zero-Sum James Podcast. When I was eleven, I disassembled the lock to our back door, and as I opened the housing… it exploded, scattering six tiny brass pellets on to the floor. I discovered (too late) that a lock of this type contained spring-loaded cylinders of different heights corresponding to the teeth of the key. I struggled for hours trying to get the little buggers back in, but it was futile—eventually, my long suffering parents called a locksmith. The reason fixing the lock was so difficult was not only because it was spring-loaded but because I had to find the right combination and hold them all in balance as I put it back together. I just couldn’t coordinate everything. Coordination Problems We sometimes run into problems where a number of factors have to be addressed simultaneously in order for them to be effective at all. One weak link can ruin it for the rest. These are called Coordination Problems. The fact that they are so much more difficult to solve than other problems means that many of the problems remaining in the world today, end up being coordination problems. Poaching An example of a system requiring more than one problem to be solved at once, is poaching. If you police poaching behavior but don’t address the buyers you are left with the perpetual cost of policing, because the demand remains. If you address the buyers, the poachers, who are likely living in poverty may just move on to some other criminal behavior. Daniel Schmachtenberger tells the story of eliminating elephant poaching in one particular region in Africa: > “The first one I noticed when I was a kid was trying to solve an elephant poaching issu

An Interactive Shapley Value Explainer

Emergence Spirals—what Yudkowsky gets wrong

Masculinity—A Case For Courage

The NPC → MC Spectrum

… or my leadership style as opposed to Stuart’s When Stuart Krohn heard a commotion behind him at a Dodgers game, he turned to see that a man three rows back was choking. Dozens of people surrounding the man were panicking, impotent to help. But without a second thought, Stuart...

Nov 29, 2025•6

Dr Evil & Realpolitik

Why can’t we all just get along? The news today is characterised by conflict, war, sanctions, tariffs and fracturing allegiances, distracting from the monumental issues we must face globally like climate change, inequality and AI. This post unpacks the cost of conflict in geopolitics today, by looking to theories of...

Oct 12, 2025•16

Rights & Liberties—are opposites

During my misspent youth I partook in a number of polite “online disagreements” about religion. As a budding young wanderer in philosophy I felt one needed to ascend the godly terrain in order to reach higher ground. I learned much through these debates, honing my own philosophical position, but once...

Aug 16, 2025•1

Saidi, My Friend—what do we owe to each other?

The following post is about an important relationship in my life. It deals with my own experience with charitable giving and I feel a little uncomfortable about this. But I believe it’s important to share meaningful experiences. Giving What We Can suggests that stories about giving can open up possibilities...

Aug 9, 2025•10

Emergence Is Beautiful—beauty and meaning in an entropic universe

This story is reposted from nonzerosum.games where it appears in it’s intended form, full colour with functioning interactive elements, jump over to the site for the authentic experience. At the beginning of this series, Steven Pinker suggests that emergent phenomena is something we find beautiful because we recognise the process...

Jul 31, 2025•8

Replicators—Pandora’s dangerous children

This story is reposted from nonzerosum.games where it appears in it’s intended form, full colour with functioning interactive elements, jump over to the site for the authentic experience. On the Shoulders of Substrates looked at the substrate-phenomena-substrate cycle as a way of understanding emergence. But is there a better way...

Jul 30, 2025•19

On The Shoulders of Substrates—how one phenomenon lays the foundation for the next

If you’ll cast your mind back to Emergence Vs Entropy, we found, in order to overcome entropy, an emergent system, like our planet, benefits from a consistent stream of energy from the sun—creating a substrate for life on earth. Yet the sun is still increasing the entropy of the system...

Jul 20, 2025•14

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