Is the internet a zero-sum game? is karma -ve and +ve globally zero?

Question

i'm thinking for all these folks out there who feel +ve about their online interactions, how many out there end the day feeling -ve? is there any reason to believe it is globally a zero-sum game or is the internet actually creating (or depreciating) social value in aggregate?

bell-cot · Accepted Answer

In most ways, the total all human social karma is a zero-sum game. But human emotions are not.
The internet, by enabling and often rewarding a lot of nasty behavior - while "stealing" so much attention from the real world - is pretty plausibly a big net negative for human society. Especially on the emotions side.
(But since the set of people who are active on HN is fairly strongly biased toward the net "winners", plus those who want or hope to be winners, I don't expect these assertions to go over well here:)

aristofun · Answer

Zero sum game is a mathematical abstraction.
It is dangerous and ignorant to assume anything in real world is like that.
There may be only _some_ niches and _some_ specific problems, systems that are well described by this model.
But that’s it.
Unfortunately ideas like that are very sticky because they look beautiful and simple and average joe (like average journalist out there) equals beauty or simplicity with truth, and truth with real world.

solardev · Answer

What are &plusmn;ve?