Anticipating Other People’s Anticipation
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You’re jogging on the park, you see an incoming runner on the dirt trail. You move off-trail to accommodate them. They do the same, but you notice until it was already too late to stay on the trail. The outcome is that the trail goes unused for that segment, you yield to them and they yield to you. For that segment, the trail wasn't used, it wasn’t ‘dignified’ — an suboptimal result.
This is “k-step thinking” with “low-k”, anticipating others' moves but not far enough to anticipate their anticipation. It is also a failure mode of care, a way in which caring too much for the fate of others leads to unwanted results.
Upon further thought, the inefficiency may be only apparent. The trail surely went unused, but the presence and trajectory of both parties (you + incoming runner) were dignified by the other. Consider a visual of charged particles approaching and evading each other. If something wasn't dignified or acknowledged it was the other's anticipation, which exists only in the mind.
Ask "Could they be thinking the same thing?"
The situation could've also been different had there been some early signaling from the incoming runner that they intended to yield or vice versa. This was a low-stakes situation where the worst outcome would've been a silly collision. In higher-stakes situations clear communication is key and one cannot simply trust the other to side to yield.
— Riverside Park, Manhattan
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