One mobile phone to conquer the world: mankind's last chance for gold nuggets

Chapter 6 Introduction: It is closely related, who will take the lead (2)
2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics: Myerson, who studied information asymmetry and mechanism design theory, and made great contributions to mechanism design.

In the study of "information symmetry" problems, there is a well-known story called "Prisoner's Dilemma".

A and B were arrested for committing a crime together.The interrogators detained them separately, creating an information asymmetry, neither of them knew whether the other confessed or not.The interrogator first asked A: If you confess first, you will be sentenced to five years, and if your accomplice B does not confess, you will be sentenced to 15 years.Conversely, if B confesses first, he will be sentenced to five years, and if A does not confess, he will be sentenced to 15 years.The third situation: Neither of them confessed, the evidence was insufficient, and he was acquitted.The fourth situation: two people confess at the same time, each sentenced to ten years.

Among these four outcomes, for both of them, the best situation is that none of them will confess and all will be acquitted. This is called the optimal outcome.But in reality, due to the information asymmetry techniques used by the interrogators, A and B suspected each other that the other would confess, so both confessed at the same time to protect themselves, and each was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Inspiration:

First, game decisions with asymmetric information often do not have an optimal outcome, but only a suboptimal outcome.

The second is that those who can control information asymmetry will gain power and become the controllers of the rules.

Third, information asymmetry is the root cause of corruption.The interrogators may take advantage of information asymmetry to collect bribes from A and B respectively, and if they do not give bribes, they may be "suicide".

The fourth is to establish a legal mechanism where lawyers are present for interrogation, so as to protect the human rights of even criminals and ensure judicial justice.

The "information asymmetry" theory can also explain: Why do flowers appear on cow dung in marriage and love?
A pair of golden boys and girls secretly love each other in their hearts. Due to their superior self-esteem, they do not express each other, forming an information asymmetry: neither party knows that the other party likes them.

A dick boy with poor conditions thinks that it is difficult for him to pursue a jade girl or an ordinary girl, so he decides that he might as well pursue that jade girl.So I confessed my love regardless of everything, and fully demonstrated my ugly but gentle advantages, concealed many shortcomings, and repeatedly expressed love by means of information asymmetry.

The jade girl can't get the courtship information from the golden boy, and the information conveyed by her usual proud appearance makes other boys discouraged. The unpursued and long-term lonely jade girl becomes habitually attached to the dick boy and obeys: the flowers are inserted like this On cow dung!

Why is there so much harmful milk in China that food safety is difficult to guarantee?

The theory of information asymmetry puts forward the assertion that "fake and inferior products will drive out good products":

*Information asymmetry between buyers and sellers, customers can't judge the authenticity of milk products, and the quality of milk products is not as good as that of milk products.

*Sellers who have more information will inevitably use the information advantage to obtain more benefits: adding harmful chemical components to milk to reduce costs.

*Sellers of natural milk have high costs because they do not make fakes, so they can only make money by selling them more expensively.

*Customers are more willing to buy milk at a lower price in order to protect their own interests, resulting in profits for those who sell bad milk.

*People who sell natural good milk either choose to exit the market, or also switch to selling harmful bad milk for profit.

* As a result, there is no good milk on the market anymore, it is all bad milk.

Inspiration:

First, to buy safe milk, choose a safe country and brand of origin, because a good country and a good brand image are also a good way to eliminate information asymmetry.It is a famous brand, so customers will not bargain.

The second is to use information technology to crack down on counterfeiting to solve the problem of information asymmetry.For example, SMS anti-counterfeiting, QR code traceability system, etc.

Third, the government should take responsibility to protect the rights and interests of consumers.

Fourth, good-quality natural milk must introduce identification tools or methods that allow customers to identify and facilitate the identification of good milk and bad milk.

In short, the biggest impact of information asymmetry is that the informed party deliberately monopolizes information and deprives others of the right to know, thus forming a black-box corruption of power-money transactions.Information is the source of power, and information asymmetry inevitably corrupts.

Secondly, the cost of transaction and circulation in the whole society is too high.The information cost for both parties to find each other will even exceed the production cost, and the intermediary channel will use the information advantage to obtain extremely high profits.For example, the production cost of a certain dry red wine is 10 yuan, the wholesale to intermediary channels is 15 yuan, and the advertising promotion costs 3 yuan, and the gross profit of the manufacturer is only 2 yuan.The intermediary sells it at an additional price of 35 yuan in supermarkets and 320 yuan in five-star hotels.

Taking Procter & Gamble as an example, in order to find its own customers, it spent RMB 2010 billion on advertising in China in 341 alone, and US$2011 billion globally in 93.15, with advertising spending accounting for 9% to 11% of its total revenue. Expenditures rose 23.9%, revenue rose only 7.6%, forced to lay off 1600 people worldwide to control costs. In 2012, Procter & Gamble's global advertising expenditure was as high as nearly 100 billion US dollars.Nearly $2012 billion was spent on advertising worldwide in 5000.

Because of information asymmetry between supply and demand!
Humanity lost 1929 billion U.S. dollars in the 1933-2500 economic crisis, causing tens of thousands of people to lose their jobs, and finally directly triggered the Second World War.

From 1958 to 1960, the ultra-left movement of the "Great Leap Forward" appeared in China, which led to a large imbalance in the proportion of the national economy and caused serious economic difficulties.

In 2008, due to the greed of the financial and real estate industries, low-end people who did not have the qualifications and ability to pay provided loans to buy houses without any credit guarantee, and at the same time concealed this information and packaged it as The bond package of financial innovation was enlarged step by step and invested in the financial market, which finally triggered the financial tsunami storm of the subprime mortgage crisis that swept the world.In this financial crisis, a total of 50 trillion U.S. dollars was lost, which is equivalent to a year's global GDP income.

These are the three major disasters caused by information asymmetry in the economic field in human history.

However, not all actions to eliminate information asymmetry are just, and the key is to judge with conscience and the responsibilities of different roles.For example, a doctor with a conscience would never honestly tell a patient: "There is no need for treatment, you will die next month!" He would use kind lies to encourage the patient to say: "There is no serious illness, and you will be fine." , the sacred belief does not need to be verified and does not need to be verified. The religious "heaven" and "afterlife" also bring hope to human beings with "information asymmetry".

When you are confronted with your enemy, you will never honestly tell him classified information that endangers your safety, because that will only prove your stupidity, unless you let him, as Napoleon did at Austerlitz, let Tens of thousands of his soldiers openly read their battle plan to the enemy, who thought it must be a hoax because no one could be that stupid.But when the war started, Napoleon fought according to that plan.Telling the truth makes people unbelievable, and it is also a genius application of information asymmetry tricks.

Another example is a joke from a mobile phone text message:
An antique dealer went to the countryside to pick up leaks, and found an old man in the village feeding cats with a very precious ancient porcelain.He suppressed the ecstasy in his heart, pretended to like the cat, and insisted on buying it.The old man refused, and the antique dealer offered a high price and finally made a deal.The antique dealer pretended to be casual and said: "Give me this cat food bowl, it's not worth much anyway." The old man laughed and said: "That's no good, I rely on this bowl to sell cats!"

The antique dealer did not expect that the cat owner not only knew that the bowl was an antique and was very valuable, but also made a lot of money by taking advantage of his misunderstanding of "thinking the other party didn't know".This is also a wonderful use of information asymmetry.

The United States fought Iraq, and only a hundred soldiers died. The success is based on the standard information warfare model, which also uses the trick of "information asymmetry": I know where I am, where the enemy is, and where my comrades are. Comrades also know where I am.The enemy doesn't know where he is, he doesn't know where he is, and he doesn't know where his comrades are.

Specifically, information warfare can be broken down into:
*Do not let you know the real information.

* Make you believe false information.

* Let you know the true information but think it is false.

*Let you know the true information that is harmful to you.

* Leaking your real information to people who are not good for you.

* Use false information to provoke others to attack you.

* Trick you into attacking others with fake information.

* Steal the real information you least want me to know.

*Block information links between you and your accomplices.

* Between you and your accomplices, I pretend to be your accomplices to spread false information.

*I refuse to know the information you most want me to know.

Do you think there is any other way?

"I know I don't know."

——This is what Socrates, the wisest man in the world, said.

Always empty yourself and treat "information asymmetry" with a humble attitude, which is wisdom.

Humanity's Fourth Great Civilization Tool
Those who can change your personal destiny are called noble people.

A man who can change the fate of a country or nation is called a great man.

Those who can change the destiny of mankind are called saints.

Saints are divided into two categories:

Thinkers with influence across historical eras (such as Lao Tzu);
Inventors (such as Watt) who can create the tools of a new civilization.

In the millions of years of human evolution history, the history of human civilization that can be scientifically verified is less than [-] years.In the [-]-year history of civilization, human beings have only created three forms of civilization:
From the primitive nomadic Stone Age to farming civilization;
From farming civilization to industrial civilization;

From industrial civilization to today's information civilization.

The reason why the three major human civilizations can be born is mainly because humans have created three subversive tools that can change the form of civilization.

What are the criteria for judging whether a technology is a tool of the highest level of civilization?
One, subversive.

The so-called subversive refers to the emergence of a new technology that makes the entire human society change the past living state and development model.It is mainly reflected in the changes in labor tools, labor objects and labor methods, followed by changes in lifestyles and cognitive methods. "What is wealth? How to acquire wealth and how to distribute wealth?" The standards and rules of these fundamental issues have undergone radical changes.The structure and system of the entire human society, and even the division of industries and occupations, including culture and values ​​have all been changed.

This is called subverting the standards of civilization.

Second, the use is extensive.

This tool can be applied to various fields such as human learning, life, entertainment, and work, and becomes an omnipotent, ubiquitous, and epoch-making application.

[-]. The scale of the quantity used reaches the mass popularity of one piece per person.

[-]. It is irreplaceable and permanent.

Once such technologies and tools appear, they will always accompany the historical process of mankind, and will not be replaced by other technologies, but can only be continuously developed and improved, and new integration can be achieved in different eras, and it will coexist with mankind Together, as long as human beings exist, it exists. This is a superimposed effect, and it will always be the core cornerstone of human civilization.

There are not many technologies that meet these four criteria, and there are only four, but it seems to have opened up the winter, spring, summer and autumn of human civilization:

1. In 1400 BC, the Hittites in Asia Minor used iron ore to smelt and process iron.

2.1765-1790, the steam engine manufactured by James Watt.

3.1946. On February 2, 14, the world's first electronic computer ENIAC was born under the theoretical guidance of Turing and von Neumann.

4.1973. In April 4, Martin Cooper of Motorola invented the first mobile phone.

It took millions of years to go from stone to iron, more than 3100 years from iron to powered machines, more than 180 years from mechanization to intelligence, and less than 30 years to hold the world in our hands with mobile phones...

Ironwork: The land is a favorite of plows and swords

Ironware used in work is plow, hoe, rake, nails, files, knives, swords, carts, axes, etc.; used in daily life is pot, kitchen knife, scissors, etc.; There are iron abacus and so on in study.It penetrates into almost every aspect of society and has a wide range of uses.The amount of use is hundreds of millions, everyone uses it, and it is highly popular; it has been used for more than 3400 years, and the steel industry is still the foundation and pillar industry of modern society, and it will always be with the survival and development of human beings.

Knowledge point

(End of this chapter)