Mediated Negotiations: The Unreasonable Party Always Wins
4th September 2017
Say you have 10 toy cars, and are told to share them with someone else. You, being reasonable, suggest a five-and-five split. The other person, claiming poverty or special circumstance or simple greed, says they should get nine, and leave you one.
So there is a disagreement, and you go to a mediator/arbitrator to work it out. He, of course, being of Solomonic disposition, splits the difference: you keep three, and the other guy gets seven. The unreasonable party just won.
It astonishes me how obvious this is, and how, time after time, “experts” demonstrate their complete ignorance of this fundamental feature of any arbitrated settlement. And it applies throughout life.
It applies to today’s delicate SJW snowflakes. Since their position is entirely unreasonable, any discussion that tries to find common ground ends up with a laughably stupid result.
The same principle applies to North Korea. Their positions are as extreme as any could be. Any attempt to negotiate means that they win before we even start, since by negotiating, we have conceded that there is something valid and acceptable about the demands of a madman.