The Trouble with Getting What You Want

Imagine a world where everyone gets exactly what they want. You want pizza? Instant. Your ex wants you to text them back? Boom, you just did. Your boss wants that feature shipped yesterday? Done, before they even said it.

Utopia, right?

Not quite.

Let's play a game.

Game: The Universal Desire Machine Each player gets to choose one wish. Anything. The machine grants it, instantly, no questions asked.

Player A: "I wish I never feel pain again."

Player B: "I wish Player A feels pain every time I stub my toe."

Player C: "I wish Player B's wishes are ignored."

Player D: "I wish for global peace and free WiFi."

Machine: Error: Infinite recursion detected

Lesson 1: The Anti-Cooperative Trap When everyone optimizes for their personal best outcome, you don’t get harmony—you get The Purge, but polite. Like Prisoner’s Dilemma, where both prisoners rat each other out because cooperation is too risky. In the Desire Machine World, mutual cooperation is only stable until someone really wants your job, your cat, or your ability to speak French.

Everyone wants slightly conflicting things. This isn’t just entropy. This is strategy. This is the Nash Equilibrium in a hostage situation: we all settle for less just to keep the peace.

Lesson 2: Elimination of Inconvenience Eliminates Growth Say goodbye to accidentally missing the bus and discovering a great café. Say goodbye to losing a job and realizing you're in the wrong career. Inconvenience is not just friction; it's a feature.

Game theorists call this exploration vs exploitation. If we always exploit the best-known option, we stagnate. Small inconveniences—like not getting what you want immediately—force exploration. Innovation doesn’t come from convenience; it comes from “Oh no, this is broken, we need to fix it.”

Lesson 3: Coordination Hell Imagine a network of 8 billion nodes (people), each adjusting their desires in real-time to maximize personal utility. What happens? Deadlock. Chaos. Tinder.

The coordination problem becomes exponential. Game theory models like Stag Hunt show how hard it is to get multiple agents to cooperate even when it’s in their best interest. Now imagine everyone acting on pure, individual desires. No trade-offs. No delayed gratification. Just a planet full of toddlers with cosmic powers.

In a world where everything goes right for everyone, nothing makes sense.

You want surprise birthday parties, but you know about them. You want fulfilling careers, but nobody wants to clean the sewers. You want love, but only on your exact terms, and so does the other person. Instant happiness makes happiness meaningless. Gratification without delay is just... noise.

TL;DR If everyone got what they wanted, life would collapse under the weight of our conflicting desires. Inconvenience, trouble, and unmet needs aren’t bugs in the system. They are the system. Like in game theory, the optimal strategy is often the one where nobody wins everything—but everybody gets enough.

So maybe don’t wish for life to be easier. Wish for the strength to survive the ridiculous game we’re all playing.