Proximity Games
Proximity Games
Section titled “Proximity Games”Aliases: nearest game, domestic payoff, factional game, local incentive game.
Fast answer: Proximity games name Jiang’s game-theory correction that the nearest payoff can govern the visible geopolitical move. A war, scandal, alliance, or threat may look international while actually rewarding a domestic faction, elite coalition, bureaucracy, election machine, or status group.
What Jiang Means
Section titled “What Jiang Means”The term grows out of Jiang’s larger game theory method: identify players, rules, incentives, and real rewards. Proximity games add one recurring result. The actor may not be maximizing the public objective. It may be winning a nearer game inside the party, state, bureaucracy, or elite class.
That does not make geopolitics fake. It means the visible board can be downstream of a smaller board that is more urgent to the people making decisions.
Where Jiang Says It
Section titled “Where Jiang Says It”| Source | Timestamp / ref | What to inspect | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-03-19, The Nearest War Wins | video:predictive-history-noqqgy4boby@transcript:v1#seg-0013, #seg-0015, #seg-0016 | The nearest game governs | Direct concept source. |
| 2025-11-24, When the West Loses Energy, Capital Looks for Pax Judaica | video:interview-gssim9xnrae@transcript:v1#seg-0010, #seg-0011 | Domestic faction payoffs | Elite game extension. |
| 2025-12-31, History Becomes Power When Imagination Collapses | video:interview-mcjno0xrly8@transcript:v1#seg-0077, #seg-0078 | Internal elite conflict | Wider application. |
How To Use This Term
Section titled “How To Use This Term”Use this term when a public conflict seems too self-damaging unless a nearer factional payoff is named.
Do not use it to dismiss material strategy; use it to ask which game is closest to the decision-maker.