Non • Zero • Sum James

Win-Winning with Liv Boeree

Non • Zero • Sum James

Show Notes

This week’s guest; Liv Boeree—host of the Win-Win Podcast, has been a key inspiration for nonzerosum.games from the start.

Liv studied astrophysics and rose to prominence in the world of high-stakes poker. But for me, the public discussion she’s fuelled about using game theory and specifically win-win games, Moloch, effective altruism, and systems thinking to solve many pressing issues in the world today, is what interests me and made me realise there was an audience for these topics.

This week you all get to meet her, as we sit down for our first ever Video podcast—an expansive discussion about psychopathic competitiveness, Moloch and his new friend Norma, mutually assured destruction, AI swarms and some fun stuff too; computer games, books and experimental dialogues.

Chapters: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:03:28 Interview Starts 00:08:03 OpenAI swarm hacks Hugging Face & Mythos first strike 00:13:16 The Super-Defector 00:15:58 A glimmer of hope 00:18:53 Collaborative competition 00:30:28 Liv's obsession with Polytopia 00:35:41 Making games more win-win 00:37:49 Moloch & Norma 00:45:35 Daniel Suarez’s “Daemon” 00:46:43 Returning to win-win game development 00:50:28 Neutropia 00:52:52 The Meta-Crisis 00:58:17 10 Principles of Win-Win 01:02:08 The end of M.A.D. 01:06:04 The importance of storytelling 01:09:37 Faces of X & The Anti-Debate 01:12:30 Effective Altruism's fascination with AI X-risk 01:17:53 The future Liv wants to see

Mentions: Win-Win Podcast Faces of X Elowyn: Quest of Time Neutropia Emmett Shear's Interview (with sketch-notes) Wes Roth on Mythos first strike The Super-Defector

More from Non • Zero • Sum James

Jul 26, 2026

The concept of a dividual raises an interesting question about how something can be both an entity, but also divisible. It's one of those terms which, since I've learned it, I see it everywhere, it's felt more and more relevant to the world today, as if we're living a new era of the dividual. | For the original post and links, visit: https://nonzerosum.games/dividual.html

Jul 18, 2026

A classic behavioural model... perhaps not entirely based on scientific evidence, but an instructive story none the less. | For the original post and links: https://nonzerosum.games/crabbucket.html

Jul 10, 2026

More and more my social feeds are populated with these little treats—interspecies friendships that give us a glimpse into the world of non-zero-sum interactions. | To enjoy all the visuals with the audio... visit: https://nonzerosum.games/furryfriends.html

Jul 5, 2026

Kicking off a series of episodes focused on non-zero-sum games in nature, beginning with a cooperative game with the highest of stakes. | For the original post and links: https://nonzerosum.games/parableofapolyp.html

Jun 7, 2026

Our very first podcast interview, and starting strong with a Professor of Game Theory, Vince Knight from the University of Cardiff all the way on the other side of the world in Wales. | We sat down to talk about all sorts of applications of game theory in our personal and political lives, from his cutting edge research. A fabulous communicator and advocate for making the world a better place through game theory—a perfect interview to start a new feature of the podcast.

See all episodes →