Knap

The living world’s replete
With costs and benefits
In tangos of tradeoffs,

But for zero-sum games
Exactly, the only
Examples are human.

Humans invented them
And seem obsessed with them,
That explicit subset

Of games with formal rules
Pitched precisely to force
Winning and losing sides,

Perfect asymmetry,
Every iteration.
One side lost. One side won.

One zero for each one.
It’s a kind of filter,
Science’s ancestor.

You extract the data
Of interest to you
By razoring away

Other variables
Through enforcing fine rules,
Rituals of fairness,

And you try to get at
Some essence by process
Of elimination.

Everyone plays the same
Game over and over,
In the same dimensions.

It’s been relegated
Mostly to spectator
Sports and entertainments,

But it’s been important
As a way of thinking
For the very reason

That it’s artificial—
How can you refine this
Flake to a well-honed edge?