My question is it possible to be good at Diplomacy without being a socio
opath in real life. In poker, someone being good at bluffing is scary (separately from just being better at the math part), much like someone being better than you at sports is physically intimidating off the field because they could beat you up. Diplomacy even more so than poker, because manipulation and deceipt is the only skill in the game. It doesn't even have the cooperative part of the real world's "build something of value together" -- it's a zero sum or negative sum game.
The people I do play with tend to enjoy the departure from normality. One guy I play with is very loyal in real life but will betray as soon as possible in game - too soon so it is actually sub optimal play but for a different reason (newbies are too trusting and think they can hold alliances into late game). Compartmentalization is needed to keep playing - or be a sociopath.
I have ADHD and I feel that my emotional responses are learned rather than entirely natural. I think it makes me an effective lier - but I still don’t like doing it. I do enjoy introducing realpolitik to friends, helping them understand the palpable paranoia of eminent betrayal and how essential it is to maintain strength (the weakest get ganged up in). It’s one thing to read about the mechanics of realpolitik it’s another to emotionally feel them. For a deceptively simple game I’ve had friends stop playing because they found it too intense and damaging to their faith in humanity.
I'd say of course it's possible, but you probably do have to play the game like a sociopath. Just like you can watch a violent movie and not be horrified in the same way you would if you were seeing the same things happen for real, you can behave in a manner in a game that you wouldn't in reality.
As an aside I will say that manipulation and deceit are far from the only skills in the game. There are significant strategic and tactical elements, as well as probabilistic/game theory thinking as well. Plus, on the interpersonal side, it's as much about just reading people as it is about manipulating them.
One person being harmed isn’t always a benefit to one or more other people.
Though, really, seeing as utility between persons isn’t clearly commensurable, it isn’t clear to me that the statement that the world is zero sum even, like, makes sense as a claim, because there’s no “sum of everyone’s utility” to ask whether this sum is constant.
But, if there was such a sum, it wouldn’t be constant.
