The Abstraction Problem

Here's the core tension of the Model Game: abstraction creates leverage and blindness simultaneously.

A model is an abstraction. It compresses reality into something manipulable. This is powerful—you can think about systems too complex to hold in your head directly. You can predict without simulating every detail. You can communicate structure without conveying all specifics.

But abstraction has costs:

• Lossy compression. The map leaves things out. Sometimes the things it leaves out are critical. You can have an accurate model that fails catastrophically because it didn't include the one variable that mattered.
• Reification. You start treating the model as if it's real. The map becomes the territory in your mind. You optimize for the abstraction and wonder why reality doesn't cooperate.
• Distance. The more abstract your model, the further you are from direct experience. You can model something so thoroughly that you lose the ability to engage with it directly.

The failure modes of the Model Game all trace back to the Abstraction Problem:

• Armchair Cartographer: Abstraction creates the illusion that understanding is enough. The model replaces action.
• Map Without Travelers: Abstraction creates distance between you and the users. Your resolution doesn't match their needs.
• Illegible Map: Abstraction creates communication barriers. Your compressed representation doesn't decompress in their minds.

The people who win the Model Game understand: models are tools, not destinations. You build them to use them, test them, break them, improve them. You don't build them to have them.