Cognitive Scaffold

Preparing your thinking workspace

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MENTAL MODEL · M5538

Arms Race

Arms Race
CollaborateHigh supportInternational Relations
Included
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Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-30

CORE DEFINITION

Competing parties continuously increase their investments to maintain a relative advantage (e.g., antelopes run faster, cheetahs must also run faster). As a result, both sides' absolute capabilities improve significantly, but their relative survival situation does not improve; instead, they become more fragile due to high maintenance costs.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

The futile effort of involution. In the workplace or education, this state of "running desperately just to stay in place" is involution. The way to break the arms race is to sign treaties (e.g., restricting tutoring) or switch tracks (stop running and go swimming).

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Competing parties continuously increase investments to maintain a relative advantage, resulting in improved absolute capabilities but unchanged relative positions, and rising maintenance costs make both sides more fragile. The mechanism is "zero-sum escalation driven by relative gains."

MINIMUM ACTION

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Source support: Explicit

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    en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_GameZH · Explicit
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