You can't be best at everything
You can’t be best at everything.
Picking a racer in Mario Kart looks like one easy choice. It isn’t. A build is four picks: a driver, a kart, tyres, and a glider. No build wins on every stat at once.
A serious economics idea, taught on Mario Kart stats
A serious economics idea, taught on Mario Kart stats.
An interactive essay by Antoine Mayerowitz takes this on. The essay borrows a rule from Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist working more than a century ago, to cut the pile down to the choices worth your time.
No single stat can rank a build
No single stat can rank a build.
Say you want raw speed. You grab Bowser and Wario, the heaviest racers, because they top out fastest. But a racer that flies down the straight can be hopeless round a corner. Speed is only one stat. Handling and acceleration count too.
Two racers do everything Koopa does, and more
Two racers do everything Koopa does, and more.
But some racers you can rule out completely. Take Koopa Troopa. Cat Peach has more speed for the same acceleration. Toadette has more acceleration for the same speed. Each one is at least as good as Koopa on both stats, and better on one. That’s what dominated means. And a dominated racer is never worth picking.
The short list is the Pareto front
The never-beaten set is the short list: the Pareto front.
Do the same for every racer, and a short list survives: the ones no other racer beats on both stats at once. That short list has a name. The Pareto front, named after Pareto. It clears out the junk, but it won’t pick your winner. Your style still does. Then the payoff. Plot every full build, more than twenty thousand, and the front stays one thin edge over a huge cloud.
The same rule cuts any 'I want both' decision
The same rule cuts any ‘I want both’ decision.
The same rule works far beyond karts, anywhere you want two good things at once. A meal that’s cheap and delicious. A job that’s well paid and satisfying. Throw out whatever loses everywhere, then pick from the few left.
Delete the dominated, decide among the rest
Delete the dominated, decide among the rest.
You still can’t be best at everything. But you can throw out every option that’s worse at everything, and choose from what’s left. That’s the whole trick.
