Moloch

Moloch,[a] Molech, or Molek[b] is a word which appears in the Hebrew Bible several times, primarily in the Book of Leviticus. The Greek Septuagint translates many of these instances as "their king", but maintains the word or name Moloch in others, including one additional time in the Book of Amos where the Hebrew text does not attest the name. The Bible strongly condemns practices that are associated with Moloch, which are heavily implied to include child sacrifice... Beginning in the modern era, "Moloch" has been figuratively used in reference to a power which demands a dire sacrifice.[8] A god Moloch appears in various works of literature and film, such as John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô (1862), Giovanni Pastrone's Cabiria (1914), Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), and Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" (1955). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch

LessWrong: Moloch is the personification of the forces that coerce competing individuals to take actions which, although locally optimal (local optimum), ultimately lead to situations where everyone is worse off. Moreover, no individual is able to unilaterally break out of the dynamic. The situation is a bad Nash equilibrium. A trap.

• Scott Alexander linked the name to the concept in his eponymous post, Meditations on Moloch. The post intersperses lines of Allan Ginsberg's poem, Howl, with multiples examples of the dynamic including: the Prisoner's Dilemma, dollar auctions, fish farming story, Malthusian trap, capitalism, two-income trap, agriculture, arms races, races to the bottom, education system (schooling), science, and government corruption and corporate welfare.
  • see (2014-07-30) Alexander Meditations On Moloch