In a common dynamic of game strategy, we tend to rely on the construct of winning being better than losing. What is winning exactly? It is whatever the cohort observing the construct has distributed their lens bias towards. In other words, if the group decides $A$ is better (winning) than $B$ (losing), then the group has a majority tendency to prefer $A$ over $B$ and use that to compare against others as a win state.

Like a seasonal wind change, if the majority of the group decides that $A$ has become the short head, then there might be a long tail shift (niche trajectory) that changes the vector of preference and now winning is redefined as $B$ over $A$.

In both trajectories and trends, they are finite games as they are controlled from a position of where the short head was and where the long tail is, attempting to rebalance such that the long tail becomes the new short head and vice versa.

This feedback loop can be summarized below:

         Mainstream (short head)
      /                         \
Tail shift (re-position) - Niche (long tail)

Movement along the board becomes a continuous effort to capture value from the long tail before it settles into the new mainstream

If we take this further, I ask what happens if we periodically detach from this feedback loop into a higher order long tail process of removing / rejecting information being measured by a cohort and redefine the game as an ascetic infinite board? In other words, reject $A$ and $B$ as the constructs of winning and losing, strip them of their value positions until we are left with the bare minimum, which requires stripping $A$ and $B$ of their value positions entirely. By refusing to participate in the tail shift at the base level, the player achieves a meta-position: an anti-participation that renders standard win/loss states meaningless.

An example is where a cohort decides luxury products are winning and non-luxury products are losing. Now this feedback loop first treats the luxury products as niche but as more people gravitate towards consumption of luxury products, it becomes mainstream. This is the finite game dynamic in action. Now the ascetic response to this dynamic is the anti-participatory move; instead of buying or not buying the product, the position may involve creating a version of the product (do-it-yourself) or not even acknowledging that the product is worth a measurement towards participation (rejection).

Anti-participation isn’t one in which nothing is enacted but it is a pro-active position of assessing what the mainstream feedback loop is and what is outside of that feedback loop that enables minimal input towards maximal output. To perceive a system’s boundaries, we must redefine our position relative to it. Without a vantage point above the feedback loop, observation remains trapped inside a finite game of winning and losing.