Every bargaining game ends in a simultaneous final move made in ignorance

Evidence

From this follows the significant feature. The last offer that it is mechanically and legally possible for a player to make is one that he necessarily makes without knowing what the other player’s final offer is going to be; and the last offer that a player can make is one that the other player cannot possibly respond to in the course of the game. Prior to that penultimate moment, no offer has any finality; and at that last moment players either change or do not change their current offers, and whatever they do is done in complete ignorance of what each other is doing, and is final. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 617

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to classic simultaneous-move reasoning and to the Corleone hostage exchange where both parties reciprocate blind. Also foreshadows Schelling’s own focal-point/tacit-coordination work. — connects to: Bargaining situations are imperfect-correlation-of-preferences games — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 213; Genuine ignorance can be strategically advantageous when an opponent recognizes it. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 364; Bargaining outcomes rest on convergent reflexive expectations, not on force or merit — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 177 (+3 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The mechanical inevitability that any agreement game degenerates into a tacit last-move game is a genuinely paradigm-shifting observation about the ontology of all bargaining under symmetry.

Related

• Genuine ignorance can be strategically advantageous when an opponent recognizes it. (similarity 0.82)
• Bargaining outcomes rest on convergent reflexive expectations, not on force or merit (similarity 0.80)
• The bargaining solution’s appeal derives from its focal quality, not its formal derivation (similarity 0.80)
• Explicit bargaining outcomes rest on prior tacit coordination between rational players (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Bargaining situations are imperfect-correlation-of-preferences games #expands (0.82) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 213
• Bargaining outcomes rest on convergent reflexive expectations, not on force or merit #expands (0.80) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 177
• Bargaining games mix positively and negatively sloped payoff pairs #expands (0.78) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 215
• Genuine ignorance can be strategically advantageous when an opponent recognizes it. #qualifies (0.75) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 364
• Adding free speech barely changes a tacit bargaining game’s character #complicates (0.75) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 249
• Credit clientelism removes the exit option that bargaining requires #qualifies (0.72)