Game theory, as a field of intellectual study, spends a whole lot of time defining and mapping the way that forces interact, and how things could potentially go wrong. It's actually pretty boring to most people, since the models and theories of the field are generally pretty obvious, and since the math used to express the theories is appealing only to people who genuinely like working with math. But even though math generally sucks, most people can nonetheless appreciate game theory and its applications. Hell, Nash's Equilibrium theory was in fact generated in the course of discussing which girl of a group should properly be pursued, so as to maximize the chances of a drunken grad-student getting laid on a given Friday night at the bar.
The technical expression of the theory is that, in any given game, a group of players is in Nash equilibrium if each one is making the best decision that he or she can to maximize their own returns, taking into account the decisions of the others. The application of the theory is that in a closed system and given a sufficient time-line, any number of competing factions openly pursing mutually exclusive benefit will reach a state of equilibrium, wherein each faction settles into a fixed strategy (accepting the payoff from such strategy), and abandons all other possible strategies as less productive than the chosen strategy. This state of equilibrium can in fact be proven mathematically, with all sorts of interesting implications in all sorts of different fields.
Insofar as it relates to trolling for co-eds on a Friday night at the bar, all this game theory shit is just a really long and complicated way of saying that unless Joe Schmoe is the one of the hottest and most desirable guys in the room, he's probably wasting his time hitting on one of the hottest and most desirable girls in the room, and any persistent attempt to do so is almost always contrary to anyone getting laid, particularly Joe.
Of course everyone at the bar is allowed to pursue whatever strategy they like, and can reach for whatever (or whoever) they think they can take. Given the fairly short timeline of a given Friday night, there will be the occasional incident where Joe hooks up with hot girls tacitly out of his league, and likewise there will be times where Joe must bottom-feed or else (gasp!) go home alone. But according to the theory (and the supporting mathematics), given a set time-line, the guys and the girls in the room are going to reach a state of equilibrium in pairing off, with each of guys and girls finding reasonable matches based on accepted norms such as one girl per boy, and whatever scale and degree of social/sexual male/female desirability as can be explored in the available time-frame. In the end, and given the available time-line before last call, game theory says that it's in Joe's best interest to be reasonable in targeting his efforts, spare himself the trouble of being shot down, and skip to the end-game where - ideally for Joe - he gets his pole waxed by the best girl in the crowd that he might reasonably win that night. This is not "settling." It's Joe playing the best game he can to reach the desired goal of the at-issue game, which for today's purposes happens to be trolling for meaningless ass in college bars.
And to think people say that analytical math is no fun.
Besides providing complex equations of largely indecipherable mathematical symbols, game theory provides language, terms, and descriptors to analyze interactions. This is important. Besides breaking down college bar meat-market dynamics, even. Any linguist can tell you that the complexity of a possible idea is inextricably linked to the ability of the thinker to form and articulate the idea. There's a clear chicken-or-egg relationship between thought and linguistics, regardless of whether development of language supports the development of new ideas or whether development of ideas spurs the creation of new language. Especially since, like the chicken and the egg, we've clearly reached a point where each follows the other. We need terms and language to express ideas. This art of idea building, by the way, is the real value of a liberal arts education: the ability to take fairly simple language and build it into ideas, which ideas can then be sold at value sufficient to spare one the burden of lifting heavy objects for a living. It works, trust me.
For an example of such an idea, created out of various simpler concepts, and built up in the hope that somebody might find it interesting enough to give or ascribe some form of value to (in this case, entertainment), take this:
The world is of course going to end soon. The Aztec calendar says so, and that was created using stone-age technology and astronomical observation. Given their primitive state, the Aztecs must clearly have known secrets of the universe beyond the grasp of current scientists and prognosticators. Or something. Even current prophets (profits?), burdened as they are by all the interference and clouding of their predictions by all that science shit of modern civilization, say The End Is Coming. Some of them go so far as to say that the rapture has already passed - with those Taken by God numbering so few that nobody has really noted their absence - and we are already into the trials and tribulations. Which aptly explains things like, for example, Casey Anthony.
Of course, they're all idiots. Everybody who still has a brain knows that When The End Comes, it's going to be zombies. In some ways, the Zeds have already taken over the world, and are making substantial headway in their efforts to appropriate, control, or nullify all brains not already under their sway. Don't say you haven't been warned.
Whatever. But with The End of Days looming, I suppose it behooves us to do our best to look forward to the What Might Bes. Now then, continuing in the liberal arts trend of cobbling together ideas, slapping on a coat of paint, and trying to sell them for more than there actually worth: Among any number of other theories and guidelines, Game Theory postulates that the effect of a breakdown in any system is based on the degree of the breakdown, and the pervasiveness of the system. This is just a complex way of saying that the breakage of important shit matters more than the breakage of trivial shit.
Take religeon, for example. Except for the families of those involved, nobody game a damn about those crazy Heaven's Gate guys with their shiny Nike's and $5.75 to pay Chiron's toll for a seat on Hale-Bopp. Too small a sample, too far on the fringe, and the end result is just a lot of off-color humor and a house destined to appear on Ghost Hunters. Nobody really takes religion seriously as a defining bedrock of society, and even hard-core types will generally admit that the whole "creation of the world in 7 days" thing is a metaphor, rather than how things actually went. Among all our institutions and factions, church is typical a middle-weight at most, and theological developments almost never make a difference in our world.
But there have been times when religious developments have literally reshaped the world. Not so much recently, but discussed before, there was a period measured in centuries when the Catholic Church was the defining power in the lives of the entirety of the western world. So much so that it was largely unthinkable that its strength over peoples' lives would change. Entire generations pledged fealty, and parties were held where dissenters were hanged, set on fire, or just tortured until they toed the line. The Church was EVERYTHING, and while there were always factions and objectors, nobody took any of them seriously.
Of course, it didn't last. The system became so large, complicated, unwieldy, and internally non-supporting and/or nonsensical that the catholic church fragmented from within, and created its own worst enemy (Protestantism). Which internal fracturing of an institution in itself is an inevitability, by the way. But with the rise of Protestantism and the concurrent fracturing of the mighty pillar of Catholicism, there was utter chaos. The church was the central pillar of the European world. Deprived of the stability of that foundation, a whole series of wars swept through Europe (the Hundred Years War), with the end result of religions - the prior BMOC - losing nearly all of their political standing, in favor of the still-persisting model of Nation-States based on local political representation of the populace.
The leadership and influence of the catholic church was so pervasive, so ingrained into European society, that its breakdown was catastrophic. The breakdown itself resulted in a century of warfare between the nations and modes of thought that stepped in to fill the power vacuum, and the end result was an entirely new political-social structure. Not coincidentally, pundits of the collapsing Catholic Church were not shy about trumpeting the apocalypse and subsequent End of Days. For them, it was.
Applying to the present this lesson regarding a central pillar of society breaking down, ask yourself: what article, institution, or thing is so pervasive in our society and in the world today that its breakdown would throw the world into chaos? What loss or breakdown would create a power-vacuum so vast as to spawn a hundred years of war among contenders to assume ascendance? Narrowing the issue to 2012, is there some pillar of our modern world, upon which rests unimaginably vast systems and balances, which appears to be cracking, and where the collapse would result in large-scale re-organization and re-calculation of the haves and have-nots of the world as a whole?
The answer is YES. And the pillar in question is the dollar.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
2012 Campaigns. Already.
I already hate the fact that next year is an election year. And it makes me wonder exactly what the fuck is going wrong with our electoral system that nobody can seem to come up with a decent presidential candidate, even when they only have to make the effort once every four years.
Lets take a look at the recent elections. Remember two presidential elections ago, when George W. was the incumbent? Nobody approved of the job he was doing. Everybody thought he was a moron. His political grounding was limited to his family name and his days in college splitting eight-balls with Ivy-leaguers from similar families. Hell, as president he spent more time ON VACATION than any president up to that time (although this record has already been broken by Barack Obama), and the country seemed to function better when he WASN'T in the White House making decisions. If ever there was a winnable election for the Democrats against an incumbent president, that was it.
And who was the best candidate the Dems had to offer against a known buffoon? John Fucking Kerry. Mr. Waffler extraordinaire, and the only human being on the planet who was less impressive on mass media than was the idiot sitting president. Well played, Democrats. Well played.
Fast forward four years. The Democrats, smarting from the result that Kerry - their career-politician mouthpiece - lost to a known moron, go in the absolute opposite direction, and rally behind Barack Obama. Who cares that he has no real experience in politics. Who cares that none of the ideas of his platform withstand even cursory application of reason. He will get 1) the black vote, 2) the mexican vote, and 3) the liberal white vote, by simple dint of his skin color. All fluff, no substance, and he didn't even pretend that he had something other than all fluff and no substance. A black man, with no political track record or hard-money corporate support, fresh off a blood-bath primary win over Hillary. If ever there was an election that the Republicans should be able to win, you would think this was it.
Who, pray tell, was the best the Republicans could produce to oppose him? John Fucking McCain. The guy who couldn't even beat out George W. for the nomination last time around, and who in the meantime had gotten no younger, no more media friendly, and no more mainstream than his conservative Arizona senatorial constituency required him to be. Well played, Republicans. Well played.
Things are gonna be different in Mattopia. First of all, digital media will be barred from all campaign speeches and debates. No teleprompters. No ear-bud radios. Not even aides holding up cards for the candidate to read from. Each politician can have as many note cards and cheat-sheets as he can carry with him to the podium, but once he's there and proceedings are underway, he must either continue with what he has, or yield the floor. There will be gaffes. There will be blunders. But the people will see and hear that actual candidate's position on whatever the topic of discussion might be, not a prepared speech or position statement. The political handlers will need to educate the candidate on the issues, and work with him to prepare a position, rather than simply having him read the words off the teleprompter. If nothing else, it will guarantee a higher standard of intelligence than most elected officials in the world, since Mattopian elected political officers will at least be smart enough to deliver a speech from memory and note cards.
I'm not sure this will result in any less douchebaggery in politics, but if nothing else, we should get plenty of laughs at the expense of politicians forced to address issues based on their own intelligence and preparation, rather than their ability to convincingly act like they give a shit while reading a prepared speech.
Lets take a look at the recent elections. Remember two presidential elections ago, when George W. was the incumbent? Nobody approved of the job he was doing. Everybody thought he was a moron. His political grounding was limited to his family name and his days in college splitting eight-balls with Ivy-leaguers from similar families. Hell, as president he spent more time ON VACATION than any president up to that time (although this record has already been broken by Barack Obama), and the country seemed to function better when he WASN'T in the White House making decisions. If ever there was a winnable election for the Democrats against an incumbent president, that was it.
And who was the best candidate the Dems had to offer against a known buffoon? John Fucking Kerry. Mr. Waffler extraordinaire, and the only human being on the planet who was less impressive on mass media than was the idiot sitting president. Well played, Democrats. Well played.
Fast forward four years. The Democrats, smarting from the result that Kerry - their career-politician mouthpiece - lost to a known moron, go in the absolute opposite direction, and rally behind Barack Obama. Who cares that he has no real experience in politics. Who cares that none of the ideas of his platform withstand even cursory application of reason. He will get 1) the black vote, 2) the mexican vote, and 3) the liberal white vote, by simple dint of his skin color. All fluff, no substance, and he didn't even pretend that he had something other than all fluff and no substance. A black man, with no political track record or hard-money corporate support, fresh off a blood-bath primary win over Hillary. If ever there was an election that the Republicans should be able to win, you would think this was it.
Who, pray tell, was the best the Republicans could produce to oppose him? John Fucking McCain. The guy who couldn't even beat out George W. for the nomination last time around, and who in the meantime had gotten no younger, no more media friendly, and no more mainstream than his conservative Arizona senatorial constituency required him to be. Well played, Republicans. Well played.
Things are gonna be different in Mattopia. First of all, digital media will be barred from all campaign speeches and debates. No teleprompters. No ear-bud radios. Not even aides holding up cards for the candidate to read from. Each politician can have as many note cards and cheat-sheets as he can carry with him to the podium, but once he's there and proceedings are underway, he must either continue with what he has, or yield the floor. There will be gaffes. There will be blunders. But the people will see and hear that actual candidate's position on whatever the topic of discussion might be, not a prepared speech or position statement. The political handlers will need to educate the candidate on the issues, and work with him to prepare a position, rather than simply having him read the words off the teleprompter. If nothing else, it will guarantee a higher standard of intelligence than most elected officials in the world, since Mattopian elected political officers will at least be smart enough to deliver a speech from memory and note cards.
I'm not sure this will result in any less douchebaggery in politics, but if nothing else, we should get plenty of laughs at the expense of politicians forced to address issues based on their own intelligence and preparation, rather than their ability to convincingly act like they give a shit while reading a prepared speech.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Lord Stanley's Cup, 2011
The Boston Bruins have won the Stanley Cup, defeating the Vancouver Canucks in seven games to hoist the oldest trophy in sports. As expected, the Vancouver fans did not take it well. The ensuing riots resulted in several cars overturned and set on fire, but only a relative minimum of looting and stabbings. It would be nice for a Canadian city to take defeat with class and dignity, but Vancouver's playoff run including remarkable degrees of diving, flopping, and even BITING in the face of the opposition, so what can you do. And the rioting would have been vastly worse following any of a championship loss by any of the Montreal Canadians, the Toronto Maple Leafs, or the Dallas Cowboys.
Personally, I'm glad Boston won. I am a Bruins fan, and have been since my early hockey memories of getting psyched up for games by playing NHL 94 on the Sega Genesis. BEST GAME EVER. EVER!!! Since we (like pretty much everybody) played in the no-line-changes mode, Boston was a great team to use in that game, since your lineup was Adam Oates centering Cam Neely and Joe Juneau, with Ray Bourque and Glen Wesley on defense. Detroit could field a pretty good team as well, if you moved Sergei Fedorov from the second line up to LW, but their D and goaltending were not great. Besides, the best breakthrough part about that game was the option of one-time shooting, and the Boston team was just so good at the short passing game that nobody could shut them down consistently.
Besides childhood video game memories, I like Boston as a city as well, especially since I don't have to suffer through the winters there. I will always remember the smells of that town: fried onions and unhealthy meat products. Mmmm. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.
And while the Bruins took their fare share of penalties and cheap-shots through the series, it would have been painful to watch the Canucks win. Seriously, check out some of the youtube videos of the dives taken by their players, trying to draw penalty calls. Maxin Lapierre embarrassed himself and his team with his conduct, and he wasn't even the guy who BIT an opposing player. As for Alex Burrow's biting, non-hockey fans might be swayed towards sympathy, since Patrice Bergeron did in fact have his hand in Burrow's face at the time. Unfortunately, those people don't know what they're talking about. Those sort of hand-in-the face incidents happen all the time, to the point that hockey culture has a name specifically for it (it's a 'face-wash'). If you watch a full game, especially a playoff game, you'll see at least one person getting a face-wash any time there's a scrum or a tangle, either before or after the whistle. Again, that shit happens ALL THE TIME, and the guy getting the face-wash almost always manages to NOT bite the hand being put in his face.
I thought it was funny that even career NHL guys providing commentary for the games thought it was disgusting that Burrow's didn't get suspended for the biting. I hope the league eventually explains the reasoning of the decision, and want to hear what they say. Because honestly, I think the conspiracy theorists might be right in pointing out that Burrows is a Canadian, playing for a Canadian team, against the Boston Bruins, in a league controlled from Canada by Canadians. Those conspiracy theorists might easily (and correctly) point out that the Bruins are BY FAR the most hated American hockey franchise, and also point out that no Canadian team has won the Cup since Montreal in 1993, and they really, REALLY want to bring the Cup 'home.'
But they really didn't deserve it this year. Seriously, if you want the 2011 Stanley Cup Final memorialized in a brief clip, do a youtube seach for "Thomas checks Sedin." In summary: Henrik Sedin (Vancouver's consensus best player) corrals a bouncing puck, and is pretty much all alone right in front of Bruin's goaltender, Tim Thomas. Thomas ignores the puck, and puts Henrik ON HIS ASS with a beautiful hit. It was awesome, and a good metaphor for how Thomas treated the Canucks throughout the series. But the best part is Henrik's reaction to the hit. Head down, cleaned out BY THE GOALIE, and put on his ass, what does he do? He embellishes the fall, throwing his legs up in the air, and staring at the ref hoping for a penalty call. Well played, Sedin. Well played.
So I love the fact that Boston won, and I love the fact that the Canucks lost. Better luck next year, Canada. I'm starting the think the curse of 'Le Trade' might be a national phenomenon, and not just about Montreal. Which I don't think is injustice, now that I think about it.
Personally, I'm glad Boston won. I am a Bruins fan, and have been since my early hockey memories of getting psyched up for games by playing NHL 94 on the Sega Genesis. BEST GAME EVER. EVER!!! Since we (like pretty much everybody) played in the no-line-changes mode, Boston was a great team to use in that game, since your lineup was Adam Oates centering Cam Neely and Joe Juneau, with Ray Bourque and Glen Wesley on defense. Detroit could field a pretty good team as well, if you moved Sergei Fedorov from the second line up to LW, but their D and goaltending were not great. Besides, the best breakthrough part about that game was the option of one-time shooting, and the Boston team was just so good at the short passing game that nobody could shut them down consistently.
Besides childhood video game memories, I like Boston as a city as well, especially since I don't have to suffer through the winters there. I will always remember the smells of that town: fried onions and unhealthy meat products. Mmmm. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.
And while the Bruins took their fare share of penalties and cheap-shots through the series, it would have been painful to watch the Canucks win. Seriously, check out some of the youtube videos of the dives taken by their players, trying to draw penalty calls. Maxin Lapierre embarrassed himself and his team with his conduct, and he wasn't even the guy who BIT an opposing player. As for Alex Burrow's biting, non-hockey fans might be swayed towards sympathy, since Patrice Bergeron did in fact have his hand in Burrow's face at the time. Unfortunately, those people don't know what they're talking about. Those sort of hand-in-the face incidents happen all the time, to the point that hockey culture has a name specifically for it (it's a 'face-wash'). If you watch a full game, especially a playoff game, you'll see at least one person getting a face-wash any time there's a scrum or a tangle, either before or after the whistle. Again, that shit happens ALL THE TIME, and the guy getting the face-wash almost always manages to NOT bite the hand being put in his face.
I thought it was funny that even career NHL guys providing commentary for the games thought it was disgusting that Burrow's didn't get suspended for the biting. I hope the league eventually explains the reasoning of the decision, and want to hear what they say. Because honestly, I think the conspiracy theorists might be right in pointing out that Burrows is a Canadian, playing for a Canadian team, against the Boston Bruins, in a league controlled from Canada by Canadians. Those conspiracy theorists might easily (and correctly) point out that the Bruins are BY FAR the most hated American hockey franchise, and also point out that no Canadian team has won the Cup since Montreal in 1993, and they really, REALLY want to bring the Cup 'home.'
But they really didn't deserve it this year. Seriously, if you want the 2011 Stanley Cup Final memorialized in a brief clip, do a youtube seach for "Thomas checks Sedin." In summary: Henrik Sedin (Vancouver's consensus best player) corrals a bouncing puck, and is pretty much all alone right in front of Bruin's goaltender, Tim Thomas. Thomas ignores the puck, and puts Henrik ON HIS ASS with a beautiful hit. It was awesome, and a good metaphor for how Thomas treated the Canucks throughout the series. But the best part is Henrik's reaction to the hit. Head down, cleaned out BY THE GOALIE, and put on his ass, what does he do? He embellishes the fall, throwing his legs up in the air, and staring at the ref hoping for a penalty call. Well played, Sedin. Well played.
So I love the fact that Boston won, and I love the fact that the Canucks lost. Better luck next year, Canada. I'm starting the think the curse of 'Le Trade' might be a national phenomenon, and not just about Montreal. Which I don't think is injustice, now that I think about it.
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