Odd Thoughts

 Every so often I come across something that really brings home just how horrible some things are.

That's really rather vague, of course, so I'll have to give an example.

Some years ago I was reading up on the history of the Mongols. It's been long enough that I don't remember if the event I'm thinking of was in The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, with Töregene Khatun.

Obviously it's hard to know much about a historical figure like that, yet her fate and especially the fate of her close confidante Fatima (and perhaps lover, but again... history isn't exactly clear) was horrific.

And I got the distinct impression that it was, at least in part, because the men resented having a woman in such a powerful position.

Like... okay, fine. History is full of powerful figures intriguing against each other. Murder, etc. But the cruelty in the death of Fatima, and her mysterious death itself, made it seem like there was a degree of hatred above and beyond the quest for power. Like her son (and it was her son who was behind Fatima's death) really had such a fragile ego that he had to make sure Fatima suffered horribly when she died, as well as purging all of his mother's supporters from his household and perhaps being involved in her death too.

There lies the fate of a woman who scares the men around her.

At least, back then. Things do seem to be better today, but there's a weight that comes from knowing how bad the backlash can be when people are scared.

I thought something similar when I learned that, apparently, sales of violets took a nose dive after a play in the 20's.

That's also related to why cultural norms changed, and casual contact (especially between men and other men) became less common. 

Seriously. There are pictures taken where men are comfortably close to each other, that now look weird or strange and immediately make people think they're gay. Even though they weren't, and it was pretty normal behavior at that time.

You can even see modern reactions like in that picture of George Bush holding hands with the Saudi King. Perfectly normal behavior for Saudi men, but to Americans it was not.

Like damn... that backlash is kind of crazy when you think about it. People just completely stopped doing things out of fear that - what? Someone might think they're gay?

Why is that so terrifying? Why would you completely stop hugging or holding hands or showing affection because of it?

And given we all know people get touch-starved - why would you create a society where far too many people are lonely, touch starved, and suffering...

Just because someone might, might, mistakenly think you're attracted to someone of the same sex?

I just don't understand it.

Tbh, I don't really care to either. I just want to understand it enough to know when to expect a backlash.

And maybe figure out some way of getting people to get over their fears.

Game Theory Addendum

I was thinking a bit about the video I shared the other day. 

More particularly, I wanted to talk about when they modified the test so that successful strategies reproduce and grow. The part shown here:

 

First, a brief overview for anyone who hasn't watched the video.

Basically, this game uses the Prisoner's Dilemma (where the incentives stack up so that you benefit most if you're selfish and defect when the the other party doesn't. Second best is both sides cooperate. Next worst is to cooperate when the other side is selfish and defects. And the absolute worst is when both sides defect and refuse to cooperate) as the basis.

People would submit a strategy, and then the different strategies would play against each other repeatedly. (This is important, too.  Because repeated interactions means you can build up a history and what you do in one round may impact what happens in another.)

The interesting thing is that the winning strategies generally, as the video makes clear, share certain traits.

They are: Nice, Forgiving, Retaliatory, and Clear. (Retaliatory is interesting here, because most of the rest of this fits in rather well with what most world religions teach us. But I think in this case it just means 'don't be a pushover', because it's about proportional retaliation. And retaliation that is forgotten and any transgressions forgiven as soon as the other party starts cooperating again.)

And by 'winning' we mean that these strategies gain the most points overall. Though it's interesting to note that the most talked about strategy - Tit-for-Tat, which basically cooperates in the first round and then just does whatever the other player did in the previous round - can never do better than the other player in any one round.

It 'wins', because when it works with a more cooperative player both sides really wrack up the points, and in the ones where the other player isn't cooperative it never does significantly worse. 

Anyways, that's all back story to what I wanted to talk about.

Because when they modified the game to make it more evolutionary, where successful strategies could replicate and grow in number... the 'nice' strategies grow and take over.

And, to draw on all those years of Catholic education, I can't help but remember the biblical story of the mustard seed.

Actually, if you combine that with the allegory of the long spoons, what you could say is this:

We can create 'the kingdom of God' or 'heaven on earth', or any phrase you want to use to indicate a goal where people cooperate and work together if we learn to use 'nice' strategies.

And if you get enough people cooperating and interacting with 'nice' strategies, such strategies will grow exponentially. Like the mustard seed.

And the whole reason why I bring this up is because this is why I am so bothered by so-called 'christian nationalists'. As well as for anyone who claims to be christian and yet supports Donald Trump.

Because it doesn't matter what you label your strategy. It doesn't matter if you call it 'christian' or 'atheist'.

A nice strategy is a nice strategy, a nasty strategy is a nasty strategy.

And if your goal is heaven on earth of the kingdom of god, or whatever - you should be using a nice strategy.

Even if it feels like you always 'lose' in individual encounters, in the long run you win. Handily.

But these people are using 'nasty' strategies, contributing to a nastier world, and they somehow think that just because they named their strategy 'God's will' that it somehow makes it okay.

To really pull out the religious talk - they are moving us farther away from God, society further away from actually having heaven on earth, and it doesn't really matter how they justify it or what pretty excuses they wrap their strategy up in.

This is also why Donald Trump has become such a great litmus test.

Because that guy is as petty, vindictive, and nasty as they come. His strategies are clearly not going to ever create a better world.

And I don't really care how much someone thumps their Bible, or how often they go to church, or how many crosses they wear or pictures of Jesus they hang on their wall - 

If they support that oathbreaker, if they're okay with the nasty strategies that guy uses, then they clearly don't understand the Bible or Jesus at all.