Game Theory

I really liked this video, because it put a lot of what I had learned clearly, with more history and depth, and it's only ~30min

Video on Game Theory

Ugh

Saw the headlines about a Supreme Court Justice, one of the most powerful people in our country, flying an upside down flag and like... 

Why are rich and powerful people such absolute morons?

(I could go on, but I'm frankly tired of it. Doesn't matter if it's the wife behind it either)

Business Leadership

KPIs and metrics can be useful, don't get me wrong. 

But they can never truly replace knowing your company. 

Which often requires just walking around and being present. 

It's when you leave your desk and go out to see things for yourself, that you're truly able to put all those metrics and business tools in proper perspective. 

That's what I was thinking after reading this 

Media and Trump

I saw a letter from the editor today, regarding the response to a column from Cleveland that made a splash recently, in my opinion because it was so refreshing to have a newspaper state the obvious about Trump.

I am pleased to note that there was, as to he author of the column stated, an 'overwhelming response'.

I also agree with his assessment that 'I have a couple or preliminary thoughts on why people shared this so widely, but I also realized early on that I’m not going to figure it out anytime soon.'

It seems to say something important,that a column like that drew so much attention. But what does it really mean?

I know my own reasons for liking it. It's been hard to follow the news lately because I'm frankly rather sickened by the Trump coverage. If they can't call a spade a spade, why should I care about their opinions on anything else? 

I don't know how they keep finding polls that claim Trump has a chance at the general election. I hesitate to say I know better, since I know polling can help us see past our own bubble and get at a better estimate of public opinion, and perhaps it's my own biases that make me think they're wrong.

But a response to the column like that makes me think that I'm right, and that there's something all those polls and pundits are missing. (Or deliberately pretending isn't there, if I want to listen to the more conspiracy minded side of me. How many rich fools keep stepping up to enable Trump, after all? Sometimes it really does seem like a bunch of immoral fools with more money than sense favor a guy who has proven himself a terrible leader and really think they can use their wealth to force that oathbreaking piece of shit back into power.)

Framing

Also, I like to remember that story about statistics.  It went something like this. 

If you were told a medical procedure had a 25% chance of killing you,  would you do it?

What about a 75% success rate?

It's the same data, just framed differently. So all those polls about how Trump won 63.9% (so far) of the Republican primary voters?

Also means 36.1% didn't vote for him, even though he's a former president with a lock on the party.

But sure, continue acting like that oathbreaking disaster is just another candidate. Whatever.  I don't like saying it's impossible for anything to change my mind on how to vote,  but there would have be something on the level of the crap Trump has already done for me to reconsider. 

Ain't That the Truth

From here:

We aren’t asking the Times’s news side to “crusade for change.” We’re not asking it to abandon independence as a “peacetime luxury.” We’re asking the Times to recognize that it isn’t living up to its own standards of truth-telling and independence when it obfuscates the stakes of the 2024 election, covers up for Trump’s derangement, and goes out of its way to make Biden look weak.

I pretty much haven't been posting because there's not really anything new to say.

It's a disgrace that Trump is the main contender for the Republican nomination. At this point,  it's not even just him. He's become a litmus test for how far the rot has grown, and it's disgustingly obvious that the answer is 'pretty far'.

Survival of the Fittest - Fittest at What?

 There's a bit in Khalil Gibran's book The Prophet that I like to think about sometimes -

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”

The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

I think about how a tree gives, how it grows fruit and lets them fall where they may. Whether that fruit grows into another tree depends entirely on where it falls, and (as the quote above says) it doesn't think about whether recipients are deserving.

That has applications in a number of ways. Sometimes I think about it with regards to this blog, since it's freely open for anyone to stumble across. (Perhaps I could try to create a substack or patreon, and if I had enough followers to make a living solely by writing I might be tempted to do so... but I also kind of like the idea of just writing freely, and letting the posts fall where they may. Well, okay... the idea of getting paid to write is nice, it's just that it would also change how I write as I'd be tempted to try to write in ways that appeal to others. But I digress.)

I think about it too, with regards to how the military raises it's leaders. After all, they generally try to train everyone to be a leader, as you never know which are going to rise up through the ranks.

But to get back to this idea that a tree lets its seeds fall where they may, and it's the environment that determines what grows.

What survives, and is fit.

Or perhaps a better example is the peppered moth, which had mostly been white but as air pollution became more common quickly evolved to dark.

White moths had been more fit, until suddenly dark ones were more suited to the environment. And so we have 'survival of the fittest', except what is 'fit' changed as the environment changed.

That seems pretty true, to be honest. First, when you think about swords and spears and other weapons - some are more suited to certain environments than others. It depends on whether you're fighting in an enclosed space or not, on whether the combatants are wearing armor. On any number of factors.

Even the combatants themselves - perhaps on one day, one has a cold and isn't able to fight at their full capacity. Or they're still recovering from an injury. Or one is better at fighting in the rain, or the cold.

It can even change with age - someone young and inexperienced can lose, but win as that changes. Or someone at their peak can weaken as they grow older.

Which means there isn't ever really a way to win, once and for all. In fact, trying to be the 'fittest' is a bit of a loser's game. You may win for a time, but eventually you will fall.

It makes me think 'survival of the fittest' is really a shallow and superficial claim. It doesn't hold up to any real thought at all...

But then it's never about logic, is it? It's more of an emotional argument. It's the type of thinking that can make you feel special, privileged. After all, if it's survival of the fittest and you're the fittest, then you don't have to care about the other person. You won, they lost, they can suck it.

Perhaps if you point this out, instead of trying to be king of the hill, proponents would claim that there's some sort of level of acceptable 'fitness' for which your survival is earned... and anyone under that level somehow doesn't deserve to survive.

That has all sorts of problems too. Like who decides what's acceptable? The Nazis murdered Jews - but they also murdered or sterilized mentally handicapped people. Yet those who know and love a mentally handicapped person know just how wrong that is. How much  you can learn from someone with Down's syndrome. Or how someone like my uncle (who I've never been clear whether there's a genetic issue or whether it was because of some problems at birth, has been mentally handicapped all his life) who seems to brighten everyone's day.  

All in all, it seems a stupid and foolish thing to try to decide people's worth by some concept of 'fitness'...

Not sure where I'm going with this, other than it's a stupid idea that has led to all sorts of terrible things and I wish it was challenged more directly. Sure, eugenics and Nazis have a bad rep - but damn, some people sure are trying to make it palatable again. And the ones disgusted by it don't seem to be making good arguments about why it's a terrible idea.