First things First

I a typing this post on my kindle to see if I can. It has a tiny keyboard, and using any punctuation other than a period is cumbersome. Also, the ability to type in long lines is hampered by a small amount of sidescroll...

it makes writing haiku very appealing.

tap tap go buttons
where did my question mark go
kindle blogging fail.

The deadliest game

Life is the game that must be played. ~Edwin Arlington Robinson

What is a game? By definition the qualifications of game are fairly broad. A game could really be any "physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other" or, even broader, "a procedure or strategy for gaining an end."

By deduction a game is not everything that isn't a game. These are simple enough statement, but then what isn't a game?

Our modern lives are dominated by games. Not the "fun and games" style of game, but the "procedure for gaining an end" type. The methods of daily survival of the average American are as far from surviving in nature as the modern meaning of "game" from its original meaning based in hunting. So, what isn't a game in our lives?

Eating: not a game

Table manners: a game (Rules, metrics for success, rewards and consequences)

Relationships: not a game

Romance and dating: a game

Credit cards: Have scores, rules, upkeep, and metrics for success. Did I budget well enough? Can I pay off my card this month? The house always wins, of course.

Stocks: Absolutely a game...which can ruin your life. See below.

Taxes: Paying taxes is not a game. However, evading taxes is a very dangerous, and potentially very profitable game.

Laws: Exist on the belief that they exist. Everyone, daily, bends the law. I, for one, know that I can drive more than fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit in certain areas of Pittsburgh and no-one will care. In Austin there are a couple places that it is understood that public nudity is acceptable. People cross state lines to shop because taxes are different on the other side. The legal system is, really, a game of seeing how much you can get away with without pissing too many people off.

Even being stuck in traffic is a game. The metrics for success are based on how many people you pass, how many people pass you, and the amount of time you spend not stopped. I doubt "Let's get stuck in traffic" will be the next AAA title, but there it is.

Money:

Let's take a look at money. It is worth more than the paper it's written on, I'd be hard-pressed to find someone willing to spend twenty dollars on a rectangle of paper unless it was a fifty-dollar bill, then people would look at me like I was crazy.

So, what is money worth? It's not a deposit slip for a measured amount of any resource, like it once was. Money is worth what we --the collective we, the world population-- think it's worth. At first that's a terrifying idea, but within a few hours you get hungry or have to pay your phone bill and it doesn't matter as much.

Money's value internationally is determined by, essentially, public opinion. "The dollar fell against the euro today" obviously has no literal meaning and although the phrase itself is devoid of a human element, the real meaning goes somewhere along these lines: People think the European economy will continue doing better than the American economy tomorrow, so they put their money into Euros.

The stock market, like the money market, is dependent on people betting that they'll make a dollar tomorrow if they put one somewhere today. The world economy has better odds than vegas, but the same general principle. There are rules: no insider trading, no collaborating to destabilize economies, no printing your own money. Still, people make their living betting that they know what is going to happen with the value of a company better than other people.

Your company, if it is traded openly, is owned by gamblers.

Your job is part of that game.

Your money is part of that game.

There's nothing you can do about it.

Maybe everything in life isn't a game, but everything with a most favorable outcome has metrics for success. Everything that has meaningful choice has strategy. Everything that takes time, the one thing you can never get back, has a risk and reward.

Public School: An act of unforgivable ignorance.

Albert Einstein - One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.

Why do kids hate school? I can't recall one person, ever, who felt like they were challenged, thrilled, or excited by school in general. Almost everyone I know liked something, at some time, perhaps a teacher who was influential, or a class that was particularly exciting. These are generally the points in education that stand apart, that so strongly contrast the backdrop of absolute apathy that they shine like stars in the sky.

The frank answer is that Kids don't like school because it isn't fun. Why isn't it fun? Because the education system is too busy trying to maintain a minimum level of performance to be concerned whether or not the students are enjoying their education. Why are students uninterested in learning? Because school is not fun. In short, the American public education system has stacked the cards against itself. Why? Well, we could blame the British, but in the end we have nobody to blame for our own shortcomings but ourselves.

Let's take a short inventory of conditions that lie to the detriment of the level of enjoyment of students in public schools. Specifically, let's look at it through the lens of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow's heirarchy theorizes that higher-level needs cannot be fulfilled if more basic needs aren't met to create a stable base for the progression. The tiers as he described are

Self actualization: Acceptance of facts, morality, creativity, problem solving
Esteem: Respect (given and received), feeling of importance, confidence, achievement
Love and Belonging: Socialization, friendship, family, intimacy

Safety needs: The knowledge that basic needs will remain fulfilled

Basic physical needs: food, water, shelter, health, sex

Education, the processing of abstract information, by way of acceptance of facts, is at the very top of this hierarchy. By Maslow's theory the ability to learn, the basic requirement in order for learning to be possible, is that ALL of the lower needs be satisfied.

Starting with basic needs for survival, food, water, basic health, public schools already fail. A typical school day starts at 8, ends at 4, has just enough time between classes to get from class A to class B, which certainly doesn't afford enough time to get a snack or drink of water, and has anywhere between 40 minutes and an hour for lunch which, given any amount of time waiting in line, barely gives a student enough time to throw down some food. Further, food standards at cafeterias are based on the cost per serving more than the nutritious quality of the food.

While it would be unnecessary to go on, let us say, for thee case of argument, that basic health needs were met for all public school students and move on to safety needs. These needs are largely composed of the knowledge that basic needs will remain fulfilled. However, they also apply to the sense of safety. While this is a very difficult indicator to track, in 2005* a reported 28% of students had been bullied at school in the previous 6 months. Also, schools look like prisons.

It is not a far leap of logic to think that a student would not feel safe inside a compound topped with a razor fence. Worse than that, schools are operated like prisons, too. Often, students who need the most help are punished, NEGATIVELY impacting the amount and type of attention they are given because they are being "disruptive."

To bring the hierarchy up another step, let's look at the sense of belonging: family, friendship and socialization. First, the act of being at school means students are separated from family, this is completely indelible in the current model. The school system negatively impacts all social groups, actually, not generally allowing students the option of scheduling classes with friends. Also, it forces socialization into the marginal time, where one must choose between time with friends, and time with family. It is no wonder that the few subjects that typically provide prolonged exposure to a relatively small group (sporting teams, band, orchestra, and AP tracks) generally gain better practice results AND lifelong social bonds.

One step further, is the feeling of importance. It is, without cheating, impossible to make everyone feel important because if everyone is equally important that is the same as being unimportant. However, it IS possible to praise individuals for good work, and panlyze them for unacceptable work. This is already done via the grading system, which may be one of the only sustainable portions of the modern education system. However, any semblance of quality control is lost in order to fit a statistical theory that if everybody turns in unacceptable work 10% of them must still be A students or, conversely, if a team of 10 mensa-grade mathemateers completes a 5th grade algebra test one of them MUST fail. Further, all exceptional students are praised in exactly the same way, in three tiers of excellence that all share 2/3 of the same words, cum laude. Therefore, the sentiment of the system is that summa cum laude with a math focus is EXACTLY the same as summa cum laude with, say, an art focus. While both may be meritorious to the same extent, they are totally different in matter, and to give all subjects an umbrella term acting as the same phrase of praise diminishes the value of the phrase itself.

So that, to start, is why the american education system is categorically unable to provide a nurturing environment for learning, with the exception of a few statistical outliers in the 12% of high-school graduates who go on to finish college. Now let's look at how the basic format of the individual classroom prohibits an enjoyable learning experience. Before that, though, I would like to look at what is referred to as the "flow state."

Essentially, the flow state as described by Csíkszentmihályi, is a "sweet spot" where a challenge given is neither so simple as to be considered boring nor so complex as to be considered undesirably difficult. Assuming that no two people are at the same level of skill in a particular class, and that no two people learn at the same rate, or in the same way, one can understand that creating an acceptable, let alone frequent occurrence of flow state for a full class would be nearly impossible. I will note that it is not actually impossible. My high school physics teacher, Ben Harper, was known for keeping all of his classes gripped in eager anticipation of their next challenge, and it may be because of this that his students comprised ONE THIRD of all of the 5-scores on AP physics tests in the state of Texas (pop: roughly 24 million.) However, this level of aptitude is disproportionately proportionate to the unusually high level of success of his students. In fact, education students are typically some of the lowest performers compared to their undergraduate classmates. This is not surprising, because they are also the second lowest paid in a list of pay based on undergraduate degree, beating social work by a scant $400/year.

Essentially, this means we are entrusting the fate of the next generation to the people who are least able to prepare them for it. Furthermore, we are not giving people who might be good teachers an attractive level of pay, creating a low level of desire for teaching jobs.

How did we get here? what caused this completely unsustainable waste of resources and almost utter failure to inspire the minds of the young? The American school system started with A decree by Thomas Jefferson that education was too important to be left to the church and kept to the rich. This is a noble thing. It was based mostly on the English model of schooling, which was based mostly on the Greek system of oratory education, and is the origin of the word professor. One person would say things in the hopes that some of it would be retained by one or more subjects. Unfortunately, children are historically bad at being talked at, and also fairly bad at listening. This is no fault of theirs, the world is new, and there are far too many things to climb, grab, throw, taste, smash, and experience in their myriad ways to be bothered listening to some stuffy guy in a dusty room pointing at rather uninteresting scribbles on a black piece of rock. As time progressed attendance became compulsory (1852,) and eventually high school graduation rates rose from 5% in 1900 to 85% in 1996. Aside from a raise in gross numbers, however, education tactics have not changed. In fact, the base terminology of schooling - education - as a verb implies that the action is being done to the object, instead of the object doing it to itself. Generally, I believe that this is the core of the problem. We try to force information onto students to see if we can push some of it through their armor, instead of teaching them the only thing we truly need to teach: the satisfaction that can occur from discovering it on their own.

So, what can be done about it? What can we do to repair a system that does not, and most likely cannot work? How do we get millions of people to work, on their own time, self-motivated, to fill their own brains with information while maintaining physical, social, and mental needs? How do we do it with minimum cost and with a pool of staff that are notorious for underperformance? How do we ensure that each of these millions of individuals not only feel accomplished and special, but maintain an optimum flow state regardless of what their peers are doing?

I don't know. If I did, I'd apply for funding, but there's this new thing called the internet. It has more accessible information than the human race has ever experienced, and there are these new things called massively multiplayer games, which are notorious for bringing together and entertaining large masses of people. That's probably a good place to start.

Our only enemy.

What do play styles say about a species? It is generally agreed upon that humans are not the only animals that play. Dogs will play-fight, cats will play-stalk, squirrels do that thing with their tails. Animals of all sorts exhibit play or play-like behavior. Assuming all behavior is, in some way, useful for the survival and propagation of an individual within its species, play must somehow also be useful. This has already been documented well by psychologists and zoologists.

Not all animals play, and all animals that do play play differently. For instance, fish and reptiles rarely exhibit play behavior. Not all birds or mammals play, either. Top predators and lower predators also play differently. Both practice hunting behavior, but lower carnivores also practice fleeing behavior. Herbivorous species play based mostly on their strongest predator evasion method: deer gore and stamp, horses run and kick, squirrels run like mad, etc. Scavengers play differently still. Vultures compete with each other over things less important than food, and humans, generally believed to be a scavenger species at heart (until tool use developed significantly,) have a huge range of competitive play behaviors.

Generally, though, the less time an animal spends struggling for basic survival the more time it spends playing. Relative safety is one of the necessary starting conditions for play.

Knowing the function of play can also shed light on the needs of an individual, and a species. Generally play seems to reflect practice for critical moments in life. Equine species' bucking and kicking are directly useful as practice for fending off attackers. Likewise horses will often run for extended periods of time when not threatened. This form or practice play, like playing a sport, keeps muscles fresh for use later when they may find themselves fleeing from a predator.

As a contrast, playing among dogs simulates pack hunting behavior, a complex action the success of which can determine the fate of the pack. In the wild this play also helps establish rank within the social group. The best at playing then become the leaders in the hunt.

Also, species generally believed to be smarter exhibit more ornate forms of play. Dolphins are known to create elaborate games of catch, group hunting games, and chasing games. Chimpanzees also play socially, competitively, and as practice. Humans, of course, play in these ways as well.

If the most basic styles of play can be used to determine the survival needs of a species, what information does human play tell us about ourselves? Human play covers an enormous range of variation. However, there are some major themes to human play. First is object manipulation. This is no great surprise, that a species which stakes its survival on tool use specifically plays a great deal throwing, hitting, and catching things. Another is nurturing play. This form of play is not frequently seen outside human behavior. Humans are born in a much more vulnerable state than most animals, and require quite a bit more nurturing than most. We are, essentially, totally dependent on outside help for the first 13-15 years of our lives. It is no wonder that children practice this nurturing behavior.

Another unique, and possibly the most interesting, form of human exclusive play is in deception. Chess, B.S., Poker and all its variants, Blackjack, monopoly; the list goes on and on. Humans spend a good amount of time practicing lying to each other and knowing when they're being lied to. This is, probably, the most necessary for the survival post hunter-gatherer humanity. As humans pulled themselves out of the cycle of predator/prey interaction the only remaining natural predator of humanity became humanity itself, and knowing if someone is offering to take care of your farm while meaning they'll run off with your food becomes more necessary than being able to outrun a predator.

In-fact, it would seem that more human play is based on effectively combating each other than on wilderness survival. The ancient olympics for instance featured boxing, wrestling, chariot racing, javelin throwing (for distance), and running. None of which are particularly effective with or against other species. The sports of Medieval times were almost entirely war-based featurign jousting, archery, and gameball (a sport not unlike American football.)

The evidence would suggest that, if play styles develop as useful methods of ensuring survival, humans are almost totally concerned with surviving other humans.

Research:

Braaf, Ellen R. "Why animals love to play."

2003: Ask. Nov/Dec 2003

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4128/is_200311/ai_n9307508/

Dugatkin, Alan and Rodrigues, Sarina. "Games Animals Play."

2008: Greater Good Magazine. vol 4 Issue 4.

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/2008spring/Dugatkin444.html

Hawes, Alex. "Jungle Gyms: The Evolution of Animal Play"

1996: Zoogoer, January/Fabruary 1996

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/ZooGoer/1996/1/junglegyms.cfm

Tufts University. "The Ancient Olympics"

2004: Perseus Digital Library Project. 13 August, 2004

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Olympics/

White, Thomas I. Ph.D. “Business, science and ethics: a case study in the necessary evolution of methodology.”

2009: BETWEEN THE SPECIES. Issue IX

http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/bts/issue_09/09white.pdf

Anonymous. "Dolphin games: more than child’s play?"

Nov. 9, 2005, World Science.

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/051107_dolphinfrm.htm

Day -10: Mr Ink.

I walked out of the blinkport and into a line of waiting zipcabs, still hung over from the trans. The reception kiosk said, in its usual unnecessarily cheerful tone "The solar wind advisory for today is moderate to upper-moderate. You may feel a little discomfort in your transfer from Jupiter to Earth. Have a nice day!" I thumbed the identiseal on the first one, got in and, call me old fashioned, put on my seatbelt.

"Newark Har..." Through the fuzz I noticed I wasn't quite alone. It may have been the smell that tipped me off, or the heavy metallic click. I put both hands on the wheel and looked forward.

"Get out of the car and give me your wallet!" the robber yelled, pointing a gun at my face. It was large, probably fully automatic, and looked very heavy. I thumbed the autodrive off and stomped on the gas. "I'm betting you don't have life insurance." I said, "And off we go."

"I'm serious man, I'll blow your gaffing head off!" He said, waving his gun at me

"No, you wont. If you were actually going to, you'd have pulled the trigger before I closed the door," I said, gaining speed and turning onto the highway. "Less mess, and you could shove my corpse out later. Plus, we're going too fast now. If I crash, you're dead." The thug sat in what I could only assume was stunned silence while I dodged between cargo crawlers. Post-impact safety devices like airbags weren't on the cheaper zipcabs, and after autodrive became standard on vehicles nobody really used seatbelts.

We sped through the Pulaski skyway at about two hundred. I had pretty much banked on nobody using manual, which was correct. Cars and cargos screamed at us with their collision alarms as we ploughed through traffic. The Newark swampland had pretty well faded away as we headed for the North Jersey Archipelago. I was already late, and couldn't afford to joyride around some tweaked up

"You're f-fucked up, mn. I should do you for the co-common good." he said. His arm was rattling more than his voice, and I could see the weight of the gun was starting to get to him.

"My wife would agree with you. Well, two-thirds of her anyway." Out of habit I showed my ring hand.
"What's the tattoo?"
"That's why you lost.

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"It means Shinobi."
"Isn't that like a ninja?"
"Sort-of."
"Doesn't that defeat the whole, you know, purpose?"
"Shut up."
"No, I'm serious. If you're a ninja you don't go around with a sign that says 'I'm a ninja.' That doesn't make any sennse."
"Fine," I said, touching the tattoo senspad and turning off my tattoos. We were almost there anyway, and the robber had pretty much given up. The gun was in his lap and he'd made a cup of coffee from the dash-dispenser.
"Oh, yeah. Now I get it. Cool."
"Anyhow, why don't you give me that thing before I have to drive us both into a wall and get us downloaded into fresh bodies."
"Yeah, okay. I don't have insurance anyway."

I pulled out into the docks and got out of the car. The weapon was actually not bad. A ultra-compact AR-30 with a collapsible stock. WW3 leftovers. A little heavy for a pistol, but accurate out to half a kilometer. The zipcab went off on its merry way and I walked down the docks to The Spoon.