0:00 What is this game, right? Because there's this randomness that you cannot control. Yeah. And we knew tradition. Divine providence. Right, right. It is from God. Yeah. So if God is the one or the spirits who are, depending on your beliefs, right? Once in charge of your luck, then if somebody can read your future with it, you know. Right, right.

0:20 You go to the Oracle and said you want to determine what the fates had in store for you. You know, you go to a in or you go to the psychic or you in a whoever. Yeah, that makes sense. Man, you you have a lot for us to talk about. We're going to have to retread that ground in just a moment.

0:41 Giving you a taste. Yes. Thank you. Sir. You've what? You've watched my intellectual appetite. Yeah. Well, no, it is cool how to screw. I want to get, you know, one thing at a meeting. Like such a fan of, like, this gaming or analog gaming and stuff. One thing I still haven't gotten, but it's just like, it's just a quirk, I guess, is the stick dice.

1:04 So back in the days, what they had was more like, this is like centuries old. Instead of having dice, they would have, like, sticks, which is like a pencil. So actually you have games now that they will like, like a very, like, simple game where you, like, have some papers and you like, work doing the dungeon.

1:23 And then it comes with a pencil that has numbers on each side. Because the pencils I think are like, have six sides, like the typical pencils. You know, they have plot size, right? Not all of them are round. Right, right. The classic, you know, to be yellow one has this flat size which makes like a hexagon. Yeah. So you can do one, two, three, four, five, six.

1:45 And now he just rolled by his own. Seriously? Never heard of stick. Nice. That's interesting. Yeah. So you just roll the stick and whichever number four I see this. Yeah. Where are you going? Here. Yeah. Okay, cool. You get the hot seat in. Done. Do you need a refill or something to drink or. I'm be, like, super fine with it.

2:05 I don't want to, like, actually go too much and then have to stop the podcast to, hey, we can pause it. It's not even a big deal. Yeah. So. But that from the like. Oh, I confess he didn't. He. Oh yeah man. Oh I'm going to get a water too. You want one? Are you good? I'm good. I'm good with this.

2:21 Oh I have behave at home. Oh, really? Yeah, I've read it, but I've been like looking, you know, it's it's a man. It's a tough read, but it is, insanely informative. Some. It's it's a little bit much to like when you, when you start to learn about how the brain works. Yeah. If you get too much into your own headspace thinking about it, like, like, why am I doing this?

2:47 You get over analytical. Is it into barrels? I get, I bet, but then I'm also interested, like in the connections of that and are happy to because I'm telling you what, the more I learn about the way the mind works and society, and just the more I leave all that kind of books like that and whatnot, the less and less I think free will exists.

3:09 It's like it's man, people seem so programable. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Trump is a pretty good, pretty good piece of evidence there. I mean, no, absolutely. Like, you know, calling your tech bros have them just change the algorithm a little bit. And all you need is that small margin because it's always 5050 practically in these elections. Yeah, they just tweak the oven.

3:31 Oh. If the changes how information is, is ordered, that ended up changing the information to just how the margin was 6%, 6%, was it, I mean, and the collective power of the social media, if they all get together with an agenda for good, they can convince the society of that. Right, right, right. And with the funny thing phenomenon happens is when you, when you, when you say one plus one equals three enough and you sensationalize and you put enough emotion behind it.

3:59 Even though people have an intuition at one cause, one doesn't, they, they know and they have an intuition that that's ridiculous. You put enough emotion about it and you put enough put enough social power behind it, and it will crowd out plus one equals two. So like truth will get crowded out by a hypes fantasy or a hyped law.

4:19 Yeah. An emotional laden right. Ginned up lie. I mean, obviously I'm way oversimplifying by saying it goes three, but you know what I'm saying here? Yeah. So like with enough influencers enough, you know, fanfare behind something. I mean, next thing you know, the Earth is flat. And then this is what we're facing right now with this jargon on social media.

4:40 Yeah. So, like, we're being games. Yeah. But, you know, like, it feels like this is all, I mean, I, I know, you know, this that this is not really new basically kind of like the idea of propaganda. Like whenever, like I see all this stuff. What I keep thinking is just reminding, you know, how it was in China, what I was living in China and how I knew, you know, what I knew about the Cuba because I have Communist friends.

5:07 And then when I read, you know, the communication, like the books and so on. You know, literature. And I see how, like, super one sided it is and how, like, I never see something that it's somehow neutral, but it's like, fully like supportive of anybody that is like real socialist, like you will have like, Chavez, whatever Chavez doing, whatever is Maduro is doing in Venezuela and they will stay supporting him, like for too long until you're like, yeah, some point you have to give up.

5:37 Like not everybody that is on our party or on our side of politics. If I, if I consider myself a not a communist. But if we were like thinking that is us, then that self-reflection should include of like, hey, you know, not everything that is from our side is good, which is like common sense. But in a world of propaganda that's difficult to digest because the force of the of the dialog is very one sided.

6:05 Yeah, absolutely. Because the power of the team in the whole gamification idea. Right. Like that, you're on that team now. And once you've identified with that team and as part of your own personal identity, you're acting a lot of your thoughts and actions and things that you do and whatnot are are pinned to the notion of the team.

6:21 Well, it's all the psychology of the team. It's all through the lens of this philosophy that you've built your identity in your life around every kitchen, every activity supports it, every all the people you associate support it. So it's it's a self-reinforcing thing. And that's the culture that trumps trying to create that supports that. And and it continues to perpetuate it.

6:45 And, you know, it's just if you take if you take empathy and morals and you put them to a side and you gamify it, basically anything like you gamify, you know, politics or you gamify marketing, for example, like if you look, if you take a if you're selling tobacco, was it right? And you just you're sort of, games in gamification allows you to, to sidestep some of the moral implications.

7:11 Right? So if you gamify it and you just look at it as a numbers game, let's say I'm trying to sell more tobacco in this region. I'm trying to sell more product. You wouldn't say tobacco, right? Yeah. You even gamify the language, right? You you wouldn't use the, the, the, the correct proper, you know, words that are there already that for that you rename it as part of the game of the in your own mind.

7:32 Yeah. Right. To to play out, to play this game and even even a moral game. Yeah. So I think the gaming that we learn, especially as kids, is like sets the stage for all this positive and negative potential gymnastics that we do as adults. Right? So like, one thing when we're talking about game specific that like I was thinking about ahead of time for this conversation is like lying, right?

7:57 There's games that they're structure around. Why? Yeah, there's several card games I played in the past. And then there's like the classic, this is an inappropriate name now, but Indian poker, where you hold the car up to your head and you don't know, but you know, you get a gauge on other people's reaction. Yeah. Right. Then there's another card game called bullshit where you try to, you know, place down, you know, this is one three, this is three threes.

8:19 And then someone calls bullshit on you and you're in there. Right? Right. You take the stack. And so the there's, there's all these things that are big into the games that we play, right? These, these analog board games especially that are like totally germane to your future, your life. But learning how to act, learning how to lie even.

8:36 Yes, these games they teach they and they enable and they build skills. They build interacting with one another. They build the ability to lie. You have to have it. You have to be able to lie to get very far. Yeah. So like precisely about like the way that, that some another way that people usually don't think so much about games is about how you're establishing a system like, kind of like the most common way that people see board games is, I would say, maybe a shovel level, not like you're not deep have depth in your mind, but in terms of what you're looking for is just fun.

9:12 Like it's very simple fun. And then you can go with super deep strategy with like games that takes six hours, ten hours, or like different campaigns where you like really need to work your brain. But many people still in those games have like a level of depth in terms of the theme. That is pretty shallow. Not thinking like, this game has this system because it wants to make a point about something.

9:35 Not all games do that. Some of them are kind of like, I like this dynamic of doing this in a game, and then I want to like, that's what I want in my game. But no, absolutely do no. But since some are done on purpose, like the most basic one is the real monopoly. Like the monopoly. People don't think about it that way.

9:53 But then the original designer, the woman who got whose design was stolen, and then finally they bought her path and stuff. But listen. And Maggie, like she designed the game to show what would happen if you like, you know, completely left it out of control. It's social commentary. Yeah, yeah, it is also commentaries. So there's the idea of games or game design as an argument or as a.

10:18 Yeah, like you're trying to make a point by establishing a system of dynamics. And there are some games, like for example, you mentioned smoking. There's one from Amabel Holden. Oh my God, I forgot the name of it. But, it is about the campaign for, in the tobacco industry, to save the image of tobacco because they started off selling it as healthy.

10:45 Right, right, right. So, like, the whole campaign to. And then you're fighting, you know, these two sides, one, you know, in terms of like the truth of the harms that is does fall. And then the, you know, the tobacco company on the other side. So they're not games for you to feel good that you're on the right side.

11:01 But there are games to make you go through certain dynamics that maybe you were not expecting going into. And so you go into it so you can some fun and you come out with it having an intuition that's systems that can exist in real life have major implications. And now you have an intuition for it that you didn't have going into it.

11:19 So you're you your initial like gateway drug or was the dangling of the fun that you're going to have, but then you came out the other side with like this deep life lesson that you didn't intend on. I mean, that's that's awesome. Like, that's like edutainment on steroids. It is cool. And, I know you weren't involved in this conversation, but we were talking about systems thinking prior to this.

11:40 And, and, I mean, I think it builds on the thing that we're saying here that really these things teach systems thinking. They teach you things down, work within a system and deal with constraints. And, I brought up programing in that it's a similar idea. You know, it. You are working with these composable elements in these pieces. You have to achieve an aim or a goal.

12:08 And should I you were saying we have those lines that you were seeing that in games. Yeah, yeah. Because there are compositions of it. By the way, that tobacco product game campaign thing doubt is our product doubt. Yeah, yeah. So like, you know, you have this design like doubt is a product. Then you have a design that it is it puts you in a constraint of like a dynamic that has like a historical, framework.

12:35 Then you have on the other side video games that also are one of the main distinctions that they have from board games is how like they're like very much like you were like we were talking like they have guardrails. So video games, one thing that is different from the board games is that the board games, you can break the rules, you can do whatever you want with the pieces on the board.

12:55 You can put them on in your head and then do it like a different game with it. But then with board, with video games, you cannot. You either like do what is coded or not, but it's all hacking. You get shooting games and there's all the if you go online and just start searching for any game that you could think of, right?

13:10 You could do more. You can find mods and all these exploits and hacks and cheats. I mean, there's a whole enterprise. You guys remember the game genies? Yeah, totally. But you're right about what you're saying. It's not like it would the board game just do it manually on the fly, like you have full access to all the everything is right there and you can come up with howls or your souls.

13:28 Yeah. That's how all the games are in self hired very often. Design like Runo was based on hearts I think. Yeah, I think no. Crazy eight so this is a classic game. Crazy eight is just kind of like a rip off of like a, you know, developed idea from crazy Crazy eight. Oh, there's there's many games that I see definitely commonalities in some other game.

13:51 That's that's clear the same thing. I think, Sean, I were talking about like cards for example. A very unique is that like so many games, almost endless number of games can be generated from just a deck of cards. Oh yeah. So yes, cards is like a wonderful item to have. It's like the base game if you will, because you can take that base game in a ready.

14:12 It's established in society. It doesn't games easily. Right. Most people are familiar with you know not there's there's hundreds or thousands and thousands of games that have been invented with former formal rules of all this kind of stuff. But there's like probably, you know, if you canvas people around our age, you know, there's probably like a dozen or so games, card games that they'll either know or be familiar with.

14:33 Yeah. No, I don't like it like analog, you know, like it's it's, it serves it's almost like, so multi-purpose, like, that's what's so cool about computers and why computers are so useful. Because they can be programed to do anything in any industry. They're still versatile. Well, deck of cards. It's got to be one of the best.

14:49 Just like things to have to your pocket. Yeah, yeah. As a portable gaming system, if you will. Yeah. No. There are many designers who are nonstop using cards as one of their first tools to design a game to do prototypes. So they will start with, you know, just with cars and then just assigning whatever value to the suits and the numbers and then, you know, and then from then on, it's same with the dice.

15:15 Like you want some some randomness, get a dice and then like apply certain values to which side of the die you can. If you want more chances of something happening, then you have a six sided dice. And then two of those sites are what you want to happen the most. Okay. You know, and then like it can be whatever theme you want.

15:32 And that's the tool. So debit cards you have like this, you can introduce how much in in the parameters of your game, how much the randomness is effective. So like how much is the shuffled deck actually determine the outcome of the of the play. Whereas you can have other games where you do like the whole deck. And as you play through that hand, it's what you're it's no longer chance.

15:53 It's what you're holding. Like, not creepy John. Yeah. Bridge, for example. Yeah. Like, you know, if you're a really good bridge player and you have a really good partner and you just do your bidding round, you almost know what the what like almost to the tee what your, you know, partner has. Yes. All logical rational.

16:12 And there's volumes of books I didn't even know. My father was an avid bridge player and I'm now he would you play online but he'd play like in these. I mean, they have a whole structure around this. Like, not just that there's an organization, a primary organization, and then they have satellites. And I mean, it's serious and they keep score and they have like this really rankings you.

16:33 No, no. Some games have like in in saying or around them still to this day it's waning. I read this book called Bowling Alone a while back. It was written by this Harvard guy. Basically talk about how people don't join clubs and organizations anymore like they used to. And, assimilation of like, joining grew up, you know, clubs like all the leads.

16:53 And somebody has to be the club. It's way down. It's Wagner buddy. Right? It's way down in Mars now. So yeah. Right. And so he doesn't in that particular book. He doesn't exactly like explicitly say it, but he kind of lays the story out for you to kind of conclude that the digital era is kind of push that out.

17:10 You know, for the most part, it was my conclusion that I took away. It's kind of like the trail, and it seems like the breadcrumbs lead you to, but he doesn't bother making a conclusion. He doesn't need to. He just says, here's all the evidence. And I love when people tell a story like that because it's like, decide for yourself.

17:24 But here's what I found when I researched this, right? Yeah, but that whole idea, that deck of cards can be like, you can structure a game to where it just chance you're going to win based on what you're dealt, more or less. Right. And then there's hybrids, which is what you're dealt, and then how skillfully you play with like gin rummy.

17:41 Yes. Yeah. Right. And then there's this like also then there's this like brutally rigid, I mean like logical to a T, I mean, there's strategies and layers where you're going to rationalize what you have, like bridge for example. Right. And that's, that's so cool that a deck of cards can have such depth and versatility. Yeah. You know, I think that gets generalized to something you both said yesterday.

18:03 It cards is like a gaming engine. An engine. Yeah. And you know, just like you said, the gaming engines in the digital world that give you these structures and structures in these, you know, boundaries and. Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that's one of like the main distinctions I guess you have with the cards between dice cards will have like you have a certain amount.

18:27 So you can kind of like deduct I mean like you can yeah. You can figure out like which if I have this one's then these many are left. So it's like the randomness gets limited. Right. Right as the game. Yeah. As the game played whereas dies, you know, the dice will roll whatever it is that you roll the dice, unless you add some modifier or add another die.

18:50 So yeah, there's that, you know, limit and restrictions that you have with cards and dominoes the same way to play dominoes. Yeah. At a deep level you play in really good domino players. They know what you they read your hand, they know what you have, what's in play. I'll do something interesting. Some board games that, what they do so that you to kind of like diminish a little bit of that power of deduction of how many you have left.

19:17 They actually make you, like, take two cars out at the beginning. So that way, you know, kind of like to a certain extent what is most probably left, but you cannot completely know what are the two cards left, even if you see everything else. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So this is just kind of like a twitch to to the system.

19:37 So even if you are an awesome colored counter and you kept track of everything, there's still this element of randomness. Yeah, there's a wrinkle introduced by the. Yeah. So 52 cards, 13 in each suit. This isn't by accident. This is a reason why there's 52 cards in the deck. Yeah, it's 52 weeks. Yeah, a year, 13 months. Really?

19:54 It's like there's already Islander bastardized like reality, right? These are cycles per year. These reduce till time. These are used to mark forces. As for suits. Yes, yes. Yeah. It's tied in. It's supposed to be like a natural thing right. Yeah. Sorry. No. Yeah. Madam. Mistake at its 52. Each of those cards carried with it a certain you know a portend a, a a weight, an idea.

20:23 And that's why they exist as they do. You know, I don't know what all of them meant, but they all meant something, right? For sure. And then, like, heart space clubs. And we don't even get an etymology as this a deck cards. But it all has me. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. They all happened in the duel, dude.

20:39 Duality of the, the two Equinox. They have like the two segments of the year, like two primary segments of the year. Right? Yeah. Between the equinoxes. Yeah. And so they have black and red to, you know, it's got it all. It's, it's it's so it's so wonderful like all the depth and and gaming introduces like so much about reality but also then like what we do as humans.

21:00 So I'll tell you a story about my brother is that he was four years old and we were a kid growing up. And you know, we preview game, you know, era. And so we made our own games up all the time. Right. And so I learned at a young age, like, when someone controls the rules, you're screwed.

21:16 Like you have. No, you have literally. You are helpless when someone else controls the rules. And I learned that at a young age, like, thankfully, it was a wonderful lesson to learn as a, as a young age that, you know, much like the person that controls the bank in monopoly, right? The, the person that is like, knows the rules, quote unquote knows the rules, but you don't can just take endless advantage by knowing the rules that, you know, and being able to manipulate them, but by just changing them amorphous anytime they feel like.

21:47 So it's like, oh, no, that's a Red king. And it's a Tuesday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so that's all I we're you know, I'm like, just make up a rule on the fly. And then sophisticated enough. So sophisticated enough to where like you start to call out. No. You said it's like no, no. That was just because that was a third hand.

22:03 Like they can just endlessly make up a new reason why a new variable as to why the rules are changing. And when you're young and naive and, you know, some people go their whole life and never understand that the rules that they're playing by and look at the disadvantage. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm segway into. We bring it into society, as you said.

22:20 And and the, the older brother making the rules is like the, the priest class who can read and is literate and speaking, you know, only Latin to the, to the parishioners, you know, and you get fed what people feed you and but go ahead. No, I was going to say like it just like, sounds like you're describing the legal system of an authoritarian state.

22:45 Yeah. Just like whoa. You have, like, all of this. But we're going to interpret this as it's convenient to us, and we will reinterpret it as it's convenient to us when it is going to be. What did you see exactly where I was going? 100%. That's what I was alluding to. And furthermore, like there's a literacy built into the rules that many people don't have.

23:05 So like in modern society, technical, modern, complex society, right? There's a whole echelon of illiteracy that a majority that the overwhelming majority have towards a whole series of rules. Let me give you a perfect example of the financial system. Like if you don't understand how money works at all and you don't know the rules, the real rules on how money, you know, works its way through our system, you're ever going to be a victim to it.

23:28 Much like my brother when I was talking about as a young child, he's four years old than me. He just had full dominion and control to just shift to the sands anytime he saw fit. That's exactly what the financial system is in a country modern society like America. The spirit currency and the ability of the Federal Reserve and all the things that happen in banking and all this kind of stuff.

23:47 There's a reason why, you know, we're in Charlotte, North Carolina. There's a reason why the hall, the skyscrapers downtown are all banks, right? There's rules that they're playing by that is that they're absolutely well aware of and mastered and manipulate as they see fit right there with their governmental campaigns. And so they just have basically entire society playing by this ever shifting rulebook that, that most people aren't even aware of or literate of.

24:14 So of course, people are going to be disadvantaged and lose the game every freaking time. Yeah. Now look at society. You have a really small group of people that have all. And then everyone else, they they're the bankers in monopoly and they have the hotels on every damn fucking right. And we're and we're, we're sitting there thinking, we're really playing the game, rolling the dice.

24:31 And you've got t. So it's far as members of society, the per capita profession wise, the greatest number of millionaires is teachers. And it's because they take the time to learn the systems that they work with, and they understand how to break things down. They have critical thinking, right? Where is this? Teachers in in the US are per capita, per profession, the greatest number of millionaires.

24:59 That's news to me. Why are you wearing something? You do. And it's, you know, in some of these teachers are only making 60,000 a year or 70,000 a year where they might climb up to being a principal. Right. And make, you know, a hundred thousand, but still there in the lower ends of things. But so many of them like, but be like so good to like, do like a whole education system for teachers to kind of like, you know, how to like, you know, how to pass knowledge from those teachers who are getting the system properly to those other teachers who are being gained by society because the states, especially Austin, North Carolina,

25:38 we do suffer from neglect. Where are you? Yes, we absolutely do. And I mean, like, my as an example of teachers that had done it right, back in 1970, the average cost of a home was about just less than twice of what the average income was. Right. And so the average cost of a home was like 19,000.

26:03 Average income was about 9000. Well, my, my brother, his, his father in law, they managed to pay off their house in late 4 or 5 years back in the 60s, early 70s. And so then they just started banking everything. And there were both teachers. They both weren't making a lot of money, but they were getting a solid retirement.

26:32 They were putting aside things they were doing like a CD ladder, and they kept having that money come back and then were would reach a certain threshold. They'd invest it. And then they kept doing, you know, and so they had all these plans and they did it right. And they paid, like I said, you know, they pay us $17,000 house up in just a few years.

26:49 And so, boom, they and they have this, they maintain this house. And then it's, you know, close to what, 50 years old now. And it's like, I'm dying to go do research right now, right now about teachers and history and salary and that usually totally like my mind is spinning. No idea that was true. The company that I worked for TIA that's what our company was founded on.

27:15 It's teachers insurance. Annuity association or something to that effect. And oh wow. Ultimately it was created by Carnegie. The. Yeah. And the Carnegie. Yeah. And he was like, let me offer lifetime income for teachers. They give so much back to society. Let me give something to them. Well, there's a board game about Carnegie, by the way. Oh, yes.

27:41 He grew about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a little bit heavy on the rules, but it's good, but that's cool. So I mean, but that's the idea. So he wanted to so, so many of these if you're a higher learning institution, you might have to to create these annuities that provide lifetime income for teachers and other vehicles, financial vehicles.

28:02 But that's why we do this podcast, is that we learn things every, every time. We've not done an episode of this podcast where either Sean or I are, both of us haven't learned. Oh, I've learned every single time. I learned a ton of things. Yeah. And, we follow up, too. So if we say something stupid that we mess up in extra content on the thing, we we make corrections to our own.

28:23 You know, we correct ourselves how like an Arata. Yeah. We do. For real.