Gaming I - Rolling into Reality

0:00 Well, there's this guy there, right? Because there's this randomness that you cannot control. Yeah. And we knew a tribute to divine providence, right? Yeah. It is. It is spring. 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.

0:19 Yeah. Right, right. You go to the Oracle that said, you want to determine what the fates have in store for you. You know, you go to, and or you go to the psychic or you, you know, 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.

0:39 Yeah, sure. Giving you a taste? Yes. Thank you sir. You've. Once you've watched my intellectual appetite. Yeah. Well, no, it is cool. I, I want to get, you know, one thing out of, maybe like such a band 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 there, we have, like, sticks, which is like a pencil. So actually you have games now that they will light like, very like, simple game where, you, like, have some papers and you like, work doing the dungeon.

1:24 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 font size, right? Now, there's not all of them around, right? Right. Classic. You know, to be yellow one has this flat size, which is makes like a hexagon.

1:42 Yeah. So you can do one, two, three, four, five, six. And now you just roll by is. Oh, I'm seriously never heard of stick. No. So that's interesting. Yeah. So I just roll the stick and whichever number four. I see this north here. Anywhere you go. Here. Yeah. Okay, you get the hot seat and and do you need a refill or something to drink or.

2:03 I'm going to need, like, super fine with it. I don't want to, like, actually go too much and then have to stop the podcast. Hey they also we can because it it's kind of a big deal. Yeah. So the buy from the like all that golf is hitting me. Oh yeah man I'm good. I did a water to you.

2:18 Want one? Are you good? I'm good. I'm good with this. Oh I have you have at home. Oh, really? Yeah. I would rent it out, but I've been. I'm looking, you know, it's it's a man. It's a tough read, but it is, insanely informative since, it's it's a little bit much to like when you, when you start to learn about how the brain works.

2:40 Yeah. You get too much into your own headspace thinking about it like, oh, I can, you know, why am I doing this here? Get over analytical. Is it into paralysis? I get, I bet, but then I'm also interested, like in the connections of that in, epistemology too. 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, I'll 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 always 5050 practically in these elections, they just tweak the algorithms at all.

3:31 If that changes how information is, is ordered, then any of the change the information that Bruno says was 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 a million, right, right, right. And we're funny thing phenomenon happens is when you, you when you, when you say one plus one equals three enough and you sensationalize and you put enough emotion behind it, even though people have an intuition that one plus one, they, they know and they have an intuition that that's ridiculous.

4:05 You put enough emotion about it and you get put enough, put enough, social power behind it and it will crowd out one plus one equals two. So like, truth will get crowded out by, hyped fantasy or a hyped lot. Yeah. An emotional laden, right ginned up lie. I mean, obviously you have an all way oversimplify it by saying one plus one equals three.

4:27 But, you know, you go on saying here, yes, it like with enough influencers enough, you know, fanfare behind something. I mean, next, you know, the earth is flat. And then this is what we're facing right now with this jargon on social media. And. Yeah. So you like so we're being games. Yeah. But you know, like it feels this is also I mean, and I know, you know, this, that this is not really new basically kind of like the idea of propaganda.

4:53 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 are you? You know what I knew about the cube? Because I have communist friends. And then when I read, you know, the communication now, the books and so on, you know, literature.

5:13 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 his Maduro is doing in Venezuela and they will stay supporting him, like for too long until you're like, at some point you have to give up.

5:37 Like not everybody in that is on our party or on our side of politics. If like if I consider myself, I'm not a communist. But if we were, like, thinking that is us, then that self-reflection should include, 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, it's very one sided.

6:05 Yeah, absolutely. And the, you know, are of the team in the whole gamification idea. Right? I like that you're on that team now. And once you've identified with that team and it's part of your own personal identity, you're you're acting. What are 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 me. Every activity supports it, every for all the people you associate, support it. So it's it's a self-reinforcing thing. And that's the culture that Trump is trying to create that supports that and 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 basically anything like you gamify, you know, politics or you gamify, marketing, for example, like if you look, if you take, if you're selling tobacco, was that right? And you just get your set of, games and gamification allows you to sub to sidestep some of the moral implications, right?

7:12 So if you gamify it and use look at it as a numbers game, let's say I'm trying to sell more tobacco in this region, trying to sell more product. You would say tobacco, right? Yeah. You even gamify the language, right? You wouldn't you wouldn't use the, the, the, the correct proper, you know, words that are there already for that.

7:29 You rename it as part of the game of vacation in your own mind. Yeah. Right. So there's a play out to play this game and even even a moral gain. Yeah. So I think the gaming that we learned, especially as kids, is like sets the stage for all this positive and negative potential gymnastics that we do as adults.

7:47 Right? So like, one thing when we were talking about gaming specific that like I was thinking about ahead of time. So this conversation is like lying. Yeah, there's games there. There's structure around lying. 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 cards to your head and you don't know, but you know, you get some gauge or other people's reaction.

8:11 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. 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 baked into the games that we play.

8:28 Right. And these, these analog and board games especially that are like totally germane to your future, your life, but learning how to act, learning how to lie. Yes, there's games. They teach it. 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.

8:50 Yeah. So I 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 are establishing the system. Like, kind of like the most common way that people see board games, you know, is how I would say maybe a shallow level, not like you're not deep.

9:09 They have depth in your mind, but in terms of what you're looking for, it's just fun. Like this is very simple fun. And then you can go away 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.

9:28 That is through the shallow not thinking like this game has this system because it wants to make a point about something. 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 it's not absolutely do no, but it's some are done on purpose.

9:47 Like the most basic one is the real monopoly. That's like monopoly. People don't think about it that way. But then the original designer or the woman who God whose design was stolen, and then finally they bought the her bathroom and stuff. But it was the Maggie like she designed the game to show what would happen if you like, you know, completely left an out of control social commentary.

10:11 Yeah, yeah. It is this also in chess. So there's the idea of games or game design as an argument or as, 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 amiibo and Oh my God, I forgot the name of it.

10:32 But, it is about the, campaign for, in this, tobacco industry. To save the image of tobacco because they started off selling it as healthy. 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 that world.

10:54 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. 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 seeking some fun and you come out with it having an intuition that systems that can exist in real life, oh, you have major implications.

11:16 And now you have an intuition for it that you didn't have going into it. So your your initial like, gateway drug or was the dangling care 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 legit gaming, roids.

11:33 And it is cool. And, I know you were involved in this conversation, but we were talking about systems thinking prior to this. I mean, and now, 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 don't work within a system and deal with constraints.

11:53 And, I had 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. 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.

12:19 That is our product, no doubt. Yeah, yeah. So, like, you know, you have this designed like doubt as a product, then you have a design that it it puts you in a constraint of like a dynamic that has like an historical, framework. Then you have on the other side video games that also are going one of the main distinctions that they have from board games, how like they're like very much like you like, we were talking like they have guardrails.

12:47 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. 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.

13:00 You either like do what is coded or not, but it's all called hacking. You get you in games and there's all this. If you go online and just start searching for any game that you can think of, right? You can do mods, you can find myself all these exploits and hacks and cheats. I mean, it's a whole enterprise.

13:15 And you guys remember the game genius? Yeah. Totally was. But you're right about what you're saying. It's not like it with the board game. You just do it manually on the fly like you have full access to all of the everything is right there. And we can come up with however your thoughts like that's how all the games are is so are very often designed like Juno was based on hearts I think yeah, I think not.

13:37 Crazy. Eight so this is a classic game. Quincy eight ball is just kind of like a rip off of like, you know, developed idea from crazy. Crazy. Oh, there's there's many games that I see definitely commonalities in regards from other game and that's, that's clear. The same thing I think Sean and I were talking about like cards, for example.

13:56 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 yellow cards is like a wonderful item to have as like the base game if you will, because you can take that base game and already it's established in society a dozen games easily.

14:15 Right. Most people are familiar with, you know, there's there's hundreds or thousands and thousands of games that have been invented with former formal rules and all this kind of stuff. But there's like probably, you know, if you canvass 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.

14:32 But yeah, no, those are 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. It's because they can be programed to do anything in any industry. They're so versatile. Well, Deck of cards has got to be one of the best.

14:49 Just like things to have in your pocket, you know? 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 there we started with, you know, just with cards and then just assigning whatever value to the suits and the numbers and then, you know, and then from then on is same with the dice.

15:15 Like you want some start. So some randomness, get a dice and then like apply certain values to which side of the dice 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 and that's the tool.

15:33 So we have debit cards you have like this. You can introduce how much in in the parameters of your game, how much the randomness is affected. So like how much is a shuffled deck actually determine the outcome of the of the clay. 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 holding like, cribbage. Knackery with John there. 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 a tee what your, you know, partner has. Yes.

16:11 All logical rational. And there's lines of books. I mean, my father was an avid, bridge player. And I know you when you play online, but you play like, in these structured I mean, they have a whole structure around this, like, not just a, 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.

16:32 You know. No some games have like, insane organization around them. It's still to this day it's waning. I read this book called Bowling Alone a while back. It was written by this Harvard guy. This is talk about how people don't join clubs and organizations anymore like they used to. And, affiliation of like, joining grew up, you know, clubs like pulling weeds and somebody to be the Rotary Club.

16:55 Oh, you know, it's way down. It's mega buddy. Right. It's way down in Mars. This is actually out now. So but they're 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 has kind of pushed it out.

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

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

17:41 Yes a diamond. Yeah. Right. And then there's this like also then there's this like brutally rigid, I mean like logical to a tee. I mean, there's strategies and layers where you're going to rationalize what you have, like bridge for example, by and that's, that's so cool that a deck of cards can have such depth of 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 using the gaming engines in the digital world that give you these strictures and structures and these, you know, boundaries in. Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that's one of like the main distinctions I guess you have with the cards between these cards will have like you have a certain amount.

18:27 So you can kind of like the dog. I mean, like you can yeah. You can figure out, like if I have this one, then this many are left. So it's like the randomness gets limited. All right. Like as the game. Well, yeah. As the game played. Whereas dies, you know, the dice will roll whatever. Or this doesn't 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 some dominoes the same way to play dominoes. Yeah. At a deep level you play a really good domino player. They know what you they read your hand, they know what you have. Yeah. What's in play? I'll do something interesting. Some more games than, what they do so that you two 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 cards out of the beginning. So that way, you know, kind of like, to a certain extent what is most probably left, but you can not completely know what are the two cards left. Maybe even if you've see everything else. That's pretty goal. Yeah. So it's just kind of like a twitch to to the system.

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

19:55 Bastardized like reality. Right? These are two user cycles per year. These were used for till time. These are used to mark four seasons. Swimsuits. Yes. Yes. You know it's tied in. It's supposed to be like a natural thing right. Yeah. So yeah. So if it's a you know. Yeah I'm not a mistake that it's 52. Right. Each of those cards carried with it a certain you know a portend 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, part space clubs, I mean, we don't even get an etymology as this, as a deck cards. But it all has me. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, they all have. And then there's dual do duality of the the two Equinox.

20:42 They have like there's two segments of the air like two primary segments of the year. Right. You have between the equinoxes. Yeah. And so they have black and red to you know, it's not at all. It's, it's so it's so wonderful by 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 to me. We were a kid growing up. And you know, we pre video game, you know, era and so we made our own games of 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 choice. 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, but learned as a, as a young age that, you know, much like the person that controls the event in monopoly, right? They are the person that is like, knows the rules, quote unquote, knows the rules.

21:36 But you don't can just take endless advantage by knowing the rules that you know and being finicky like them by just changing them a more fiercely. And each time they feel like. So it's like, oh no, that's a red king. And it's a Tuesday for the. Yeah, yeah. So this is where, you know, I'm like, just make up a rule on the fly.

21:55 And then sophisticated enough so sophisticated enough to where like you start to call it. Oh no you said da da da. It's like no, no, no. That was just because there was a third hand. 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, you know that there's some, some people go their whole life and never understand that the rules that they're playing by and work at the disadvantage.

22:16 Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm segway into. We bring it into society, as you said, the hand and 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.

22:39 No, I was going to say like, I just like, sounds like you're describing the legal system of an authoritarian state. I just read Sicily's like, well, you have like all of this, but we are going to interpret is as it's convenient to us and we will reinterpret it as it's convenient to us when it is going on. Yeah.

22:56 When it's you see exactly where I was going. Me 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. 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.

23:16 Let me give you a perfect example. The financial system. Like if you don't understand how money works and 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. Much like my brother when I was talking about as a young child, he's four years old.

23:32 I mean, you just had your full dominion and control to just shift in the sands anytime you saw fit. That's exactly what the financial system is in a country modern society like America. This fiat currency and the ability of the Federal Reserve and all the things that that happen in banking and all this kind of stuff, there's a reason why, you know, we're in Charlotte, North Carolina.

23:50 There's a reason why the whole the size skyscrapers downtown are all banks right there. There's rules that they're playing by that is, that they're absolutely well aware of. And map mastered and manipulate as they see fit, right, with their with their governmental, you know, 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, like in 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 to done. So as far as members of society, the per capita profession wise, the greatest number of millionaires, it's teachers. And it's because they take the time to learn the systems that they work with them. They understand how to break things down. They have critical thinking. Right. Where's this teachers in in the US, our per capita per profession, the greatest number of millionaires.

24:59 That's news to me. My, So you earn something. You have to. And it's, you know, in some of these teachers only making 60,000 a year or 70,000 a year, or they might climb up to being a principal. Right. And make, you know, 100,000, but still they're in the lower ends of things. But so many of them like, that it would 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 love knowledge from those teachers who are getting the system properly to those are the teachers who are being game by society.

25:35 Oh, yeah, a lot of states, especially in North Carolina, we do suffer from neglect or our housing. Yes, we absolutely do. And I mean, like, as an example of teachers that have 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 The average income was about 9000. Well, my, my brother, his, his father in law, they managed to pay off their house in like 4 or 5 years back in the 60s, early 70s. And so then they just started banking every today. And they 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 whenever we 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 a $17,000 house off 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 latter years was totally like my mind is and had no idea that was true. The company that I work for, TIAA, that's what our company was founded on.

27:16 It's teachers insurance, Annuity Association or something to that effect. And. Oh, wow. Ultimately, it was created by, Carnegie. The. Oh, yeah. And they all got it. Yeah. And he was like, let me offer lifetime income for teachers. They give so much back to society. Let me give something to that. Well, there's a board game over Carnegie by those.

27:40 Oh it's very good. Yeah. So yeah about that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So 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 Gaea to create these annuities that provide lifetime income for teachers and other vehicles.

28:02 Financial vehicles. 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 having learned, oh, I've learned every single time I learned a ton about. Yeah. And, I'm going to be follow up to. So if we say something stupid and we mess up, you know, extra content on the thing, we will make corrections to our own, you know, we correct ourselves.

28:24 So you have the, like, an Arata. Yeah. What we do for real?