Kaufman Game

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For those of you who don't know, Andy Kaufman was a comedian who was famous for doing comedy that he found funny, often at the expense of his audience. This included such things as tricking his audience into thinking that their TV was broken during his show by broadcasting static, or during his stand up telling audiences that he was going to read them The Great Gatsby, followed by him actually doing it until many audience members had left. While this is not all he did, and it certainly was not his intent, the behaviour translates pretty well to game.

I was over at Ishmael's house, when he showed me a text that he had received from a girl he was gaming at work.  She had sent him the following image.

He asked for what a good game response would be and what resulted (with both of us collaborating) is the following text exchange (to the best of my memory).

Him: Aww, don't feel bad [presuming that the cat statement applies to her and not him]. I'll tell you what. Come into work tomorrow and I'll roll you in pancakes.

Her: huh...

Her: was that text meant for me?

Him: Yes. About the cats.

Her: Ishmael you're not making any sense.

Her: What's roll you in pancakes mean?

Him: If I'm not making sense it's only because of kung fu lazers and starvation.

Her: hahaha... huh.

Her: I still don't get what your saying. Are you going to feed me pancakes?

Him: Kate! This is serious business. They make you take an animal wife!

Her: What?

Her: Are you trying to tell me that you married your cat?

Him: No. I rolled her in pancakes.

...

It went on ending with some more normal conversation such as “how was work?” At the time I was not sure of how well it had gone. I admit that I had largely given texting ideas that I found funny more so then what I found gamish. None of it had seemed overtly beta, but it was hardly optimised either. And some basic texting rules had been broken, such as the 3:2 ratio. But the next day report was glowing. At work she had been all over him asking “What does 'roll you in pancakes' mean?” And by denying her that bit of information he was making her pursue him.

So the end verdict is that though Kaufman game might not be the most optimised form of game, it's still effective. It also has the benefit of wrapping up a bunch of game concepts into one simple rule: do I find this funny or do I see this making for a funny story to be told to those not involved. If the answer is yes and you have the courage to then act on your impulse, then off the top of my head you're:

• Making yourself stand out.
• Outcome independent (if your action's don't incite attraction, well it's still going to be kind of funny).
• Exhibiting bemused mastery.

For another example of Kaufman game: accidental alpha.

Why Bullying is Good

One of the interesting things about studying game is finding where the principles apply elsewhere. And one of these areas is in understanding bullying.

First off, there are multiple things that fall under the category of bullying, and while some of them are bad, some of them are genuinely good as well. The most obviously harmful kind is a gratuitous exercise of power, such as a stronger person beating up a weaker person. But not all bullying is entirely ill willed.

There was an episode of The Dog Whisperer where a woman had two German Shepherds, one of which was regularly attacking the other. It turns out that the dog with the problem was not the dog doing the attacking, but the dog getting attacked. The dog getting attacked, was acting in eradicate ways that in dog psychology was totally inappropriate. The dog doing the attacking was just trying to help their owner by keeping the other dog in line.

While some bullying might not be the most optimized way of effecting a change in behavior, it often is highly effective. In my school experience, bullying stopped one kid from wearing sweatpants to school every day, and another from touching himself under his desk all the time (it finally got back to him why everyone was calling him “Jack”).

Perhaps the most common example of bullying that I come across has to do with state control. People with very low state control tend to invite others to wind them up. And there are two reasons to do so. First is that if someone is willing to give you the keys to their internal state, it is fun to take it out for a spin. The second reason is that low state control is not healthy and that hopefully by poking at it the person will start to gain more control of themselves. You can tell the difference between the primary motivators because someone who is more selfishly motivated will wind the person up with things that become more and more understandable when resulting in an out of control reaction (an extreme example would be teasing someone about a recent death in the family). Someone who is genuinely trying to achieve an improvement in the person will antagonize them with increasingly absurd things that should not bother them. A totally random example would be posting these pictures on facebook for a overly rabid Packers fan to see (done after claiming that the players on the team are all alcoholics).

The left's war on thought

Over at Patriactonary, Will S did a post about bullying. One of the points that he makes is that the term bullying is getting the rape treatment, which is to say that much like the word rape, it's being used to cover a broader and broader range of activities.

One of the interesting things about language is how one language is compared to another in worth. When I was in Greece, one of the natives told me that the Greek language has gone through several recorded fazes. Early on there was Homeric Greek, the language used in the Iliad and the Odyssey; then you had Koine Greek, the language the New Testament was written in; Medieval Greek; and lastly Modern Greek, which is what is spoken today. The interesting thing about the Greek language through history is that instead of advancing, the language has devolved, and is today more primitive than it was in the time of Homer. When I asked how one measured whether a language was superior or inferior, he said, among other things, that in Homeric Greek one could communicate a thought more precisely with fewer words.

The reason Will S's article made me reflect on this is that those who push for various PC causes, such as stopping bullying, are always trying to bring more and more things under their favorite buzz word categories. “You might not think it, but that's racism/bullying/sexism/harassment/etc. to.” The end result is to take away from the precision of the conversation, which then takes away from the precision of thought.

The desired end effect is to cut off people's ability to think about these issues, and instead have them simply react.

The lack of art

To graduate from the college I went to, every student had to take a course called “Senior Seminar”. Among other pointless busy work, one thing that was required of the class was for every student to do a presentation of some sort for the rest of the group.

One of the presentations from some art majors was about how the Christian Church today is not producing any art. The reason that they gave was that great art cannot come out of Christian culture when it is also aimed at Christian culture. I don't remember the reasoning they gave, I mostly remember pointing out during the Q and A that a good chuck of the greatest pieces of art in the history of the world flew in the face of their hypothesis. This was brushed off with the comment that “the times they are a different”.

Their conclusion still seems insane to me, but their premise about there not being much art coming out of the church lately is a little hard to deny. At the time I thought it was probably simply because there is not much in the way of high art coming out at all right now, Christian or no. But now I think that there might be more.

The way that I would define high art would be works that fall into one of two categories. The first is a work or body of work that paves the way for a new art form. For example, Cervantes' Don Quixote would be considered high art at least in part because it is considered the first modern European novel. If someone else wrote a book today similar in prose and store quality it would not turn any heads, and rightfully so, because the author today would have been beaten to it by 500 years.

The second category of high art is a work that communicates some truth or truths in a fashion other than direct articulation. These works bypass the inner dialogue and go straight to the heart with what they have to say. An example of this would be Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, which without ever directly expressing it contains a powerful message about the nature of man, and how easy it is to be quickly and strongly attracted to those who either have no depth of character, or worse, are evil, and how easy it is to overlook those who are our best and truest friends, who have the best character of all.

So why is the church not creating much in the way of high art? Because on the whole, the church's grasp of the truth is tenuous at best. And because the church has trouble accepting, let alone revealing in, those truths that both separate and alienate it from modern culture, the church is incapable of creating high art.

Take, for example, this little story that's made the rounds recently in certain evangelical circles.  There is some truth in The Parable of the Pencil. But mixed in, you have new age wisdom such as “The most important part of you will always be what's inside”, or “You will always be able to correct any mistakes you might make”. The first is directly contradicted by the Bible: Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked”. And the second actually goes against one of the core tenets of Christianity, which is that no man is able to redeem his own sins. Our sins are black marks that we cannot wipe away, only by the blood of Christ can we be made clean again.

So this parable is a mixture of Christianity and a modern day form of paganism. This is an old problem for the church, going nearly back to the time of Christ himself. And these kinds of mushy half truths that seem so easy to accept, are antithetical to high art.

Nancy Pelosi admits to turning a blind eye

In an attempt to attack Republicans who have voted to hold Eric Holder in contempt of congress, Nancy Pelosi stated that she could have arrested Karl Rove on any given day.  This, of course, means that while she was in a position of oversight, Pelosi must have allowed for corruption of some sort to simply continue unhindered.  It seems doubtful as to whether anyone will question her about what she knew and when she knew it, or ask if she was complicit in the illegal activities, or whether she in any way profited from her crimes.  But regardless, when the former speaker of the house makes an abject admission of guilt, it's worth taking notice.

The 100% reactive model is wrong

As I was driving today, I found that due to some recent work done on my car I all my radio presets had been lost. So as I was going through the stations, I came across focus on the family. I haven't spent too much time paying attention to main line christian culture in a while, so as today is the day before fathers day I wanted to see if it was as bad as I keep hearing in the manoshpere. And honestly it wasn't horrible. A year ago, I probably wouldn't have even noticed anything wrong with it. But thanks to such bloggers as Dalrock, and Christian Men's Defense Network I was keenly tuned in and waiting for them to engage in some man bashing or undermining of the wives submit to your husbands teaching.

The started out by bringing on a pastor who works with couples.

And he began with saying that a man is the head of the household.

So far so good.

Then that men need to submit themselves to God, and go to Him for direction first in their lives rather than as a last resort.

Good, good.

Then that when a wife sees her husband submit to God she will submit to him because it means that she will be submitting to God.

Uhhhh, a little ignorant on the nature of women and what's in the Bible, but go on.

Then that women will naturally not submit to a man who does not put God first the way that she puts God first.

Ok, you're off in the deep end now.

The second point that they made, that was just pure fiction, was that a man who is a material success, but is not a success at home, is a failure. The point being that your family has to come first and that men should not worship money and all that. They then went on to say that a man's family is a refection of him. So if you have kids and they are doing drugs and having sex and all that delinquent stuff, then you are a failure as not just a father but as a person and a Christian.

Aside from the message of not worshipping money, literally all of that is directly contradicted in the Bible.

First, I'm pretty sure that the whole concept of wives naturally submitting to their husbands when he acts in a way that she deems acceptable has been covered many times by other bloggers. Hopefully simply putting it in that frame makes it clear. And for all the women out there who are caterwalling “How can I submit to my husband if he is not submitted to God? Then I wouldn't be a godly woman!” submitting to other people who are not perfect, is not the same as sinning. Joseph submitted to Pharaoh, and it was righteous. Daniel submitted to Nebuchadnezzar in all things except those that would violate God's law, as did Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego. Neither Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar even claimed to serve God. But God wanted his servants to serve them. So clearly being perfect is not a requirement for leading and expecting to be followed, even with God's blessing.

For the second part, they flat out made it up. No where in the Bible does it say that if you are a godly man then you will have a godly wife and godly children. It does address the idea of putting your family first though. 1St Corinthians 7:29 “From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not”, Luke14:26 “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple”.

God comes first. And doing whatever you need to do to follow Jesus comes before your family. There is no ambiguity in the Bible on this.

And when we look at godly men in the Bible, if anything there is an inverse correlation on how Godly their children are.

Job was one of the most godly men in the Bible.

Job 1:1 “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.”

Job's children were contently partying, and as he was afraid of their sin he would make sacrifices for them.

Job 1:5 “And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.”

King David was a man after God's own heart. David's children committed rape, murder, insest, and rebelled against him nearly overthrowing the kingdom.

And if you look at the line of the kings of Israel, there is a lot of good, bad, good, bad, going on. There are only 4 kings who followed God who's father also followed God. 4 out of 23. Granted, there were only about 9 total kings that followed God (discounting Saul), but still, one can't make the claim that following God as a man means that your kids will as well.

The heart of the problem for people that profess this type of Churchianity (Besides ignorance of the Bible or failure to apply it) is that they view women and children as being completely reactive beings. When it comes to women, gamers actually tend to do this as well. They think that if a woman leaves, starts acting bitchy, cheats, or files for divorce, that it must be because the man was not alpha enough. Substitute alpha for godly, and you have the Churchianity view. But the Bible teaches that both women and Children are sinful beings, possessing their own free will. While it is true that both women and children are more reactive then men, it's not 100%. And sometimes when a woman or child does something wrong, it's simply because their heart is desperately wicked.

The dynamic demonstrated

Here we see the dynamic between older, ugly feminists and younger, hotter women demonstrated in the animal kingdom.