Applied game theory's many forms

Nothing inspires greater goods or evils than desire for money

We live in something that’s as close to a utopia that’s even possible for humans. We’re at this position in time where technology has advanced so rapidly that it escapes the ability for any one person to fully understand a fraction of what’s happening today, let alone how things work. Even our systems of governance are comprised of this complex of rules and regulations which take a lifetime to actually learn and master. That’s why you have not only lawyers, but specialties within the legal community. It’s not any different for any other line of work. There are a million flavors of technicians, and I’ve worked with several (on submarines, on wind turbines, in data centers— all of their work is different and all of it requires a different set of knowledge).

It’s a product of people having built upon the tools of others work for generations via specialization. Over a thousand years of human civilization with brilliant and motivated people who pointed themselves at tasks to make widgets that help make other widgets to further theirs and others ends. People’s efforts have compounded together and now everything around you that’s not a forest or something natural is a synthetic byproduct of this amalgamation of human effort. Hell, even a lot of plants these days have microbiologists’ hand in the mix of plant genetics where they’ve done something to it in pursuit of yielding some greater industrialized agricultural output.

But the greatest widget ever made in for profit enterprise is found in game theory. In the corporate world, if you look for it sometimes you will be able to catch a glimpse of applied game theory at work. Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s not. I wrote recently about a peculiar store that swapped where the entrance and exit ought to be if you were to optimize for the natural flow of foot traffic guided by the register’s locations... This isn’t just mom and pop store; it’s one of the most successful grocers in the region of the country I’m living in today. Those are hard businesses to run well due to how thin the margins can be. To anyone not thinking at all, this gating choice just looks like a bad decision that was an accident. But it does something to everyone that defaults to the natural footpath from register to exit. They need to turn their body by about 90 degrees which makes them look at another part of the store that has a much lower foot traffic but higher margin products than groceries. The subtle cognitive influence this prompts across a set of thousands of people walking into and out of that place every single day may result in more people taking a second look at merchandise prior to leaving. Just a guess, but these days I’m hesitant to ever attribute incompetence to where applied game theory may be living. Especially in the hands of well-trained practitioners of the art of their field.

Masters of an art which require some level subversion will never be caught by an untrained eye. Afterall, why do you think sleight of hand works so well to entertain a crowd? Everyone in the auditorium except for a very select group of people know the stage magician isn’t a literal magical wizard that can breathe smoke or make things appear from nowhere, but that doesn’t exactly break the illusions they’ve cast over you unless you’re also practiced in the art or trained onto their tricks. Great illusionists will only ever let you see what they want you to see and that’s part of being good at it. Your sleight of hand either works or it doesn’t work.

Now if you get really good at this, you’ll probably start seeing weird shit all around you like a fucking conspiracy theorist. It won’t just be one thing or one company, it will be a lot of them because applied game theory done well is the purview of good corporate planning. But the trick to catching it is finding the profit motive. If you have any amount of wisdom (unlike me), you will never ever point analysis like this at anything that could bother you. Because sometimes these things hurt to entertain. Exploring profit motives in such a way really can paint your whole world black if you’re not careful with it, because money is a motivator for people to commit atrocities. I quite enjoy seeing the good in people (you’re just generally in a better mood when this is the perspective) and I especially don’t want to ever be at the end of a stick of people that are willing to hurt people for money.

Teasing this stuff out is not always as straightforward a thing as noting a foot path in a grocery store that makes people turn their heads towards the apparel section. This is an exercise in imagination that has no real chance of certainty that’s only grounded by some unspoken profit motive tethered to real world circumstances. Some of these incentives can run so deeply that you don’t even want to try to tease them out and you certainly don’t want to be publishing on them.

It’s similar process to reading ergodic literature (books that aren’t meant to be easily read). House of leaves is one of the most notable books in this category of literature you may find to make for a compelling Christmas gift this year. But you should only ever give that book to a certain type of person because few will like it or even want to try to read it. It is a story within a story about a person documenting a manuscript of a researchers notes and the process drives them to near insanity. A primary plot of the book follows something called the The Navidson Record. It is about the Navidson family who lives in a house that’s actually much, much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It keeps on changing on them too, torturing the family who lives inside of it. They become very nervous when they see doors appearing that weren’t there when they moved in. The sudden change itself is a frightening experience to them, let alone the supernatural aura which surrounds the home they moved into accidentally. Inside the house there’s this seemingly unending labyrinth in the basement with an unseen monster that can be heard growling. House of leaves is quite a good analogy to the experience of mine over let’s call it the last 12 months. Least of which is because like the Navidson family who observed their house changing on them, there’s been someone besides me that has had access to this blog for an unknown amount of time. Like the mysterious doors which appeared in the Navisdon’s family house, they’ve changed some things at times.

I’ve sent a lot of emails out this year, and I’ll have sent two today. I’m going to take a break until 2025 now... Merry Christmas.