There the notion that American politics often resembles poker while the Chinese rather play go.
I think there is a reasonable case that go teaches certain useful skills beyond ‘just’ providing generic brain excersize. You have to know which groups to fight for and which to abandon, you have to prioritise, you have to avoid becoming fixated on any one part of the board. ‘Play urgent moves before big moves’ is good life advice.
Diplomacy might train people to avoid being stabbed in the back, or it might train them to stab other people. You could even invent your own, positive-sum game if this seems like a potential problem.
The whole situation also raises a bunch of stress in applicants which can cloud the body language.
Politicians are going to need to make decisions under stress, and deal with stressed people.
Are you aware of any company for which hiring people with high social skills is important who let’s their applicants play diplomacy?
Since what I am proposing is similar to a job application process, looking at the hiring process for high-paid corporate roles could be a good starting place for anyone who was actually trying to implement this in real life, as opposed to my attempt here to paint a rough picture of what the process might vaguely look like.
I do know that some financial companies have ‘the theory of poker’ as required reading, and a quick search turned up this recent idea of using custom video games but I think in general companies use interviews more.
Of course, using interviews to select politicians simply allows the government to form an aristocracy. Companies are at least accountable to their stockholders. The idea of turning the government into a company and giving the people shares was, I believe, an idea of Moldburgs’. I find it more interesting than reverting to monarchy, but it has its downsides, especially that, given the distrust of the financial system, I cannot see it having to popular support to get started in the first place.
I think there is a reasonable case that go teaches certain useful skills beyond ‘just’ providing generic brain excersize. You have to know which groups to fight for and which to abandon, you have to prioritise, you have to avoid becoming fixated on any one part of the board. ‘Play urgent moves before big moves’ is good life advice.
‘Play urgent moves before big moves’ is not so much what I’m talking about. Go strategy suggests that attacking weak positions directly is a bad idea.
In Go power doesn’t get used to bluff. You continue to build power and if you are strong enough your opponent has to sacrifice a few stones because it’s not worth to defend them.
China’s idea with Taiwan isn’t to take it in a bloody war. It’s idea is to get enough power that Taiwan has no other choice than to come back. Chinese foreign policy is different than US foreign policy.
Poker has no notion of aji keshi and a lot of people in the west don’t use a concept like aji keshi in strategic conflicts. I’m not even aware of a good word in the Oxford dictionary for aji keshi.
I don’t know about strategy behind Diplomacy but given that I have never read a book about Diplomacy strategy that explains why I don’t know.
If you have never learned Go then given the knowledge of Go rules you wouldn’t come up with the concept of aji keshi yourself and see that it’s important in Go.
Politicians are going to need to make decisions under stress, and deal with stressed people.
If I have a high stakes negotiation then I can usually safely assume that the other person is stressed because he cares about the outcome of the negotiation.
If he is on the other hand stressed because his wife send him an SMS right before the negotiation that she wants to divorce and he spends all the time thinking about the SMS instead of focusing on the negotiation then he becomes hard to read. Especially if you don’t know about the SMS that person get’s very hard to model.
If I do hypnosis and say a wrong word then the tension in the person I’m hypnotising rises. I perceive that change in body tonus and can change course. That helpful as long as the person doesn’t get suddenly tense for reasons that have nothing to do with my interaction with him.
As long as I’m having a decent mental model of the other person and perceive body language I can sometimes do well as far as mind reading goes. On the other hand I lose that if there are stress factors I can’t decently model.
I find it more interesting than reverting to monarchy, but it has its downsides, especially that, given the distrust of the financial system, I cannot see it having to popular support to get started in the first place.
“Popular support” might not be needed. As multinational corporation get stronger and nation states get weaker we might get a world where a corporation get’s stronger than a state. It’s possibly that a corporation just overtakes a powerless African state.
I think there is a reasonable case that go teaches certain useful skills beyond ‘just’ providing generic brain excersize. You have to know which groups to fight for and which to abandon, you have to prioritise, you have to avoid becoming fixated on any one part of the board. ‘Play urgent moves before big moves’ is good life advice.
Diplomacy might train people to avoid being stabbed in the back, or it might train them to stab other people. You could even invent your own, positive-sum game if this seems like a potential problem.
Politicians are going to need to make decisions under stress, and deal with stressed people.
Since what I am proposing is similar to a job application process, looking at the hiring process for high-paid corporate roles could be a good starting place for anyone who was actually trying to implement this in real life, as opposed to my attempt here to paint a rough picture of what the process might vaguely look like.
I do know that some financial companies have ‘the theory of poker’ as required reading, and a quick search turned up this recent idea of using custom video games but I think in general companies use interviews more.
Of course, using interviews to select politicians simply allows the government to form an aristocracy. Companies are at least accountable to their stockholders. The idea of turning the government into a company and giving the people shares was, I believe, an idea of Moldburgs’. I find it more interesting than reverting to monarchy, but it has its downsides, especially that, given the distrust of the financial system, I cannot see it having to popular support to get started in the first place.
‘Play urgent moves before big moves’ is not so much what I’m talking about. Go strategy suggests that attacking weak positions directly is a bad idea. In Go power doesn’t get used to bluff. You continue to build power and if you are strong enough your opponent has to sacrifice a few stones because it’s not worth to defend them.
China’s idea with Taiwan isn’t to take it in a bloody war. It’s idea is to get enough power that Taiwan has no other choice than to come back. Chinese foreign policy is different than US foreign policy.
Poker has no notion of aji keshi and a lot of people in the west don’t use a concept like aji keshi in strategic conflicts. I’m not even aware of a good word in the Oxford dictionary for aji keshi.
I don’t know about strategy behind Diplomacy but given that I have never read a book about Diplomacy strategy that explains why I don’t know. If you have never learned Go then given the knowledge of Go rules you wouldn’t come up with the concept of aji keshi yourself and see that it’s important in Go.
If I have a high stakes negotiation then I can usually safely assume that the other person is stressed because he cares about the outcome of the negotiation. If he is on the other hand stressed because his wife send him an SMS right before the negotiation that she wants to divorce and he spends all the time thinking about the SMS instead of focusing on the negotiation then he becomes hard to read. Especially if you don’t know about the SMS that person get’s very hard to model.
If I do hypnosis and say a wrong word then the tension in the person I’m hypnotising rises. I perceive that change in body tonus and can change course. That helpful as long as the person doesn’t get suddenly tense for reasons that have nothing to do with my interaction with him.
As long as I’m having a decent mental model of the other person and perceive body language I can sometimes do well as far as mind reading goes. On the other hand I lose that if there are stress factors I can’t decently model.
“Popular support” might not be needed. As multinational corporation get stronger and nation states get weaker we might get a world where a corporation get’s stronger than a state. It’s possibly that a corporation just overtakes a powerless African state.