Games people play - and what to do about them

Ever met someone who stubbornly refuses to admit to whatever he is doing? Annoying, isn't it. Also works magic, most of the time, because as long as you do not understand what it is you are doing wrong, you cannot be expected to change it.

Thomas Schelling, one of the people we can blame for not having a nuclear war just yet, had some pretty good insights into the topic, though. Looked at the proper level of abstraction, of course. I will also be relying on some insights from Eric Berne. Both were geniuses. They clearly had to be.

Essentially, what the person is doing is self-handicapping. Something that can indeed work wonders in a game of war, or business negotiations and of course, in intrapersonal communications. Essentially, it forces the other party to play a restricted game, which is probably not in his favor.

So, of course, the only real solution is to change the game to be more even again. This is fairly easy, if you have something that you can use to credibly punish the person for his transgressions - you just start doing that and pretty soon he will realize that it is not in his best interest to act in that way... and stop.

This, of course, assuming a repeated game. Otherwise, the best you can do is make a threat of punishment and hope he believes it.

However, it is often very hard to make a credible threat. Much of Schelling's "Strategy of conflict" deals with just that fact - and describes how it is often required to severely handicap yourself in order to make the threat credible.

An example due to Schelling himself - if you want to buy a car and are willing to go no higher than 50 000 but the dealer's last bid is 70 000 (but you know 50 000 would still give him profit), you can try signing a legally binding contract with a friend stating that if you buy that car for more than 50 000, you have to also pay your friend the same amount. This, in effect, takes away any possibility of you paying over 50 000 dollars - in a completely demonstrable and provable way that is evident to the car dealer. He will feel cheated, but might still sell you the car.

Not that drastic measures are needed everywhere, though. The point to take home is that credible threats can be notoriously hard to muster and can be very weird and contrived in some cases.

Now, suppose however that the only threat that you can really make is the one you cannot commit to in an at all believable way... or that if carrying out that threat will essentially leave you in so terribly bad state the other party will never believe you are willing to carry it out. Think nuclear war here.. or suicide... or telling a person you love you will never talk with her again. Essentially, something so bad that you just cannot make its consequences any worse for yourself even if you wanted to.

Although Schelling considered cases in which carrying out a threat makes you worse off than you are and showed that there are definitely cases when such threats work, the key point is you have to be able to commit to that. In cases where you can't...

Well, then, you're fucked.

Thankfully, humans are not completely rational beings. This is where Berne and his idea of people constantly playing games with each other comes to play. Namely, most people just play to win and it is often enough to just take away that joy of victory for them to stop. Which sounds a big no for empty threats because you will be called on it and it will amount to one big win to the other party. One that will keep him coming back.

You can of course try to make a threat and stick to it.. but hell, if it literally or figuratively kills you.. face it, you will be called on it and then have to die:P

Now, as stated initially, calling the other person on his game directly will not help - since he is playing that he does not acknowledge it is a game, saying he is playing it (which I believe Berne to advocate) does not take away his victory because he does not have to admit to you being right.

Albert Ellis (the creator of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy) was the person to figure things out, though. And the solution is supposedly surprisingly simple - just replace the verbal acknowledgment with a physical one - as purely behavioral cues often work better than rational ones. Theoretically, the other person is robbed of his victory without having anything to really argue against. Especially if you have set the rules beforehand saying that the "physical acknowledgment" is o.k. in certain well-specified circumstances. And it doesn't even have to be much - a weak slap to the face with a folded paper works miracles on both puppies and humans, at least according to Ellis.

Works especially well in cases where the penultimate threat is "I will never speak to you again" - because then you can just set the terms in a way that "this is how I will act when you do the things I have specified." The person can always choose not to interact with you any more, if he wants to - so this doubles nicely as a commitment to "never talking", as it will now be the other party who would have to worry about carrying it out, taking the burden right off your shoulders :)

It helps to have friends who study psychology. It also helps to study enough yourself to be able to understand that their seemingly ludicrous suggestions actually have a fair chance of working.

And Schelling is just a good general read ;)

Arrival in Mordor.. err.. Sydney

First of all - the two last nights in Estonia were quite fun. On the first one, I went out drinking, first with Sirgi and Elis and then with Miki and his friends.

The last day there was a wedding which, with the exception of a VERY corny official registration, was actually quite a bit of fun. I was given the role of Protector of the bride.. which included a plastic shield and sword and an absurdly small helmet. Some parts of the wedding were somewhat depressing for me - mainly because of my lack of success with finding someone to share my life with, but definitely amplified by factors like lack of sleep and the thesis getting ready. However, in total, it was still one of the most memorable experiences I have had in estonia in quite a while.

I left the wedding at 2 a.m. to get at least some sleep before my 30 hours in transit.

The next morning, I quickly packed my bags and then got a lift to Tallinn in a car of a friend-of-a-friend. They dropped me off at the airport. My mom came to meet me with food there, as I had asked her to make some sandwiches for my long trip. She had, but had also brought a lot of other stuff with her, "just in case". Salad for instance.. some of which I ate but most of which I had to throw away in the security check.

I had a nice long 8 hour wait in Helsinki airport. Enough to make 2 cups of coffe, have 5 hrs of bass practice, to finish up the slides for my conference presentation and to chat with some friends over the internet.

In the plane to Bankok, I got a seat in the front row.. which meant extra legroom.. or even putting my legs on the wall.. literally. I spent most of the flight watching episodes of "Simpsons" and "How I met your mother". The latter actually seemed better than I initially thought.. I now understand my friends who have started to watch it from the start...

In Bankok, I met two australian girls who seemed to be following the same route as me. We walked the whole length of the airport, which was basically one huge shopping street. Afterwards, I pointed out a wall socket and we sat down. The cuter girl started playing plants and zombies, while the other one solved crosswords and I practiced my bass. Time passed fairly quickly.

I managed to sleep a little in the second plane. Mostly movies and comedies again, though. "Better off Ted" seems fairly promising. I got to see very nice things through the window though - clouds underneath and moon above - miraculous. Or Sydney from above in pitch black darkness - looked like Mordor in the LOTR movies - but a very scenic view nonetheless.

In Sydney, they confiscated my supply of rasins and dried plums. The quarantine they have is pretty strict, but at least they were very nice about it :)

When I got to the city (by rail), a few things surprised me. For instance, the GPS in my phone was not particularly cooperative.. and map did not even show Sydney on the map unless you zoomed quite close. However, what struck me even more was how people crossed the streets. Although most places had lights for pedestrians, they were OFTEN ignored, as people seemed to be in a general state of hurry around 7.30 in the morning. There were scents in the air - both coffee and foods.

I went to my hotel and asked whether I could check in a bit early. Unfortunately, my room was not yet ready, but they allowed me to leave my bags there, in their basement, in a room located in the end of what can only be described as a long maze of corridors.

I stopped by a shop to get something to drink and also a phone card. I then continued towards the conference venue. The hostel was 412 Pitt str. Conference was 37 on the same street. Yes, all the intermediate numbers were also present. It was a nice walk, as I was surrounded by skyscrapers with ground floors generally filled with stores, cafes or hotels.

I arrived at the venue just in time for morning coffee. Met a few people from last year too. Strange I still remembered their faces, but I did. Asked one of them (whom I knew to be one of the organisers) about the wifi and got access.

First talk was by Gentry who explained his Fully homomorphic scheme (one of the biggest breakthroughs in Cryptology in the past 2 years). Realistic ciphertexts are 260 mb and each operation takes about 3 minutes. Painful, but very interesting nonetheless. The presentation was surprisingly easy to follow though - I was afraid it would be a lot more complicated.

During the first session I attempted to activate my new SIM card over the internet. Without success. After lunch, I finally called their customer service about that. A man with a noticeable indian accent responded. He had to hold for 10 minutes while I looked up the address and phone number of an acquaintance in Sydney -- as they required an Australian address and land line nr in order to grant me a mobile phone number and told me that was required by law. Strange.

The conference is now ending for today. There is a dinner in the evening, and I still need to practice my talk before giving it tomorrow. I am really looking forward to getting to bed tonight, though.