Monthly Archives: January 2010

Social Manipulation Or Shrewd Marketing?

Beware The Door Buster

I was waiting in line down at this new electronics shop last weekend. They had this massive grand opening, and they were going to give away this really cool flat screen TV along with a home theater system. They said they’d give out free raffle tickets to the first five hundred people that showed up, and then they’d draw later on in the afternoon to see who won. The catch, of course, was you had to be there to claim your prize. And since they gave out the free raffle tickets at eight o clock in the morning, they were assured that five hundred people would not only likely buy something that morning, but make plans to come back later. Marketing plans like this are fairly obvious. Give somebody a gimmick to get them in the door, and then do your best to up sell them while they are there.

Car dealerships are notorious for doing this. They’ll run an add in the paper for a certain make and model for a ridiculously low price. Of course they’ll say in the small print that there is only one particular car at that price, you can tell as they list the VIN, or Vehicle Identification Number of the car in question. Sometimes they’ll have three or four at that price. People see the ad, and mistakenly believe (to the hopes of the dealer) that all of the cars are at that price.
Then when they show up, they’re told they all sold out. When that happens, the dealership has two powerful tools of influence naturally working in their favor.

The first is something called “Commitment and Consistency,” as pointed out in the often referenced “Influence, Science and Practice,” by Robert Cialdini. When people make a public commitment, they are much easier to be persuaded to do something that is along the lines of that commitment. Political campaigners know this. When they phone people the week before an election and ask them if they are going go out and vote, most people naturally say yes. Since they’ve made a public commitment, even to a complete stranger over the phone, they are much more likely to vote than the average citizen who hasn’t made such a commitment.

By going to the car dealership in search of a good deal on a car, you make a certain commitment. It’s not like the car salesman pulled you in cold off the street.

Another powerful factor they have working for them in this case is social proof. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, we humans are pack animals and are extremely susceptible to crowd behavior. We love to follow fashions, stick to the status quo (unless you are a singing basketball player), and follow the crowd. So when you show up, and the car you wanted is “all sold out (all one of them),” it gives the impression that many people are after the same car, which makes it more desirable.

So by putting those cheesy ads in the paper, and getting you to make a trip to the dealership, just by showing up you have two powerful forces of social influence guiding you to buy a new car.

It’s no wonder that stores use the same tactics. They work, and they work beautifully. Stores use them so much because they work so well. All those incredibly insane “door busters” that you see the day after Thanksgiving, or black Friday, are carefully designed instruments of social manipulation. In case you are unaware, the reason it’s called “Black Friday” is in reference to the black ink bookkeepers use when they are making a profit. In this case black is very good.

To make matters worse, sometime they’ll have free giveaways, but the “winner” is actually a ringer. A plant that works for the store. Even though this is clearly immoral and unethical, it’s pretty hard to uncover and prosecute. The only danger lies in a store being found out, and it’s business getting a bad reputation. Even when people have a suspicion that the winner may indeed be a “ringer,” they still line up, “just in case.” We humans can be terribly easy to manipulate sometimes.

If you can figure out a way to get the free stuff, without giving in to the temptation to buy whatever they convincing you to buy through their masterful social engineering, so much the better.

One thing I usually do in a case like the free TV giveaway is only take five dollars with me, and leave all my credit cards at home. That way even I’m persuaded by the slickest of salesman, I won’t be able to buy anything. Hopefully by the time I race home to get my credit card, I’ll stop and wonder if I really do need that beef jerky machine. It’s not like I eat beef jerky every day, or even once a week. Why in the world do I need to cook the stuff?

So as I was standing there in line, looking at all the awesome electronic gadgets that I would surely buy if I were rich enough, I started talking to the guy behind me. He was involved in several MLMs and told me places like this were a great opportunity spread his business. People were surrounded by all this stuff that they wished they had enough money to buy, so naturally they would be open to opportunities to make more money, at least in principle. This guy said that he had great success recruiting people for his “downline,” at these “free” offerings. He scans the paper every week, and goes to as many as these as possible. He said the best time is right before the actual drawing, when people’s interests are the highest.

He said he was kind of “piggybacking” on the social manipulation of the business. He would show up in the morning, talk to a few people in line, and not mention anything about his business. Then he would come back that afternoon, strike up a conversation again with the people he already met, like he was an old friend. Then while the excitement and expectation was high, he would slowly ease the conversation into his well-crafted sales pitch.

He said that if he only gets one person per “giveaway,” then it is well worth his while, because in the long run, each person that joins his “downline” is worth potentially thousands of dollars, if not more.

And, of course, I didn’t win the TV, and I bought this cool little vacuum cleaner for my keyboard, that plugs into my USB port. And a new computer mouse, because my old one, was, kind of, you know, needed replacing. Or something.

The Surfer’s Dilemma

Unwanted Attention

I was walking down the street the other day when something really strange happened to me. Something completely out of the blue that I would never have guessed in a million years. That seems to be happening to me a lot lately, strange things. I’m not sure if these kinds of things have always been happening, and I’m only now noticing because I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for various reasons, or maybe there has been some kind of shift in the way I project my reality out there, I’m not sure.

Nevertheless, I seem to be finding myself in more and more weird situations lately. I don’t know if this has ever happened to you. Sometimes you are on the other side of the glass, watching all this interesting stuff happen to other people, and you wonder, why doesn’t that happen to me? And the more you think that way the more you seem to notice it happening to everybody but you. But as soon as you forget about paying attention to what is going on with other people, and just kind of relax and go with the flow, suddenly you find yourself in a sea of weirdness that the most psychotic dream couldn’t produce.

Like once I was at the beach, and we were wondering if it was worth going through the trouble of putting on our wetsuits and getting into the water. It was one of those blown out days where you may get a couple of decent sets, but then again you may sit out there for a couple hours freezing to death. Then this guy goes running out into the water with his board, and no wetsuit. We are all little surprised because the water was no more than 63 degrees, and nobody can really last that long at that temperature without a wetsuit. So he goes plunging in, and as soon got out past the junk this awesome set came in. He took the second wave, and started off like a pro, and then just completely and utterly wiped out.

He was underwater for a long time, and few guys were making moves to jump in and pull him out. We didn’t know of any rocks or coral or anything, but you never now. You could see his board, and it seemed like his leash was still attached. Finally after what seemed like much to long a time to hold our breath, he stood up, completely wrapped in seaweed. Not just wrapped, but it looked some undersea creatures had taken the time to do some really intricate rope work on him. The way he was wrapped up in seaweed, there was no way he could have just crashed into it and ended up like that. When he first came out of the water, he was kind of bent over with his arms closely at his sides and his fists clenched. He was barely out of the water, and it didn’t look like he could draw a breath with all that seaweed wrapped around him.

Finally, with an obviously huge effort, he stood and raises his arms up, breaking the seaweed, and screaming at the top of his lungs for what seemed like a long time, but in likelihood was only a few seconds. He reached down, grabbed his leash and pulled his board in.

Then the spooky part happened. As he walked back up to the beach, he kept asking people “Did you see them? Did you see them? Longer than you think man, longer than you think,” with this really fearful look on his face. We could tell that he kept wanting to look back towards the water, but was afraid to. Every time he would begin to turn his face towards the ocean, his eyes would get really big, and then he’d look directly down at the sand in front of him, before continuing on to the parking.

The next morning, seven bodies washed up on the beach. They were people that had been on the missing persons list or months, even years. And none of them showed any sign of decomposition whatsoever. Like they all died of shock, and had been dropped off into the water right after death just off shore, at the precise timing so that they would immediatley wash up. All of their eyes were open, in what was anonymously reported in the paper as “The most fearful look I’ve ever seen.”

So as I was walking down the street, waiting for the next weird thing to happen to me, I checked my watch. It had stopped about an hour previous, or so I thought. I asked around what time it was, and everybody gave me a completely different time. I mean like hours apart completely different. I would ask one guy, and he would say it was 3:30, which didn’t make sense, since it felt like I had just left my apartment an hour ago, at 10:30 am. I was only about a ten-minute walk from the station, and I knew I had taken the 10:45 train. The next person I asked said it was 8 am. They must have realized I didn’t believe them, because they showed me their watch. The person after that told me it was six thirty, again, showing me their watch. Nobody was exchanging any glances, like they were in on some practical joke. I would just ask them the time like normal, they’d quickly answer without a second thought, and then go back to their business.

Then I felt a really strange sensation, like I was being watched. I turned around, and that same surfer guy that was caught in the seaweed was staring at me from across the square. He had the same frightful look on his face.

I walked, not sure why, not sure what I was going to say. He started speaking before I could think of a question.

“They’re still out there, you know,” he said, his eyes darting around.

“That was only the beginning.” He added. I had no idea how to even begin to respond, so I turned to walk away. And just then the huge clock tower, which I had never noticed before, struck twelve noon. And as it did, everybody froze in their tracks and turned to stare at me.

Day At The Barber

Take A Break

Once I was sitting in this barbershop, waiting to get my haircut. I usually don’t go to the barber; I usually just cut my own hair. I keep it as short as possible, sometimes even lathering it up every morning in the shower and shaving it with a razor. Sometimes, through sheer laziness, I’ll let it grow out a half-inch or so before I break out the shaver and cut it myself. I don’t have a particularly scientific way of cutting my hair; I basically use the same strategy as when I shave my face.

I just feel around and if it feels even, then it’s ok. Of course, several times I’ll catch myself in mirror and realize that I missed a spot. If it’s on my face, it’s no biggie; I just remember to be more careful the next day on that particular spot. If it’s on my head, however, then I feel a bit self-conscious and shave that area the first chance I get.

Sometimes, however, it just feels good to have somebody else cut my hair for once. Especially if they are old school, and break out the straight razor and the hot foam. It’s hard to find a barbershop these days that will do that among all the fashion places that are out there.

I remember once when I used to live in Taiwan, and I went to get my head shaved. It was the first time I’d ever had my head completely shaved, and I decided to go to a barber, instead of trying myself. I didn’t speak any Taiwanese, so I had to use gestures to get my point across, which I easier than you’d expect. Just by playing a game of charades you can understand how much you can get your point across using gestures and body language.

There’s even been a few case studies of the spontaneous development of completely new languages in a relatively short amount of time through only gestures. There was a time in a South American country where deaf children were thought to be somehow mentally deficient or something. So not much attention was given to them, or how to help them learn to communicate.

Then some missionaries came in, and set up a school for all the deaf kids. Within a few months, all the kids had developed a completely new language, based, obviously, only on hand signs. This was a full complete language, not just bunch of symbols that were used in place of sentences. These kids were speaking a language that contained all the grammatical requirements for an accepted language.

This case was used as evidence among transformational grammarians who believe that language is an innate instinct in humans, and not merely a learned trait. Our brains are pre-wired with certain grammatical rules. If you study any of the known languages of the world, they will all obey specific grammatical rules. Noam Chomsky even suggested that all the world’s languages are merely different dialects of the human language.

Most people that have traveled to a foreign country where their native language is not spoken quickly find out how far you can get on gestures, facial expressions, and body language.

So when I asked the barber to shave my head, I was expecting her to use a regular razor that you shave. The double-edged kind that is safely inside plastic case in order to minimize the danger of cutting. But what she did was lather up my head, and then to my shock she pulled out this huge straight razor, like something out of a Sweeny Todd movie. To say I was nervous would be an understatement. But after I survived without bleeding to death, I went back to hat shop several times during my stay in Taiwan to get my head shaved.

So every once in a while I like to hit up a regular barber, to relax and let somebody else do the work.

As I was sitting there, I wondered the barber has been such a frequent hang out of so many people. I’m usually the kind of guy that focuses on results, rather than process, but sometimes the process is the result. Just by sitting and waiting, and chewing the fat with all the folks sitting around, it somehow offers some kind of break from everyday life. Which is why I like this particular barber. Even though shaving my head with a number one or a number two razor really shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes, the guy that does it really takes his time. It’s nice to be the focus of such a concentrated effort.

Leverage Criteria For Ultimate Power

One of the most powerful ways to easily persuade somebody to your way of thinking is elicit and leverage criteria. Everyone you will ever meet is a walking talking collection of unmet wants and needs. And for most people, most of these unmet wants and needs are sufficiently vague so that you can easily leverage them to your benefit.

Be careful though, you can easily misuse this power to trick them into doing something or buying a product that is against their interests. If you do this, then woe be unto you.

So how do you elicit criteria? Simple. Once you establish rapport, and generate a sufficient level of comfort, just ask them what’s important about something. Be sure to ask respectfully, and with genuine interest. Most people are a little bit shy about talking about their deep desires and criteria, and will quickly close themselves off to you if they smell any amount of incongruity.

For example, let’s say you are on a first date with a girl. Or maybe not even a first date. Maybe you are just talking to her at a party or a bar. You look around, comment on all the single people. Say something about how hard it is to find the right person for a relationship. If she agrees, then that’s good. It’s usually good to go first, and reveal a little bit about yourself first.

So you mention something about your relationship (make sure not to say anything bad about anybody) mention some of the good things, and mention something more that you were looking for. For example, you could say that your last boyfriend or girlfriend was a good friend, and a good conversationalist, but they really didn’t like to travel. They were a great guy/gal, but they weren’t as adventurous. So you needed to move on. Being adventurous is important to you.

Then you ask the person you are talking to about what is important to them in a relationship. It’s key to make sure to agree that whatever they say is important.

Then ask what is important about that? For example, if they said they want to meet somebody with a good sense of humor, casually ask what they find important about that. They may say that they want somebody that can laugh at themselves. Somebody that doesn’t take themselves too seriously.

One of the great things about this is that just by talking to somebody about what is important to them, they will subconsciously start to think of you in those terms, provided you have enough rapport. If you do this several different times, they will really start to develop deep feelings for you.

Another example.

Let’s say you are selling long distance plans. You get somebody on the line, get them talking, and ask them what long distance they are currently using. Instead of jumping right into switching them, like most people do, ask them what they like about their current plan. Ask them what is important about those things that they like. Be sure to agree with whatever they say.

Lets say they mention they like that it is part of their current bill. And you ask them what is important about that (make sure not to sound like you are going to convince them that it shouldn’t be important, agree with whatever they say). They will say something like they don’t have to worry about two separate bills. It’s easier that way. They don’t have to worry.

Then simply convince them that with your new plan, it is totally simple, and they won’t have to worry. Just let them know that it will fulfill their existing criteria, and will save them money.

This can take some time to get down, so that you can use it conversationally, but when you do you will realize how powerful this is. You will notice a significant increase in your sales and your ability to conversationally persuade and influence others.

The Lady On The Stairs

Watch Your Step

This morning, as I was out on my normal morning, pre dawn walk, I witness a potentially devastating event. Just as I was walking past this apartment complex, an older middle-aged woman had just begun to start walking down the stairs. In both hands were bags that were overflowing with stuff. Just then, she tripped, and fell rather quickly straight onto her face, causing her head to twist at a strange angle. Because her hands were full, she couldn’t do anything to protect her self. As soon as her body slammed face first half way down the stairs, her momentum kept her turning as did another flip, landing on her back at the bottom of the stairs.

I remember a few years ago I used to be big into cycling. I had a mountain bike with slick tires. I got a mountain bike because there were quite a few extremely steep hills in my neighborhood, and I quite enjoyed riding up and down hills. With a regular road bike, the gear ratio wouldn’t have been enough to tackle some of the steepest hills.

I had been riding a hundred miles a week or so when I decided to add some extra components to my bike. The one I bought hadn’t been anywhere close to a top of the line model. More like a weekend hacker model. I bought some handle bar extensions, and some toe clips for the pedals. The handle bar extensions and the toe clips were for when I rode long, flat distances on the weekends. Usually to the beach and back.

So I got my toe clips, and went home to put them on. I read the instructions, which warned very severely of the dangers of not knowing how to get out of them in a hurry. I rode in a couple of circles taking them on and off. There was a special twisting motion you had to do. You had to kind of push down and twist out. At first it took a while, but with practice you can get out relatively quickly. I hadn’t got that far yet.

So I went off riding. It was about 6 pm on a weekday. Heavy traffic of people driving home from work. I decided to ride on one of my many hill routes. So I started off, and came to this really long hill. Just at the top, where it flattens out before going downhill, there is a big intersection. There are two lanes dedicated to turning right, and there isn’t a bike lane or a sidewalk. So if you are on a bicycle, and you want to go straight, you have to position yourself between the two rows of cars turning right, and the three rows of cars going straight.

Here’s the funny part. As I came to the top of the hill, I wasn’t going nearly fast enough to coast to a stop. As soon I stopped pedaling, my momentum would quickly die. Just as I stopped pedaling, I remembered I had my toe clips, but unfortunately, I didn’t remember until it was too late. Just as I tried to remember how to get out of them, I fell crashing to the ground.

BAM!

What was interesting was, despite, the surprise, shock, and mild pain, the first thought to enter my mind was “I hope nobody saw that.” When I disconnected my feet from the pedals, I grabbed the stuff that had fallen out of my pocket, and stood back up. I briefly checked to see if I was bleeding, then I did my best to pretend that nothing happened. I didn’t want to look at anybody in the many cars around me, because I was sure my ego wouldn’t be able take it if somebody was laughing at me (just as I would likely be laughing at somebody in my own predicament). So anyway, I rode off, making sure to practice getting in and out of my pedal at every opportunity. I got pretty good at it, even though I fell over once more a couple days later. Luckily, there was nobody around.

I also remember a couple years ago I was running on a playground with some kids. I ran too fast for my own good, and suddenly felt an extremely sharp explosion of pain in my right hamstring, causing me to immediately collapse into a heap on the ground, screaming in pain. I remember then a completely different thought entered into my brain. I didn’t care if anybody saw me, I didn’t care if anybody was laughing at me, I didn’t care if I bothered anybody with my screaming. All I knew was that I was in pain, and I wasn’t going to do a goddamn thing until the pain went away. I would have lain their screaming until somebody called an ambulance if that’s what it took.

Luckily, however, with a few moments the pain subsided enough for me to stand on my own, and limp rather painfully to bench where I could sit down. As it turned out, I only pulled it; I didn’t rip it or anything. I just had to limp around for a couple of days.

Two different accidents, and two completely different automatic thoughts. One to protect the ego, and one to protect the physical body.

So when I saw the poor woman finally come to a seemingly painful halt at the bottom of the stairs, my first thought was how I was going to get an ambulance. I didn’t have a cell phone, and it was still dark, so there weren’t very many people around. Just as I was considering that, she brought her self up to a sitting position, and rubbed her hands over her face, looking at them, apparently checking for blood. No blood. I went over an asked her if she was OK, and she said she was, in a kind of a tone that made it seem like she was brushing me off. Then after another check for blood, she grabbed her things and started putting them back into her bag. I tried to tell her to rest for a bit, just to make sure she was OK, but she insisted she was. After she collected her stuff, she went to her bike a rode off to what I assume is her job.

At first, I admit, I was a little miffed that she didn’t thank me at all for coming to her aid, (even though I didn’t do anything) until I realized this was clearly the first kind of accident, where the first thought is to hope that nobody saw you, in order to protect your ego. Which is obviously much better than screaming for an ambulance.

As I continued on with my walk this morning, I thought how that is a pretty good example of many unconscious strategies that humans have developed over the years. In this particular case, the strategy seems to be:

Category One

Accident –> Check for damage –> Collect your stuff –> Keep going.

Or, in my playground example

Category Two

Accident –> Scream bloody murder until help arrives, or until accident is downgraded to category one.

Not a bad way to get out of trouble rather quickly.

Are You Hungry?

Beware Of Equality

So the other day I was waiting in line at the movies, which was surprising. Not that I was at the movies, but that I was waiting in line. I don’t particularly like crowded movie theaters, so I usually try and go during off peak hours. One reason is I always seem to time leaving my apartment, so after I take the train, walk to the theater, buy my ticket and my popcorn, and get to my seat, the trailers have just finished, and the main feature is starting.

When I show up and there’s a bunch of people, it throws off my schedule. Of course I can’t get too angry, because if nobody ever went to the movies, they’d close down the theater and put up some huge karaoke bar or bowling alley or something. And because I thoroughly suck at both karaoke and bowling, I wouldn’t likely participate in either of those two activities, leaving me with a blank space in my mental entertainment schedule where the movie used to be. Or would have used to have been. Or whatever. So while I appreciate the need for a steady stream of customers, I try to avoid them at all costs. Which is why I was surprised that so many people were waiting on such an off peak time.

I think there was some school related activity or something, as they all had on their school uniforms, and I overheard people talking about some project or something. I seem to remember once in high school when we were studying “Heart of Darkness,” by Conrad, we all watched the movie “Apocalypse Now,” which was based on the story. So perhaps that is what they were doing.

I overheard two guys behind me talking about grammar, and I wondered what movie they were seeing that had anything to do with grammar. Most movies are about car chases and bank robberies, and metaphorical aliens, but not dangling participles or split infinitives. So I asked them what they were talking about.

They said they were talking about their teacher, who is kind of a language zealot. Now I’ve heard about self-professed language “mavens,” those guys that like to write articles about how famous people misuse grammar, but I’ve never heard of a language zealot before. So naturally, I asked them to please elaborate on this.

I turns out this guy is part of the anti “be verb” movement. Some of the crowd he runs with would like to remove the “be” verb from our vocabulary all-together. Others say that it does have its uses, like when describing static things like an address or a phone number. Since I have no idea what this means, I asked them to please elaborate further, seeing as how the line didn’t seem to be moving at all. Somebody must have been making a special popcorn order or something.

Whenever you use a be word, you’re basically using the linguistic equivalent of an equals sign. Like if you say “I am hungry,” then mentally, you are saying that your entire entity, collection of molecules and atoms and beliefs and experiences are all collectively equal to the state of wanting to eat something. Now I didn’t know that people did so much thinking when they made simple statements like this, but according to this professor, it all happens subconsciously in a split second or so.

Since the brain is based on a categorical representational system, it immediately goes off on a search for everything else that could be considered “hungry,” since you are saying “I am hungry,” your brain figures that it had better equate you with anything else it can find in your history that “is hungry.”

The reason this is a bad thing is that it creates a lot of static labels that clog up our neural pathways. Like a bunch of sticky notes all stuck inside your brain that never get cleaned out. Like if you said “I’m hungry” and then a couple minutes later said “I’m angry,” that would set up another equal sign in your head that “hungry” = “angry.” So maybe two weeks later, if you said “I’m hungry,” your brain would remember the “angry = hungry” definition you gave it a couple weeks ago. If you weren’t really angry, it might look around to find something for you to be angry at.

To make it even more confusing. If one day you said “I’m angry,” and then a minute later said “I’m angry,” but then two days later you said “I’m hungry,” and then said “I’m happy” you brain would go into a never ending tail spin, trying to figure out how “angry = happy” which would likely make you feel very confused, at least on a subconscious level. It’s basically like having about a hundred adware programs running on your computer simultaneously, clogging up your resources and making your computer run really slow. If you run some anti-adware software, your computer will run much faster.

This guy was trying to teach his students to say things more accurately, that way you can slowly get rid of those linguistic equals signs clogging up your mental processing speed. So instead of saying “I’m hungry,” say “I feel hungry,” because everybody knows feelings change all the time. So even if you said “I feel hungry,” and right after that said “I feel angry” your brain would see them as mere coincidences, rather than trying to force them into the same category in your brain.

Some other examples that they gave me.

I’m angry à I feel angry
I’m tall à My height measures 89 inches.
I’m fat à The scale reads 250 pounds when I step on it.
I’m broke à My bank account contains $2.45
I’m shy à I don’t feel like talking to people right now

And so on. Notice the verb changes? From a “be” verb to feel, measures, reads, contains, feel. All these verbs can easily change state based on the situation, and won’t clog your brain with useless equivalencies.

And just as they finished explaining all this too me, I turned out that all those high school students were in line for a different movie, and I was able to watch my movie in a relatively empty theater, just how I like it.

Visit from Thanatos

You Never Know When He Comes For You

Once there was this old lady that owned this shop. She had worked there for a long time. Many years ago she had opened the shop with her husband, and would have supported him in any endeavor, provided it made enough sense. Back in those days it was considered quite a rebellious act to go against the status quo and start your own business from scratch, rather than to either follow in your fathers footsteps or to work for a large company. So in that respect, the particular business wasn’t her particular choice, but it had made sense at the time, and had made enough money to live a comfortable life, so she supported him all the way.

He, of course, passed away several years ago from various complications. She had been running the shop on her own for a number of years, due to his growing illness. So it was just natural that when he passed on, she would continue to do so. Sometimes, though, she wondered what would have happened had she not made the choices she did. She did have a decent life, several children, and grandchildren, all grown up and moved out. Having the shop kept her fairly busy, and there were plenty of times she wished that she had husband that had more a traditional business or work, one that wouldn’t require her support. She never shared these thoughts with others, for fear of coming across as ungrateful.

There was another choice, back in the day. When her husband had started courting her, there were also several others, of which only one was a serious contender in any measure. When it had come down to it, had they both proposed, she would have had a hard time deciding, but as things happened, her husband (obviously) was the first to propose, and back in those days, when an eligible suitor proposed, you just didn’t say no.

But she did allow herself to wonder sometimes. What would have happened if? If the other one had asked her first. He was being groomed to take over his fathers business, which was very large and very well established. She would have undoubtedly had a much easier life, and much more time to participate in high society affairs like watching the polo matches and such. But she never allowed herself to think those thoughts for very long, the mind seems to feed upon itself whether you wish you would have done things differently as well as when you appreciate your life for whatever it has brought you.

She was standing there, daydreaming like this, in her shop, when the strange gentlemen entered.

“Afternoon,” he said, tipping his hat. Strange, she thought, men hardly wear hats any more, let alone tip them to lonely old women in shops.
“What can I do for you?” she politely asked.
“Well, let me see,” he said pulling out a list. He looked at it briefly, and then handed it to her.
“Would you by chance have any of these?” he asked pleasantly.
She studied the list.
“Why yes, I think we have all of these items,” She said, leading him through the shop.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” He asked.
She paused, looking at him. He seemed quite young.
“I’m sorry, I can’t say that I do.” She said, more than a little bit curious.
“That’s OK, most people don’t. At least they like to pretend so.”
She wasn’t sure what she meant. She set the basket of items next to the register, and began to ring them up. It was still the same cash register from when the shop originally opened. When she was about halfway finished, he reached out, putting his hand on hers. It was ice cold. She unconsciously recoiled, and then was ashamed for her rudeness.

“I’m sorry, I…” she began.
“It’s ok.” He paused, waiting for her to understand. She looked him in his eyes, which betrayed a confidence and quiet determination well beyond his apparent years.
He reached out, one more and extended his hand. He held his hand as they did back in the day when polo matches were all the rage, and men and women both wore different hats for different occasions.
She understood.

“Is this how it ends?” She asked? More than a little nervous.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be there before you know it.”
“There?” She said, suddenly confused, worried, terror stricken.
“You’ll see.” He said, smiling.

Finally, she reached out, and took his hand.

What Is The Best Strategy?

Tit For Tat? Or Screw Your Buddy?

The other day I was riding my bike downtown, not going anywhere in particular. The weather was particularly nice, so I was just riding around. I had brought a couple of books in case I found a decent place to hang out. There wasn’t anything good playing at the movies, so I wasn’t in any hurry to be anywhere at any specific time.

I found this really strange bookstore. I hadn’t noticed it before. There were all these stacks of books that looked like they weren’t in any discernable order. Just slightly more organized than random. Like they just unloaded them from the used book truck and put them in stacks wherever there was space.

I went inside and started looking around. A sort of pattern emerged. The non-fiction books were over there, and the novels were up here in the front. And in the non fiction section, the how to books were kind of off to the side, the general non fiction books, like books about sociology, and the history and evolution of the sewing machine, and books about baseball were over there. And then the used textbooks were kind of off to the side next to up there.

As I started poking around, I was astounded by how cheap these books were. This one for twenty-five cents. That one for a dollar. The most expensive book I found was one titled “Step-by-Step Guide to Alchemy: How To Turn Any Object Into Pure Gold,” was three dollars. I turns out that it was a textbook that was used over at the university in an undergraduate course in metaphysics. I would have bought it, being able to turn anything into gold would seem to be quite a handy skill to have, but it was a really huge book, and even if it did fit into my backpack, there was no way I was going to haul this thing around the rest of the day.

So I continued to look, and I find this book about computer simulated game theory. It was written back in the seventies, and was about different programs that were developed to play a game called “The Prisoners Dilemma.” This is a classic puzzle from game theory. Here’s how it goes:

You have to people. Each has two cards. One card says “altruism,” the other card says “selfish.” Each player chooses which card to play. There are two players per game. If both players play the “altruism” card, they each get 500 points. If one player plays the “selfish card” and the other player plays the “altruism card” the selfish card player gets 900 points, while the altruism player gets nothing. If they both play the “selfish” card, each is penalized 100 points.

The game is called “prisoners dilemma” because if you have to supposed criminals, in separate rooms, they basically have the same choice. If they both claim innocence, the cops got nothing. If one guy rats out his buddy, while his buddy claims innocence, the first guy goes free (or gets a special deal) while his buddy is sent up the river. If they both rat out each other, then they both get penalized. This of course assumes that they both got caught unexpectedly, and didn’t have time beforehand to strategize.

So what they did, back in the seventies, was they had this round robin tournament. They invited whoever wanted to play to come up with a strategy that they thought would work best. Each player would play every other player (all computer simulated) and they would see who had the most points at the end. They would play a certain number of rounds per player, and then switch.

What they were most interested is what kind of strategy would work best, in the long run, with many different opponents. A selfish strategy, or an altruistic one.
I believe there is a game show in the UK that follows these same rules, but I don’t think it is as statistically relevant as this computer simulated tournament.

So which strategy do you think won? Selfish or altruistic? Which is better, look out for number one, or screw the other guy as often as possible?

The strategy that won, hands down, every single time, was a strategy called “tit for tat.” This strategy simply copied the last play made by your opponent. So if you met up with an opponent that played the altruism card last time, you’d play the altruism card in the current round. The reason this worked was that all the strategies that were based more on altruism, whenever they met a similar based strategy, they would quickly rack up points, as they would both play the altruism card most of the time. The tit for tat would just copy what it’s opponent did the last play, so it would play the altruism card most of the time with an altruistic opponent.

When the tit for tat strategy came up with a purely selfish opponent, neither of them would get any points, because the tit for tat would always copy the previous move of it’s opponent, which was always selfish.

The points accrued by two altruistic strategies when they met each other far out weighted the points lost when an altruistic strategy met a selfish strategy. Needless to say, whenever a selfish strategy met another selfish strategy, they didn’t get any points.

This computer simulated tournament was originally designed by evolutionists who wanted to see how altruistic strategies spring up in nature by organisms that are primarily selfish in nature. Like honey bees pollinating flowers in exchange for nectar, and monkeys that groom each other for no apparent reason. Somewhere, somehow, there is a payoff. And based on the computer simulation, you seem to get the most pay off with a “help the other guy out” mentality. While you might run into a few selfish people, you’ll more than make it up when you run into another like-minded “help the other guy out” strategist.

So anyway, I picked up that little book, which only cost fifty cents, and fit snugly into my backpack, and went pedaling off down the street, wondering what I would stumble upon next.

Darwin In Action

A Lesson Learned

Once upon a time there was a gang of crows. They were adolescent crows, and had they lived in a “decent” neighborhood, they likely would still have been under the tutelage of their parents, teachers, and older siblings. But these crows were not. These crows had long been given up on by the rest of crow society, and as such, they had formed an alliance of terror.

Getting food was easy. Unknown to most people, crows are a particular timid species of bird. They are highly social, and rarely engage in tribal warfare. Because of this, it is particularly easy for any one crow to chase any other crow away from a food source. Because they are so timid, they rarely do this.

Similar to mountain gorillas. Mountain gorillas are extremely shy when it comes to confronting other mountain gorillas. They only will attack if they meet up with somebody half their size, like non-silverback gorilla’s and hikers who wander into their troupe. For this reason, mountain gorillas live very far apart from each other.

But these crows, these delinquents, were much more aggressive than regular crows. Getting food was easy. Just their small gang, which only numbered between ten and twenty, could easily frighten off a much larger group who had found a particularly rich food source, like a garbage dump or an overturned Pringles truck on it’s way to the convenience store.

So getting food wasn’t a problem for these crows, as it was for most other crows. And because it wasn’t a problem, the constant anxiety most crows feel about getting their next meal didn’t occupy their heads. And as such, they quickly became bored.

So they hatched a plan to bring terror onto a local farmer. This particular farmer had a huge corn farm, and crows of all sorts were swooping in and eating corn until their bellies were full. And because this farmer didn’t have any scarecrows to speak of, he was well liked among the crow community. Which made this group of delinquent crows very angry. So they set their sites on the best way to terrorize this poor farmer, and subsequently show their viciousness to the crow community at large. These young crows wanted to make a name for themselves.

So the plan was to wait until first light, when the farmer would come outside of his house to perform his daily farming routines. They crows, of course, had no ideas what these daily routines were, they just knew that he was outside for several hours. They decided then that they would terrorize him, and inflict as much harm as they could.

They crows were gathered, close to the house, waiting for the farmer to come out. Had they been able to understand English, or any other farming language, this is what they should have heard:

“What on earth are all those crows doing out there? They never come this close.” The farmer’s wife said, looking out the window. The farmer came to the window to see.

“Hot Damn!” he said, running to the closet. The farmer’s wife shook her head in playful disgust.

“You and your toys,” she said, getting back to finishing up breakfast. She scoffed when the farmer picked up the phone.
“Yea, call Jack and Alfonse, tell them to get on over, the crows are just sitting their, waiting for it.” The farmer hung up the phone, a big smile spreading across his face.
“You be careful. I don’t want to spend another week without a phone. Last time you and your fool friends did this, you wrecked the phone lines.”
“Yea, yea, we’ll wait till they’re clear,’ said the farmer.

Meanwhile, the crows were wondering what was taking so long. They also became curious when a couple pickup trucks showed up. They got excited when the saw the plump figures get out of the cars.

“This is gonna be fun!” said one young, ambitious crow.
“Just wait until they’re outside before we strike. Aim for their eyes.” Said the oldest crow. The others smiled in evil consent.

“Dang, they sure are just sitting ducks, ain’t they?” Said Alfonse, loading up his semi automatic Remington 12 Gauge. It had been modified to hold twelve shells.

The farmers came outside, smiling, and slightly worried about not shooting the phone lines, like they did last time.

“Let’s go!” cried the lead crow.

They didn’t get far. One by one the farmers gleefully picked them off, as they swooped down. Soon they were surrounded by dead crows that thumped to the ground, their weight slightly heavier than normal due to the buckshot.

“Wow, that was fun. Thanks for the call Elmer,” they said, and climbed back into their trucks.

Far off in the distance, two older crows sat atop a scarecrow that had seen better days.

“Darwin at work,” said one.
“Ain’t that a fact,” said the other.

Then they both returned to the great feast that lay before them.

What Happens When You See The Light?

Self Interference Patterns

Once I was walking down the street, and I bumped into this guy with this big, purple hat. It was kind of a fedora, but not quite. It was a very nice looking purple hat on an otherwise unremarkable wardrobe. The interesting thing about it was how it reflected the light. If you looked at it from different angles, it appeared to sift between purple and a kind of green. When I asked him where he got the hat, I was surprised at his answer.

I had a shirt like that once. I bought it with one of those professional shoppers they have in department stores, for guys like me that couldn’t match colors to save their lives. I had this shirt that was purple, but had this kind of sheen to it that made it look different colors depending on how you looked at it. The great part was that the tie she picked out matched the color regardless of which direction you looked at the shirt. Needless to say, I always wore that tie with that shirt. For my current job I don’t need to wear a tie (thank goodness) so I’m sure what happened to that odd combination. I’ll never forget how that shirt helped me to make a very large sale, earning me a very large commission.

I was reading this interesting essay about the mysteries of physics the other day. I was talking about light, and all of its strange behaviors. To make the essay accessible to people without PhD’s in advanced optics, it was written in a very clear to understand form. It was talking about light waves and light particles as if they had a conscious mind of their own. Like when beam of light enters into a translucent material like glass, water, it will “bend” to match the particular density of the material. The question is how does the light know which angle to bend? As much they can tell, it bends automatically when it enters into the material, as if it has some previously learned information about the material. I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually know which way I walk into a room until I get inside and look around for a little bit.

Another strange thing about light is how it refracts with itself. If you send light through two different pinpoint holes, it will refract with itself. That is the light waves coming out of one hole with eventually meet up with the light waves coming out of another hole. And they behave just like waves of water do. When two peaks meet, they reinforce each other. When two troughs meet, they also reinforce each other. But when a peak meets a trough, they cancel each other out.

So for one hole, you’d have a bunch of concentric circles emanating out. But when you get two holes, the two circles form a specific pattern. And when they put some film on the far side, the pattern emerges when the interfering light crashes up against the film. There are lines where the peaks meet up, and where the troughs meet up, but when a trough meets a peek, there is nothing. So you get a bunch of discreet lines against the film.

So far, this is easy to understand. But what happens when they turn down the energy of the light, so that instead of coming through in waves, it comes through in particles? One particle of light will go through one hole, then a second later another particle will go through the other hole. What is the pattern that emerges on the film?

You’d expect that it would be a big blog of hits downstream from each hole. A photon, or light particle, would go through the hole, and then smash into the film in front of the hole. Likewise for the other hole. After a while, you’d expect two big collections of dots in two relatively small areas.

But that isn’t what happens. Each photon, as is goes through the hole, immediately changes course and hits a specific point on the screen. When they let the experiment run long enough, they eventually make the exact same pattern that the waves made. A bunch of discreet lines.

So how does each particular photon know where to go when it goes through the whole? It’s like it can look into the future and see what would happen if it were a high energy wave, and go there. It’s like it interacts with it’s future self to figure out where to go.

I took a seminar in goal setting once, and that’s one method that the teacher suggested. Imagine yourself in the future, having achieved all the goals you want to achieve in life. Then just sit down and have a conversation with your future self to figure out how you got there. The only rule is that you have to have got to where you will be only by doing things on your own. Like you can’t win the lotto, or be discovered by a movie producer. You’ve got get in on your own steam. I don’t know if you are into setting goals or anything, but that seemed to be a pretty interesting way to look at things. You can also talk to your future self whenever you run into troubles, and ask yourself advice. Since they’ve already accomplished what you are about to accomplish, they should know what they are talking about.

Light interference patterns have always been an interest of mine. It has been said that Einstein came up with most of his theories by imaging really bizarre and abstract interactions with himself and a beam of light. When you get down to it, light is a really strange and cool thing.

So I was wearing my shirt, and this guy came into the car dealership where I worked. Maybe I was feeling good, because it was the first time I’d worn that shirt/tie combination and had received a bunch of compliments, but the shirt somehow made the guy feel comfortable asking me a bunch of questions about this car he wanted to buy, and eventually bought, making me nice commission.

And the guy wearing the purple hat said he bought it at the goodwill store downtown, for a dollar. He was surprised that nobody else had snatched it up. We got to talking about how you can really find some good stuff all around you if you only keep your eyes peeled and your mind open.