Games of social life

Observations pertaining to an anthropological case-study:

This game is called "who looks better". This particular game turns out to be a dangerous game; since in the real life it actually matters "who looks better". Here is a typical strategy people use:

1) Players A and B start by standing face-to-face, and telling each other anything they can think-of that can make the other person look bad. This can happen in a park or over a kitchen table.

2) Then they depart from each other and start advertising to others that they "look better" than their opponent. As such, the objective is to convince as many spectators as possible that your opponent is uglier than what they think he or she is:

3) Player A proceed by coming-up with fictitious stories (may originate from reality, but is sufficiently distorted to qualify as fiction) and propagates them among his acquaintances.

4) Player B replies by trying to discredit player A calling him crazy. The idea is that if player A is discredited then all of his statements will be interpreted by others as false.

A funny consequence of this move by player B is that for her to win the game, it has to become a self-fulfilling prophesy, i.e., player A has to become crazy.

5) Once in a while, one of the spectators decides to believe player B over player A. In such cases, player B seizes the opportunity by calling player A and bringing that to his attention. She also calls the acquaintances of Player A at 2:00am in their local time to win their votes. And there are those spectators who mediate the game through public media, the worse of them being smart aleck theorist and e-mailers!

You might wonder why spectators bother to take a side. It's because any spectator automatically becomes part of the game "who looks better". Among the many ways a spectator can look better is by making right judgments. After all, if you can call-out the guilty party you're smarter than both player A and B, and consequently, you look better than both of them. Furthermore, certain spectators seize the opportunity to compensate for their “old losses” on the game of "who looks better". After all, this game can go on for lifetimes! As you might have guessed, spectators are an essential part of this game. Without them the game is simply absurd!

6) Rules regarding types of money accepted by the dealer (the devil) for purchasing your chips are very flexible:

Your respect, your honor, your honesty, your genuine concerns, your quiet evening times, your emotions, your tears, your health, your sanity, your rationality, your family ties ... you name it.

7) There is no shame in changing strategy or using the same strategy as that of your opponent. Even though, from time to time you might find certain strategies of your opponents very hurtful, reducing the pain is not one of the objectives of the game. The only objective is "who looks better" at the end of the day.

8) Players and spectators can take breaks from the game and return back as many times as they wish; the only requirement being that the game must go on. In fact, certain players get sick of the game and decide to quite.

As such, the game of "who looks better" can be a very painful experience. But, the sweet taste of wining, au contraire, makes the game worthy of eternal recurrence. In practice, the overall number of the players and spectators remains steady throughout the game, and there are always plenty of exchangeable goods to purchase your chips with.

9) It turns out you do not need to make time for playing this game. You don’t even need to learn the rules of the game. It comes naturally to almost everybody. And you’re most likely so good at this game that you don’t even notice you’re playing it.


Happy playing kids!