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Detectives & Dramaturgy
1. There are two potential explanations for why Tana French’s “literary thriller” In The Woods portrays human interaction and detective work how it does. The first is that she read Erving Goffman’s microsociology work, internalizing its principles. Alternatively, she trained and worked for over a decade as an actor. Goffman is famous for the dramaturgical…
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Planète sauvage
I took 3-MeO-PCP for the first time in a long time, standing in the baby-blue kitchen of L & N’s Ridgewood apartment. I dissolved into litboard threads feat. The Brothers K, then schlepped across town to the Rubin c. 7:00 & smoked a spliff by the entrance & went inside the glass doors & went…
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Language Games: Work, Play, Simulacra
Our speech may not be rational, but it is motivated. When we choose to speak, we speak for reasons. Our perceptions alter our models, alter our decisions, alter our actions. Our actions alter others’ perceptions alter models alter decisions (ad infinitum). Advertising is communication with specific, narrow motivations: envisioned ends which, in conjunction with player…
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Girls S2: Lip Service
“How can I be manipulating you if I don’t even know I’m being manipulative?” This, out of Hannah Horvath’s mouth after asking her father for a loan. This is the question of the Girls S2 finale. What does interpersonal manipulation really look like? Can we manipulate in a way that appears to be denying our…
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Epistemic Strategies pt. 2
There is probably no contrast more striking, in the comparison of the mixed-motive and the pure-conflict (zero-sum) game, than the significance of having one’s own strategy found out and appreciated by the opponent. Hardly anything captures the spirit of the zero-sum game quite so much as the importance of “not being found out” and of…
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Short-term, long-term in selection games
Natural Hazard prompts in the Pfeilstorch server: “The biggest problem with misrepresenting who you are in dating is that you might succeed.” Generalized: “The biggest reason to not strategically misrepresent yourself in a selection game is that you might succeed.” What properties of a selection game determine if or when this is good advice? Selection…
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Adaptation ripples in the NBA
Last time: Bateson was very interested in nontransitive comparisons, possibly because they subvert the commonsense transitivity of hierarchy and dominance which in many cases we read into the data because of our expectations. We rank sports teams for a winner at the end of the season, yet this final ranking aggregates a lot of non-transitivity…
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All Is Well E28: “My hands are tied”
Previously, on communication as manipulation: “Consensual and Non-Consensual Manipulation,” “All Communication is Behavioral Manipulation,” “All Communication is Manipulation,” “Linguistic Fit,” “Is strategic interaction Machiavellian?,” “A Landscape of Communication,” and “ACiM is a Natural Extension of Cybernetic Theory.” Timestamped link to clip under discussion, beginning 16:05 in. Su Mingyu has recently been released from the hospital…
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All Is Well E28: Functional Railroading
Previously, on communication as manipulation: “Consensual and Non-Consensual Manipulation,” “All Communication is Behavioral Manipulation,” “All Communication is Manipulation,” “Linguistic Fit,” “Is strategic interaction Machiavellian?,” “A Landscape of Communication,” and “ACiM is a Natural Extension of Cybernetic Theory.” Timestamped link to clip under discussion, beginning 5:30 in. Shi Tiandong, love interest of protagonist Su Mingyu, is…
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Value Clarity 2.0
C. Thi Nguyen’s “value clarity” concept (advanced in 2020’s Games: Agency as Art) is a useful one, whose basic idea goes like this: Nguyen believes games “work” (compel us) largely by providing value clarity for their players—that is, game worlds are characterized by artificially narrow and unambiguous set of priorities and purposes over which the…
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Baselines for the would-be strategist
There’s a set of strategy maxims that get passed around Pentagon powerpoints, Greek history textbooks, and business school seminars which can be considered platitudes of the field. I think they probably boil down to about a dozen guidelines—I’ve gotten them down to fifteen here, but think good synthetic work could manage single digits. Don’t tilt…
A D Jameson all communication is manipulation Alva Nöe ambiguity compression Erving Goffman fashion fitness games generalized reading hermeneutic circle institutional theory Interpretation Jürgen Schmidhuber Karl Friston language games linguistics literary theory literature Maggie Nelson maps meaning music music criticism New Sincerity nostalgia opticratics Peli Grietzer Pierre Bourdieu pop music poptimism predictive coding predictive hermeneutics predictive model predictive processing Sarah Perry selection games signaling signaling theory strategic interaction surrogation the inexact sciences Thomas Schelling vibe theory visual art
Suspended Reason 