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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
This is the ninth installment in a ten-part series. All Communication is Manipulation All Communication is Behavioral Manipulation Consensual and Nonconsensual Manipulation ACiM is a Natural Extension of Cybernetic Theory Response to Simpolism on ACiM A Landscape of Communication All Is Well E28: Functional Railroading All Is Well E28: “My Hands Are Tied” Girls S2:…
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Epistemic Strategies pt. 2: Clarity, Withheld
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”
This is the eighth installment in a ten-part series. All Communication is Manipulation All Communication is Behavioral Manipulation Consensual and Nonconsensual Manipulation ACiM is a Natural Extension of Cybernetic Theory Response to Simpolism on ACiM A Landscape of Communication All Is Well E28: Functional Railroading All Is Well E28: “My Hands Are Tied” Girls S2:…
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All Is Well E28: Functional Railroading
This is the seventh installment in a ten-part series. All Communication is Manipulation All Communication is Behavioral Manipulation Consensual and Nonconsensual Manipulation ACiM is a Natural Extension of Cybernetic Theory Response to Simpolism on ACiM A Landscape of Communication All Is Well E28: Functional Railroading All Is Well E28: “My Hands Are Tied” Girls S2:…
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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…
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A landscape of communication
This is the sixth installment in a ten-part series. All Communication is Manipulation All Communication is Behavioral Manipulation Consensual and Nonconsensual Manipulation ACiM is a Natural Extension of Cybernetic Theory Response to Simpolism on ACiM A Landscape of Communication All Is Well E28: Functional Railroading All Is Well E28: “My Hands Are Tied” Girls S2:…
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Response to Simpolism on ACiM
This is the fifth installment in a ten-part series. All Communication is Manipulation All Communication is Behavioral Manipulation Consensual and Nonconsensual Manipulation ACiM is a Natural Extension of Cybernetic Theory Response to Simpolism on ACiM A Landscape of Communication All Is Well E28: Functional Railroading All Is Well E28: “My Hands Are Tied” Girls S2:…
A D Jameson all communication is manipulation Alva Nöe ambiguity chords compression Erving Goffman fitness games generalized reading hermeneutic circle institutional theory Interpretation Jürgen Schmidhuber Karl Friston language games linguistics literary theory literature Maggie Nelson maps meaning modernism music music criticism New Sincerity nostalgia opticratics Peli Grietzer Pierre Bourdieu pop music poptimism pragmatism predictive hermeneutics predictive model predictive processing Sarah Perry selection games signaling strategic interaction surrogation the inexact sciences Thomas Schelling vibe theory visual art
