Chaos and Autocracy
Chaos is not a pit Chaos is a ladder -LittleFinger
Well to one extent it is true..
Most people don’t realize the most radical people benefit from chaos in hence..
People who are naive and easy-going don’t open their eyes..
When some trouble events happen..
Because we have been taught and programmed it’s malevolence and evil..
Even though you cannot ideally generalize how people think in that way..
Do not except fairness yet do not lower your expectations on yourself as well.
Mainly speaking what chaos creates is fear and order and that is sometime what most people need in order to survive hence not corrupt in an intangible manner.
Everyone has secrets, and everyone is living a double life to some degree.
The world is held up by lies; if everyone’s secrets were to all be revealed tomorrow morning, civilization might collapse.
On a micro level, every person has things that must be concealed because if they were to be revealed their reputation would be damaged; they would be disliked and at risk of ostracism.
The more secrets you have the more points of vulnerability you have, since the more different ways there are that you could be discovered.
You don’t know those closest to you nearly as well as you think you do.
Think of all the things you have kept secret from those closest to you; understand that they have kept just as much secret from you.
In the words of Baltasar Gracian, “We belong to none and none to us, entirely. Neither relationship nor friendship nor the most intimate connection is sufficient to effect this. To give one’s whole confidence is quite different from giving one’s regard. The closest intimacy has its exceptions, without which the laws of friendship would be broken. The friend always keeps one secret to himself, and even the son always hides something from his father. Some things are kept from one that are revealed to another and vice-versa. In this way one reveals all and conceals all, by making a distinction among the persons with whom we are connected.”
“War rages everywhere.” –Illimitable Man
In modern world it is something of a dogma that zero sum competition doesn’t exists and that everyone can be a winner.
The truth is this; war rages everywhere, ‘war’ being any situation where you face zero sum conflict or competition.
It is both sad and true to say that zero sum games are common while positive sum games are rare. The aim of this essay is to examine the key areas of life that are zero sum in nature
2) Duplicity, Outwardly Kind and Inwardly Ruthless:
While you should inwardly be aware of the zero sum nature of the situations you face and be willing to destroy others for your own gain, outwardly you must appear to be a polite, compassionate, and virtuous person. Such an appearance causes other people to like you (or at least not outright hate you), which makes them more willing to help you and more hesitant to harm you.
3) Power and Status:
Power and Status are not precisely the same thing, but they are so closely correlated that differentiating between them is almost pointless.
They are both zero sum in nature.
A man can only be considered ‘high status’ if he is higher status than other men; being a billionaire grants a man high status only because most men are not billionaires.
Power is zero sum in nature, in the sense that one party can only wield power over another insofar as the other party is powerless.
There are practical reasons to care about your relative level of status and power, beyond just the vanity of having your ego stroked.
When people perceive you are high status it makes them eager to do you favors, since they perceive you are likely to have the power to repay them in a meaningful way. It also makes people hesitant to harm you, because they perceive that you likely have the power to retaliate in a meaningful way.
4) Business:
The business world involves endless zero sum competition.
Sales/Marketing is zero sum in nature; you and your competitors are engaged in a zero sum game of winning market share.
Every piece of market share one of your competitors takes is a piece of market share you can’t have, and vice versa.
Office Politics is a zero sum game.
Your goal is to maximize the probability of being promoted and to minimize the probability of being fired, and you are in zero sum competition with coworkers of the same rank as you for the same promotion opportunities. You are also in zero sum competition with them for keeping your position when layoff season comes.
It is objectively in your best interest for your coworkers to fail, so that your own probability of being handed a promotion is maximized.
There may be cases where the number of promotions available is greater than the number of employees competing for them, in which case the game is no longer zero sum. Such cases are exceptionally rare; odds are you will go your entire career without encountering one of them.
Job Interviews are usually a zero sum game, because in most cases the number of people applying for the open position is far greater than the number of open positions available; in order for you to be given a job offer, others must not be given a job offer.
5) Looks
It is the case that being good looking gives a person a ‘halo effect’; it causes others to perceive them as more likeable, more trustworthy, and more competent.
Good looking men or women are more likely to be hired for jobs than ugly men or women, and more likely to be promoted up the corporate hierarchy.
Of course, this is insanity since in reality the true correlation between physical attractiveness and competence or trustworthiness is zero. Sadly, it is a form of insanity that most humans are plagued by.
Physical attractiveness is a zero sum game in the following sense; the halo effect you get from being good looking only exists insofar as you are better looking than other members of your gender who are roughly your own age.
If every 30 year old man was as handsome as the 30 year old Brad Pitt, none of them would benefit from the halo effect.
It is objectively in your best interest for yourself to be good looking, while every other man or woman your own age is ugly.
6) Envy and Schadenfreude, Evolutionary Purposes:
Envy is feelings of unhappiness when others succeed. Schadenfreude is feelings of happiness when others fail.
The reason we evolved to feel envy and schadenfreude is rather straightforward; in our evolutionary past, zero sum games were common and positive sum games were rare, so it was rational to be happy about others failing and unhappy about others succeeding; the failure of others marginally improved one’s own odds of success, while the success of others marginally decreased one’s own odds of success.
In our modern world, zero sum games take the form of college admissions, job interviews, and office politics. In caveman world (our evolutionary environment), zero sum games took the form of competition over finite resources (animals that could be hunted or farmland), and men engaging in competition for reproductive opportunities (sexual access to women).
Humans are hardwired for zero sum thinking (envy and schadenfreude), because for all of the evolutionary timeline and even today zero sum games have been ubiquitous.
A minority of people are powerful, high status, and rich. Most people are powerless, low status, and poor.
7) Consequences
-Losers are the majority. Winners are a minority.
-To be average is to be a loser.
- Shoot for the stars or drown; there is no middle-ground.
8) Last but not least
Fortunately, there are positive sum games in life; games where you can work together with others for mutual benefit.
While power and status are zero sum games, wealth is a positive sum game.
Free market capitalism can make everyone richer on an absolute basis.
Relative wealth (being richer than other people) is a zero sum game, but absolute wealth (how much material wealth you have) is a positive sum game.
Wisdom is a positive sum game; open discourse can make everyone wiser.
Secrets should go with you to the grave, but wisdom should not.
If there is valuable wisdom inside your head, you have a sacred obligation to write it down and publish it before you die.
