I like the metaphor “the Game” a lot to describe consequentialism. I’ve been thinking about it a fair bit recently. Its use in The Wire seemed particularly relevant, and a bit less so in Game of Thrones. I obviously don’t like the book association, but I think its quite fair to consider that a minor thing in comparison to its’ greater use.
I think the idea of “compare yourself to the best person” is a bit of a fallacy, though one that basically everyone seems to do. What really matters is that people do what is optimal; and that means comparing yourself to whatever you find pragmatically useful. The best person obviously shouldn’t compare themselves only to themselves, as they should be aiming for higher still.
While this may be a suboptimal funeral, I think my idea of an ideal funeral would look something like a few analysts going over my life to try to get a sense of how well I did on The Game relative to what I should have aimed for, given my very unique advantages and disadvantages. Then hopefully writing up a document of “lessons learned” for future people. Something like, “Ozzie was pretty decent at Y, and had challenges Z and Q. He tried doing these things, which produced these modest results. We’d give him maybe a C- and suggest these lessons that others could apply to make sure they do better.”^1
Great post!
A few points:
I like the metaphor “the Game” a lot to describe consequentialism. I’ve been thinking about it a fair bit recently. Its use in The Wire seemed particularly relevant, and a bit less so in Game of Thrones. I obviously don’t like the book association, but I think its quite fair to consider that a minor thing in comparison to its’ greater use.
I think the idea of “compare yourself to the best person” is a bit of a fallacy, though one that basically everyone seems to do. What really matters is that people do what is optimal; and that means comparing yourself to whatever you find pragmatically useful. The best person obviously shouldn’t compare themselves only to themselves, as they should be aiming for higher still.
While this may be a suboptimal funeral, I think my idea of an ideal funeral would look something like a few analysts going over my life to try to get a sense of how well I did on The Game relative to what I should have aimed for, given my very unique advantages and disadvantages. Then hopefully writing up a document of “lessons learned” for future people. Something like, “Ozzie was pretty decent at Y, and had challenges Z and Q. He tried doing these things, which produced these modest results. We’d give him maybe a C- and suggest these lessons that others could apply to make sure they do better.”^1
[1] Ok, maybe this is trolling a little.