Is there really even a game?

Much of what has existed in all our lifetimes can be considered games: economics (saturated with game theory), politics (winning/losing as primary metaphor), education (guessing what the teacher wants), or even religion (betting on believing in the "right" one). Truth be told, "game" is a metaphor to describe how these "systems" function. But what happens, when nobody wants to play anymore?

Just doing your own thing, in the face of or even in spite of conventional wisdom, is a way of opting out of the game. Maybe the alternatives being developed are games as well, but they strike me as all having a feature that most games do not have: cooperation. Games are primarily about winning and losing (which is why politics is the most obvious of the currently existing games), they are competitive (enter economics), they contain elements of chance that need to be minimized (education) and they entail a certain risk (religion). Well, there is risk outside of games, just as there are elements of chance (luck) in every aspect of our lives. What remains, then is the competition aspect.

There are times and places for competition, to be sure. Adolescents are full of it, and they most likely need to be. Grown-ups get over that; elders recognize it for what it is. One of the reasons we buy into the competition myth is that there was a time in the history of humanity when it appeared to be a natural and good thing. You might have guessed, I believe that was in the adolescent phase of our development ... I happen to think it's time for us, as a species, to simply grow up. In other words, competition is not a necessary part of most aspects of our lives.

Families, work environments, clubs, churches, groups of all kinds only function when everyone pulls together. Even on a larger scale, groups of families constitute a neighborhood, similarly interested clubs benefit from exchange. Cooperation is an essential part of their successful functioning. What we are finding is that cooperation is beneficial in more and more areas. Our problem is that we don't have a lot of experience with cooperating because we've too long been conditioned to believe that we have to compete.

Competition is based on seeing differences in others and emphasizing that difference. Cooperation is based on seeing similarities in others and emphasizing what all have in common. Considering that the world is getting smaller every day and that we are discovering more and more how similar we are as human beings, it makes sense to shift our thinking somewhat to a cooperative frame of mind. How can I (we) help someone else? How can others help us (me)? What can we do together that we can't do alone? These are the questions that simply have to take priority.

The good thing is that there are lots of folks who are just doing it. They are getting together, they are cooperating, and they are becoming increasingly visible because what they are doing is good, right, and successful, even according to standards that they themselves may not consider sacrosanct. A world in which cooperation plays a bigger role is fundamentally different from one based on competition. All transition is difficult, but the advantage of becoming more cooperative is that there is a pretty good chance that you'll find someone who can give you hand.

Changing the game?

Before some of you go apoplectic and smell the air of revolution in the air, let me reassure you that I'm not saying everything we have and believe is crap. Far from it. Even though I have made a big deal of, say, Germany's recent election, to me this is just an example of a much larger issue. Even though Germany has a pluralistic democracy, what comes out in the end, is really not as pluralistic as it first appears. Just like the Americans, for example, who decided (in true Enlightenment fashion) for a first-past-the-post democratic republic which encourages ignoring the others, in most pluralistic democratic republics, the tendency has been to simply ignore the rest anyway by just looking at what is, never even thinking about what-is-not.

But, it's not that easy anymore. The what-is-not has means at its disposal to remind everyone that there are other ways of looking at things. This was, and remains, the most noticeable (and admirable) aspect of the Occupy movement. They may not be an organized political force, we may not hear a lot from them these days, but they are still in our minds and we still know that they are around. Groups, movements, and the like that can make themselves known are much harder to ignore. And that's what has changed. In those days when news traveled slowly, it was perfectly acceptable to act upon the knowledge one had because it was easy enough to convince others that there was nothing else to be known. By the time the other views reached the center (or capital), it was often simply too late. Things aren't like that anymore. We have instantaneous communication, ever more people are coming online (either through computers or cellphones), and those who are in power at any given time have to deal with the fact that just about anything they do is subject to scrutiny. Simple or contrived majorities or landslide victories are soon revealed for what they are: fictions. You can say you represent the will of the people, but it is getting more and more difficult to ignore the people. The powers-that-be (TPTB) still try, but it is getting harder.

Whenever TPTB are challenged, the reactions are harsh. The more they are challenged, the harsher the reactions. It's not right, grant you, but I do understand the psychology and logic involved. They are in the spotlight, they have to change, and they don't know how. They've become, in essence, economic and political "flat-earthers". For those of them that can read and for those of them who have been willing to read a little history know that their days are numbered and they are going to go the way of the dinosaurs and dodos, which is what they, in the end, actually are.

Fortunately, there are a lot of folks who have washed their hands of the "way things are" and just do them differently. This is where employee-owned businesses, cooperatives, regional currencies, local environmental activists, and more come in. They are not playing the old game, they are redefining how the game is played. They realize that there are lots of ways around the system ... at least those parts of it that just don't work anymore. Anyone who is concerned about their future, or the future of their children or grandchildren, need to start taking these alternatives seriously.

What these alternatives demonstrate, on a daily basis, is that many of our perceptions are simply wrong. There doesn't have to be one strong leader or nothing works. There doesn't have to be particularized vested interests to make things happen. There is no reason why money should be the domain of just a few or why it should play such a dominant role in our lives. In simplest terms, they are showing that there simply are viable, workable, and adaptable alternatives. They haven't reached a tipping point yet, but they will sooner or later. We'll all be much better off if we take the time to reflect on our own perceptions and consider what the alternatives have to offer.

Unrigging the game

The only reason I say the game is rigged is that only a few even get to play. We're made to believe that we can play, but in reality, we -- the rest of us, the bulk of us -- were benched long ago. I suppose there was a time when the economic and political systems that we have today had their value and their place, but whether we like it or not, things have changed, yet too many of our perceptions have not.

I can't say it enough: perceptions are powerful things, and most of us don't realize just how powerful they are. They cause us to do things, at times, that may not be what we should be doing. For those who might have trouble following this, let me explain what I mean in an analogy.

You get up at sunrise one morning and see the sun just above the horizon in the East. It is a beautiful and inspiring sight, to be sure, and you feel exhilarated and inspired to make this a good day. That evening, at twilight, you go out again, and see the sun just over the horizon in the West. It is a beautiful and inspiring sight, to be sure, and you feel exhilarated and inspired because today was simply a good day. Our experience; that is, that which we saw by going outside, "tells" us that the sun rose in the East and set in the West (and that's how we even describe it in English). We know, however, that the sun really didn't do anything, rather the earth turned and made it look like the sun rose and set. Except for a number of flat-earthers still running around, we know that reality is different from our experience, but the feelings associated with the event remain, and the real knowledge of what is at work is simply pushed into the background. What is more, even though we were inspired by (or at) these events, we also know -- somewhere in the back of our minds that there are others who saw the same sunrise and sunset but whose days were anything but inspiring or uplifting, they were full of pain, misery and maybe even death. Yes, we "know" this, but we keep it out of our awareness as much as possible.

It's really no different in other areas of life, like economics or politics. Our experience tells us one thing, but we know deep down that many other people's experiences are not as positive as our own. We may have got a new and better job, but how many others had the misfortune to lose theirs, maybe forever. Our party may have got elected to government, but we just assume the other folks will we see the wisdom in this and "get on board", though we know, deep down, that they may be made continually unhappy by the policies being made. In both of these cases, we tend to think that that's just the way things are, that there are immutable (not hidden, but most often not-thought-about) laws at work that makes things the way they are. In other words, our perceptions are one things, but we "know" that the reality of it all may be something very, very different.

You might say that things have always been this way so what are you going to do about it, but if you take a serious look at the unfoldment of the presence of humans on this planet, you can't help but notice that there was a time when the perceptions we had couldn't even be challenged. Ask Galileo or Copernicus. Today, however, things are different. We know they are different, we can relatively safely challenge others' perceptions, but we too often still act as if we lived in the Middle Ages or even earlier. Much of what we "believe to be so" today is, of course, a product of the Enlightenment (certainly our political and economic systems), but we've moved on. It's time we owned up to this fact and simply acknowledge that perhaps not everything we think, that our perceptions, may not be best suited for our own times.

Who likes playing rigged games?

Last time I advanced the thesis that less is more, especially in politics, primarily because the more is more or less ignored. Before I get to those who are completely ignored and then, as promised, back to the mistaken crowd that thinks that not voting is automatic exclusion from the discussion, let's take a look at those who did play the game but lost anyhow.

Just considering the people who voted for the moment, we should recall that almost 60% did not vote for the most likely future government's leaders. Even in the best case that the CDU and SPD get into a coalition, we will now have a situation that nobody voted for, namely, some sort of compromise on positions from the parties represented. Still, just over 30% of the voters didn't want any of what is being proposed even in compromise form. (Remember, folks, a stockholder with 20% of the shares of a company is considered to have a controlling interest; for example, the State of Lower Saxony owns 20% of VW and nothing happens to VW without Lower Saxony's OK.) Those considered so far, of course, are the ones who at least offered alternatives to what the "ruling" parties are going to offer. When we add in the rest of the folks, those who didn't vote at all, we have, as I noted last time, over 50% of the population who are not be represented.

It is foolish to think that people who have put their heart, soul, time, and money into proposing a political platform will just throw it overboard just because the majority or the plurality of voters didn't choose them. What is more, an additional 28% of the voting populace took a look at all 10 or 12 party offers and said, in effect, there's nothing there that speaks to me. Granted, there may be some people who don't care, but you can't assume it's all of them. If you don't know, you have to actually assume it's none of them. Now, my question for the purists is, why does not voting not count? Maybe there is simply nothing worth voting for.

We all know, of course, that these 28% will simply get ignored. No one is going to ask why their own message didn't get across, and they are not going to ask why 70% or 80% or more of the voting populace didn't vote for them. No, whoever thinks they have the most say is going to do whatever they want to do as far as they can and everyone else is just going to be ignored. In other words, you can look at the parties that make suggestions and recognize that if they don't "win", they're ignored, so it is even easier to ignore the ones who made no suggestion at all.

This is, in effect, the way things work, but it's a rigged game. If you get some say you claim that's what everyone wanted, knowing full well most did not want that. If you have no say, you're treated as if you have no say and are supposed to rally round the flag for the ones who are now speaking for you. And then they wonder why there is discord in the country.

It's all very simple, really. If you can get hold of power, you can do pretty much what you want, but nothing too extreme (generally, though there are historical exceptions to this), but you can act as if the vast majority simply doesn't exist. I, for one, however, am not convinced this is the best way forward.