Gamble !

If you're high up in a company largely based on financial interests, you are often rewarded high bonuses when your company makes a big profit. Naively, there's nothing wrong with this. We all know though that one can choose a high risk strategy that can either pay off a lot or make for a large loss. The trouble is that if the first scenario plays out, the strategist gets a big bonus, while if the second option is realized, he loses no money from his bank account. Sure, he could get fired, but that punishment is considerably less direct than the money reward he obtains when his risky move strikes gold. In particular, the punishment is not to withdraw millions of dollars from the strategist's account. It is my claim that this strongly encourages people high up in the finance industry to gamble very heavily.

Moreover, their leverage is huge, which means that the gambles that don't pay off can make their company collapse, and others with it. Their gambles have real consequences for ordinary working people. Yet, when their company and others go bankrupt, there is no real consequence for the top finance people's bank account.

The present reward system for top people in finance benefits the rich, and disadvantages the poor.

We can boil this down to a form of exploitation of the law on business and individuals. An individual will remain responsible for his debt. A company can go bankrupt, and no creditor will see his money back. Therefore, it is advantageous to create a business, gamble heavily, and reward oneself if one wins, and let the business go bankrupt if one doesn't.

Of course, I'm simplifying things enormously, but the basic mechanism at work is real, and destabilizes our financial system. That was evident in 2008, and it is still evident now.

Execution without trial

The rhetoric surrounding the execution of Ben Laden often links his death with notions of revenge, evil, the old testament, realism and pragmatism, but also with Obama's re-election, the possibility of a shrine and the legacy of Al Qaeda. It is my impression that the left is willing to make an exception to the rule of due process, the right to the sacredness of life, and any given individual to any one of his principles. There is a pragmatic breaking point to anyone's defense of the moral higher ground.

An overpowering force was sent into a foreign nation to kill the public leader of a terrorist organisation. It made it manifest that the execution under any circumstances of key figures in an enemy camp is seen as a viable strategy by any nation. And public support for this modus operandi is broad.

I fail to see the big impact this indivual's death would have on public opinion anywhere. The reading of history in terms of heroes and villains is childlike. Once more, the thousands of newspaper articles that attempt to turn journalism into history seem to have succeeded in making children of us all.

To my mind, the execution of Ben Laden testifies to the fact that we are not yet far removed from barbarism. Perhaps the manifest violation of principles that are defended publically, both at the scale of nations, and in our circle of friends will serve as a useful reminder as to our primitive nature.

Fukushima

The integrated yearly radiation tens of kilometers away from Fukushima is tens of milliSievert. One CT scan will expose you to a few mSv, which is also the typical yearly dose in a random place.

Slowmo

WTF by Marc Maron

The podcast WTF by Marc Maron is a delight. Marc Maron is a stand-up comedian with lots of experience, contacts and friends in the comedy world. He interviews celibrities, friends, and comic geniuses, and digs into their personal lives. His interview style is up-close and personal which is made possible by his own disclosures and self-analysis. Maron is a very talented figure who might have missed the best opportunities in his career by being psychologically challenged. It is possible that it took him too much time to straighten himself out for him to succesfully make the best of his many talents. In any case, that does not stop him from being fantastically entertaining in his interviews, his telephone calls to family and friends, his comments on regional peculiarities in the States, on recent political developments, and on his relationship to life, work, love and comedy. His podcast aims, amongst many other things, to paint a landscape of comedy, american and international, stand-up and otherwise. He also informs the listener of the various professional steps necessary towards success and points out many pitfalls of varying type.

Indeed, Maron's podcast becomes extremely interesting when listened to as a guide to mistakes one should not make in attempting to be succesful in any enterprise. It is a perfect illustration to the tragedy of talent, the fading of resentment, and the fruition of an original viewpoint on adulthood, life and how to contribute to society in a most original and uplifting manner.

Poker in France

France legalized the game of poker on certain sites, on the condition that only French tax payers would play on those sites and that the money that was put in the pot was taxed at a certain percentage. The tax, compounded with the high rake that poker sites charge for the organization of the game have made the game extremely hard to beat. The higher effective rake rate is combined with a reduction of the player pool, which renders for instance the choice of ring game less efficient. For this reason, and because to play poker at a high level one needs to train a sufficient number of hours (as for any other game), I have quit playing. I made of the order of a 1000 euros in total (after subtracting all initial investments). This is not a bad lump sum, but it is ridiculous compared to the number of hours invested. I would have liked to see whether the skills I acquired would have enabled me to increase my hourly wage to a reasonable amount, but in the present French poker climate, this is simply too tough a challenge. I am glad I got to live the pre-Arjel era in which it was clearly possible to systematically beat the game at least at micro and low limits texas holdem.

The Arjel law is ridiculous because of at least two reasons. The first is that not the profit but all money that one gambles with is taxed. The second reason is that it is tragic that the government of nations are slowly but surely dividing up the internet as they did the planet.

Survivor

The television reality series Survivor has it all. It is a most interesting combination of carefully selected sexy people with communication skills, strategic gambling, social functioning, sports and trash talk. It is fascinating to see how the level of the game increases in a few seasons time to the high level one expects when a million dollars are at stake. Less endearing to notice is the mistakes being repeated over and over again. Let me name a few : standing out makes you a prime target for elimination. Therefore, one cannot get caught into a fight, one must not have strong opinions, one should not take up a leader roll, etcetera. Other common mistakes are to believe one has control over the game, to say at random point in time that one is sick of the game, or to claim that one has made the team loose a challenge. Near the final stages of the game, all participants are so fed up with the fake interactions mediated by the money and the articifical environment, that it no longer makes sense to claim integrity, honesty, and other finer qualities. The most painful human mistake in the game is to assume that those qualities are what it takes to win the million dollars, or even worse, to assume that within the game, everybody should value those qualities as they should in real life. It is telling perhaps that so many american participants confuse a million dollar reality tv show with ordinary life. The isolation, deprevation, fatigue and hunger are valid excuses though for baring one's soul to the silent cameramen that professionally register the idiosyncrasies of some participants and the stupidity of others. All of the fascinating antropology of american-tv-tribes threaded with wonderful wildlife pictures of the most isolated and exotic places on earth, makes for a most remarkable and wonderful product of the entertainment industry.