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.