Relationships are a series of complex games

[JinzouTamashii]

What does that phrase mean to you? Is the connotation positive or negative?

[Koveras]

A game is an activity where you put a non-critical amount of personal resources for the thrill of either losing them or winning more. Such attitude to relationships occurs to me as too irresponsible, but it may be my personal ineptitude at building relationships that's speaking there. ^^ However, I read there are quite a few people to whom emotional and social manipulation comes naturally, so I guess they are the ones who can perceive any relationship as a game or even a series thereof.

[Samu-kun]

The statement sounds like the sort of thing an arrogant person would say. If something's a game, that means that there's a winning and a losing strategy, which implies that if play your moves right, then scoring with a girl (or guy) is certain. Not quite an accurate statement, since people are just as irrational as they are rational, so there's no way to predict who will win and who will lose in relationships, differentiating from a game.

Actually, wrong place to be asking this. Ask your elders for this sort of wisdom, not me. =_=

[JinzouTamashii]

Someone said this to me and I didn't know how I felt. Still don't, actually. I guess it will be a central theme of some of my future releases.

This is the general discussion and kind of Ren'Ai related so where's the problem? LOL.

And I... I don't have any elders to ask for wisdom except my grandmother... and she's the kind of person that's more of a listener than a speaker.

[Samu-kun]

The last couple of times we tried talking about real life love stories didn't go down so well, if I recall. Well, unless you want to play bar tender and listen to the bitter stories everyone will mope out if we get too far into this. Ufufu... =w=

[JinzouTamashii]

Should I just delete this and leave the interpretation and venting for the VN writing everyone does?

[Tsundere Lightning]

'Games' in that sense means "Rational decisions, made by multiple rational actors."

War is a game in that sense, or business.

It's a logic concept.

[JinzouTamashii]

Elaborate.

[Wintermoon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory

[Tsundere Lightning]

What Wintermoon said.

A game, in logic, is when there are multiple rational actors trying to win SOMETHING. Someone's heart, a business contract - whatever. Any activity where having a good strategy is very helpful, because other people will have strategies to get it INSTEAD of you or to hamper you.

Mind, in romance, good strategies include "Be polite," "be flirtatious," "Be a decent human being." Beats out "act like a tsundere" often, and it's morally correct too.

[sake-bento]

I think that at your most cynical, you can consider relationships (or anything, really) in light of game theory. The major flaw in game theory is that it doesn't predict for human goodness. While humans on average tend towards the results you get in game theory, economists still have trouble finding a good way to quantify things like charitable acts and altruism. It's been done, but it's not a very strong model.

I think the view that relationships are just complex games is a bleak and cynical outlook on life, but not one devoid of reason. Unfortunately, it is nothing but reason, and there are certain human emotions that are not subject to reason.

(For more on the subject, please read Liar Game. All of it. Not like you'd want to stop, anyway.)

[Samu-kun]

Well, actually the more common criticism of game theory is that it doesn't account for the irrationality human hatred. Goodness doesn't make as much difference as hatred in game theory because the former doesn't lead to the worst possible outcome, while hatred invariably does. If you hate someone enough, then no matter how much beneficial it is to make a certain move, you make another move just to incur harm on another person. (ie. if people hate wickedness, then they have a witch hunt, even if they have to wrongly execute 10 innocents to catch a single "witch," leading to the worst possible outcome of a net loss for all the players) In fact, game theory almost gives humanity too much credit, since it assumes that people will act rationality to make themselves better off, while in real life, people rather frequently make decisions that makes everyone worse off based on ignorance, arrogance, elitism, hatred, and prejudice.

[sake-bento]

Well, actually the more common criticism of game theory is that it doesn't account for the irrationality human hatred. Goodness doesn't make as much difference as hatred in game theory because the former doesn't lead to the worst possible outcome, while hatred invariably does. If you hate someone enough, then no matter how much beneficial it is to make a certain move, you make another move just to incur harm on another person. (ie. if people hate wickedness, then they have a witch hunt, even if they have to wrongly execute 10 innocents to catch a single "witch," leading to the worst possible outcome of a net loss for all the players) In fact, game theory almost gives humanity too much credit, since it assumes that people will act rationality to make themselves better off, while in real life, people rather frequently make decisions that makes everyone worse off based on ignorance, arrogance, elitism, hatred, and prejudice.

Game theory assumes that people act rationally to make themselves better off, thus making all of humanity worse off. It's just the prisoner's dilemma. The point is that someone looking out for their best interests will, in fact, make everyone worse off because of it. If we all look out for ourselves, we don't all wind up better off. Everyone loses.

It's true that human hatred is also incredibly difficult to quantify, but game theory often assumes the worst possible outcome, even when everyone is looking out for their own individual benefits.

[Samu-kun]

Tit for tat actually solves for the prisoner's dilemma within the framework of game theory. Also, you're assuming all games to be zero-sum games, when that might not always the case.

[Tsundere Lightning]

Agreed. Game theory takes into account the possiblity for multiple winners; it's not "how can I screw someone over and win," it's just "how can I get the best result?" The answer to that last question is USUALLY "by helping others do the same."