Happines and purpose (and self identity)

I had written in an earlier post about how our life should ideally be a mixture of happiness- where we want things(food, chocolate, love) and get them, and purpose- where we commit to doing something meaningful and achieve it over a period of time (scoring good marks, getting a good job, having a family etc.). The first kind of happiness alone is not sufficient for a person to be happy in the long run, since it lacks meaning by itself- this probably has some relationship with Maslow's hierarchy as well, where you get your basic wants and needs satisfied, and then you need to discover self-actualisation to be truly happy.

Another way to look at happiness and purpose is on the basis of who you are, and what you identify yourself as. For most of my life, I've tried to act like the normal human being when it comes to interacting in social settings, but over time I've realised that it's more fun to just be yourself. You get a lot of happiness by doing the things that define you- the things that you really like doing. As a relatively introverted kind of guy, I might prefer to stay home on a saturday night and play an RPG or watch a movie instead of going out and over time I've realised that it is OK to do this since this is the kind of guy I am and that I don't have to necessarily go out with people for the sake of going out.

Over the course of some more time however, I've come to realise that people who combine different types of characters- especially the strengths, tend to be much more succesful than people who stick to one or few traits. For example, a guy who is naturally soft hearted by nature and who is sensitive to other people- if he puts in a big effort and manages to do all the fun things and just be the normal guy in a crowd, can be incredibly powerful as a leader in social settings, as well as in the corporate world. Similarly, a girl who is talkative and fun and outgoing by nature- if she puts in a big effort to understand the softer and quieter side of life can have a huge impact on her surroundings and be much more succesful than otherwise and indeed more succesful than independently quiet/talkative people. I'm not suggesting that these are the only two types of people- whatever type of person you are, if you can embrace what you're not comfortable with- then you can indeed become a very well rounded character who has a huge impact around his surroundings (and become a character everyone can relate to), at the workplace or at home.

And now to relate happiness and purpose to self-identity. Being yourself and doing the things that you love doing brings you happiness. If you're a foodie by nature, indulge in a feast once a while to stay happy. This is essential to everyone to stay normal- to embrance one's true love(s). However, if you can also embrace the opposite- being health conscious and working out at the same time, then you bring in purpose as well. Similarly, if you're a kind person who teaches at an NGO orphans during Friday night, it would be excellent if you could go out on a saturday night to pub with your friends. Happiness and purpose- Being yourself, and being what you're scared of.

PS: When I say embrace what you're afraid of I'm only talking about good things- if you're afraid to physically injure a person, please don't for instance :P

"Games like Portal"

There are several automated and manually created lists for games which are like other games. Google "Games like <insert random AAA title here>" and you should get a fair number of hits. Each link generally contains at least 10 games which are 'similar' to the game that you just mentioned. Now, this works well in some cases- for example, googling for games like Bioshock can give you System Shock or Dishonored and googling for games like Mass Effect can give you Knights of the Old Republic etc. but a certain game for which I've barely found similar games is Portal (I know it's similar to Narbancular Drop whose developers were consulted for making Portal, and a few other minor titles but let's be realistic guys). There are games with distant similarities, but absolutely no game comes anywhere near to Portal at doing what it does. But, why?

From the Business point of view, Portal was created by Valve which is known for its brilliant Half Life series as well as other good games like Team Fortress and this helps the cause of course. During development, there was an incredible amount of playtesting done to figure out how players reacted to things in the game and the game was modified in order to make the players feel challenged yet not exhausted by the game. The human touch in the game was also modified to ensure that players did not feel 'alone' while playing the game- a feature that has become very important in the current generation where games are either open world such as Skyrim where you can interact with hundreds of people including kings, mages, farmers and what not.. or MMORPG style or MOBA styled, so that there is interaction with other human players.

Looking at the game itself, there are a few things that stand out: Firstly, the game never tries to 'cheat' on you. All information about the portal gun (which is used throughout the game to traverse obstacles and puzzles' and about the world around you is carefully explained by Glados, the computer in charge of conducting tests on human beings by putting them through puzzles. And in spite of this, the puzzles are actually fairly challenging from the beginning, though learning curve is fairly smooth. Several puzzles which we spent a few minutes on during the first playthrough would be done is seconds during the second playthrough (yes, I've completed both games multiple times). But since we already know the rules of the game and do not have to do a trial and error to figure out how things work (as is the case in a lot of critically and commercially succesful games these days- Dark Souls for example) we never feel cheated.

Secondly, the puzzles naturally fit into the storyline of the game. OK let me explain this- in a game like Skyrim while it is understandable how puzzles would be there for entry into an ancient ruin, there is no explanation to justify how all puzzles can be solved, and on top of that all puzzles can be solved without needing additional equipment/passwords from anywhere else. Also, most puzzles in the game tend to be very similar. The same is the case with several games involving puzzles. In fact, this is not an issue with RPGs/adventure games with puzzles. Take a game such as Mass Effect- the fact that you have to go around collecting the green alien like things in the citadel the first game as a side quest, collecting chocolate frogs in Harry Potter games, collecting random minerals by clicking on planets and scanning them in Mass Effect 2 or even opening locks using the minigames of Fallout 3, Bioshock etc. are all things which are fitted into the game so that we can enjoy the game more eventhough realism is being sacrificed. Portal sacrifices none of these things and there is no minigame to open locks or random items and loots to collect or side missions. The game is pure and feels highly realistic. (It is worth mentioning that the features mentioned in the above games are intended to reward people who explore the game world more- however, people explore these days for the sake of getting bonus items and rewards and not for the sake of exploring. Realistically, very rarely should exploration be rewarded with bonuses, but in the world of video games very rarely does it go unrewarded. The second you find a hard-to-reach location, you realise that there is some epic loot somewhere nearby- which is very unrealistic.)

Thirdly, and most importantly it is a game which considers human emotions. There is handholding through the initial stages of the game when we are explained what to do. The game is genuinely funny with Glados being extremely intelligent with her jokes, comments and practically everything she says. Wheatley manages to be just as funny in the second game. The cute robots which fire laser and insta-kill you are also fun and never appear to be scary. Even they crack dialogues when the protagonist appears in front of them and then disappears (they sense that you're nearby). There's the much talked about companion cube of the first game as well. I could go on with several other things that make the game fun for a human being to play. Now, I say human being because there are certain games which are incredibly fun and realistic but may not connect with us much, as humans. Take a game like Tetris- a classic for its time and it still is. The game mechanics are absolutely robust, but there is no human touch to it to take it to the next level.

I'm right now playing a game called Swapper (2013 game) which is a 2D platformer similar to 'The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom'. Very different from portal but yes, there is say a 10% similarity. The Talos Principle which came out around a week back looks interesting but won't run on my current lap- can't wait to get a new lap and play that.

Learning Gray

As I've written in a few of my posts before, I tend to think a little bit in black and white- that there is either an objective good or an objective bad, objective right/wrong and so on. I realise that the world is Gray but am not comfortable thinking about things like that. Knowing the absence of God (though I also know that believing in him would've helped me) also does not help at all. There are other ways of describing this kind of personality- introvert, thoughtful,quiet etc. and they all would have similarities but I'll stick to my usage of black and white- mostly since I dont think that these sets do intersect fully; plus there are minor differences.

A lot of people criticise the educational system we have wherein we sit in a class full of peers and read about things that other people do(history), the results of what they do(economics/geography) and what we should do(decision making stuff- like how to choose a project which has higher returns) instead of actually doing. Thus the system is criticised for not being practical enough. This is a criticism I've seen across the board- right from primary school days to high school (teachers didnt show some chemical reactions, physical phenomena, some great books by great english authors etc.). And, I've always wondered- what is the amount of 'practicalness' at which the amount of practicalness becomes too much? Surely there is some sort of tradeoff here (as there is in almost every subjective decision in the world). The answer probably lies in the fact that the amount is different for different people.

 For a black and white guy, a very small amount of practicalness is what he would be comfortable with. A lecture on branding strategy for automobiles might be more comfortable for a black and white guy as opposed to a case study where the students have to create one in a team and present it in front of an audience. It doesn't mean that the latter wouldn't help him learn better- it just means that the person would be more comfortable with the former and it is entirely possible that the lecture can help him learn easier than the case study if he's used to learning in such a way (though it's unlikely). The average human being is fairly gray however, and thus would prefer a lot of practical inputs. As I mentioned earlier, black and white people can learn just as well from both methods and it's all about being comfortable with one. Perhaps one reason why I decided to go for an MBA instead of a more technical field (was into Mechanical Engg) is since I wanted to be more comfortable with Gray methods of learning and Gray life in general. Although I can handle the Grayness and learn, I would probably be way more comfortable in a more black and whitish field and would try and balance it out in the future. Academics is relatively black and whitish (at least compared to working in a firm in the same field) and I might end up there. 

Work experience is greatly valued by employers since it indicates a tendency to excel in the Gray world. Someone who has worked somewhere and been fairly successful is good at handling the Grayness around him or is fairly Gray himself. This can be a huge complement to your Black and White credentials (marks (not 100% Black and white since group projects and stuff are there but fairly black and white), certifications etc.). Around 2 years of experience is probably enough to judge the Grayness quotient. Someone with good marks and a good short stint of experience is the ideal candidate (given of course that he will stay with the company for a fairly long period). This kinds of reminds me of looking for a like partner- you should look for all the features that make him/her the right candidate but always keeping in mind to be practical, since super-amazing people may not give a shit about you. Anyway, catch them young they say- these people are targeted by B-School recruiters since they are currently jobless (so no hassles of making them want to switch etc. ), have a proven track record by themselves, have the track record of being selected by a top B-school (if it IS a top Bschool i.e) and also if the candidate turns out bad, the college also shares a bit of responsibility.

While mentioning in the previous para that Gray compliments your black and whiteness, I forgot to mention that Black and White thinking is also extremely important. You should ideally have a mix of both. Actually, when it comes to inexact sciences, I'm very skeptic about everything. If someone says that Modi is going to make India grow, my question is how do you know? If someone says Tata Steel is going to do well, my question is- how do you know, plus have you not heard of the efficient market hypothesis. It is perhaps a fallout of by black and whitishness that I'm very skeptic in inexact fields of study (like say economics).

Advanced tactics in Mafia

If you're a friend of mine, it is statistically more probable that you've heard of Mafia than that you've not. Anyway for the uninitiated, it is a party game which has several other names and versions. The roles I'm used to are:

Mafia(s): Kills a person at the start of the turn. One person is chosen by all the Mafias together.
Detective(s): Suspects a person after the Mafia's kill. Suspected person dies if he is the Mafia and  survives if he is not. One person is chosen by all the Detectives together.
Citizen: No special powers. Participates in the Group Discussion .
Peeping Tom: Can Open his eyes(and ideally partially) and support the Mafia or Detectives by pointing them out to each other. Usually supports the Mafia who are supposed to be slightly underpowered in the game.

The tips that follow are to allow for better performance in the game and has no direct relationship with having fun. The most important aspect about the game is of course to have fun :). The 'advanced' strategies are:

1. In order to not get eliminated quickly either through the GD or otherwise, you have to be the kind of person whom others like in the game. This means that you shouldn't cheat, you shouldn't irritate/tease/insult others too much and you should not bee too quiet and boring. Finding the right balance of of these things will ensure that you stay in the game longer on an average.

2. One might think that the elimination methods in the game are fair to both mafias and detectives since mafias get to kill anyone but have a slight disadvantage in the GD since the detectives would already have wrongly accused one or two people and would have better information regarding who the mafia might be. The balance changes rapidly as the game progresses (having more citizens in the game makes the shift in power less drastic and the game more balanced in general- the amount of luck involved in determining the final outcome also reduces). In the initial rounds, mafia have the clear advantage since they can kill anyone and in the GD they're almost at par with the detectives after the first round of kills since the additional information possessed by the detectives about identities is minimal at that stage. As the game goes on, the mafia grow weaker and the vote outs tend to favour the detectives more. In the super late game, a detective can identify himself and ensure victory. As a mafia it should thus be top priority to finish off the game as quickly as possible.

3. There can be cases in the game where your being eliminated is the optimal choice for the city, especially as a citizen. One spectacular case of unselfishness was when I voted to eliminate myself during after a tied voting round to ensure that a detective did not get voted out (and the mafias had no chance of being voted out in that round). As a citizen, it is difficult to contribute much to the game and the two ways to contribute are through sound discussions and also by getting killed by the mafia and dying a martyr. It is not a bad idea to be thoroughly involved in the GD and be so interested in figuring out who the mafia is- that the mafia mistakenly identify you as a possible detective and waste a kill on you. This is a sound strategy but obviously a boring one since you get eliminated. It can be done in the latter stages of the game. It can be more optimal to not over-involve yourself if you value your skills in the GD as extremely high and your judgement sound enough to correctly figure out the mafia (and it is quite difficult to consistently do these things). Unselfishness can be taken to the next level by wrongly admitting that you're a detective (you can either 'identify' only yourself OR say that you're the only detective left- randomly claiming others as detectives can give a hint to the mafia that you're bluffing if you put a mafia's name in there)

4. In the first round, killing the person next to you is a very basic strategy that is used by an average mafia to ensure that the sounds made by the mafia(while pointing out the kill to the narrator/god) are not heard by the person nearby. Mafias can take advantage of this and kill a random person and accuse the person nearby and claim that this is the logic that he used. You might be able to get a detective voted out.

5. Never consistently team up with anyone during the GD. Similarly, never accuse someone too strongly. This ensures that people don't suspect that you to be either the mafia or a detective. This is since teaming up is generally done by mafias or detectives. If according to the rules you follow, the identities of the dead people are revealed(this rule is strongly recommended by me) it can be even more dangerous to team up with people since it might be revealed in the latter stages of the game that the person you teamed up was a mafia. Being open to others' opinions and being open to a change in your vote shows that you have no preconceived notions about mafias and detectives which they tend to have about each other. It's a good idea to change your vote as new allegations and new information comes along. And in cases where you have absolutely no chance of saving your mafia friend from being voted out, vote him out- particularly if the identities are revealed after death.

6. Having said that it's not a great idea to team up with people, especially in the first couple of rounds it is a smart idea for the mafia to start accusing random people as a group. Even if the allegation is completely baseless, if two people or more (ideally two) accuse a person before any other accusations are made, there is high likelihood that the person gets voted out. This is particularly applicable in the first few rounds when there is limited information available to others and especially the detectives. Avoiding getting voted out in the GD is the key for the mafia to win.

7. Peeping Tom is in my opinion the most powerful character in the game. I consider him on mafia's side. He should open his eyes fully during the mafia's killing round to ensure that the mafia do not kill him and also to ensure that he doesn't vote against the mafia after the GD. During the detective's suspecting round, there is a tradeoff in opening the eyes in the first round as opposed to the later rounds. Opening your eyes in the first round ensures that you know all the detectives and can thus influence the game likewise but you risk being voted out after the GD if the detectives team up against you. Your overall contribution to the game gets limited as you move along in the game without knowing who the detectives are, and plus there is a chance that you might get voted out after a GD and end up not contributing to the game at all. Peeping Tom can come up with spectacular finishes to the game during the finals rounds. One possibility is to completely open his eyes during the detectives round(when one or two detectives are left) and try and eliminate them after the GD and the mafia kill round. Eliminating detectives through the GD becomes easier when there are several citizens but few detectives. Another spectacular finish is when the Peeping Tom knows say, the last 1 or 2 detectives' names and he is about to get voted out in the GD. He can openly tell the detectives names and if there are a sufficient number of citizens, it can be difficult for the mafia to be correctly identified even if you do this reveal(total people-detectives=citizens+mafia). This can give a strong chance for the mafia even if there is only one mafia left, provided there are enough citizens in the game

Happy, proud and BROKE

If there's one thing that unites all the people who are broke, it would be happiness. And if there were two things, the second thing would be pride- in either their identity, or the work that they do, or the work that they have done. I'm not talking about ALL those who are broke- some of them have never had a chance to make it big (or even reasonably alright). But if you are middle-class or above and have consistently underachieved in life, these two are the main reasons. I do realise that making money is not the purpose of life and hence if a person is happy with being happy and proud and broke, I'm perfectly alright with that BUT if you (kind of like me) wonder at times why you tend to just fall short of making it big the idea deserves some thought.

The underlying reasons for being happy (with yourself, and your surroundings) may vary- you might be too lazy or not have the motivation to accept facts and become sad about the shit that keeps on happening to you. Or you do not know enough to be sad about your unfortunate situation. To a large extent, I've tried to not be too happy with myself at any stage of my life because of this- though it probably has occurred more due to a subconscious effort more than anything else and I realise it in retrospect. The second reason- pride is however something that has plagued me pretty much throughout my life. From getting accolades throughout childhood (they weren't much but they were enough for making me 'overconfident') to naturally being afraid to show weakness or to fail, and in general having a slightly superior intellect-cum-IQ(see what I mean?) pride has definitely made me underachieve compared to others with similar skills.

In all models of economy which are not market-based, pride and happiness play a really important part. I've stressed in a few of my previous posts how maximising money isn't the sole aim of man and that there are non-monetary benefits that people look for. Now, if you're the kind of person who isn't too excited by your identity (for example you aren't too proud of being an Indian or a Hindu or a young bloke or being attractive or whatever is it) then there's not much motivation for you to go after the non-monetary benefits of doing things which would not pay much but make you happy/proud. While a religious person might spend a day at a temple say every week, you could save on that time and read up The Economist. It's well known that Roman emperors used to conduct games and plays so that people would not think too much about their poverty and revolt. While the normal lower middle class to poor person enjoys going to a play everyday and eating roadside food and the small things in life (mainly because his parents and their parents realised that these are the only things they can have) the prince knows that being rich and famous is the key to being really really happy. Thus, people cultivate different utility functions and everyone is happy being themselves and would not want to be anyone else in this world.

In environments where merit isn't rewarded with money or where , pride comes in again. This happens in PSUs, crappy companies, communist societies and in jails. Pride in small communities and happiness with otherwise pointless things crowd out the search for success and money(which are beyond a person's reach in these cases).

So, if you feel that you're not achieving as much as you should- think about your present situation deeply and consider how miserable it really is. Thinking about the billions of people who cannot even have food three times a day will make you satisfied (a kind of happiness) with what you have. Be sad, miserable and thus do something productive in life.

Mediocre companies and mediocre human beings

In corporate finance you come across theories saying that if you're not as good as your competitor you might be destroying value in certain sectors. This is the case in most natural monopolies (like electricity, water) and certain other sectors where scale is large (like say, cereals). I've asked the question to myself- if a company knows that it's not going to be the best at something why try at all? Why not join these huge corporations and help reduce costs by increasing their scale? If you're worried that these corporations are evil you can either join one of the regulators (which regulate competition/financial markets/whichever area you think they're too evil in) - given that you feel these people add enough value and compensate fairly for your work. No company can systematically do evil things and still be hugely successful anyway. The numerous cases that we here of are companies which do certain things like exploiting poorer economies' labour instead of hiring local people, underpaying wages etc. - but these are just normal decisions making economic sense- which hurt some people but benefit others. One could however argue that big investment banks are truly evil(funding terrorist related activities/helping with money laundering etc. ) but this is probably the only sector (perhaps along with law firms) where even the most successful firms can do truly evil things.

Coming back to the point- although I've thought of why mediocre companies try and compete with established ones for eg. Parle competing with Coke and Pepsi or Tata competing with Ford and BMW(in sectors where acquisition is common, it makes sense to have a local competitor- since the strongest competitors are usually taken over- examples of such sectors include technology, telecom etc. ), I have never asked the same question about human beings. But what do companies and human beings have in common? Well, everything  really. Countries and companies are considered as individual human entities in media, when doing political/corporate analysis and even by law. While it might seem absurd to compare a country of millions of people, industries and companies to an individual person who is just composed of himself, it really is not that big a deal. In the top down approach, it makes sense because after all human beings are made up of billions of cells and hundreds of muscles and dozens of liquids- yet we do not analyse these things when talking about a person.   

The guy who comes 8th in class(who wants to get into academics) is not asked to kill himself. And the coder who came 3rd in the computer coding event isn't asked to either. We have a hundred reasons to give these people in their moments of truth to tell them that they are special and unique and how they contribute their own bit to the world just by being themselves. Just think about it- if people in the stone age(or whenever) were happy with eating raw food and no one questioned it we would still not have invented cooking. And small things like this make your existence worthwhile. If you're a person who gets angry quickly it reminds the calm people to get angry once a while as well to get things done. And it reminds them perhaps how great other calm people are and makes them love these others a bit more. There is no good without evil and no progress without questioning the status quo. It doesn't matter in what way you're different from others- you are still adding something to the world (as long as you're not in ISIS and killings hundreds by the day). The advice goes something along these lines. The same applies to companies as well I believe.

Another comparison between companies and people is with respect to margins/capabilities of a person. We all hear a lot about the lazy guy/girl who doesn't work hard enough. (While this comparison does not have any underlying causative similarity- it is something that can be empirically observed.)   Success for a person is  a mixture of capabilities (which may be intelligence, talent in some field etc.) and hard work. The hard work and the capabilities might come for certain other things such as motivation by parents or training or natural DNA etc. but this is the bottomline. And the bottomline for companies is the ROA/ROE. ROA depends on asset turnover and margins. Margins show the capability of the company to charge high and sustain demand, and turnover shows the amount of work they out in- high asset turnover means that the company works hard to push a large number of products on to the customers. (ROE is closely dependent on ROA- applying leverage on ROA gives ROE). Of course success can be defined as being helpful to others in the case of human beings and contributing to the society in case of corporations,  but I'm talking about financial success.

Too Cool For Work

Well before I got into my first job, I remember teachers talking about how a casual attitude and a 'cool' approach to life affected your career prospects. I never took it seriously at that point of course. I remember a math teacher as far back as 11th and 12th grade talking about this. I don't remember it being mentioned by any of the engineering professors, but come MBA again senior HRs tended to value a serious attitude a lot more than a laid back attitude. I've had interviewers knowingly act over-casual in order to elicit a casual response from me. Something like 'I know you didn't perform that well during Sem 2- It's not a big deal though.. I mean you did top the class in the other Sems and getting low marks once isn't a problem.. you can fail once a while right?' digs a pit in front of you, and he awaits you to jump into the pit by agreeing with him. Having mainly worked on technical fields until the start of the MBA, I had become to a large extent not-so-serious. Now this is not a conscious effort I put in to try and have a chilled out attitude- it is just something that comes naturally. And it had nothing to do with how good I was at whichever thing I worked on. And in technical fields, to a large extent it doesn't matter how chilled out a person is. There are highly eccentric scientists and programmers who have even higher levels of success. Being weird or unsocial does not affect their career prospects too much as long as they are excellent when it comes to subject knowledge. Of course if they end up in managerial positions in the company, it can be more of a problem- even if the field is technical.

However when it comes to working in non technical fields, a casual attitude is a huge issue. And to be honest, after having a few months of work experience I can see why. There is an incredibly huge correlation between casual attitude and not doing your work properly. At this point I think I should clarify what I mean by casual attitude , so that the previous statement doesn't seem too obvious. Someone who plays Ludo in office irrespective of whether his manager sees him has a casual attitude even if he is the most hardworking guy and does his job way better than a pretentious guy who acts as if  he's working while browsing through facebook. Now that we have that clear, let me go through the reasons.

Firstly, it is relatively more difficult for non-technical fields to quantify how good a person is at his job. Thus we are forced to look at things like seriousness, attitude, language, dressing and so on- whereas a programmer might be hired just for his coding skills(which can easily be measured). And to be fair to HRs, fields such as sales and in fact any field which involves direct interaction with the client DOES require people to be well groomed, serious and all of that in order to be successful. Secondly, since people know that having a casual attitude is not looked upon favourably, it results in naturally less self-conscious people also acting serious. Thus, only those who really don't care about their career prospects end up with the casual attitude, along with a few hard working people who still haven't figured out the importance of acting serious.

And because of these two reasons (and possibly more), I do find that casualness is an amazing measure of a person's seriousness towards work. There seems to be a very strong empirical link. And So, I will try to be as serious as possible during my next interview which is up soon.  

Selling to the succesful

During my first few marketing classes during MBA (I'm a finance major btw) I noticed the word 'positioning' being thrown around about the same way 'synergy' would have been- had it been a class on valuation. While there were other aspects to marketing being mentioned, such as targeting and what not, positioning is probably what seemed most important. And at the time, Apple was the favourite case for the everyone. You just could not talk about positioning without talking about Apple and how it had positioned itself succesfully (a year later when Samsung beat Apple across most global markets, the hype died down). I had just bought a new phone and also done some research on new laptops though I didn't buy one and for me, the only thing that mattered were specifications- things like brand value did not mean much to me, unless of course the brand meant that I would face equipment failure. This meant that I would not really have the courage to buy a Micromax (and these days, a Xiaomi- however it's spelt) but I wouldn't bother much with the esteem that comes with owning an Apple product for instance.

After sitting through a few of these classes, I became convinced that there was no point in going for the premium products just because they were being positioned as premium products, and that I should only look for tangible value. What's the point getting fooled by marketers and their advertisements, right? But as time passed by, I noticed how our marketing professor would prefer premium products even though he knew all about branding strategies. The same was the case with my colleagues- for instance, some would die for a bottle of coke but would never touch pepsi. And of course there was the decent number of apple fanboys. From the point when I started realising this, even I started to value the intangible value that comes with owning something that others look up to.

So, why does this happen? Why does positioning work, even when we know deep inside that there is no practical difference between the features of some products? One reason (which isn't the main one) is probably that successful grown ups can simply afford to spend that bit more on the higher positioned product. There are people who want the best and they don't want to really compromise on brand image when they have the money. As a kid, I used to look for an enormous amount of value and do weeks of research before buying a new phone, but as of now I would just buy the phone which is most suggested by colleagues. A second reason (which still isn't the main one) is the frequency of purchase of certain products. Notice how even at moderately highly priced restaurants, you tend to see lower middle class people. In a country like India, this can happen due to the sheer size of population. People go out as a family to eat once a while, and when they do go out- they want to eat at a place that makes them feel good- a place which is slightly above their means. Which is why you tend to see slightly poorer people than you would expect at a restaurant of a particular class. The same applies to products, and keeping a product at a slightly higher price than you should keep tends to encourage such kind of customers (and the number of such customers is substantial). A third (not yet) reason is that a product/brand which can afford to spend a lot on advertising and has successfully been in the market for a large number of years is a relatively safer product/brand. This is particularly important in the case of services and not THAT important when it comes to products. I would get a loan from an SBI and sleep properly at night but I would probably be a bit worried if I took it from a co-operative society or something which might cheat me in the future and charge high interest rates. This isn't that relevant for products- Micromax phones for instance can be thrown away if they stop working, so it doesn't really affect your sleep that much. The third point is relevant to risk-averse customers in general (like me) and not so much for others.

The fourth and possibly the most important reason is that practical, successful people do not look at all the features and such things while buying a new product. For them, brand image is the most important- if people talk about it in a good way and look up to a product, then you buy it. Unless you want to be different- then you buy a super high priced product which no one talks about. Either way, you cannot go wrong while targeting successful people (By successful, I mean people who work hard earn high incomes). The world is never going to run out of successful people, and to add icing to the cake- they have all the money. So the bottom-line when you're setting up a brand is - target the 'successful' and position it as premium. Like BMW.  And while you're at it make sure that the product has features at least comparable to those of competitors (it's the hygiene factor).

Dating outside your league

If all of us could think objectively about other people with absolutely no bias, there is a fair chance that a guy's favourite girl may not be his girlfriend and the person he admires the most may not be his dad, but an uncle or even a distant acquintance. However, thankfully for us, we have our weird biases which ensure that it is indeed our childhood sweetheart (or the arranged marriage spouse) whom we love the most in the world and by some amazing co-incidence, we all have, individually, the best parents in the world. The probability that we all believe this at an objective level is very low- and if so, would greatly undermine human capabilities for reasoning. And I strongly believe that we know better than to be so naive.

I say 'thankfully for us', because had a person not had this bias, he would be completely shunned by the society. A guy who doesn't love his home-made food more than anything else? A guy who likes his aunt more than his mom? A guy who likes a girl he last talked to 10 years back more than his current wife? What kind of idiot would he be considered as? An honest idiot, but the degree of idiocy is unquestionably monumental. A completely logical(a person who thinks in black and white, without the grays) human being would really struggle to survive in this world. There should be an evolutionary explanation for loving all that is related to yourself- your town, family, close friends etc. more than things that you haven't experienced yet, or things that you have experienced but are not close to- for example people beyond your league. And the explanation is probably just selfishness- you like people more when there is a higher likelihood of them being useful to you, and not because of them being good human beings.

When it comes to a guy's relationship with his girlfriend, while there can be moments when the guy sincerely believes that there is this one person he came across due to sheer coincidence and happens to be the most amazing female in the world, it is unlikely that he thinks the same for a majority of his life. Think about it- out of 7 billion people, and around 3.5 billion females- say around 800 million of an age you can marry- of which say 100 million can communicate with you- and you think you found your dream girl after meeting a few dozen? The times when you sincerely feel so can be attributed to errors in human judgement (which are helpful at several instances, including at this aspect of loving your not-so-perfect partner) . A point to be noted here is that there may be people who do not really care if their partner is their ideal match, and a good number of people I am sure fall in this category- but I am a dreamer, and I write for dreamers.

As you might have figured out by the previous para, I do tend to think relatively more in black-and-white than the average person.

One thing to consider, given the things I've mentioned above is what you would do if you met a girl (or a guy in the case of girls; I've not mentioned counterparts elsewhere but please consider everything as being applicable to guys and girls) who is amazing and you do not think that you deserve her? On one side, you can try and 'get' her and if you were right initially, she might end up being worse off than she otherwise would've, with a 'better' guy and a happier life in general. And on the other side you can ignore her and not take the risk of (i) trying and failing to woo her (ii) successfully wooing her and making her life miserable. Point number two may not be considered by a lot of people, but a person who thinks in black-and-white- a person who believes in objective truth, will. Human (and animal instinct) is to go after her and so, it is not very feasible to not try wooing her, since your heart often doesn't understand our brain. Meanwhile, your judgement about the girl being in your league can always be wrong and hence it might be correct to err slightly on the side of trying to woo girls than to not. After all, losing out on a girl because of your mis-judgement is a bigger loss than trying for a girl and not getting her because she's out of your league.

 Unlike my other posts, I do not preach 'answers' in this post, and I'm still looking for an answer to this question. I've obviously tended to 'try' outside my league, but I've always had my reservations (and probably will continue to have them) and never gone ahead with 100% commitment. Perhaps the fact that such a question has popped up in my head will cause me to be inadequate for the girl in concern. But should it? This, and the other questions I leave to the reader to figure out. And as a friendly advice, even though it is good (probably) to think about such things, when it comes to practice, always go for it :P And in case you don't think you'll find the perfect girl/guy, the only thing I can say is that reading this post was a complete waste of time for you, unless you start dreaming because of it.

Value addition by finance professionals

For certain jobs and those particularly in finance, the value addition that a person can do doing a job can seem very minimal. In some professions such as, say front-end investment banking, I do not find much value at all. Their job is essentially to sell their clients large deals to ego-hungry acquirers who have too much cash, and to sugarcoat these deals with the word 'synergy'. Now, you (and everyone else) are allowed to disagree with this, but my opinion is based on studies which prove my point of view. It has to be said however that there ought to be studies which prove the exact opposite point of view as well. Investment banking jobs are the cream of the crop of course in the world of finance and are sought after by a pretty large majority, mainly because of the enormous pay and to a smaller extent the lifestyle. Do investment bankers add value individually that can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year (or millions in some cases)by 'valuing' a few companies and doing a bit of math? Highly questionable, and even those who disagreed with me on the earlier point- at least some of them may agree with me here. The huge salaries paid to them are a mixture of the success of the firm as a whole (investment banking is an oligopoly and dominated by a few banks which can bend the rules and at some places even create the rules by lobbying). It comes down to the fact that there is demand for investment banking services and someone has to do it. In spite of all the hatred for investment bankers (kind of), I would myself consider say a Goldman Sachs to be the strongest contender to do a deal if I had to raise an IPO for my company, instead of doing it with some academics. It's a matter of experience in dealing with the lawmakers, the brand appeal that they have etc. and the technical expertise while important is not the most important thing. If investment banking is so lucrative(and pays big- seemingly irrespective of the number of people in the industry), what prevents everyone from being an investment banker and earning big? It's not really a technical field in any case (at least at the front end). Firstly, we know that these banks have so much demand that they can afford to pick the highest IQ people and those with the best backgrounds. This automatically makes them the best people to take up the job in the first place. But all intelligent people do not end up in these institutions. The amount of pressure- from peers as well as clients is so high that not everyone can survive. This ensures that the demand for such jobs never increases disproportionately and if it does, fellow bankers will become still more competitive to retain their jobs in case the low performers are kicked out. In summary, although the value added by investment bankers is low (and generally negative), there will be a continuous need for deal-making and thanks to their oligopoly and vast experience, investment banks will continue to add some kind of value in some way.

There are other jobs such as in technical analysis which are essentially useless. Technical analysis, as any academic with any sense will tell u- is a bit like homeopathy. It might seem to work for those who believe in it, but it has absolutely no scientific background. In such a case, a technical analyst adds zero value in general (negative if you pay them something for their research). Unlike in investment bankers' case where they got paid partially because of the oligopoly, partially because of their experience (which in turn is arguably because of the oligopoly), and partially because of just the demand- technical analysts earn money ONLY because of the demand for such research. And this demand comes from ill-informed clients who are unaware of the pointlessness of technical analysis. I would like to mention that I'm not a big fan of fundamental analysis (or any kind of analysis) since it is difficult to come up with accurate estimates of price- the basic methods of discounted cash flow or gordon growth are very simple (and using trading/transaction multiples for pricing is simpler) and can be used by any 10th standard student. There are no advanced formulae that have been proved to work consistently, but at least there is some sort of theory backing the analysis of fundamentals. If the reader is unfamiliar with academic finance, I would like to mention here that I'm not talking gospel- Efficient Market Hypothesis is one of the strongest theories in finance and was suggested by the Nobel Prize winning Eugene Fama- and it essentially says the same thing. One may also refer to the bankruptcy of LTCM, which had the biggest geniuses of finance managing a the hedge fund.

Many people are under the impression that finance is a technical field where you need to know formulae and theories and numbers and be extremely intelligent. This is false to a reasonable extent. Unlike the founder-CEO of a software firm - who would know the inside out of most of the technical details related to programming, the CEO of a big bank would have little idea about the technical details of risk management within the bank. He would obviously know a whole lot of things relevant to him, but even the CRO (Chief Risk Officer) of a bank may not know how to, say, apply extreme value theory to calculate the losses beyond a certain limit. What he will be good at is dealing with people, knowing the mood of the market, being a good managers and in general- having good intuition and ability to convert empirical evidence into sound decision (something I mentioned in my immediately previous post). To be honest, there are no formulae in finance that help you make money by applying them- it is definitely more of an art and less of a science. Even in the most technical risk management practices, (which I went through in FRM part 2) risk managers end up using empirical formulae for the best results. While, say a Black-Scholes can be assumed to be a near-perfect model (some assumptions regarding the distribution of a share price etc. are not 100% accurate), it cannot be used to make money in any way since the whole world knows about it. It is worth mentioning that the earliest traders who adopted the Black-Scholes formula DID make a lot of money but in a few months, everyone became aware of it. A CAPM formula or a Gordon-Growth formula are, needless to mention- useless in adding value to anything by themselves. But when in the hands of someone with experience working in an monopolistic kind of firm; when the guy understands how things are shaping up in the market and can make sound judgements based on his experiences- the formulae and the guy become more than a sum of their parts, and value is created and money is made.

I would argue that fund managers of mutual funds add zero value as well. In this case, the majority of studies point to the fact that the market as a whole tends to beat the top global fund managers well more than 50% of the time. However it must be noted that although an individual fund manager adds little value when you put your money with him, if fund managers were suddenly wiped out from this world, the markets would suddenly lose a major portion of their efficiency in pricing products and providing liquidity and so on. While individual fund managers do not add much value, fund managers as a whole are an integral part of the global markets. Similarly in the case of those who speculate with say derivatives on behalf of clients (like a derivatives trader or a hedge fund managers) also add value in a similar way. Although these people do not build physical assets such as a house or a car, or even a software- they do add enormously to the world of financial markets and thus to the world. The contribution of the financial markets to our well-being is of course beyond the scope of this writing!

Hearthstone and real life

As I've mentioned in a couple of posts before this, I've been spending some serious time on hearthstone. I've definitely spent several hundred (and possibly 1000+ ?) hours on the game itself as well as on youtube videos, livestreams on twitch etc. Videos I follow are either those of players just casually playing the game, rantings about the game, ideas about the game or tournaments and such.

For the uninitiated, Hearthstone is  free to play Collectible Card Game (CCG) which has cards borrowed from Warcraft lore. This means that cards are basically creatures from warcraft such as murlocs or ghouls or warleaders or whatever and have different characteristics and strengths. Each player plays a card per turn and waits for the other player to play after that. The game ends when these cards eventually kill the opponent (represented by a hero- there are 9 heroes to choose from). This is a very simplified version of a game with infinite complexity.

In a card game you wouldn't expect players to be consistently better at the game than others. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, unlike and FPS of a real time strategy game there is a lot more luck involved in a card game. There's the fact that you may not draw the right cards at the right time in a game. On top of that, there's a certain degree of randomness in the cards themselves. For example a card called the 'Mad bomber' deals 3 points of damage split between ALL characters and this include your own minions which were played previously and your own hero- and thus can be in certain situations very bad or very good. Several other cards have such random effects. On top of that, there's the fact that your opponent may have the exact counter to your own cards at times and at times they may not have it.

It has its advantages and disadvantages- a game like DotA or LoL requires a great level of skill and experience to eventually learn. This naturally reduces the number of newcomers, since they may not want to dedicate a major part of their lives learning to play a game. Of course, they may not all want to beat professionals, but a game in which the better player wins a high % of the time (like say chess) stops being fun after a certain point. It is absolutely impossible for a newcomer to beat a professional at DotA, Counterstrike, FIFA or any such competitive game. However in the case of hearthstone- while the odds may be remote, it is very much possible because of the randomness. Hearthstone is VERY easy to learn and even more difficult to master. It is worth mentioning however, that Hearthstone does have a very vibrant competitive scene in spite of all this with several dozens of dedicated professional gaming teams forming teams for Hearthstone. Prizes for tourneys range from a few thousand dollars at small tourneys to quarter a million dollars at the annual tourney at Blizzcon.

So why exactly is it more difficult to master? In a game like counterstrike, experience of playing the game even against the AI  bots (computer) is good enough to make you a half decent player. A large part of the skill in the game is the reflexes and knowing the map properly. To become competent at the next level, you would need to play with human beings a lot. This allows you to know what kind of strategies human players generally use, so that you can predict and counter such play. And of course to reach the next level, you will have to play with the best. In hearthstone, you would think that knowing all the cards in the game and knowing all the rules of the game etc. in a detailed way would take you a long way. After all, there are no reflexes involved in a card game, since it's turn based anyway. However, that is not the case at all.

In a game such as hearthstone, knowing the cards(there are a few hundred cards and many of them are specific to classes- knowing a card means knowing the mana cost to play it, the stats of the card/the effects etc.) in the game and the rules of the game is a very basic requirement. A more advanced requirement is to know which cards are good and which cards are bad. Which classes of characters are good and which classes of characters are bad.But then since the game is mostly balanced with respect to classes, how can there be good cards or bad cards or good classes or bad classes? Since this whole piece I've written so far sounds more like a rant than anything else, let me try and bulletise stuff from now. So, the reasons why Hearthstone is easy to learn but difficult to master - much like life is for human beings (it's easy to live a life, but to be really good at it is somewhat difficult and requires similar skills as Hearthstone does- which might be the reason why this game is so popular in spite of being this online card game. And while there is a developer in Hearthstone who balances different card powers and hero skills and so on to ensure that the game is fair, in real life there are markets who do the same)-

1.  The skilled do not always prevail (as already explained). This happens a lot in real life where dumb luck can at times make you or break you. But overall, life and Hearthstone are both somewhat fair.
2.  Knowing theories does not make you good. You have to have a lot of practice and experience. In real life, older men tend to be wiser and work experience counts for a lot in the corporate world. This highlights the difference between knowing and doing. This applies to other competitive games as well, equally.
3. Having experience and knowing theories still wont make you the best in the world. You have to interact with the best in the world on a regular basis if you are to have a chance of remaining as among the best. In Hearthstone, the top players- almost all of them have clans which meet everyday and dicuss strategies. They discuss about the latest changes to the game, the most common classes and cards being played (so as to play cards and classses which counter the popular trend) and to ideate new strategies in general. The same can be seen in almost all industries where the top corporates need to interact with each other to remain relevant. This factor isn't as relevant in other competitive games. The point highlights the importance of BEING and not just knowing and doing.
4. Intelligence is extremely important for you to be good at it. The most important thing about intelligence is that it is required for better assimilation of experience. What this means is that a player with 1 year experience but higher intelligence can be better than a player with 2 years experience. But a player with 1 month experience cannot be better than either of them. This is kind of similar to real life and the corporate world. After a certain period of experience, it stops mattering of course. When you start off, it isn't very relevant and just copying others and practicing a lot will do, but if you've to be one of the best, it is impossible unless you are extremely intelligent. Of course there might be a subjectivity when it comes to deciding who really is the best- in Hearthstone, the best players in my opinion do extremely well in tournaments and in addition to this create their own decks and strategies. In real life, this would be a successful entrepreneur who would be an innovator as well and not just a guy who is good at implementing an idea.

Having a game based out of Warcraft lore does help in making a game popular, but the similarities to real life are in my opinion what really make the game of Hearthstone. I've tried to summarise my theories about the game here and I've obviously missed out on a few points as well as proofs for justifying the similarities to life. In any case, apart from the huuge number of hours I played the game, I've seen streams of Trump, Kripparian, NoxiousGLHF, Trolden, Hafu, Amaz etc. with around 100+ videos each and in addition to that tournaments from ESGNTV which kind of pioneered competitive Hearthstone,.. to the Blizzcon European Union Qualifiers which got over recently. So I hope that there's enough credibility to all the stuff above!

Selfish is sexy

It's no secret that selfish assholes are considered sexy by the opposite sex. Of course, the phrase 'selfish asshole' has too negative of a connotation for anyone to agree to the previous statement, but the point still stands. It cannot be generalised but in the case of most people, selfishness is considered sexy. Though they may not even know it. People fall in love with more reasonable folks as well since it may not practical to be a relationship with an a selfish prick, but the fantasies are mostly about them.

From an evolutionary point of view, this happens since people who care about themselves can actually provide things for the family. A saint who gives away all his belongings will not have any for his wife and kids. You need a little bit of selfishness to provide for your family. In a way, you are taking from the society and giving to yourself and to the rest of your family. People who are capable of doing this are naturally found attractive by us.

Now I do not imply by this that I'm into selfish females. In fact I cannot stand them at all- though the human instinct inside me tries to make me like them.

Now, you do need the intelligence, personality (good looks help as well) etc. to carry off your selfishness. So don't try to be an asshole from tomorrow and expect to get hitched :P

At the other end of the spectrum, people who are too unselfish are considered weird. This is since others tend to be either uncomfortable with your high level of generosity that makes them feel bad about themselves, or since they may consider such levels of unselfishness as fake. So it's probably safer to try and err on the side of more selfishness than the side of less selfishness.

In addition to all of these reasons to be that little bit more selfish, there's the fact that selfish people who have the adequate capability and intelligence to get things done tend to be happier. By capability and intelligence, I'm talking about a minimum level of common sense and a sense of motivation. Selfish dudes and dudettes tend to be unhappy in the short run since they may tend to get jealous etc. about others, and try to get everything for themselves, but in the long run they do tend to achieve more. And this happiness in the long run (referred to as 'purpose' by me in my previous posts) is much more fulfilling than the short term happiness. It's a little bit like investing your short term happiness for returns (of happiness) in the long run.

Non-monetary costs of being an asshole

Ok so after a long time, another post has come. Since I've started work, there will be much less gaming and a lot more general philosophy-cum-psychology related stuff. Hearthstone is pretty much the only game I play now. And it's kind of sad that there aren't any really any communities for hearthstone in India.

Anyway, since it's been a long time, there are a LOT of philosophies which have come into my weird brain but haven't been spewed out onto this space. This time, I'll write about the experiences I've had with rickshaw-wallas and cab drivers across different cities. While places like Agra and Gurgaon have the worst auto drivers who try to over-change you pretty much 90% of the time, Bombay has a much nicer bunch of cab drivers who overcharge you only around 10% of the time. It's kind of obvious that if the autodriver/cab driver (hereafter referred to as 'driver') asks you for an amount that is greater than what was initially agreed upon/is more than the meter fare/is just unfair given the distance etc., he opens himself to the opportunity to getting more money. Now, are there any dowsides from a driver's perspective to being an asshole and being unreasonable? If you think about it, suppose the meter shows Rs.100 and he asks for 150, there aren't many instances where you would pay him less than 100 just because he asked for more. Even if you did, it's not as if he would settle for it.

The payoff of asking for more is thus unsymmetrical. One one side you may get some extra money, and on the other side you lose nothing. So why don't all drivers do it then?

The answer possibly lies in the fact that maximising monetary gain isn't the objective of the driver. the passenger might engage in a verbal fight with the driver and as a human being, this expected value of emotional cost(probability of passenger yelling*emotional loss due to yelling) might be much higher than the expected monetary gain due to asking (average monetary gain from asking for more*probability of the passenger agreeing to pay more). Now, the probabilities would change of course depending on the passenger type. Probability of the passenger agreeing to pay more would increase if he/she is an outsider and has no clue about the local rates and so on. Expereinced drivers ask for higher rates from these folks.

Now, some people are just plain assholes at heart and thus don't give a shit if the passenger gets into a verbal (or even physical?!) fight with them. These people consistently ask for unreasonable fares and thus earn more. Just another instance where assholes earn more money.

To end, I would like to thank those passengers from Bombay(and other places) who have yelled at the cab drivers for demanding unreasonable fares, and thus increased the drivers' expected cost of asking more. It is mostly because of them that we can travel is peace in these places. Adios, and... keep yelling.

To HS or not to HS (and other things)

This post will be relatively more personal than the rest and I don't really have a plan for it but let's see where it goes.

I'm about to move to Mumbai in a few days time and since I had a minor surgery in my leg, I can't wear footwear and thus I'm mostly limited to my house and nearby places. I've been playing a LOT of Hearthstone, the CCG (Collectible Card Game) from Blizzard and it's a pretty interesting game and there'll be a future post on the relationship between financial careers and HS (Hearthstone). I've also been playing quite a bit of guitar, and I finished Season 4 of GoT a couple days after the last episode came out.

So here I am, a guy who can do relatively large number of things for my entertainment (not going to mention all of it)- things which obviously help me socialise, think deeper and mostly just get rid of boredom. This might seem obvious, but all of my skills in doing any of these things (I've become pretty good at HS by the way) will not help me get the basic necessities in life. I don't really have problems feeding myself or getting a place to live, so it's not too much of an issue, but it's more of an issue for me than it is for a richer guy. From childhood, I've always found it easier to connect with kids who are considerably richer than I am, thanks to the slightly high level interests that I've developed- things like gaming and music and movies and football and so on and in an in depth way as well. An average guy with my level of monies would probably focus more on knowing the city more or finding out places where things are cheap etc., watching some local movies and watching IPL- to be honest I don't even know for sure, but I do know that the interests would differ by quite a bit.

Hence the question of morality- is it justified for a poor dude to have high level interests, if he is unable to make money out of these interests? The HS community itself has several interesting people- most of them players of course. A guy called Trump (TrumpSC on all major social media places) is kind of humble and really dedicated to playing HS. He does have other interests like playing Poker, but he's pretty dedicated to HS and he makes quite a bit of money. The average twitch stream of around 2 hours gets him around 700-800$ through jsut donations by viewers (My guess) and add to that the money from youtube views and twitch views and winnings from tournaments and appearances in tourneys etc. and you get a decent amount of money- definitely comparable to a day job(he's a management/finance graduate) and he obviously has a lot of flexibility and the added bonus that he loves his work. The average HS professional is however more like Kripparrian (his id on all major networks is the same) who is a bit of an asshole but in a nice way, rich enough to not need the money out of HS, but makes a decent amount anyway. Krip plays a wide variety of games like WoW and Diablo 3 and his networking skills enable him to be invited to host most important HS tournaments across the world- which don't pay much, but he doesn't really need the money anyway. The question of morality is irrelevant to both of them because Trump makes enough money out of it and Krip doesn't really need it anyway. Thus, is it OK for the average dude to 'waste' hours developing such obscure interests when he can just watch a few bollywood movies and learn some item numbers, watch some IPL etc. in order to be socially relevant.

I guess it's not really about being socially relevant. People do these things mostly out of their interest and if it becomes socially relevant, then- great! DOTA for instance I started playing for fun, but I made at least a couple dozen friends with the only real connection being DOTA. Secondly and more importantly, there should always be a limit to these side interests, especially the obscure ones. It's OK for a guy to skip work if India was playing in the Cricket World Cup final the previous night, since most colleagues might doe the same in India. But it's not OK to skip work because the last episode of a GoT season came out late night the previous night- I hope you get the drift. Also, as long as these interests don't majorly affect your actual job (or studies if you're not working right now), it doesn't really matter too much. Instead of doing A or B you can always do A and B. I myself am too lazy for this of course and I therefore would always do things the 'or' way- especially when I'm in Trivandrum. But, as work starts, hope to do more work and less play! Alright, back to some more Hearthstone.

Kripp's channel- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBMccz-PDZf6OB4aV6a3eA
Trump- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsQnAt5I56M-qx4OgCoVmeA

Higher highs and lower lows

The topic is basically the definition of financial risk, which results in high variation in returns. And since I've been watching a lot of finance videos during the long break when I did not write any posts, I can say with confidence that this risk in public companies according to CAPM, is due to market risk, operating leverage and financial leverage!

Anyway the topic isn't about finance and is about difficulty in video games. Recently, i.e in roughly the past decade we've seen a lot of relatively difficult video games being succesful and difficult video games have definitely gathered huge audience. And this is not in comparison to the games that came out in the 80s and early 90s especialy on consoles that were really difficult but more with the 95-2005 games which are probably the easiest of the lot. Bioshock was more difficult than the average shooter on hard, even on medium difficulty. Recently we've had both indie games like Super Meat Boy, Braid, Minecraft (in a league of it's own), Limbo and Hotline Miami (not very difficult, but you'll die a few hundred times for sure) as well as a few mainstream ones like Demon Souls and Dark Souls. Dark Souls is one of the few mainstream games to have had difficulty as a USP (although the game is technically impressive, too)- the 2 parts of the game have each sold millions of copies and Dark Souls 1 is one of the most played games on Games For Windows. Now I'm not saying that older games weren't difficult- God of War, Devil May Cry 3 etc. being examples, but they didn't get so much attention from this big an audience.To give you a fair idea of the average difficulty in a game, that would be a game like Mass Effect 2- which requires some effort, but can easily be finished by an experienced gamers putting in effort without dying in game more than say, 10 times.

So why is there so much demand for games that are tedious to master, and kill you over and over again? The title of this post explains it in a way- people who have more time on their hands to waste, can spend more time learning games and this results in more rewarding experiences. Someone who plays Skyrim at a high difficulty setting (the default setting "Adept" is extremely easy, btw) can enjoy a highly immersive experience and really feel the thrill of finding new equipment or defeating new monsters higher highs. The lows of course mean that dying will be common but then I'm pretty sure that the highs are raised higher than the lows are lowered. Morrowind had a ridiculous journal system which only described in words where you had to go to and the things you had to do to complete quests, as compared to the pointer in Skyrim which always led you to the right place. The journal was enormous and easily exceeded hundreds of pages- out of which you could not even know which ones were completed (although mods and patches take care of this partially). Needless to say, Morrowind has enjoyed huge popularity in the last decade and is regarded by many as the best in the series! (and at worst 2nd best, after Skyrim).

People having more time on their hands could be partly because of new gamers coming in and making the community larger- thus resulting in the veteran gamers wanting to seem more 'hardcore'. This has always been a phenomenon and games with ultra hard learning curves like DotA have had highly intelligent communities (which at one point included me :P ). May be the same phenomenon became a bit more intense recently. Also, global unemployment has hit record levels in the past decade especially in some European countries and it has been pretty high in the US as well though it's come down in the last couple of years. People have literally been jobless. Difficult games which are indie provide a low cost alternative to AAA titles and can provide more content for less, and thus might provide an explanation for the huge boom seen in difficult indie games, although that seems to have died down as well in the past 2 years or so. 2009- 2010 was probably the peak and Super Meat Boy arguably came out at exactly the peak.

Focus on content and fair price of games has actually been a major dicussion point, even in gaming reviews. We don't see movie DVDs or song CDs being criticised because of high price, but this is common across all forums and major movie critics like Gamespot or Edge. RPGs have focused on replayability by choosing evil/good paths and also by choosing different character classes. The good/evil choice allowing for replayability is a very recent invention and probably started with Star Wars KotoR and was made even more famous by games like Fallout 3- while the classes have obviously existed for long, right from the tabletop days. But these days there are separate cut-scenes and dialogues for things like different people who are romanced ( not more than 1 can be romanced in a single playthrough and there are several potential romancees- male and female, depending on your sex) in the Mass Effect series, which takes replayability to something more than the experience of playing; rather it kind of  'unlocks' content for you. This replayability and the in-built complexity of RPGs as opposed to shooters, along with the graphical capabilities of newer PCs and consoles have made RPGs and especially action RPGs arguably the most popular gaming genre. Yes, Wii Sports and Sims and Call of Duty still exist but these are more like exceptions.

Coming back to the difficulty aspect, it is interesting how much effort people are willing to put into games, while they may not want to put a similar effort in real life. It certainly applies to me- I can spend several hours, days and weeks figuring out things in games while I lose patience after an hour if I'm trying to learn something. I can die a 100 times in Braid and still have more fun than reading learning material. In real life, there is a certain kind of happiness we get by achieving something that takes a lot of toil and effort. It's like games have found some way to make us put in this 'effort' by almost making the effort fun, and meanwhile it preserves most of the happiness we get when results are achieved. It's as if game developers are hacking our brains!

Is retribution given individually or as a group?

I'm not a great believer in God, although I appreciate the importance of the concept. The fact that pretty much all nations had developed belief separately shows the importance of the concept. It's as crucial to human civilisation as language- which again was developed separately among different populations, but with a common purpose and with the use of speech/writing as means of communication- and much the same way, the concept of God as all powerful and all knowing, all forgiving and punishing the wicked is also mostly common across the world. However, the number of atheists/agnostics has been quickly on the rise, and although they still don't have enough confidence to proclaim themselves in public, there are several online groups and communities that are springing up. Atheism wasn't uncommon in 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and Nietzche's writings which I came across talked about how atheism was quite common in his days. In India however, the movement is very recent. Development- especially philosophical development (through books, movies and music, and not the GDP kind of development which possibly precedes it), along with scientific progress probably help the movement towards atheism. There is a society called Indian Atheists which conducts meets in different parts of the country and the meets are organised through social networking websites. Although atheism/agnosticism lacks acceptance in society, it is commonly accepted online. Communities such as those on 9gag and reddit, and even some posts on facebook these days have accepted atheism as a philosophy.

I've been talking about atheism and agnosticism by clubbing them together, though they've very different. I myself belong to a third group which does not care if God exists. It's probably closer to atheism than agnosticism, and revolves around the fact that if God is as he is spoken about in scriptures and stuff, he wouldn't hate atheists for not believing in him, for he is not an asshole who is self-obsessed. The same way most religions portray Gods as being human in physical form (in spite of millions of other species that God has allegedly created), they think of him as being human in thought as well, and having requirements such as wanting love and affection and appreciation for all his work. Which is kind of silly, really. I reckon that atheists are in general, more honest and would be preferred by God over the selfish theists who more often than not, pray for their own needs and desires. Having said that, I do love theists, and do in a way, wish that I had faith. It's something that gives great strength and courage to do things atheists may not do, and also gives a great sense of purpose to life. The Darwinian theory or classical economic theories about the purpose of life are more accurate, but less appealing to us, as humans. Although dangerous when in huge groups that hate other religions, theists are loving people who are also possibly more successful than their atheist/agnostic friends.

Coming to the topic, I started thinking today if according to religious books, whether sin can be delegated. By this what I mean is that, if there is something that is sinful and I don't want to do it, can I ask someone else to do it for me? Today afternoon someone asked me to take their 'pappad' (a kind of snack) which was about to be wasted, because she didn't like wasting food. She's a strong believer and I'm fairly sure that she doesn't want to sin. I, as always wanted to irritate her and kept saying no and making up excuses, but finally agreed, even though I did not want it and would end up wasting it myself. Giving rewards and punishments individually is not a very efficient method of management in a corporation. They are mostly given to top performing groups/teams and there may be separate, smaller incentives to top individual performers, if any. Punishments are not always done in the same fashion but I do believe that it would be more efficient. In corporations, the punishment is often not being rewarded, and thus it is naturally built into the system when rewards are given likewise.

So does God punish/reward as individually or as a whole? If not individually, is it our family or our neighbourhood, or is it earth as a whole? Do animals also get punished for their sins? Only those who've never played with pet cats or dogs would say that animals are incapable of thinking or acting with intelligence. I'm certain that even among animals, there would be a few evil ones, as is the case with us. By giving me the pappad, the girl shouldn't relieve herself of her punishment, because she is not creating any value by doing it- she's only transferring the sin. A corresponding situation in a company is where one division transfers it's losses using accounting loopholes into another. Thus in this case, we should be given our punishment as a group. But then, we interact with so many people that it's difficult even for God to constantly keep track of different groups,  which keep on changing and intersect at several instances with each other.

I think it was Valmeeki in the Indian mythology, who was the hunter who killed animals to feed his family who changed his 'evil' ways when his family shamelessly told him on his face, that they wouldn't share his sin since it was he who killed the animals and not them. Dumb stories like this make people do dumb things like delegating the sin of wasting a pappad, even in this day and age. Similarly, my grandfather makes others kill insects and other creatures that get into the house, scared of sinning himself - believing strongly that sin can be delegated.

Along with the hope that God would not care about whether we believe in him or talk to him or whatever, I kind of hope that all the punishments that we get are given as a group and never individually. I don't think that anything in this world can benefit only a single person, and if someone else benefits from it even without their knowing, that is still a sin of ignorance. Even in small groups that constantly change, it is impossible to give out punishments, since others may get benefits group their sins, some time in the future. And in a very remote and connected argument, since anyone in this world has the ability to stop sinning of humanity altogether (yea right!), it is everyone's fault when someone in this world sins.

The economic value of inhumanity

I watch quite a lot of youtube. People who regularly post on themselves, general stuff, memes and even post on others who post on these things. Owning a youtube channel is a relatively easy way to make money. It's not a lot of money but it can be a living nevertheless. Some of these people are very smart though, and very hardworking. But the pay they get is not much. Among the millions of youtube channel owners, may be a few hundred can afford to make a living out of it. And even the top earners on youtube worldwide only get around 100-200 thousand dollars a year which is a lot, but nothing compared to average performers with similar intellect in other fields. (It is obvious that say, an investment banker would be doing a lot more work than a youtuber and thus earning his pay, but there are cases where a youtuber such as Olga Kay may be working a lot harder and putting in way more time than an i-banker, only to get paid way less.)There are non-monteray benefits though of being a youtuber- the fame and the comfortable and casual nature of the job as well as being able to talk/ make videos about your passion. This makes people do youtubing for these non-monetary benefits partly and thus would compromise a bit on the pay (received from google), thus creating a market where the equilibrium monetary benefits are mediocre.

Music is something I have a lot of passion for, but it doesn't generate money in India. In fact for a large majority of talented musicians, the joy of playing music, the coolness factor, and the associated fame are sufficient. Most bands in Kerala have rich members who don't really need the money. This has ensured that even the people who deserve money don't get it, since there are some who don't ask for it. Playing music or talking about what you like on youtube are very natural things for humans to do- but sitting at a desk and doing paperwork isn't. I doubt if many people would actually be passionate about a desk job (although some might claim the same) but part of the reason why they pay more is because it's plain boring. Going to outer space, being a soldier and fighting a war, being a contrarian value investor and heck- even going away from home and living in a far away city in a small rented house will all pay more (though the last one is not directly related to the others and has more to do with your risk-taking abilities in life, and the abilities to socialise quickly/ live without much social life in a different city). The same way non-monetary benefits reduce the pay for certain jobs which involve doing innately human things, jobs which involve inhuman tasks to be carried out, compensate by paying higher. Passion, which can be measured as the joy when you do something you like, can guide your career path. But in a similar way, if you suffer less pain than others while doing something that no one wants to do, it's in effect the same thing. It's something along the lines of maximising returns/ minimising losses - both of which require similar approaches and end results. For someone who is risk-averse, it can be a wise choice to go for a job which gives him less pain than others, as compared to going for his passion- since you can always misjudge your true passion.

Bioshock, and the things that make us human

It looks like this blog might end up being predominantly about gaming but I do have some hope that it wont. Right now I'm going through a phase of relaxation more or less and that means quite a bit of gaming and so that's what I feel like writing about.

Bioshock is  a slightly older game that came out around 2007, with very solid FPS (First Person Shooter) game mechanics. I'm not a huge fan of FPSes- simply because the concept of shooting everything at sight is not something i like greatly. This doesn't mean that I hate them though and there can be very clever FPSes as well. Duke Nukem 3D which came out in the mid 90s had some smart puzzles in spite of being a hardcore FPS and I loved it- at least compared to the other games of the time and Doom was the most obvious comparison- which had some very solid gameplay but didnt really require as much brains as practice, and the story wasn't very engrossing, aaand it wasn't funny either.

FPSes have come a long way since then and now have RPG (Role Playing Game) like elements almost universally. Bioshock is probably one of the first games to be an FPS that blended RPG elements effectively. These aren't hardcore RPG elements though- there is no leveling up and skills are gained by looting or with currency rather than with experience. Fallout 3, a more traditional RPG which came out around the same time was a game I thoroughly enjoyed playing and remains one of the favourites of all time while I stopped playing Bioshock pretty early in the game not realising what I missed out on. The casual gamer would not look beyond the FPS elements of Bioshock and I definitely did not, when the game came out. One can easily be fooled by the brilliant FPS mechanics and think that the story is not worth exploring. One would be making a huge mistake then.

Bioshock as I said, has very strong FPS mechanics. The shooting feels realistic and moving around while shooting makes it harder for enemies to target you. Enemies are not particualrly smart but can be challenging enough. Player's health is not obscenely high as it is in some games and it's easy to die in 1 hit in several parts of the game, from full health. The atmosphere is fantastic and the back-story is explained through a set of audio diaries scattered throughout the world. RPG elements include multiple ways to defeat enemies. There are magic-like abilities gained through injections called plasmids which can be combined with each other or with guns for amazing effects. Igniting an enemy for instance makes him run to a nearby pool of water if it's there and then you can shock him for almost instant death. You can use telekinesis to throw an item covered with land mines at an enemy, or freeze and shatter an enemy. There are around 10 superpowers that are active and some 20-30 that are passive. There's a way to do practically anything you can imagine in the world, and this includes hacking security systems, cameras, fooling powerful "Big Daddies" to fight for you and so on.

Mass effect, Fallout and Elder Scrolls series are famous for giving the player moral choices and they do so very well and often with very distinct in-game consequences. The moral choices are designed in such a way that there is no clear benefit to being good, and being bad just gives a different set of evil friends that you can interact with & a diferent set of actions and conversations become unlocked depending on your choices. Fallout 3 even rewards the player with perks, for being ethically neutral- in order to compensate for the loss of the extra friends and actions gained by extreme moral actions. Morally good behaviour is not strongly encouraged in the games which give the player a choice to be bad, and most players can casually choose to be either very good or very bad, and even try out 1 after the other- simply to get a different experience playing the game. In Bioshock, there is a huge compulsion to do what your heart wants. I for instance, cannot imagine taking the 'bad route' and I'm sure that a few people wouldn't be able of imagining the 'good route'. But the more important distinction is that the game makes you think of morality and government laws and their inter-relationships in real life, and not just in the game. It lets you go out into a world ( an underwater city called Rapture, which is very advanced technologically even in the 1950s-60s) where people are not bound by morality or by rules and regulations and are free to live life as they want to. Survival of the fittest. It also makes you wonder what is it that makes humans really human. For in this world of immorality, people seem to have lost things such as love and sharing-which are actually among the most important the things that define humanity; and resort to insane amounts of cheating, killing and even things like modifying kids' DNA to speed up their growing process and make them more efficient. These are the mildest atrocities that you come across in Rapture.

(Spoilers ahead) 

The creator of the city Andrew Ryan is an obvious reference to Ayn Rand and the guy who guides you through most parts of the game called Atlas- a possible reference to her work Atlas Shrugged. I'm sure that there are plenty of other references to her works as well as other similar ones.It's fascinating how the whole world is unforgiving and treats you just like any other guy. You are no hero, no one special until the end when you realise that nothing had been a  coincidence. You had been actually sent to the city by Frank Fontaine, a ruthless businessman who bought your embryo or something from Andrew Ryan (your real father) and accelerated the growth process to generate an adult within 4 years, genetically altered to make you more powerful, and programmed you to respond to the phrase "Would you kindly" without questioning it. All of it is not even explained directly in the game and the story is partly told through audio diaries scattered across the city. An epic sequence towards the end of the game has you facing Andrew Ryan who let's you know that nothing had been a co-incidence and let's you know about your programmed response. He dies in agony with the pain of knowing that all his hardwork was undone by the people he called "weak". Although Rapture was a ruthless city created by a ruthless mind, you do feel a bit sorry for Andrew Ryan because he had an amazing vision to help humanity, although it was a bit flawed. In any case, you start to wonder why Atlas had been giving you directions with "Would you kindly" added to everything, when he tells you that he is actually Frank Fontaine. This is just an icing on the cake- the game tells dozens of stories, from the doctor who got obsessed with plastic surgeries and started killing, and experimenting with harmful chemicals which led to permanently disfigured people who were again subjected to experiments, to Tenembaum who discovered "ADAM" which alters the human DNA and allows humans to have magic-like abilities called plasmids. Tenembaum also discovered that little girls, if implanted with ADAM could produce 20-30 times the original ADAM and so sets up a fake orphanage to get girls for this purpose. These girls, called Little Sisters (same as the orphanage's name) roam throughout the city and are protected by a Big Daddy each- a huge powerful robot thingy which can 1-hit you to death at the beginning of the game when you're relatively weak. Tenembaum discovers a cure for these girls and lets the player know about it, but using the cure would result in the player getting less ADAM and thus makes it difficult to survive at times since it implies lesser of these active or passive supoerpowers. The player has the choice of killing or rescuing these girls, if he chooses to fight the Big Daddies that he sees around and manages to defeat them.

And this is what I probably wanted to talk about that hasn't been talked about by the hundreds of reviewers of the game. The fact that it is these little girls who actually let you know something about humanity- they're  extremely adorable and in fact help you throughout the game with plenty of gifts to show gratitude, and this is upto the final boss fight with Frank Fontaine who became inhumanly powerful with doses of ADAM. Tenembaum is a big contrast to Andrew Ryan or Frank Fontaine, and protects these girls by storing them in a basement, and takes huge risks by trying to save and protect them. The human side of the game is almost completely feminine and this is no co-incidence. The motherly love that Tenembaum has (although she was a bit ruthless initially and only later regrets her actions) and the innocence of the kids touch you more than anything else in the game and the trailers of the game also advertise the Little Sisters more than anything. Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine are brilliant people. Ryan is frequently quoted by several audio logs of scientists as the best electrical engineer in the world, and Frank Fontaine is easily the best businessman in terms of making profits. But human beings are not complete just by being highly efficient. We have robots for that. It's the love for kids and family that really makes a human being and Tenembaun and the Little Sisters send the message really well. This message like several other messages, is implied and not explicitly thrust into the player and that is probably what makes the game so unique. The story is there and the environment is there, and it is upto the player to explore, find the audio logs and connect the dots. The atmosphere, the soundtrack and the random dialogues of the enemies that the player encounters in the game, all add up to an experience that is beyond words. A true Gesamtkuntzberg.

This video, along with the next parts explain Bioshock's story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrlgwU2PY-s
Bioshock's gameplay videos are available throughout youtube. But here's something more interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ke4WBDTUA

Happiness and purpose

Many of us think that happiness is the true purpose of life- at least many of the atheists. For theists, the purpose would generally be to serve God by performing duties while being thankful through prayers. Duties can range from selfish needs at worst, to kids' needs, friends and relatives needs, mankind's needs and in the best case scenario, the whole environment's needs. By best I mean best in my opinion, and not at any objective level. Anyway, for most atheists, the purpose to life can be a but murky. For fans of evolution, there's the theory that love for your species is the purpose to one's life. Love for mankind needn't only be shown through charity and in most cases should not be (as I talked about in the post- "The right way to treat a person"). Focusing on selfish or family level interests are probably a good idea and this generally makes other families and individuals focus on themselves and make the whole world better. There are exceptions to the rule that self-interest promotes overall group interests, but in an environment where the judicial system is well structured- i.e our actions are governed by a set of rules that ensure that self interest does not lead to detrimental consequences at a larger level, things should be fine. For instance, it might be of self-interest for a guy to shoot his boss, but then that would cause chaos that is beyond acceptability, and would bring down mankind in the long run, and so it is unlawful to do so.

Whatever be the aim of a person, it can by hypothesised that the aim can be simplified to happiness, because his aim in life when fulfilled, should give him happiness. This takes care of the problem of having an aim that is not aligned with one's values as well. A person who has an aim of educating the world- but without believing in the cause, would not get much happiness in doing so. So, a person who has the right set of values and morals can bring good to the world if he tries to make himself happy. He may become happy by helping the underpriviledged or by making himself rich.

I'd like to categorise happiness and long and short term happiness. Short term happiness includes the happiness you get by doing thing like watching a movie or going out with friends or just sitting around and doing nothing. I''ll refer to short term happiness simply by the word 'happiness'. Long term happiness is a result of all your past actions and it's something that is much stronger and more meaningful- and I'll refer to this as 'purpose'. By stronger I mean that it cannot be taken away from you easily- you cant make Mr. Barrack Obama sad by telling him that he wasted his life away. But you could make him sad by taking away his sandwich when he's really hungry. It's more meaningful because you can't fool yourself with purpose. You can be happy by not doing homework but it doesn't give you any tangible benefits. The feeling of purpose can be achieved only by achieving things in the long run. But is this a rule?

Well, I wouldn't think so. In a famous experiment, people who lost their limbs and people who won lotteries went back to similar levels of general happiness a few months after the respective incidents. It's not uncommon to see very poor people or beggars who are very happy with their lives while MNC CEOs or top actors may not be happy with theirs. In this case, happiness comes down to meeting your expectations. The feeling of accomplishment (which I earlier called purpose) can be achieved even by not doing much but believing that you are actually doing enough. According to Dan Gilbert, people have this unique capability to synthesise happiness, and this happiness is not in any way inferior to the happiness you get when you get the things you desire. Synthesising happiness consists of being satisfied with who you are. People like Buddha figured this out long back and suggested people to not desire things. This would help them synthesise happiness but then it's not very meaningful when you synthesise purpose, is it? Anyway according to Gilbert, there are two kinds of happiness and this is a different way of looking at the same problem- the happiness you get from getting things you want and the happiness you get by being satisfied with what you have.

So what do you do now? Well my suggestion is to go for a mixture of happiness and purpose and leave the synthesis of happiness to its natural ways. And by the way, the reason why people may marry spouses who are rich and succesful and organised is to help with their feeling of purpose. This might be compromise on happiness (short-term) if the person is boring to hang out with. It must be remembered that happiness and purpose are to a large extent independent and a healthy combination of both are required for a happy, succesful life. A slight tilt towards purpose would probably help, though.