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.