Is it a game of chance or skill? That question runs through my mind as I check my hole cards – pocket aces. Play aggressive to scare off those who might hit a lucky card on the river, or trap my opponents and bilk them for as many chips as possible? I take into consideration the players’ stacks around me, their tendency to bluff, the tells that scream I’m not interested in this hand. All signals that contribute to my final calculation… All in.

The poker analogy has been over-used in the game of international politics. Stanley Kubrick insisted that the War Room table in Doctor Strangelove be covered with the green felt used in casinos: he wanted the actors to convey the sense that the fate of the world was nothing more than a game of cards. It seems that Tal Pinchevsky is tired of the connections drawn between poker and politics, and argues that chess should be the metaphor of choice. 

On the surface, the argument makes sense. As a leader with an array of pieces at your disposal, there are gambits you can play to control areas of the board, while sacrificing a bishop here so that you can take a queen there. You need to think 5 or 6 moves in advance to have any sort of success. The strategies at play on the 64 squares can easily be transferred to any sphere in life, whether its global diplomacy, business or sports.

Still, the chess analogy feels limiting. As the game progresses, the more likely a specific outcome arises. Each player starts with 16 pieces of varying strength, and through a process of attrition, reduces their ability their respond to moves. Fewer pieces = fewer moves. Obviously good players avoid the scorched earth scenario, but regardless, you move and you respond. End game quickly reveals itself.

Perhaps its my Asian heritage, but I think go works better. You start with a larger playing surface: a clean 19 x 19 grid. Players take turns placing their stones on the 361 intersections. There are a few simple rules, with the basic goal to establish greater territory. The complexity of each game unfolds with maddening precision – each move changes the terrain and increases the number of possible responses. Add the fact that a professional go game can span over several days, it is an excruciatingly difficult game to master.

I’d argue that go represents the game of life more than chess. We start with a clean slate, each action we take representing a stone on the board. The specific placement is based on the thousands of considerations that came before it, and the possible permutations that follow. Our focus may shift from hobby to education to work to leisure, but it’s the sum total of all our experiences that’s more important. Likewise, go players take an extremely long-term view – my play in this area of the board will be a determining factor in the final configuration.

Maybe I’m thinking too hard about the analogies that all manner of games bring to the table. Of course, this is the domain of game theorists, so there must be some credence to all of the thought that they’ve created.

At the end of the day though, isn’t the point of life to have a little bit of fun?

Just going to share some scribbling I took about a week ago:

The 2 Indian men chattered nonstop next to me. As the wafts fragant basmati punctuated by aromatic bursts of garlic naan assaulted my nose, it was their baritone voices that left a deeper impression. You could tell they of an educated ilk – besides the various name dropping of the latest books they’d been reading, and their general disdain for morning television shows, they enunciated their words with almost military precision. It was like listening to captivating radio personalities dueling over the airwaves, jabbing, feinting, bobbing and weaving their words. The content was of no matter: arguing about Israel, the history of German beer, travel restrictions in today’s security conscious era. I was privy to a future that I wanted to find myself in 40 years time. Enjoying a good meal, yakking about anything and everything under the sun. Mental exercises with gastronomic delight.

Ideas for this blog post pop in and out of my mindscape like a carnival whack-a-mole stand – they’re not quite where my focus is, taunting me with beady eyes and pearly whites. It’s not writer’s block that’s guarding the on-ramp to my editorial freedom – like Little John, he’s demanding tribute and all I can offer is some off the cuff fluff.

And it’s not for lack of trying – unlike Spider Jerusalem conducting research through an information binge, my data stream is operating at 80% efficiency. There’s a jam somewhere and my organic transistors are giving off a foul stench as they sizzle with ferocity. There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.

Overloaded, I’m parsing through possible explanations, and the only logical conclusion is that somehow I’ve crossed the streams of my Gen X and Gen Y personas. Technically I’m from the latter caste, but I think I sympathize on many levels with the former. Regardless, the Focus Alliance is clashing with the Multitask Horde and my poor brain is caught in the middle.

I know I already wrote about this earlier. Can’t help myself though; repetition just drives my point home.

Maybe this information dump of things I’ve been meaning to blog about will help the process. Call it my idea spring cleaning ritual (at the height of summer no less):

• The need for greater transparency in all systems
• Entrepreneurship: why it matters, and how to cultivate it
• A return to my realist manifesto
• The failure of the activism methodology
• Luck, chance and my existence
• Cheese

Time to take that left at Albuquerque…

The majority of non-fiction books are historical: the focus is usually on “proper” history (wars, economic cycles, biographies) or at the very least, the narrative employs past events as evidence in an argument. The past plays a huge role in the way we understand things – we know from experience that touching hot stoves is a no-no or how to swing a tennis racquet to get the right amount of topspin to confound your opponent. Even more telling is how much of our present station in life is determined by past decisions and/or events. Your academic pursuit and interests were sparked by some inspiring high school teacher, the job interview offered because of past successes with previous employers, your support of the local sports team because your parents or grandparents chose that particular city to have a family.

Perhaps more important is the power that history has on our future, as commented by many erudite men and women. George Santayana: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Karl Marx: History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Pearl S. Buck: One faces the future with one’s past. Maya Angelou: History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

This essentially forms the basic thesis of Jacques Attali’s A Brief History of the Future. By examining humanity’s march of progress from the ascent of homo sapiens sapiens to the development of civilization, capitalism and democracy, the French author tackles the 21st century. A modern day Nostrodamus, he bears witness to the fall of the American empire, and predicts three distinct waves of the future: Planetary Empire, Planetary War, Planetary Democracy. These terms should give you an idea of his argument.

Attali paints a dark picture as the path to global peace and harmony is fraught with danger: nation states become paranoid and protectionist. Pirates and corsairs lay siege and inflict terror. Our accepted and practiced models of business will disintegrate. Yet he is an optimist at heart, for as we transcend into transhumanism, society will be built on a foundation of altruism and a global economy flourishes on the good deeds of producers and consumers.

The ideas espoused within these pages aren’t necessarily new but this doesn’t make Attali’s argument any weaker. His outline of the challenges that we’ll face: economic crises, conflict zones, increasing surveillance may be frightening – we’re startlingly close them already. His broad, and albeit simple, strokes for world peace might turn off some readers, but at its core, A Brief History of the Future is a read that boldly stakes a position in uncharted territory.

As much as I enjoyed it, there is a passage that stood out for me. In his description of the wave of Planetary Democracy, he uses the term “collective intelligence.” As a phrase I carelessly throw about in my writing here, it was refreshing to see it clearly defined:

The collective intelligence is not the sum of the knowledge of its members, nor even the sum of their capacities to think: it is an intelligence peculiar to itself, which thinks differently from each member of the group. … All collective intelligence is the result of bridges, of links between individual intelligences, essential for creating the new. (p 272)

That to me is the most fascinating end-goal of our journey through time. Humanity’s greatest gift is the ability to create. When will our collective efforts bear fruit so that we can savour its flavours? When will we see a concerted effort to establish a commons, and a common goal to achieve? If Attali is correct and his particular vision will happen before the dawn of the next century, I shall count myself lucky to behold future’s light.

Some of you know of my love of comic books – or for the more academic term coined by Will Eisner and popularized by Scott McCloud – sequential art. A tight narrative that weaves around colourful characters, coupled with the artist’s dazzling imagination captured in pencil and ink, and highlighted by moody shades and hues: this is perfection.

So is a nicely grilled steak. And an ice cold beer on a hot day. And the view when day breaks on some picturesque landscape, rays of sunlight peeking over mountaintops like curious toddlers, quickly flooding the valley with warmth and life. But I digress….

Like other media that rely on physical formats, there has been much ballyhoo about how comics will survive in the digital world. Is that the sinister visage of Herr InterTubez, cackling with unbridled joy at the inevitable death of my beloved artform? One particular response is this meditation on storytelling, which literally explodes off the page and explores the electronic medium. It entertains and challenges the mind simultaneously, like caviar for your mind.

Pushing boundaries don’t have to happen through the delivery mechanism. A primary vehicle that makes you stop with unexpected clarity is content. New and bold ideas are often explored through fiction, especially within works of the science fiction variety. One of my current online reads is Escape From Terra, a webcomic that looks at how society might evolve in the future. The current arc has introduced an intriguing character, who develops “disruptive technologies” for the common good. His latest invention are “plants that will yield meat genetically identical to cows, chickens, fish and everything else.”

Meat seeds.

Just imagine for one second if we had meat seeds today. This is different than growing meat from a petri dish – which somehow conjures up images of mad scientists, and makes people squeamish. Instead you can sprinkle these seeds on the ground, water and tend them, and soon you’ll be harvesting gourds full of chicken-y flavour. Where do I sign up?

The ills of the world are being solved in the fantastic realms of artists. When will everyone else catch up?