We make a #generator and a #discriminator fight. A lot. " In a #GAN, two #NeuralNetworks compete with each other in the form of a #ZeroSumGame, where one agent's gain is another agent's loss " #GenerativeAdversarialNetwork

A personal account of homelessness, scapegoating, & zero-sum games:

Earlier this year, at 49 years old, I found myself homeless and in emergency/temporary accommodation through my local council. That wasn’t a situation I ever dreamed I’d be in. I don’t fit any of the dismal clichéd tropes of alcoholic, or drug user, or teenage runaway. How could I not manage to pull enough threads of my (previously successful) life together to prevent everything unravelling to such an extent?

What this situation illuminated to me was that homelessness can be caused by a series of difficult, unforeseen, and sometimes plain fucked-up events that an individual could probably handle if it were just one or two or even three concurrent challenges, but, to employ a surfing metaphor, sometimes it can feel as if you just attempted to ride a pretty big wave and after a glorious moment when you thought you’d got your life sorted, you get that sudden lurch in the stomach as you pitch over the board and spectacularly wipeout. It’s a stormy day and so wave after wave after wave come crashing down and you’re only just up gasping for air before the next big wave hits, tumbling you under, slamming you into the depths. You might struggle to the surface for a few moments: find a friendly sofa to crash on for a few days; have a family member let you use their address for mail (under duress); or manage to secure emergency housing; but often the horror of so many disorienting events happening simultaneously is enough to ensure that you won’t be getting back on your board anytime soon. To be honest your leash has probably snapped and you’re watching that board, your life-raft, being smashed to pieces on some rocks you’re now desperately trying to avoid.

I agree with the thinking that many of the issue of homelessness are brought about by a person being engulfed in a toxic environment that they refuse (either consciously or subconsciously) to integrate into. Our awareness of the human condition does continue to evolve, and there is a growing understanding that people’s addictions, difficulties, and inabilities to pioneer through life are not solely due to ‘a lack of character’ or ‘strength’ but that the toxicity of the family and community surrounding an individual can significantly damage a person’s chances of creating a successful life, and by successful I mean being able to thrive, not just survive the daily grind. The issue here is that often the family and wider community refuse to admit that their actions are toxic. They don’t want to be told that they’re part of the problem, and they definitely do not want to have to change their toxic, competitive behaviours that have worked so well for them up until that point.

Anyone who’s studied The Prisoners’ Dilemma paradox in Game Theory (a thought experiment devised that offers competing participants the opportunity to choose either a cooperative strategy or a more ‘dog-eat-dog’ approach to winning) will tell you that the cooperative, mutually beneficial, emotionally intelligent strategy always wins, with those taking a selfish, retaliatory position consistently finding themselves at the bottom of the league. What I can’t fathom is why people continue to destroy each other in their fabricated zero-sum games when all the research points to the fact that a person can be both motivated by self-interest and still accept that cooperation is the most viable option for an individual’s success; it’s literally win-win. I suppose the research can’t account for the perverse nature of some people’s character, even as it highlights the extent to which capitalism has destroyed the very fabric of our togetherness.

As Friedrich Engels explains in The Conditions of The Working Class in England:
“Competition is the completest expression of the battle of all against all which rules in modern civil society. But this competition of the workers among themselves is the worst side of the present state of things in its effect upon the worker, the sharpest weapon against the proletariat in the hands of the bourgeoisie.”

The capitalist ideal that it’s ‘everyone for themselves’ encourages us to view all people as competition who must be at best ignored, or at worst destroyed, and this cancer now spreads throughout families and communities as much as the workplace. It’s also the narcissist’s most effective tool for maintaining control of a community’s thoughts and perceptions of any given situation or victim.

It’s sad to acknowledge that we’ve all internalised this competitiveness to the extent that the very community a homeless person should reach out to for help are often the exact same people who created the miserable environment that precipitated that person’s misfortunes in the first place.

The experts might tell us that when an individual begins to set strong personal boundaries, those who benefited from their previous lack of self-worth will vanish from their life, but what about the people who actively seek to destroy their target due to a fear of being unmasked? What about the fellow creatives, family, and ex who know that if you begin to live a healthy life outside of their toxic paradigm you’ll expose their dysfunction, and so they ramp up the vicious smear campaigns encouraging everyone you come into contact with to compete with you for even the most insignificant comforts or advantages? Soon everyone around the victim joins the frenzy, becoming a plague of locusts stripping everything away until that person is left with absolutely nothing.

Even though I now have a place to live and a job, I often experience a deep despair that I’ll never escape this Kafkaesque nightmare and I still struggle to make it to the end of each day with my self-worth in tact. This is because although I might have managed to haul myself up one or two more rungs of the ladder, I’m no way near clear of this mess.

Thinking again of Engles, there’s no returning to the times before industrialisation horrifically transmuted us into capitalist-fight-or-die machines, and we don’t need to rewind to some Romanticised version of peasantry, but couldn't we just pause long enough to remember the organic heart of our humanity?

I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to dealing with scapegoating abuse. I’m still clawing myself away from the vicious lies while trying my best not to lose my heart to despair. People rarely bother to fact-check gossip. Perhaps the only thing survivors can do for each other is keep sharing our experiences so that others will know that they’re not alone. Watching the TedTalk on scapegoating abuse in my previous post is what inspired me to publish these words, I hope someone else in this position also passes on the baton.

#scapegoat #engels #capitalism #homeless #gametheory #zerosumgame

https://x.com/kenchangh/status/1994854381267947640 #crypto is a #zerosumgame. I thought so, but never understood it in full length to make a good argument. This gentleman summed up what my guts told me all along.

Kindliche Naivität als System: Härten, Tragische Wahl & der Gegensatz von Wichtigkeit/Dringlichkeit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6uxZWk1MG8

#Nullsummenspiele #ZeroSumGame #TradeOff #TradeOffs #Tragik #Ökonomie #Ökologie #Gegensatz #Liberalismus #Autoritarismus

Willkommen zurück im Mittelalter: Die Welt als Nullsummenspiel | Härtnäckiges Sich-Selbst-Belügen links wie rechts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWaYYBcaKPc

#Zukunft #Realismus #Hölle #DonaldTrump #Putin #Trump #XiJinping #Russia #China #Germany #Europe #WorldOrder #Hobbes #Thukydides #Democracy #Politics #Solon #ZeroSumGame #GameTheory

This #rapture nonsense is another example for #zeroSumGame thinking: They expect to go to heaven but it is essential that the rest of mankind and the planet needs to be destroyed.
And they are actively taking part in destroying it so they can go to heaven ASAP.

A quotation from Eric Hoffer

   The real “haves” are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities.
   On the other hand, the real “have nots” are those who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 115 (1955)

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/hoffer-eric/24752/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #erichoffer #confidence #freedom #makers #poor #potential #riches #selfreliance #takers #wealth #wealthy #zerosumgame

@europesays By "gain, " of course you mean lifted from the pockets of buyers in the US who ultimately pay the tax. #zerosumgame

Did the definition of #ZeroSumGame change while I was asleep?
I just read an article that describe a zero-sum game as "one that doesn't generate a profit but, instead, helps other people in your team do their jobs properly" & links to another article that strongly implies the same.
What??? 🤔

@HamonWry

Much of Trump's failure to display any understanding of economics can be seen as the logical consequence of him believing that trade, economics, "deals" are a zero-sum game. It explains many of his actions.

For him to "win", the "other side" has to lose. There's no such thing as a transaction that both sides benefit from. So he hires a contractor, but then stiffs them on some or all of their invoices. etc, etc.

I actually think that he believes *everything* is a zero-sum game, not just commerce. It's a very pouty-5-year-old way of looking at the world.

#pout #DJT #deal #commerce #transaction #ZeroSumGame #ZeroSum

@bullshitjobs
Is it not more honest, grounded maybe to say "move money around", rather than make money.
The idea of working to "make" money is untrue in nearly all cases. Bullshit jobs just push money around from one place to another, and in a small way contribute to inflation, no? I need to check, i am wondering now did David Graeber make reference to #zerosumgame in BS Jobs.

#QuickQuestion: #Have the #RacistHomophobes at #LotRO / #SSG complied with #EULaw, yet...? | #StillNope™️ in #Nopevember...

#DontForget: #IT's not #AnyKind of #ZeroSumGame; #PluralityWins... #EveryTime... For the #Plurality...!

#LetsPlay: #FantasyFlightCrew...! I've got #MichaelFassbender as #MyPersonalCoPilot; he was #DemocraticallyElected and #Everything... And, we've got #TheRightStaff™️

I will #AlsoAlsoAdd; #TheFediverseRemembers... #StillTrue™️

🧙⚔️​🤖🐺🤖⚔️🧙 | :fediverse:​🦹:loading:​🦄:loading:​🦹:fediverse:

#TopTip: #OnlyForProfessionals...

#TheNextTime some #RacistHomophobes / #MiserableMorons start #ChunteringOn about how #Multiculturalism has #Failed; #RemindThem of #AllThePeople that have #StoodBeforeThem and #MadeCivilisation #WorkForThem...

#IT's not #AnyKind of #ZeroSumGame; #PluralityWins... For the #Plurality...!

🧙⚔️​🤖🐺🤖⚔️🧙 | :fediverse:​🦹:loading:​🦄:loading:​🦹:fediverse:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=V12DX4VfpdY&si=n0Eyaifv0XjU4pmj Putin knows the war is over . . . #inevitable #ukrainewins #russialoses #zerosumgame #itsoverfolks

A quotation from Schreiner, Olive:

«
I said to God, “What are they doing?”
God said, “Making pitfalls into which their fellows may sink.”
I said to God, “Why do they do it?”
God said, “Because each thinks that when his brother falls he will rise.”
»

Full quote, sourcing, notes:
https://wist.info/schreiner-olive/70144/

#quote #quotes #quotation #competition #evil #harm #hell #wrongdoing #zerosumgame

A lot of people cannot comprehend a situation which is not a #zerosumgame

@GrantMeStrength
Putting lots of storage on computer just encourages some software jockey to write code to fill it up.
#ZeroSumGame

“The fact that large platforms are adopting ActivityPub is not only validation of the movement towards decentralized social media, but a path forward for people locked into these platforms to switch to better providers. Which in turn, puts pressure on such platforms to provide better, less exploitative services. This is a clear victory for our cause, hopefully one of many to come.”

Famous last words.

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/07/what-to-know-about-threads/

#mastodon #fediverse #threads #BigTech #SiliconValley #zeroSumGame

A quotation from Mill, John Stuart:

«««««
But the best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.
»»»»»

Full quote, sourcing, notes:
https://wist.info/mill-john-stuart/61519/

#quote #quotes #quotation #competition #fear #satisfaction #wealth #zerosumgame