politics imitates poker
It occurred to me recently that the a certain element of human nature seems to play a role in both politics and the subculture of poker players. Actually, it is likely that there are many such aspects of human nature, but there is one in particular that I find interesting right now.
It is well-known that poker players tend to either underestimate the role of luck in the game or overestimate it, depending upon their results. Poker players that run hot may realize they have been lucky, but almost without exception they underestimate just how lucky. They think that they deserve to win at a high rate, and that their good luck just added a welcome bonus for their good play. On the other hand, poker players that run cold for awhile also overestimate how unlucky they have been. They think that a losing week of play or even just a losing session is an indication that they have been especially unlucky, above and beyond the bounds of "normal" bad luck.
On the flip side of these, it also is true that when they consider their opponents' luck, poker players tend to have a far less generous assessment. Poker players tend to consider their opponents to be luckier than they would consider themselves for the same results, and also tend to be far less sympathetic toward their opponents' cold streaks than their own, tending instead to blame opponent losses on bad play.
Let me take a moment to suggest an interesting variant to poker. Let's say that at the end of a session, the group that plays the game together takes a vote, and if the group as a whole feels someone has been particularly lucky, then that person will be required to give back some fraction of their winnings to a player that the group deems to have been particularly unlucky. Certainly this should be something people should agree to at the outset (before any results have occurred), as the skillful players are (presumably) rewarded, and the variance is greatly reduced in the process - everyone pretty much gets what they deserve.
Well, naturally there is a flaw in this idea - the vote. If there was a scientific manner that everyone's luck could be quantified, that would be one thing, but having the same players that won or lost money vote on how those winnings should be equitably redistributed is bound to cause big problems. I am not talking about the obvious reason that people will simply vote in their financial best interest, though this would clearly be a problem. Instead, what I am referring to is the psychological effect I described above. After winning, players tend to believe that they deserved to win, and they set the bar for "fair" accordingly. Players that have lost money in the game view things very differently, and would therefore also view what is "fair" differently.
Obviously this effect is very complex in the political arena, but I believe there are great similarities. Please note that I am not only talking about economic standing. The privilege/poker-luck analogy works equally well with things like race and geographical location as it does with wealth. Humans just seem to naturally feel entitled to whatever advantage they have, whether it is earned or not.
I think both sides take things too far: Progressives tend to coddle the underprivileged a bit too much, and conservatives tend to be unable or unwilling to empathize with the plight of the underprivileged. But knowing what I know about human nature from interactions with poker players, I definitely tend to side with the progressives. Poker egos are large and players that win are thoroughly convinced that they did so almost entirely through skill, and that they deserve every penny. Players that lose for an extended period will undoubtedly curse their bad luck, but they also tend to become introspective to look for leaks in their play that might be at least partly responsible for their losses. I think that for whatever reason, the human psyche is more prone to the privilege-begets-entitlement phenomenon than it is the woe-is-me-I-deserve-help phenomenon.
Of course, one can talk at length about the MANNER in which inequities in society are remedied, but that is a whole different conversation. My point here is that ideas like federal regulation vs free markets, welfare-style entitlement programs, progressive taxation, and affirmative action are all hotly debated in no small part because of a quirk of human nature that is so evident in the poker-playing subculture.
It is well-known that poker players tend to either underestimate the role of luck in the game or overestimate it, depending upon their results. Poker players that run hot may realize they have been lucky, but almost without exception they underestimate just how lucky. They think that they deserve to win at a high rate, and that their good luck just added a welcome bonus for their good play. On the other hand, poker players that run cold for awhile also overestimate how unlucky they have been. They think that a losing week of play or even just a losing session is an indication that they have been especially unlucky, above and beyond the bounds of "normal" bad luck.
On the flip side of these, it also is true that when they consider their opponents' luck, poker players tend to have a far less generous assessment. Poker players tend to consider their opponents to be luckier than they would consider themselves for the same results, and also tend to be far less sympathetic toward their opponents' cold streaks than their own, tending instead to blame opponent losses on bad play.
Let me take a moment to suggest an interesting variant to poker. Let's say that at the end of a session, the group that plays the game together takes a vote, and if the group as a whole feels someone has been particularly lucky, then that person will be required to give back some fraction of their winnings to a player that the group deems to have been particularly unlucky. Certainly this should be something people should agree to at the outset (before any results have occurred), as the skillful players are (presumably) rewarded, and the variance is greatly reduced in the process - everyone pretty much gets what they deserve.
Well, naturally there is a flaw in this idea - the vote. If there was a scientific manner that everyone's luck could be quantified, that would be one thing, but having the same players that won or lost money vote on how those winnings should be equitably redistributed is bound to cause big problems. I am not talking about the obvious reason that people will simply vote in their financial best interest, though this would clearly be a problem. Instead, what I am referring to is the psychological effect I described above. After winning, players tend to believe that they deserved to win, and they set the bar for "fair" accordingly. Players that have lost money in the game view things very differently, and would therefore also view what is "fair" differently.
Obviously this effect is very complex in the political arena, but I believe there are great similarities. Please note that I am not only talking about economic standing. The privilege/poker-luck analogy works equally well with things like race and geographical location as it does with wealth. Humans just seem to naturally feel entitled to whatever advantage they have, whether it is earned or not.
I think both sides take things too far: Progressives tend to coddle the underprivileged a bit too much, and conservatives tend to be unable or unwilling to empathize with the plight of the underprivileged. But knowing what I know about human nature from interactions with poker players, I definitely tend to side with the progressives. Poker egos are large and players that win are thoroughly convinced that they did so almost entirely through skill, and that they deserve every penny. Players that lose for an extended period will undoubtedly curse their bad luck, but they also tend to become introspective to look for leaks in their play that might be at least partly responsible for their losses. I think that for whatever reason, the human psyche is more prone to the privilege-begets-entitlement phenomenon than it is the woe-is-me-I-deserve-help phenomenon.
Of course, one can talk at length about the MANNER in which inequities in society are remedied, but that is a whole different conversation. My point here is that ideas like federal regulation vs free markets, welfare-style entitlement programs, progressive taxation, and affirmative action are all hotly debated in no small part because of a quirk of human nature that is so evident in the poker-playing subculture.