The New World

sus

Well-known member
I think separating the conflict from the nerves, the way the opening does, is well-played too. All these soldiers throwing up on themselves, freaking the fuck out, panic spreading in the barracks, "like ducks on these fucking boats," a buncha men in tin cans on an open ocean, can't swim, readying themselves for hellfire, and then nothing comes. They just land calmly, no casualties. Sorta surreal.

I remember they did these studies on rats and stress, using ulcers as a proxy for stress-load. They found that the environment which reliably caused the most ulcers was a field of electrical wires between rat and food source, that inconsistently and semi-randomly shocked the shit out of them. If the rat gets shocked in the same place every time, no problem, he tenses up, expects it, lives with it. But if he never knows when it's coming, if it could come any time at all...
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
I remember they did these studies on rats and stress, using ulcers as a proxy for stress-load. They found that the environment which reliably caused the most ulcers was a field of electrical wires between rat and food source, that inconsistently and semi-randomly shocked the shit out of them. If the rat gets shocked in the same place every time, no problem, he tenses up, expects it, lives with it. But if he never knows when it's coming, if it could come any time at all...

Similar point about happiness (pretty sure dopamine and not seratonin - but I don't really know the difference) during gambling. Not knowing whether you are going to win or not seems to more reliably trigger happy-chems then if the player knew they were going to win.

That is, if you are unable to associate which maneuvers/tactics led to which rewards, the anticipation seems to fuel the happiness. Whereas, in situations where you are able to better predict which actions lead to what income, the matter becomes boring.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I've read stuff about gambling. I'm sure I've seen it said that the psychological reward of winning is LESS than the psychological pain of a (presumably equivalent) loss.
I don't understand that though... what would make it addictive if that were true? Unless the anticipation factors in too...
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
It seems to be a situation where we have found a loophole through our own programming - the manner in which our economic drive can emerge beyond us, allowing us to pull our own strings. This seems to be what is at work, when we talk about capitalism as some kind of archon, some grand cosmic entity.

And to your point, I wonder if the net loss outweighs the net gain, in terms to emotional impact, but in such a gradual way as to slip past us, whereas the occasional win is such a sudden and all-at-once positive that it allows for the ultimately negative trend to continue.
 

luka

Well-known member
Gus, who I love and is going to sleep on my sofa when he visits London, is the next Dr Mengele mark my words. Very sinister human being
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
It seems to be a situation where we have found a loophole through our own programming - the manner in which our economic drive can emerge beyond us, allowing us to pull our own strings. This seems to be what is at work, when we talk about capitalism as some kind of archon, some grand cosmic entity.
And to your point, I wonder if the net loss outweighs the net gain, in terms to emotional impact, but in such a gradual way as to slip past us, whereas the occasional win is such a sudden and all-at-once positive that it allows for the ultimately negative trend to continue.
It may actually be this too - presumably they compare a ten pound (say) win, to a ten pound loss and maybe the former gives less pleasure than the latter. Let's assume for the sake of argument in the following example that a ten pound win gives half as much pleasure as you lose from a ten pound loss.
However if you are betting on horses (or dogs, or first scorer in football or whatever) then there are gonna be odds involved. The horse you back might be at 7 to 1 say in which case you would either lose ten pounds or win seventy (plus your ten back). Now suppose the horse came in and you were seventy quid up, then (by the assumption that I made above and if it scales linearly) you would get an equivalent amount of pleasure to a 35 pound loss. So you can still make a gain on pleasure... albeit not as much as one would intuitively assume.
 

luka

Well-known member
Stan btw Rich was a maths prodigy. He did his maths degree at Oxford at 15. He was marked out for glory. They thought he would accomplish great theoretical work but he went straight to the city and made over one million £ and then retired in his 20s, hence idle rich
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
There is still plenty of great theoretical work to be done here - and I would gladly aid in a surge of science into the forums, despite powerful sentiments otherwise.
 

sus

Well-known member
Stan btw Rich was a maths prodigy. He did his maths degree at Oxford at 15. He was marked out for glory. They thought he would accomplish great theoretical work but he went straight to the city and made over one million £ and then retired in his 20s, hence idle rich

no shit.

@IdleRich Is that true?
 
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