Thought 7: Does randomness obliterate skill?

I like games. In fact one could easily say I love games. I enjoy all different kinds of games and multiple aspects of said games. I like creating a strategy to achieve goals. I like interacting with other people. I love pitting myself against intelligent opponents and pushing myself. I like being silly and cracking jokes while playing. I like playing less intense games to have a way to pass the time while hanging out. I love competing with my brother head to head. I love sitting down afterwards and thinking about what I could've done to play better. I like breaking down the mechanics of a game to see how they interact with one another.

With that out of the way I've noticed that people tend to get frustrated by randomness in games. An example would be the dice rolls in Settlers of Catan. Higher level players who've done research to know the high percentage plays tend to get angry when some one else wins with a lower percentage play. They feel that superior play should reward them with victories.

This brings up the key question, how often should a more skilled player beat a less skilled player? Should it be 100%? I personally don't think (outside of a wild imbalance in ability) that is correct. I know several people who I believe disagree with me vehemently on this point.

This comes down to the heart of what I think skill is. But first another side trail.

Kids love to play tic-tac-toe. Adults don't. The reason is simple. Tic-Tac-Toe is a solvable game. There is no variance (randomness) in the game. Every game played by compentent players should end in a draw. Every line of play can be calculated by the average person. There are a few tricks you can try, but again none of them work if the opponent knows the line of play to follow. Every play has a counter play that maintains parity. That's why adults don't play among themselves. Once a kid gets smart enough to realize this they lose interest in the game.

Chess is like tic-tac-toe for adults. There is 0% variance, all things that happen are the direct consequence of a player's choice. There is a general imbalance in that one player gets to go first. That is worth (roughly) half a pawn. Chess is too large and complicated to be solvable, so we don't run into the same problem we have with Tic-Tac-Toe where a countering line of play can be easily found by a person of average intelligence. High level chess becomes about gaining incremental advantage, using tempo and board positioning rather than trying to create material imbalance by inequal exchange of pieces.

Chess gives us an answer to the idea that more skilled players should be able to beat less skilled players 100% of the time.

But what happens when we add in a little randomness?

What takes more skill? Having an environment where your only interactions are with your opponent directly (chess) or with an outside environment as well (poker)?

I hope there is no argument that games with an element of luck lose interaction with skill. The reason the same people go to the World Series of Poker every year isn't that they are incredibly lucky. They are incredibly skilled players. One of those skill is understanding the effect of variance on the game. Instead of saying "If I move my pawn here it will capture their knight" they'd think "I have a 78% chance to win this pot" or "I have 8 outs to win this hand". Imagine if chess captures were only a % chance. It would change the dynamic of the game. People who play chess as it is now would probably complain that it made the game too "luck based" but it would really just change the way you play.

Instead of making a guaranteed play you start learning to take high percentage plays over low percentage plays. Sure in the short term you'll lose some games you "should" have won. But I think over the long term you'll see a return to the same win percent break down you had with chess pre-random capture success. Having a playstyle that incorporates variances into it becomes a key skill for playing a game with variance. Those games aren't less skill oriented they just require a different skill set.

Thought 6: Salvation (Deliverance) is constant

We (and by we I mean mainline Protestant American Christianity including Evangelicals) use the word salvation in a very narrow sense. We talk about being 'saved' in the past tense as a singular occurrence. We pass from destined for hell to destined for heaven. A binary state flag is flipped from 0 to 1. This is a dangerous approach to a word and it colors the way we interpret so many different parts of the Bible.

I read the parable about the sower today and I started thinking about the limited way we frame salvation (only pertaining to heaven/hell) and the application of that parable. A lot of people try to split hairs about which people are 'saved' and which aren't in the parable (way side seeds, choked seeds, withered seeds, and seeds that produce fruit). That is not the right approach interpreting parables. I don't think it's about salvation in the sense of heaven/hell. If you think of it as all of the people receiving seeds are already 'saved' (or not) then the parable is about their every day life rather than a conversion experience

Sometimes even for a saved person the Word of God is put into their life and they don't respond. This is Satan messing with our salvation. Here I don't mean "going to heaven or hell" that is permanently settled. But the daily living out of salvation (in the sense of deliverance from the power of sin) is something we can cheat ourselves out of. If we don't respond to the Word when we hear it then it (and the power it has) can be quickly removed.

Maybe a good sermon that could help us gets set aside because of other things on our mind? I think the other examples work here too. When we see the word salvation in the Bible we can't automatically narrow the meaning down to heaven/hell. So when we move away from interpreting the Gospel as being narrowly applied to only heaven/hell instead of being applied to every day we run into weird parable interpretations. Every day I can let the world choke out the Word of God in my life. Every day I can be fruitful. Every day I can harden myself and let Satan steal the usefulness of God's Word. That's better than "Well this one day I accepted Jesus so now I don't have to think about being choked out, or withered, or fruitful because that's already decided". It also means any confusion about "well they're acting like they are withered so maybe they aren't saved" because it isn't about that. It's about the Gospel's impact on my every day life. My constant salvation (deliverance) from sin is the view, not a binary state flip.

A holistic approach to salvation is better for us as a church. I understand the distinction between justification and sanctification as theological concepts, but I think that pushing only one of those as the view of every parable leads to anemic theology. We view everything through the lens of salvation as heaven/hell and impose that as the interpretation for every parable and wonder why some parables don't seem to make any sense. It's because we're restricting ourselves to a small (and understandably important) space of Christianity.

This reveals a flaw in our mindset. It shows our goal is not to be better, but rather to avoid punishment. If Christianity is reduced from becoming like Christ to avoiding punishment for our failures then Christianity is in a sad state. It ceases to be a revolution of the human heart and life and becomes one more system for people to hide behind. A system to try and mask the chill and fear that thoughts of death strike into the human heart. Another way to try and smother doubts and worries that we don't have answers for. That's the beauty of Christ. He doesn't offer a system that wipes away our fears. He doesn't offer simple pat answers for our difficult questions. He offers himself and the life he lived.

Our comfort doesn't lie in having the answers. It lies in knowing the answers are out there somewhere and we'll get to them some day.

Thought 5: Is industriousness morally good?

Is it immoral to be inefficient? I think in the past this would have perhaps been a silly question, but now concerns for human impact on the environment have brought it new life.

I think we can all agree that extreme sloth is bad. Any person who doesn't provide for their own basic needs with no reason has to be cared for from the largesse of others. Laziness is considered a vice by most.

However while I think most of the people I know have always lauded great productivity as morally good I'm not sure about it. I certainly think it is useful and can be used for good (greater wealth to give to the needy for instance). But is it inherently to itself good?

Does the corporate raider who generates a tremendous amount of wealth for many people doing something inherently good? Is the more efficient (if perhaps less humane) distribution of wealth good or bad? If we replace workers with robots and lower overall employment have we done something good?

Should we take a utilitarian approach to the situation? Do we want to generate the greatest value to people even if that value is less equitably distributed?

What if I'm providing a service to someone at an outrageous price because they don't know or understand the alternatives? Am I being immoral? Am I in fact being moral because I'm extracing more wealth for myself?

Is it wrong or right to lay off someone who has a job that is entirely redundant for a company?

We come to a place where the core conflict becomes one of people versus efficiency.

Should we deny expensive care to Medicare patients so that less expensive care can be given to a large group of other people with higher chances of recovery?

What are the responsibilities on us that exist because we live in a world with scarcity? Do we have a responsibility to care for as many people as possible? Doesn't that just leave us in a place of utilitarianism? At what point can we sacrifice one person for the greater good? How many people and cultures have gone down terrible roads when starting on a path to this greater good?

I wish I had answers for these questions.

I think my approach to the Bible is often one of looking for personal action. For the above problems I have answers for myself. Turning to the wisdom literature we see encouragement to work hard, but a reminder that wealth without contentment is pointless. I don't have a lot of ambition so my focus is on not being motivated enough, but I can easily provide for my family so my motivation to work more hours is pretty low.

I'm going to try and do some more studying of corporate action in the Bible. It gives some outline for how the church should work, but very few specifics. I'll see what I can come up with and do a second post if I find anything. I'm not expecting to find anything.

To the question of environmental impact, I do think it behooves us to care appropriately for our world. On the flip side I don't agree with the degree of moral condemnation people bring to bear on others for eating non-locally grown food while ignoring lots of other problems. Of course plenty of people like to point out the existence of problems so they can pull focus off of what they can do to be a little more efficient.