#10 - Competition

So it's come to this. The Journey through the arcana continues to this point - Competition. When last we met you may recall I had made #9 - Loneliness. #10 - in my deck and in the more traditional interpretation both have a similar flow - inasmuch as whatever flow there is is wholly contrived...

Look here -the Hermit to the Wheel of Fortune - it's like a shut-in! Shut-ins are hermits! Shut ins love gameshows!

Except well - really the Wheel of Fortune is a break from the ongoing cycle - we leave the first cycle with Loneliness - a disheartening departure, but as we return to the origins we recollect the Salesman - who started the first cycle. Competition is essential to the Salesman. But it is also the downfall of many of them.

Here's a story about when I used to sell cars. I've used it in the past to try and illustrate some of the points of Game Theory - specifically the Prisoner's Dilemma. See - the brand of car that I sold had about 20 dealerships in the region. There was a vast glut of competing dealers - and every one of them was in cutthroat competition. Now... You've gone to the Car Dealership right? You've seen that sticker on the side of the car - the MSRP - the price. That's the price that's on the car - you go to any store and there's a price-tag on it - you probably don't negotiate (true-fact you don't do that because you aren't Egyptian, we try and bargain about everything) but on a car? You do. In fact the price on the car is much, much higher than the ones advertised in the Newspaper daily. Now - there's certainly an element of Bait and Switch, but in reality in all the years I sold cars - I saw one person, only one, ever pay the MSRP for their car. It was a big deal too. Now there is a legend that in far off places where there aren't a lot of dealers, maybe just one - there, the dealers expect and get the MSRP sticker price. That's the legend.

So how come there's all this movement on price? Downward movement? Because! Because one dealer wants to win against the other dealer. Their sales-people aren't salespeople - they're weak. They can't stand firm, and the customer is canny. So the Dealer starts to sell the car at a reduction below the Sticker, then there is downward price-pressure and soon all the dealers are lowering their price and price, only price, becomes the basis of the canny customer's purchase. The point is - that if every dealer strictly aides by the MSRP - then every dealer will get more money. But if there is a chance that one dealer can get all the business by lowering prices - then they will. Which exerts that pressure - and soon everyone is racing to the bottom.

My point is that competition is A complicated idea - particularly when it is competition for a fungible indistinct resource like money. So this component of Game Theory is included in my picture here.

See the numbers? That's right from the Prisoner's Dilemma, it's a race to the bottom, throw the other guy under the bus? Well, you've a lot to gain - but if he does the same - well you're in trouble yourself. The best policy is to co-operate - but it's not intuitive to a lot of people, competition is a profound element of the world.

And that's why it gets this discussion here. Now - how did I get to competition from the Wheel of Fortune? The Wheel of Fortune is meant to indicate the randomness and the chaos of the world, chance - everything begins from out of chance- or some unknowable design. Now to me, looking at the card, and the idea in it - I came to Fortune first, the idea of a fortune. Spin the wheel and hope, go on your journey to win your fortune.

And that's the notion I started from. Horatio Alger stuff - seeking a fortune. That's very Western, that's very naive and antiquated, romantic. It's no wonder that it is so closely allied to the concept of natural law - another childish conceit that our polity is built upon. The idea is that there is a fortune for everyone. That's the idea in America, everyone can get rich and you look up to the people who do. But really, really and truly - everything, and I mean down to the minimal fortunes of people like, say - me. Everything I have I have essentially out-competed everyone else who doesn't have the same things i have. I have a blue coffee mug and that's one less blue mug for you. If you don't have one and I do? Well that's a fortune I won that you will never get. The same is true for everything you have and that you don't have. There aren't unlimited amounts of million-dollar ideas out there - there's not even an unlimited amount of millions of dollars. Anything you have you outcompeted someone else for - your education, your car, the gasoline in your car. It's all very hard won.

But I tend to see competition as being kind of irrational. Particularly in the society where there is great abundance. We're not competing for survival at all, but really - really because we've been pitted in competition by greater powers that gain advantage by our competition. It's because we're all in these death-spirals that I have made the figures indistinct -they're not meant to be relateable, well, one is not meant to be more so than the other- they're both in the same situation, they're both just as stuck and both just as eager and insistent on victory. They're the Same is what I'm saying


I won't speak against the nobility of contest, of winning, and of loosing - but there's more to it than that - and it is not randomness that determines the winner, but competition. I suppose that I see that the willingness of a few to win less would mean more winning for all. Not always a popular idea, but true.

(no subject)

Oh I'm a fool, a foolish, foolish fool. So all I have going on and I decided to take up another hobby. I... I bought a trumpet.

It was real cheap on Ebay so I bought it. And it's okay. It's nice. I already like holding it. "But Kingtycoon?" You ask, judging. "Isn't the last time you played that thing the 9th grade?" You add with some acrimony, "and weren't you last chair?"

"Second to last!" I tell you quickly. I kind of wished for my old trumpet and looked into its whereabouts. It was broken and I switched to the tuba in the marching band - which is how I finished out highschool, but Tubas are prohibitively pricey and I never had one of my own. And my ugly old trumpet is not findable. I miss it though, ugly as hell, pink! It was copper and the finish made it pink and then it had a lot of silver accents - hideous! Garish! But mine and I liked it well enough, till a valve got irreparably scratched.


So this guy. I got it today while taking a painting break from working from home. It... It's nice. I can still play my scales, getting okay at it too! Getting okay. Maybe I'll be able to do alright with this gentleman. Anyway, sorry if you are my neighbor.