I loved this article Tom Chivers. Best thing I’ve read on Unherd so far. Which, considering the very high standard of writing that is regularly on display, is certainly saying something.
“Presumably like me you spent the weekend glued to your screen, desperate for news of the game. “
Not me, have not watched any games since the Kneeling began. But I see what you mean,’the game’ haha, but then if one of your nerd friends insisted on kneeling in solidarity with BLM before the first roll of the dice, before the first snake-headed-lazar-ork made its move, what would you all do and say about it, would you booo or cheer, take a knee, tell them we do not do politics ‘in your face’ wile ‘gaming’? That is the question I want to know, the question of randomness of human behavior vs subtle programming fed into one by Social Media and the MSM.
Were Patton and Rommel just two interchangeable guys, (and military geniuses) who had been brought up with different propaganda? Is there nothing but Tabula Rasa and then the liberal/lefty teaching industry and social media and MSM and Entertainment industries form us like wet clay?
It is a hard problem…. but seeing the sheep wandering around with their phones clutched so tightly, or held in front of their eyes wile their thumbs type, I think the Global Elites, few in number, strong in control of media, will end up turning us all into their property, will have us forge our own chains and send ourselves to the gulags we build, just for nothing seemingly – a knee taken here, a statue there, a de-platforming, a doxing…..and we are toast as a society, as a People.
I’m not convinced either Patton or Rommel were military geniuses. One had a huge numbers advantage and the other was reading his opponents’ signals. Without those advantages it’s unclear either would have been more than a footnote.
Dan Gleeballs
2 years ago
Fascinating. I always preferred the mental clarity of D&D, which was as much about being in a thriller adventure with a few pals as winning battles against orcs and whatnot. I suppose Fortnite is much the same. These things may not always impart a true understanding of randomness, but they are a chance to laugh with a few of the lads – and to discover who is good and who is bad, the hierarchy. Good clean fun.
Rocky Rhode
2 years ago
Both my sons (now 18 and 28) got into Warhammer in their early teens thanks to my (ahem) encouragement.
They both loved it for a couple of years before moving on to other things. I’d like to think they might return to it at some point as adults.
The author’s point about randomness is well made.
Zac Chave-Cox
2 years ago
Excellent article. Reminds me of something I saw a pro Gwent (a digital card game based on the witcher) player say about deckbuilding, that the worst bit of data you can use to determine whether to change your deck is whether you won or lost with it.
ralph bell
2 years ago
Of course ‘Dice Man’ demonstrates this by an experiment to live his live choice decisions by the throw of a dice.
Wasn’t it based on Friedrich Nietzsche philosophy
I, too, was watching the new Kill Team preview on Saturday and will be pre-ordering.
People playing Warhammer (and probably in other games too) often talk about “bad dice”, not literally meaning there’s anything wrong with them, but that the rolls didn’t go your way. I usually refer to whether I’d made the proper sacrifices to the dice Gods – more in keeping with the IP.
I find that, generally, it’s not just randomness that people have difficulty with, it’s the whole concept of chance, probability and likelihood, too.
Also, Black Templars!
wolfiewells
2 years ago
Thanks, Tom! Great article.
Personally, I find that the more hours I spend selecting, assembling, converting, painting and basing one of my heroes, the quicker he dies in combat…
Like you, I’m looking forward to the new Kill Team. Looks great.
Last edited 2 years ago by wolfiewells
Andrew Raiment
2 years ago
Another interesting and thoughtful article from Tom. Indeed, we are all experts after the event, trying to make sense of it all. With the English football team it has been a longer journey than most people imagine. The players are more skillful on the ball, having adopted a more European approach, with greater emphasis on holding the ball, quick clean passing, keeping the ball on the ground and pressing opponents. For 20 minutes or so this is exactly what England did before the old bad habits resurfaced and Italy started to dominate. Given this, Southgate should have been bolder, especially that 5 substitutions are now available. Rashford, Saka and Sancho would have had more opportunity to turn the game around coming on in the 70th-75th minute mark, Grealish too, may have drawn the foul, creating dead ball options. Southgate put all his money on winning a penalty shootout, an option Italy also favoured.
Other sports have even more complicated gambling related outcomes but based on skilled practices. In cricket, Richie Benaud said “Captaincy is 90% luck and 10% skill but don’t try it without that 10%”. Formula 1 too, how long to keep a driver out on degrading tyres, what are the best tyres and set-up for the car and how might your plans change should there be an interruption such as rain or the introduction of the safety car.
A while ago I read a piece by Nico Rosberg who won the F1 World Championship in 2016 from his team mate Lewis Hamilton. Rosberg could have a given some glib reasons for his success but he attributed it to very small margins, even down to changing his racing gloves to have a greater feel of the car and what it was doing. Drivers and designers are very observant, drivers tend not to think of the “what ifs”, if they did, they might not ever get in the car.
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Warhammer, D&D, and all things trolls and fairies are for people too lazy or intellectually incurious to master the Renaissaince, or the French and Indian Wars, or Napoleonics, or the American Civil War. They want a world of dweebs, thargs and orcs so nobody can be better at this nonsense by being more industrious in understanding it. There is nothing to understand.
On survivorship bias, yes, absolutely and even Warren Buffett is not necessarily out of the woods. If you have 1,000 guys, make them financial traders and tell them to go trade, then on a purely random basis about a third will make money over a year, a third will break even and a third will lose. If you eliminate the latter third then after about 17, 18 years you’ll have one guy who’s been in the market all the time and never lost money in any year. That guy is highly likely to mistake himself for a financial genius and start putting crazy money behind crazy bets because his gut feel has never been wrong. At that point, it turns out that he is in fact Neil Woodford.
Buffett could be that guy too, except with a comparatively conservative trading strategy and effective management controls over loony bets. He probably isn’t, but the existence of counter-examples such as Woodford casts doubt for me on how good any of these people are.
Almost all the star wars gamers I know are professionally involved in astronomy, history, or the military*. We could spend all day discussing the imperial navy’s successful if belated integration of hyperspace-capable snubfighters with a battle-carrier doctrine post-Endor…. or spend 2 days discussing the French navy’s convoy protection doctrine in the late 17th and 18th centuries. To what extent were Lacelles and Maxwell involved in the cross-border anti-mercantilist trading undertaken by the likes of Greg and Cunningham circa-1750?
I am currently working on a WW1 boardgame that hopefully will be of use to military professionals for instruction. I also happen to be making models in my spare time of imperial C-10 Seige Towers and Mobile Proton Torpedo Launchers.
Anyways, Warhammer averts the annoying sterile modernist aesthetic of more respectable sci-fi. Spaceships look like cathedrals, space colonies have parishes and churches, it’s quite socially conservative at times.
*Said gamers are also devoted family men in stable marriages.
Zaph Mann
2 years ago
I enjoyed this read, right up my alley (I was 20% points ahead of the whole class in Statistics at Uni)…. so I appreciate it but have a caveat.
First let’s take Sterling for example – had some great impacts and scored or caused a couple of goals, he was some commentators player of the tournament. However it’s possible to put a showreel of blunders, missed opportunities and inept control by him together from just this event. So should he (or Mount or Sako) have been playing ahead of say Grealish, Foden or Sancho? Of course it’s hard to know because the latter three bare got any game time.
So the caveat is: Given Tom’s analysis seems to establish no blame for the decisions because the criticism comes after the fact. It’s valid criticism however if it came prior to the facts.
I for one was largely unimpressed by the performances throughout and made the correct criticisms ahead of the outcomes. The only commentator I could find (via youtube) who was more often ‘ahead of the game’ was the usually not particularly profound Steve McManaman
I loved this article Tom Chivers. Best thing I’ve read on Unherd so far. Which, considering the very high standard of writing that is regularly on display, is certainly saying something.
thank you!
“Presumably like me you spent the weekend glued to your screen, desperate for news of the game. “
Not me, have not watched any games since the Kneeling began. But I see what you mean,’the game’ haha, but then if one of your nerd friends insisted on kneeling in solidarity with BLM before the first roll of the dice, before the first snake-headed-lazar-ork made its move, what would you all do and say about it, would you booo or cheer, take a knee, tell them we do not do politics ‘in your face’ wile ‘gaming’? That is the question I want to know, the question of randomness of human behavior vs subtle programming fed into one by Social Media and the MSM.
Were Patton and Rommel just two interchangeable guys, (and military geniuses) who had been brought up with different propaganda? Is there nothing but Tabula Rasa and then the liberal/lefty teaching industry and social media and MSM and Entertainment industries form us like wet clay?
It is a hard problem…. but seeing the sheep wandering around with their phones clutched so tightly, or held in front of their eyes wile their thumbs type, I think the Global Elites, few in number, strong in control of media, will end up turning us all into their property, will have us forge our own chains and send ourselves to the gulags we build, just for nothing seemingly – a knee taken here, a statue there, a de-platforming, a doxing…..and we are toast as a society, as a People.
I’m not convinced either Patton or Rommel were military geniuses. One had a huge numbers advantage and the other was reading his opponents’ signals. Without those advantages it’s unclear either would have been more than a footnote.
Fascinating. I always preferred the mental clarity of D&D, which was as much about being in a thriller adventure with a few pals as winning battles against orcs and whatnot. I suppose Fortnite is much the same. These things may not always impart a true understanding of randomness, but they are a chance to laugh with a few of the lads – and to discover who is good and who is bad, the hierarchy. Good clean fun.
Both my sons (now 18 and 28) got into Warhammer in their early teens thanks to my (ahem) encouragement.
They both loved it for a couple of years before moving on to other things. I’d like to think they might return to it at some point as adults.
The author’s point about randomness is well made.
Excellent article. Reminds me of something I saw a pro Gwent (a digital card game based on the witcher) player say about deckbuilding, that the worst bit of data you can use to determine whether to change your deck is whether you won or lost with it.
Of course ‘Dice Man’ demonstrates this by an experiment to live his live choice decisions by the throw of a dice.
Wasn’t it based on Friedrich Nietzsche philosophy
That’s a fabulous novel
I, too, was watching the new Kill Team preview on Saturday and will be pre-ordering.
People playing Warhammer (and probably in other games too) often talk about “bad dice”, not literally meaning there’s anything wrong with them, but that the rolls didn’t go your way. I usually refer to whether I’d made the proper sacrifices to the dice Gods – more in keeping with the IP.
I find that, generally, it’s not just randomness that people have difficulty with, it’s the whole concept of chance, probability and likelihood, too.
Also, Black Templars!
Thanks, Tom! Great article.
Personally, I find that the more hours I spend selecting, assembling, converting, painting and basing one of my heroes, the quicker he dies in combat…
Like you, I’m looking forward to the new Kill Team. Looks great.
Another interesting and thoughtful article from Tom. Indeed, we are all experts after the event, trying to make sense of it all. With the English football team it has been a longer journey than most people imagine. The players are more skillful on the ball, having adopted a more European approach, with greater emphasis on holding the ball, quick clean passing, keeping the ball on the ground and pressing opponents. For 20 minutes or so this is exactly what England did before the old bad habits resurfaced and Italy started to dominate. Given this, Southgate should have been bolder, especially that 5 substitutions are now available. Rashford, Saka and Sancho would have had more opportunity to turn the game around coming on in the 70th-75th minute mark, Grealish too, may have drawn the foul, creating dead ball options. Southgate put all his money on winning a penalty shootout, an option Italy also favoured.
Other sports have even more complicated gambling related outcomes but based on skilled practices. In cricket, Richie Benaud said “Captaincy is 90% luck and 10% skill but don’t try it without that 10%”. Formula 1 too, how long to keep a driver out on degrading tyres, what are the best tyres and set-up for the car and how might your plans change should there be an interruption such as rain or the introduction of the safety car.
A while ago I read a piece by Nico Rosberg who won the F1 World Championship in 2016 from his team mate Lewis Hamilton. Rosberg could have a given some glib reasons for his success but he attributed it to very small margins, even down to changing his racing gloves to have a greater feel of the car and what it was doing. Drivers and designers are very observant, drivers tend not to think of the “what ifs”, if they did, they might not ever get in the car.
Warhammer, D&D, and all things trolls and fairies are for people too lazy or intellectually incurious to master the Renaissaince, or the French and Indian Wars, or Napoleonics, or the American Civil War. They want a world of dweebs, thargs and orcs so nobody can be better at this nonsense by being more industrious in understanding it. There is nothing to understand.
On survivorship bias, yes, absolutely and even Warren Buffett is not necessarily out of the woods. If you have 1,000 guys, make them financial traders and tell them to go trade, then on a purely random basis about a third will make money over a year, a third will break even and a third will lose. If you eliminate the latter third then after about 17, 18 years you’ll have one guy who’s been in the market all the time and never lost money in any year. That guy is highly likely to mistake himself for a financial genius and start putting crazy money behind crazy bets because his gut feel has never been wrong. At that point, it turns out that he is in fact Neil Woodford.
Buffett could be that guy too, except with a comparatively conservative trading strategy and effective management controls over loony bets. He probably isn’t, but the existence of counter-examples such as Woodford casts doubt for me on how good any of these people are.
Almost all the star wars gamers I know are professionally involved in astronomy, history, or the military*. We could spend all day discussing the imperial navy’s successful if belated integration of hyperspace-capable snubfighters with a battle-carrier doctrine post-Endor…. or spend 2 days discussing the French navy’s convoy protection doctrine in the late 17th and 18th centuries. To what extent were Lacelles and Maxwell involved in the cross-border anti-mercantilist trading undertaken by the likes of Greg and Cunningham circa-1750?
I am currently working on a WW1 boardgame that hopefully will be of use to military professionals for instruction. I also happen to be making models in my spare time of imperial C-10 Seige Towers and Mobile Proton Torpedo Launchers.
Anyways, Warhammer averts the annoying sterile modernist aesthetic of more respectable sci-fi. Spaceships look like cathedrals, space colonies have parishes and churches, it’s quite socially conservative at times.
*Said gamers are also devoted family men in stable marriages.
I enjoyed this read, right up my alley (I was 20% points ahead of the whole class in Statistics at Uni)…. so I appreciate it but have a caveat.
First let’s take Sterling for example – had some great impacts and scored or caused a couple of goals, he was some commentators player of the tournament. However it’s possible to put a showreel of blunders, missed opportunities and inept control by him together from just this event. So should he (or Mount or Sako) have been playing ahead of say Grealish, Foden or Sancho? Of course it’s hard to know because the latter three bare got any game time.
So the caveat is: Given Tom’s analysis seems to establish no blame for the decisions because the criticism comes after the fact. It’s valid criticism however if it came prior to the facts.
I for one was largely unimpressed by the performances throughout and made the correct criticisms ahead of the outcomes. The only commentator I could find (via youtube) who was more often ‘ahead of the game’ was the usually not particularly profound Steve McManaman