John_Maxwell_IV comments on "Stuck In The Middle With Bruce" - Less Wrong

54 Post author: CronoDAS 09 April 2009 12:24AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (93)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 09 April 2009 02:36:30AM 1 point [-]

Slightly off topic, but I doubt Magic is especially good for teaching rationality compared to other board games. There are a lot of games besides Magic and Poker that are about decision-making under uncertainty, although most aren't nearly as popular. One way to measure ones progress in rationality might be to play a wide variety of these games and keep track of one's win/loss record.

Comment author: Technologos 09 April 2009 02:42:42AM 1 point [-]

Perhaps true, but I agree with CronoDAS that a key strength of Magic is that your uncertainty isn't just statistical in the sense of "which cards am I going to get" but structural, in the sense of "can I understand the rules in a way that other people haven't thought of in order to get an advantage."

I once was in a small Magic tournament where I came in the top 4 almost entirely on the basis of my knowledge of the rules; I had far fewer cards to choose from than some of the other players, so I should otherwise have been at a substantial disadvantage.

Comment author: patrissimo 11 April 2009 01:44:04AM 2 points [-]

The key thing about poker is not just decision-making under uncertainty, but that money is at stake and you are competing against other people. Together, (plus some other characteristics) this makes it particularly good at evoking irrationality.

Comment author: loqi 09 April 2009 03:05:56AM 5 points [-]

One thing that sets Magic apart from Poker and most board games is that it evolves as new card sets are released and older ones retired. In other words, there are static and dynamic components to the game, and accounting for the changes in the dynamic components means carefully "letting go" of some previously learned lessons while trying to preserve and improve your more general knowledge of the game.

In a way, your suggestion to play a variety of games is already encapsulated in Magic, with the distinction of maintaining a very complex set of static rules in the background.

Comment author: Nominull 09 April 2009 02:53:52AM 0 points [-]

Magic is the Hardest Game Ever, which on the one hand suggests that it contains a lot of angles for one to apply rationality and gain an advantage, but on the other hand suggests that the advantages of rationality may be drowned out by the effect of raw brains and the ability to systematize.

Comment author: Matt_Simpson 09 April 2009 03:24:15AM *  2 points [-]

The thing about magic which sets it apart in terms of rationality training is that you can't go at it with theory alone. It takes hours of experimentation to get your deck built right, testing a variety of maindeck* and sideboard* permutations until you find one which is optimal against the current metagame**. As soon as the metagame changes, it's back to testing. Since magic is never "solved," at least not permanently, it forces you to become good at coming up with guesses and testing them, at least within this specific domain.

terms for the bewildered:

*maindeck and sideboard: your deck consists of at least 60 cards in the maindeck and exactly 15 in the sideboard. During a match (at least 3 games, sometimes 5) after the first and second games, you can trade cards from your maindeck for cards in your sideboard.

**metagame: the game outside the game, in other words, the different decks you are likely to face. In any given format, there are usually a handful of strong decks which dominate the field in some variation or another. As such, you end up playing against them more often then other decks.

Comment author: loqi 09 April 2009 03:16:21AM 1 point [-]

the advantages of rationality may be drowned out by the effect of raw brains and the ability to systematize

If this is true, I'd be skeptical of it faring much better elsewhere.