Tag: finite and infinite games

Finite and infinite games, and questioning elections

I came across this snippet of an interview of Dr. S Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister.

 

In this, among other things, he says that “in India, nobody questions an election” (in the context of some reports that India is not really a democracy).

This can be simply explained by the concept of finite and infinite games, something I’ve spoken here about for a long time now, ever since I read the book of the same name by James Carse.

In general, in a stable democracy, parties don’t question election results because they know that the only way they can get back to power at a later point in time is by winning a similar election. In other words, if a party that loses an election were to question its legitimacy, it’s own victory in a subsequent election can be similarly undermined.

In other words, in a stable democracy, parties play an infinite game, where the potential short-term benefit of questioning an election gets trumped by the long-term benefit of using the same apparatus for winning subsequent elections.

So what explains America and Donald Trump’s questioning of the elections?

Notice that above, I said that “parties play an infinite game”. Individual politicians, on the other hand, can also play finite games. Given his age, Trump pretty much knew that the 2020 election (that he lost to Biden) was likely going to be his last. If he lost these elections (as he did), he would be out of power for the rest of his life. And so it made sense to him to question the results.

I’m pretty sure that the Republican party establishment (or whatever is left of it) wouldn’t have wanted to question the election, because as a party they are playing an infinite game, and what they need is the same election apparatus to come back to power next time round, or some time in the future.

The difference, in this regard, between India and the US, is the form of government. In a parliamentary system (at least in theory), and one with anti-defection laws, the party is supreme. However much a leader tries, he can never be superior to the party. And so the party’s incentives (infinite game) trump’s the leader’s (possibly finite game), and elections are not questioned.

The presidential system in the US means the leader trumps the party, at least within an election cycle, and so Trump’s finite game trumped the Republican party’s infinite game, and the results were questioned.

Finite and infinite cricket games

I’ve written about James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games here before. It is among the more influential books I’ve read, though it’s a bit of a weirdly written book, almost in a constant staccato tone.

From one of my previous posts:

One of the most influential books I’ve read is James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games. Finite Games are artificial games where we play to “win”. There is a defined finish, and there is a set of tasks that we need to achieve that constitutes “victory”. Most real-life games are on the other hand are “infinite games” where the objective is to simply ensure that the game simply goes on.

I’ve spent most of this evening watching The Test, the Amazon Prime documentary about the Australian cricket team after Sandpapergate. It’s a good half-watch. Parts of it demand a lot of attention, but overall it’s a nice “background watch” while I’m doing something else.

In any case, the reason for writing the post is this little interview of Harsha Bhogle somewhere in the middle of this documentary (he has appeared several times more after this one). In this bit, he talks about how in Test cricket, the opponent might be having a good time for a while, but it is okay to permit him that. To paraphrase Gully Boy, “apna time aayega” – the bowler or batsman in question will tire or diminish after some time, after which you can do your business.

He went on to say that this is not the case in limited overs cricket (ODIs and T20s) where both batsmen and bowlers need to constantly look to dominate, and cannot simply look to “survive” when an opponent is on the roll.

While Test cricket is strictly not an “infinite game” (it needs to end in five days), I thought this was a beautiful illustration of the concept of finite and infinite games. The objective of an infinite game, as James Carse describes in his book, is to just continue to play the game.

As a batsman in Test cricket, you look to just be there, weather out the good spells and spend time at the crease. You do this and the runs will come (it is analogous for bowlers – you need to bowl well enough to continue to be in the game, and then when the time comes you will get your rewards).

In ODIs and T20s, you cannot bide your time. Irrespective of how the opponent is playing, you need to “win every moment”, which is the premise for a finite game.

Now, I don’t know what I’m getting at here, and what he point of this post is, but I think I just liked Harsha Bhogle’s characterisation of Tests as infinite games, and wanted to share that with you.

Gamification and finite and infinite games

Ok here I’m integrating a few concepts that I learnt via Venkatesh Guru Rao. The first is that of Finite and Infinite games, a classic if hard to read book written by philosopher James Carse (which I initially discovered thanks to his Breaking Smart Season 1 compilation). The second is of “playflow”, which again I discovered through a recent edition of his newsletter.

A lot of companies try to “gamify” the experiences for their employees in order to make work more fun, and to possibly make them more efficient.

For example, sales organisations offer complicated incentives (one of my historically favourite work assignments has been to help a large client optimise these incentives). These incentives are offered at multiple “slabs”, and used to drive multiple objectives (customer acquisition, retention, cross-sell, etc.). And by offering employees incentives for achieving some combination of these objectives, the experience is being “gamified”. It’s like the employee is gaining points by achieving each of these objectives, and the points together lead to some “reward”.

This is just one example. There are several other ways in which organisations try to gamify the experience for their employees. All of them involve some sort of award of “points” for things that people do, and then a combination of points leading to some “reward”.

The problem with gamification is that the games organisations design are usually finite games. “Sell 10 more widgets in the next month”. “Limit your emails to a maximum of 200 words in the next fifteen days”. “Visit at least one client each day”. And so on.

Running an organisation, however, is an infinite game. At the basic level, the objective of an organisation is to remain a going concern, and keep on running. Growth and dividends and shareholder returns are secondary to that – if the organisation is not a going concern, none of that matters.

And there is the contradiction – the organisation is fundamentally playing an infinite game. The employees, thanks to the gamified experience, are playing finite games. And they aren’t always compatible.

Of course, there are situations where finite games can be designed in a way that their objectives align with the objectives of the overarching infinite game. This, however, is not always possible. Hence, gamification is not always a good strategy for organisations.

Organisations have figured out the solution to this, of course. There is a simple way to make employees play the same infinite game as the organisation – by offering employees equity in the company. Except that employees have the option of converting that to a finite game by selling the said equity.

Whoever said incentive alignment is an easy task..

 

Gruffaloes and Finite Games

One story that my daughter knows well, rather too well, is the story of the Gruffalo. This is a story of a mouse told in two parts.

In the first part, the mouse fools a fox, an owl and a snake from eating him by convincing them that he’s having lunch, tea and dinner respectively with a supposedly imaginary creature named “Gruffalo”. And when they each ask him what the Gruffalo is like, he makes up stuff fantastically (terrible teeth in terrible jaws, turned out paws, etc.).

Except that midway through the story there is a kahaani mein twist, and the mouse actually encounters the gruffalo. In the second part of the story, the mouse tells the gruffalo that he is going to have lunch, tea and dinner with the fox, owl and snake, and prevents the gruffalo from eating him. And the mouse lives another day.

It is evidently a nice story, and the rhyme means that the daughter had mugged up the entire story enough when she was barely two years old that she could “read” it when shown the book (she can’t read a word yet). However, I don’t like it because I don’t like the plot.

One of the most influential books I’ve read is James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games. Finite Games are artificial games where we play to “win”. There is a defined finish, and there is a set of tasks that we need to achieve that constitutes “victory”. Most real-life games are on the other hand are “infinite games” where the objective is to simply ensure that the game simply goes on.

From the point of stories, the best stories are ones which represent finite games, where there is a clear objective, and the story ends in “victory” or “lack of victory” (in the case of a tragedy). The Good, The Bad and the Ugly has the finite aim of finding the treasure buried in the graveyard. Ganeshana Maduve has the finite aim of YG Rao marrying “Shruti”. Gangs of Wasseypur has the finite aim of the Khan family taking revenge on Ramadhir Singh. Odyssey has the finite aim of Odysseus returning home to Penelope. And so forth.

Putting it another way, finite games make for nice stories, since stories are themselves finite, with a beginning and an end. A story that represents an infinite game is necessarily left incomplete, and you don’t know what happens just outside the slice of action that the story covers. So infinite games, which is how life is lived, make for lousy stories.

And the gruffalo story is an infinite game, since the “game” that the mouse is playing in the story is survival – by definition an infinite game. There is no “victory” by being alive at the end of the day the story covers – like there is no she-mouse to marry, or a baby mouse to see for the first time, or a party to go to. It is just another day in the life of the mouse, and the events of the day are unlikely to be that much more spectacular than the days not covered by the story.

That is what makes the gruffalo story so unsatisfying. Yes, the mouse played off the fox, owl and snake against the gruffalo to ensure his survival, but what about the next day? Would he have to invent another creature to ensure his survival? Would the predators buy the same story another time?

I don’t know, and so the story rings hollow. But the rhyme is good, and so my daughter loves the story!