My friend Lesley has this thing where she says “make sure you’re playing the real game, not some more complicated game you’ve made up for yourself.”
In response to a friend, I wrote the following follow-up:
I SHOULD probably update the piece with that very conclusion (note: my friend wrote some commentary saying that ‘the post unintentionally shows the major limitation of analogising games to life’).
You’re right, I think I unintentionally made that point — I was involved in maybe five other discussions since writing that post and I eventually came around to your view.
I now think that:
- In the real world, people can play different games. What is a scrub move in one game might not be a scrub move in a different game. (e.g. Elon Musk wants to change the world by making cars electric, and he can accomplish this goal even if he bankrupts Tesla. Whereas a more traditional ‘maximise value creation’ type person would call that a scrub move lol)
- The tricky thing is when you lie to yourself and tell yourself that you’re playing a different game, when actually you’re just being a scrub.
The line between 1) and 2) is exceedingly thin. And ultimately only you know if you’re lying to yourself.
I’m sure @Lesley might have more to say about this 
It would be interesting to look at the “Levels of Abstraction” through this lens.
I agree! I think this might have been mentioned on Twitter (or maybe I’m imagining things), but someone observed that ‘a scrub move at one level of abstraction might not be a scrub move on another’. It might have been you; forgive me if it was and I’d forgotten, @cwong.
Ha I took a look back and I did write in this forum:
Also has anyone read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality?
There was one scene when two characters were talking about x-order level thinking and game-theorying out the implications. The last response was “I’ll be one level above you.” I probably butchered the story but it was hilarious and this discussion made me think of it.
I’m probably completely hijacking this thread and changing the topic, but I enjoyed that book more for the story than anything else. In general I tend to find myself suspicious of the rationality community. Bless them, they’re nice folk, but they’re not likely to play to play or play to win so much as sit down and have a 60-hour conversation about what it means to play to win.
Ha yes! My reaction exactly! The story was really really good and it got me interested in the whole rationalist community idea but I found the community was a lot of navel-gazing. And I thought that they were subject to a ton of cognitive biases that they themselves didn’t recognize. I think the stopping point was when I heard about the basilisk thought exercise and the reaction to it.
Interestingly, I listened to Julia Galef’s podcast when I was exploring the rationalist community and I only listened to one episode because I felt she had a lot of cognitive biases that were unrecognized. But her book has good reviews and is about having an open mind. So either I was wrong or she’s recognized those shortcomings.
*clears throat*
I think we all have cognitive biases, Chris, that’s what makes us human … 
I kid, I kid — but I should note that I considered myself a member of the rationalist community for a time. I still have a soft spot for them.
I’m happy to continue this discussion in another thread, if you’d like: https://forum.commoncog.com/t/the-rationalists-vs-the-empiricists/639 — I think this thread should be about scrub behaviour instead …
I am a big fan of Sirlin’s and was delighted to see it pop up on the radar here. After reflecting on it further, I had an interesting idea about this come to mind that I will throw out there for consideration.
There are three approaches to how you can approach an activity:
A virtuoso is someone that can do all three of these at once. A scrub is someone who only does #3. Getting #1 without #2 is a tragedy, regardless of #3. Getting both #1 and #2 without #3 is a good outcome as long as you aren’t needing public opinion to achieve your goals.
Does this structure hold up to scrutiny?
I think it does, if one is actively trying to win a game in some fashion.
There are circumstances under which ‘being a scrub’ involves ignoring the hard version of a game, gliding past the ‘actual’ game, and letting mediocrity drive. (I’ve found several instances of this during the pandemic.)
This is explained reasonably well by Venkatesh Rao’s Survival of the Mediocre Mediocre.
Key quote:
Mediocrity is about slipping in the thin end of the wedge of evolutionary infinite-game advantage into current finite-game performance. Moravec’s wedge is about not playing the game defined by the current cost function with full engagement in order to sneak out of the game altogether and play new games you find in the open environment.
I would be willing to bet that some portion of folks who are described as ‘maestros’ are actually doing this.
This might fall under the rubric of ‘playing a different game’ in the discussion upthread, but I think of mediocrity as described here as taking much less effort than that.
I’ve had some time to think about this, and you know — I can’t find any exceptions. I quite like this! Thank you and well said! <3
I had not encountered this idea before - thank you for bringing it up!
I do agree that it is probably best to consider it a fourth approach. Let’s call it “do no more than is required by the situation to avoid intolerable consequences”.
Re-read this recently and after some more back and forth with another friend, I have two other thoughts about scrub behavior and sharing here.
First, a simple algo to avoid over-indulging in scrub behavior
I’m thinking 6 month as the cutoff.
Let’s say due to some hard to change personality characteristics that make you more likely to care about certain things. Make sure you pick a game where caring about those certain things is the optimal winning strategy.
Using the John Malone’s example, it appears that not giving two cents about customer service is the optimal winning strategy.
So if you’re the type who cares about that, don’t enter that game in the first place.
On the other hand if there’s a game where caring about customer service is optimal, John Malone should not enter that game.
What’s Scrub Behavior differs from game to game and highly hinges on the optimal winning strategy for each game.
Well said. This is also a good reminder that it is advantageous to choose games where you like the constraints, bearing in mind that if and when those constraints are broken, you will need to either change how your are playing or pick a new game.
Oh man, that word “constraints” it triggers many thoughts
But sadly none that directly is part of the theme on scrub behavior
I’ll refrain for now. Perhaps I’ll come back if I can get those thoughts more organized
Thank you Roger for reminding me this 
Regarding what is “scrub behaviour”, I think this pair of posts is in a related concept:
Play in Hard Mode is about why you might want to be “scrub”.
Play in Easy Mode is about some of the risks of playing to win the game.
I feel like Malone’s “playing to win” falls into some of the traps implied by the Easy Mode blogpost.
