Accountability

There were several chunks of time today where I should’ve worked, but I ended up just watching youtube instead. However, I did get some stuff done and I managed to pay attention throughout most of my classes. Not my best day, but it wasn’t a terrible day either (especially considering I was running low on sleep).

My friends and I are started to work on putting together a legitimate startup–we have a good idea/a basic implementation, but we just need funding. No matter how this goes, it should end up being a good experience for me as it’s something completely new and really cool.

Productive Thought

There are many game theory thought exercises that demonstrate that being selfish is often the optimal strategy (see prisoner’s dilemma). On the other hand, altruism often leads to the most optimal solution for the greatest number of people, but at the cost of potential self-gain.

Evolutionarily, altruism seems counterintuitive at first, but there’s a reason why social species such as humans have survived so well–thankfully not everyone conforms to selfish, game theory logic. Humans probably wouldn’t exist today–at least not at their current state.

In life and especially going the high school in the Bay Area, most of the top achieving students resort to some sort of selfish game theory strategy (lying about what extracurriculars they’re taking, resorting to cheating to cut corners, and lying on college applications to gain competitive edges). I never subscribed to such a mentality, and it was honestly very painful at times to see others who did take such a selfish competitive advantage enjoy more recognition in society.

I’ve always had to take comfort in my own intact integrity/honesty as compensation, but at least, from an altruistic perspective, I’m helping society reach an optimal state, even if it means boosting others above me at a cost to myself. I’m content with who I am, and hopefully I’ve helped others achieve that too.

A high school teacher once said to my class, “I don’t understand why you guys cheat. Colleges are only taking the top blank of you guys–if you cheat, you’re helping someone climb above you. It makes no sense.”

As logical as that sounds, it’s founded upon game theory logic–we all lose as a result from that. And we lose because of ourselves, and because nobody who can help understands.

The Bay Area academic culture appears to be worsening with each passing year–I really hope that eventually kids will start to realize that altruism trumps selfishness in the long term. But they have no perspective on this, so this may be asking the impossible.