I've been a student of strategy since I was eight years old.

[TheWraith]

You'll have to forgive me if this is a little incoherent--I've had probably five glasses of wine tonight, and to be blunt, I'm more than a little drunk.

I have been experimenting and learning strategy and "game theory" since I was eight years old. I've tested my brain against almost every class of strategic game human beings make, from chess, to real time combat simulations, to the famous "Game of Life" exercise in evolutionary growth theorem. I've read up on everything from political strategy, to ancient Roman battle tactics, to architectural strategy used in building things like earthquake-proof domes. My brain retains all this in part because I score in the top one tenth of one percent of the population for comprehension, language, and math.

I say this all not to toot my own horn, but to provide context for my next statement, which is something that I realized before but I was reminded of again tonight.

Barack Obama is smarter and a better strategist than I will ever be.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x613170

[denem]

1. "more than a little drunk" - get thee to the Lounge

They are students of 'strategy' every 8 PM at the latest.

[tabatha]

2. I am hoping so.

I am not sure yet.

[upi402]

3. Yes, and he is the brilliant opponent of the vast majority of us

In the end, doesn't matter which faction they front for - some GM will come along who represents the developers of the game we see.
We have a choice; either side of the same damn coin. But we get to think we choose.
Obama is brilliant, like Clinton. At least Bush was an idiot. Obama is 100% culpable.

[patrice]

10. That assumes YOU know the outcomes, all of them. nt

[RandomThoughts]

4. Very interesting comment.

You didn't listen to the line in the song. "shock the monkey"

"You can make believe, I knew about that"

Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey (HQ music video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo9riZYUpTw

Much of the stuff people do, they don't know about it when they do. Some for better some for worse, but your intent can get that help on board, is what I have found.

Not sure what percentile I fit into myself. Most people are smart in those areas, but it is caring and integrity that makes a much bigger difference, since anyone in any position to do good, is going to get hit by some pretty wild stuff. And they got to get through that.

And you have to be able to maneuver in that fog while holding your balance.


On a side note, I am still due beer and travel money, so he is not that smart. However that can be applied to me also. But remember smart is not what matters first.



I also have been a student of strategy, and also dynamics, always found it interesting.

[patrice]

11. Hmmmm, a different sort of post from you; not so Random tonight?

[RandomThoughts]

12. That is as random as anything else.

been laying down grazing fire mostly.

Is that better?


Although I rarely post anything about myself, but that is from training, still me posting. It is me posting when you think it is random also.

Robert.
Robe RT.

:shrug: even in the name.

[patrice]

13. Not really. Most of the time you just about half-way make some kind of sort of

poetic sense to me, a little more just now.

:hi:

[RandomThoughts]

17. Maybe you are seeing clearer

:D

[patrice]

20. I am a poetry lover. I find it where I can. nt

[RandomThoughts]

21. There is a topic about that.

Some see some people or areas as garbage. It is even said in some forms, the concept of being able to find light even in the night for instance, but that is not saying what side is the night. Only that anyone that thinks they are in night, can find light. And many use concepts like that only to say someone else is in the night not them. Some would say it is people digging through garbage. I contend many don't know what garbage is, and saying they do is part of the problem. Although some use that lingo to try and help those with a superiority complex.

The problem is that requires a superiority complex.

What I think is that groups are not garbage, and many exclusionary organizations by their terms of garbage end up excluding themselves. I understand the concept of exclusion, if it is to protect weaker people that if around something might not be able to understand it. But when exclusion is used for unjust advantage, then the system breaks.


In the same way, many people can speak of the same things with different perspectives.


So I don't think it is about finding things where you can, but that things can be found anywhere.

Steve Winwood - Higher Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqlauwX_ums

Blinded by the Light by Manfred Mann's Earth Band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg8cDmi7-U8

[Tunkamerica]

5. Or is this statement just part of your plan...

very sly mister bond. But I think you will find: we are not fooled so easily.

[LoZoccolo]

6. I especially like when people try to explain more complicated strategy as being like chess

as opposed to checkers, and then other people start deriding chess. "I'm tired of chess! The people don't want any more chess!"

I've wanted to start a strategy group on DU where people talk about strategy books and history but I keep wondering how I would propose special rules to keep out the chess-deriders, or keep people from simple but intellectualy dishonest assertions.

[patrice]

9. There's a great deal about self-gratification in what people say, often more than a desire

for some approximation of validity.

Chess IS the appropriate metaphor and it IS at least 4-dimensional chess at that, with more than one opposing force. Is it possible that there are talents, in such matches of strategy, that would be like a great Jazz musician, extremely skilled, extremely knowledgeable AND possessing intuitive functional adaptation? The skeptic in me pulls back from too much enthusiasm, but such things could be true, right?

[RandySF]

7. I've said it many times

I remember moments in the 2008 campaign when it looked like Obama had no idea what he was doing, only to be shown time and time again that he was several steps ahead of everyone else. The greatest example was during the summer, when it looked like McCain and the Republicans took over the airwaves and the MSM. And while many of us were scratching our heads, he had his boots on the ground in every state training volunteers and knocking on doors. By mid-October, even the Republicans knew they were outmaneuvered.

[patrice]

8. 2 reasons it really is so difficult to say anything absolutely definitive: #1 We've never been

here before. #2 There's a great deal we do not know.

I understand everyone's frustration. There's a lot about this administration that doesn't look so good. I have an inclination to agree with the
"Obama can do no good" crowd, because of the very definite differences between my own Democratic Socialist perspective and what has transpired thus far, but one thing really always pulls me back from outright condemnation of this President: There isn't anyone on this board, or anyone else I know, or even have a chance of knowing, who knows as much as Obama knows about our situation, not even Paul Krugman, nor Robert Reich.

Now, it may be that, were Krugman and Reich in the know exactly what the President knows, they might value that (additional) information differently from Obama and would still occupy pretty much the same positions relative to the issues over all that they occupy now, but from our own perspective, WITHOUT the WHOLE situation, OUR judgments of this President should be footnoted with that caveat.

It COULD be that he actually IS trying to do something new and that means that we, LIKE THE PEOPLE OF EGYPT, have a new and DIFFERENT part in it than that which we project based upon past OBSOLETE expectations.

[LooseWilly]

14. High score on what standardized test, praytell?

In all your "explorations" of strategy, have you ever thought to examine the solidity of the foundation of your "brilliance"?... the standardized test score that you seem to so prize?

"The No Child Left Behind Act uses the phrase scientifically-based research more than 100 times when discussing standardized testing, but Making the Grades raises serious questions about the validity of many large-scale assessments simply by describing one man's career in the industry."

-a blurb about the book "Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry", by Todd Farley (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6919688-making-the-grades)

Turns out, you may not be as brilliant as your magic numbers said you were. Or, you might be more brilliant.

Also, turns out that the standardized tests that Obama's using as the underpinnings of his RTTT programs... may not be as brilliant or reflective of anything meaningful as he might think they are.

(As a tribute to your apparently laughable alcohol tolerance... 5 glasses of wine and you feel the effects?... I'll make this a more drunk friendly statement: It turns out Obama's strategizing on education policy may not be as brilliant as you thought he was...)

Of course, a demonstrable flaw in the underpinnings of Obama's policy work... not to mention your self-satisfaction index... is liable to lead a serious strategist to worry about an exposed flank... an opening that said strategist will have to rely on dumb luck to cover.

Not a very admirable strategy.

Unless, of course, the brilliance of Obama's "strategy" is that he really doesn't give a fuck about the poor kiddies, but rather he knows that by playing to the upper class fettish for private schools, by using the admittedly faulty standardized testing scores to pare resources away from public schools in order to re-direct them to charter schools... which have an alarmingly regular habit of kicking low performing students back out to the public schools in order to try to maintain "high test scores" (indicating that any difference in test scores is not coming from better performance at educating, but rather by picking the better performing students to use for the school's test performance ratings)... By playing to the upper classes this way Obama hopes to poach some portion of the less tea-bagging Republican voters... and hopefully add them to the center and "lefter" voters (who he's gambling will have no recourse in the face of regular insults and political injury) in order to win power.

Yes, it is definitely an overall sound strategy... one which is essentially stolen from his acknowledged sensei—Reagan.

Let's just admit it... the country has elected a Reagan Democrat as President.

It's not brilliant strategy. It's recycled strategy. Hell, as I try to think back to the '90s, I think the only thing that held Clinton back from going Full-Reagan was a simple antipathy to... the Full-Reagan.

By the way, Brilliant One... you never did cite any accomplishments or standardized tests that would indicate that you possess the slightest trace of creativity. I'm sure that you have a plaque or something though... so, a quick mention would be welcome... so we plebes can huddle together and try to decide if we should tremble in awe of your august presence... or if we should just be ashamed of yet another hollow source of certifications in this country. (You do realize that vast swaths of the "toxic" assets of the derivative market were rated as AAA by reputable analysts? Lehman Brothers was AAA rated for investors up until perhaps a week before they went bankrupt? Once again— testers and analysts and appraisers... sometimes fuck up.)

[Bonobo]

15. Dear Anonymous Internet Guy

Color me unimpressed with your horn-tooting and claims to be able to see into people's souls.

I will go with my own instinct and intellect on this one.

Being able to compete and strategize does not make you any better at reading people's hearts than the dumbest gas station attendant.

[Joe Fields]

16. You have never impressed me with your intellect.

[ronnie624]

18. I've read thousands of your messages.

I don't see it.

Now that you've sobered-up, I'll bet you're hoping this sinks quickly.

[bemildred]

19. Sorry, that only rises to the level of not being incompetent.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man in king.