Game in the Brain

Prudence is a virtue that has a strong application to Strategy, Politics, Economics and Game Theory. I find that it boils down to careful judgement, and being able to choose wisely the time, the place, the means, and the goals.

Patience is the virtue that allows us to overcome hyperbolic discounting. This pairs well with prudence, because you can be more prudent, if you have a better judgement when looking at present and future gains. Its not that you can wait, its that you know the present value, and can evaluate risk, inflation, interest, and the probability.

Temperance is self control, you cannot implement a great strategy if the greater threat is yourself and not your opponent.

Archaic Justice is funny as that it assumes “fairness” can be objective, but economics and cognitions will tell us otherwise. We can feel cheated merely by circumstance and chance. The best Justice can be is to bestow a sense of fairness by being empathic enough to signal and adjust appropriately to the audience. Justice and Fairness are “impossible” virtues, as they are the kinds we constantly strive for but never reach.

Compassion, this should be covered by basic humanistic virtues and I don’t need to dwell on this.

Charity, is for me, better when I think of it in Cognition particularly improving “financial balance” of Common Good in society. Being generous with the strategic goal of making society as generous as we are, so that we all have more forgiving allowances and richer lives.

Courage for me is to the ability to enter risks, because they are important not just because they are rewarding. Fear is a distraction, something that prevents a more objective analysis of a situation for me. Risk is what worries me more, because you cannot live your life Gaming the numbers, you have to take risks in what is important despite the odds. You can be prudent, and still be courageous  because you act on something important and worth while in your beliefs and humanity.

I was thinking about this because I’ll be developing Character Traits in a game, and I wanted to leave it open ended for other people to fill in with their own definitions. My own definitions I wanted to get out in the open. I realize, virtues are something we define for ourselves, others can define them. I can be very preachy when I go into these things, and it is exercising prudence and temperance to be preachy in my blog and open to interpretation in a game booklet.