Genetics, Pokemon Go, and the Myth of Equal Opportunity
Many people (myself included) deeply value fairness. We want to live in a world where, all things being equal, individuals and communities are rewarded based on their value to one another, a place where everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.
Unfortunately this world doesn't exist.
Lately I've been really interested in learning more and more about the genetic realities of what might be called "human nature." I really enjoyed listening to The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley, and I'm currently working through another one of his books, The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. I've listened to Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, and I'm also working through this Stanford lecture by Robert Sapolsky on Human Behavioral Biology. I know I'm just barely scratching the surface here.
The reason I say the world of equal opportunity doesn't exist is because I'm starting to see just how different we all are in both nature and nurture. Many like to believe they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps (myself included) and outworked others to somehow "deserve" a better life. For the privileged, that's a very, very tempting stance to take.
At the same time, how can we ignore all the influences which enabled us to make critical decisions leading to what we might call our success today? Yes, we may have worked hard, but what aspects of our reasoning enabled us to comprehend delayed gratification, the time value of money, investment horizons, short and long term strategies for rewards, increasing wealth, and paying down debt? How were we able to decide to work those nights and weekends, taking risks along the way, expecting a worthwhile reward for our efforts? So often those who are not successful in the eyes of society are seen as lazy or only interested in immediate gratification. What if they are, and it's to no fault of their own? What if their genes and terrible upbringing triggered various epigenetic responses preparing them for a cruel world where concerns for immediate survival dominate as the perceived optimal strategy?
We aren't all given a fair start.
Yes, some of us accomplish more with what we have than others, but how can we possibly know why? Our understanding of the human brain is severly limited, not to mention the trillions of neuron firings which lead to a lifetime of decisions going one way or the other. We can't know how influential the inputs we have available to us are or the best way to actively seek new inputs. As I've written about before, determining determinism is hard.
Pokemon Go is a playground for reality.
So what does this have to do with Pokemon Go? Well, lately I'm having more and more fun playing this game. Because I've been working through some back pain, I've been running every weekday morning for the last few weeks.
During my run, I hit a PokeStop, pause to battle a gym, and do a few loops between three PokeStops, all while hunting Pokemon along the way. My son absolutely loves this game and earlier this week he even went on a run with me and ran for 2.6 miles! (He's only 7 years old.) We've also taken multiple trips to Bicentennial Mall Park in Nashville just to play Pokemon Go together. You'd think we were at Disney World with the amount of fun he has with it. I have to constantly remind him to not yell with excitement because I'm right next to him. :)
The thing is, Pokemon Go, like life, is not at all fair. It's not a world of equal opportunities. I know someone who can reach two PokeStops from her bed. Others work in offices surrounded by PokeStops and play the game all day long, to a certain degree. While others have to drive 30 minutes just to reach some PokeStops. It's not equal, and it's not fair, but it's still fun. Even though the number of active players has dropped from 50 million down to around 30 million, it's still a huge following. The current Halloween promotion they have running (double candy, spooky Pokemon everywhere, shorter buddy walking distances for candy) has created some excitement for those who play regularly.
Even though it's not fair, it's still fun.
Yes, some are at a significant disadvantage compared to others, but here's the key to enjoying it (and life in general, if you catch the parallels I'm making here): You don't have to compare yourself with anyone else. Our minds work as difference engines. We compare things in order to understand our world. Accomplishing our own goals, overcoming our own challenges, choosing expectancy over expectations: these things lead to joy, fulfillment, and a sense of accomplishment. It doesn't matter if someone else worked harder or didn't work at all. What matters is doing something we believe to be an accomplishment for ourselves.
I may not have a PokeStop near my bedroom, but I can go for a run each day, get healthy, and make something happen. I can use a spreadsheet like this one of my friends made to optimize my experience increases:
Like life, I can work with what I've been given and challenge myself to be better.
Even this perspective, I recognize, is a result of things outside of my control. But it's still an important idea, an input, which can drastically change my output. Ideas are powerful and the more we spread the good ones, the more we can create the world we want to live in. Our genes may be out of our control. Our birthplace, family, and financial starting point may have been set with everything stacked against (or for) us. All that matters is what we choose to do today with what we are given in order to change tomorrow, the next day, the next month, the next year, and the next decade after that.
Like a Pokemon trainer, we're born into this world with nothing and then begin to recognize our relative privilege or lack-there-of compared to those around us. All we can do is make the best of what we have.
Whether you love Pokemon Go or hate it, I hope you understand the value of trying to catch them all / succeed in life instead of focusing too much on what you don't have compared to others. Ultimately, every breath of life is a gift and a chance to improve ourselves and those around us.
Let's make the most of it.
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True. We are all different, not all equal at all. We were not all given the same cards, and that's a good thing because if we were all the same, a single virus could wipe us all out.
However, equal opportunity has nothing to do with us being equal or different. Equal opportunity means that you do not discriminate a priori against a certain group of people, based on race or gender or whatever. We are very far from achieving this state.
You're right, but I think I may be dropping a little deeper into the concept than is generally accepted. Quoting Wikipedia:
What it describes as arbitrary reasons are, from a determinist's perspective, not entirely differently than other attributes we might believe are not arbitrary (but, I may be arguing, actually are).
I think most things are arbitrary, even though we have structures stories we tell ourselves to believe differently. "Their own effort" also has some level of arbitrary chance to it because it was enabled by the arbitrary things before it.
I guess I'm calling into question whether there ever can be a "pre-agreed basis of fairness" when we truly and honestly dig down deep enough.
I realize I'm exploring the edges of generally accepted thought here and you are more technically correct with your definition, but I wonder if this is something which will change over time as we better understand ourselves and the inputs which create us.
Thanks for commenting and exploring this idea with me.
I think I fall into the "born privileged" category :)
Here is the park across the street from my house:
Dang, that's great! Very privledged indeed. :)
Nice comparison. Not the "catch them all" in the sense of blind competition but in the sense of "getting the most out of it". I don't play Pokemon Go, but I'm an ultra-runner, sometimes averaging more than 300km/month in training, and races over 200km. Running is my go to activity for mind clearing. It's a form of walking meditation and I cannot stop advocating it to pretty much everyone :)
Mad respect for ultra running. No idea how you all do that. I have a friend who's into it also, and he has told me some amazing stories of what the brain does on those long runs.
Great blog post, I have found myself making those comparison that you were talking about in Pokemon go with others too. I have found myself doing that with others on steemit.
Sometimes I look at what others have, in order to figure how how they accomplished what they have gained. But other times I look at what they have more out of jealous and lack of what I have instead of a learning process.
I am trying to find balance to these two things now. I like what you said about making our own accomplishments. One of my goals that I want to accomplish for myself is to reach 1,000 SP.
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