This morning, I was jogging as usual (cut for yesterday, due to interpersonal conflicts). I'm unsure of what led me watching a video on Machiavelli's thoughts, but it made me wonder about the conflicting ideas between Machiavelli's philosophy and Game Theory.

Game Theory is Simple

In a nutshell, Game Theory is based on the Prisoner's Dilemma. There are two prisoners. Each prisoner has two choices, to cooperate or to betray. The other prisoner's choice is completely opaque to one another.

For a rational prisoner, the best choice is to betray. They get off scot-free, which is the best result. However, assuming both rational prisoners, they would both choose to betray, and lead to the worst possible outcome. It's nearly impossible to win this game. Another solution to this game. If both prisoner know that the other is a rational agent, they would both choose to cooperate. This would lead to the best possible outcome. Now, while I am able to give a decent explanation on the lessons learned, I believe I cannot outdo Veritasium's video on the topic.

One of the key tenets and conclusion of the video was a singular quote.
"Be nice, be forgiving, but don't be a pushover"

Machiavelli is Difficult

I don't claim to be an expert on the topic. Niccolo Machiavelli, or Machiavelli, was a Renaissance era diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian. Again, I am not an expert on the topic. From what I understand, Machiavelli teaches that the end justifies the means, even through deceit and corruption. This is in stark contrast with Game Theory's concluding quote.
I've seen many videos on YouTube that glorifies and puts Machiavelli on a pedestal, and I don't think it's a good lesson to follow. I understand the necessities, but let me highlight some of the core problems of Machiavellianism.

• It does not have any scientific, mathematical nor empirical grounding.
• You'd destroy relationships, rather than to build them

Thinking about both Machiavellianism, and I'm being incredibly careful not to be biased here, is akin to a third choice in the prisoner's dilemma. Pretending to cooperate, but it's actually betrayal. It's a third option in the prisoner's dilemma, where the fact they betrayed you is completely hidden from you.

It's almost always the most advantageous for a rational agent, you can keep the other agent to keep cooperating, and you can keep betraying with the facade of cooperating. A thought that came to mind is that this is exactly like how a toxic relationship goes. The victim believes that their partner are genuinely concerned and loves them, but their partner is just exploiting the victim for their gains.

It's arbritrary to call it the Third Choice in the Prisoner's Dilemma. I acknowledge that I am making arbritrary links between concepts, by presenting a new preposition that it Deceptive Cooperation. By asking the nice AI fella, I figured out that a third choice isn't required. An error in the system might disguise betrayal as cooperation. Once this is found out, the entire system will collapse into a system of mistrust and deception. This is always the worst outcome.

Machiavelli's life is another example of this. At Wikipedia, it mentions how the Medici mistrusted Machiavelli and accused him of conspiracy. A direct consequence of his beliefs, and subjected him to torture with the rope. In the end, the aftermath of betrayal and Machiavellistic beliefs had cost him both power and his political influence. It's safe to say that in the end, being Machiavellistic (or Ayanokoji) will end up being your vice one day.

Every morning, starting from last Sunday, I made a point about actually showing up to exercise every morning. I aim to always challenge myself each day everyday, trying to do a little better than last time. It gets my sweat out, and I constantly find myself drenched in perspiration.

After every jog in the basketball court, I always lay down on the oftentimes wet concrete floor and stare directly up to the sky. Occasionally, I remark at how beautiful the sky is. While I can't see many stars, it doesn't change that I find the little specks of light hanging in the sky entrancing. I imagine myself up in the sky, looking at another massive star much like our own.

"That's a celestial object up there. A massive one, not just a tiny dot in the night sky."

After a while, I saw a shooting star streaking from the sky. That was my first time seeing a shooting star in my 17 years of life. After five to seven minutes or so, I typically get up, and quickly head back to get ready for school.

Moving on, I am a bit embarrased to say that the reason I started exercising was because of Emi Ibarazaki from Katawa Shoujo. I finished her route today, and honestly, I am not ready to split with her. I love her route, and I actually love her personality. It doesn't matter if it seems pathetic, I am really attracted to girls who are determined, strong and independent. Athletics isn't too important, but as someone who's getting into working out every morning, I would love it if they're conscious enough about their health to make a difference by exercising.
Typically, around this point I'd devolve my way of speech into a degenerate's way, but as time moves on, my life is gradually getting more and more fulfilling. I'm helping around the house now, I'm able to leverage my ADHD to start working out every morning, I'm able to get started on studying, I'm more emotionally stable now, I'm eating healthier now. I'm satisfied with how my life is going at this rate. Getting a dumbphone really helped me out in becoming more balanced of a person, as noww I know that I am not dependent on the infinite scrolling of my devices.

I'd like to offer my gratitude to my family and close friends. My mother, for constantly giving me unconditional love and support for whatever endeavour I embark on. My uncle, for providing me a roof to live under. My "brother", even though we don't talk much, he always looks out for me. Myka, for tolerating and generally someone I enjoy spending my time with. Ari, an overall great person to talk with and fun to hang around (even though she may seem dumb at times). Nia, for being one of my closest friends since Form 1, and thanks for that letter, I don't think I would be who I am now without you as well. Qay, for livening up my days and checking up on me when I seem down. Diana, we have a great synergy together, and I enjoy your company a lot. Forg, for still being my friend after 7-8 years. Livia, for still deeply caring for me even after we separated 6 months or so ago (Seriously, I really believe that I'm the one who's taking advantage of you.).

There are a lot more people that I am honestly grateful towards, but it would take forever to list out, so let's postpone the listing to another day.

I was talking to my friend, Ari about a device that shocks you whenever you're procrastinating. It's a pretty novel concept (well, not really), and I think it would be cool if it was able to be done. So, I tried thinking about how it would work in a real life scenario.
There are a handful of problems for this device:

This led me to the conclusion that this device is ultimately over-engineered, and it is easier to leverage the human's adaptability by changing our environment to increase productivity. I would also have zero clue on figuring out how to detect adrenaline, cortisol or whatever hormone level because I do not have specialized sensors that do exactly that.
Plus, I thought of using AI, but where am I going to get the training data, processing power and labelings for this?

SPM is coming soon, and I cannot say that it isn't because it seems to me that my body is allergic to recognizing it. Though I am pretty aware at the fact that the actual SPM Bertulis is in 32 days (31 soon), my mind does not feel the pressure of SPM.
Personally, this isn't a great look for my future. I have no doubt I'll still be able to enter into a good university due to my pre-existing talents, though. Not to toot my own horn, of course.

Moving on, I made a simple rehaul to my site, where I removed nearly everything here. I'm honestly more of a minimalistic person anyways, so this fits the bill of who I really am. A minimalistic freak. It's late at night now, so I should probably go ahead and sleep.

GARGHHHH, HOLIDAY IS ENDING, AND I HAVE NOT DONE HOMEWORK.
Thus, is the life and death of Sisyphus. More on that, I know for sure that our time to do these is way more longer than we think. I really really did let of this entire week, doing nothing at all. Actually, in comparison with the other weeks, I have actually done a considerable amount in this single week.

• Photography
• Reading (somewhat?)
• Working on my website
• Going into dwl, dwm but Wayland
• Scripting
• Learned some new coping mechanisms
• Relearned Chinese
• C Programming
• Had fun with my friends
• Becoming less dependent on my smartphone
• Uploaded a YouTube video

It would be a lie to say I did nothing. My whole life isn't just school.
Another way I should think about this is that I overfilled my personal development quota, and not my academic quota.
Neverthess, it would be an innacuracy to say I did nothing at all. I am quite proud with what I have achieved in this entire holiday.

Homework... though...

Infinite scrolling is ruining my life, and it's inhibiting my creativity. My ADHD does not help with this. Though, with everyone getting their attention span gradually shortened, I will be at an advantage rather than a disadvantage.

Thank god, I do not use TikTok. However, there's something I spend my attention everyday on. Just that I don't know what.

I am getting kinda tired of typing so cryptically.<
It's been a while since I've updated the website.
I joined a compulsory camp, where I became a Village Chief, which is just another word for someone who leads the entire team.
It was definitely worth dancing on stage for, even though my aura fell a bit.

My teammates were uncooperative, but for those who helped, I'm eternally grateful to you lots.
It was testing my limits, but if I take it as it testing me on my ability to lead, even with my lack of authority as a leader, I'm happy with my results.

Surprisingly, it was an actual transformative experience, even though I was overwhelmed.

Log # 1/27-01-24

However long I have spent not refreshing, may it be a day.
Shall it be of no use? Nay, shall I say.
Perhaps, today will be spent of meta-learning?

Log # 1/23-08-24

I ponder, may modification of Default Mode Network be possible?
For an event, there shall be a cause.
I firmly believe it so.

Log # 1/19-08-24

Information shall be accessible.

Journal-loaded.

Log # 4/18-08-24

Neocities allowed me to learn Neovim Configurations.
For that, I am grateful.


However, more work seems to still be required.

I learned a lot.


That is enough.

I wonder if another tag will do any harm.

Log # 3/18-08-24

I drew an art of Lugnerin Morder.

Experiment:

Conception > Skill.

Hypothesis Accepted.

Addition: Skill supplements Conception.

Lugnerin from Mis1nf0.

Log # 2/18-08-24

Effective.

Effective.

Heartbreaking.



How difficult.

Uneffective.

Log # 1/18-08-24

The spirit of individuality lives on.

Where one may say it is blasphemous, it shall be a virtue.

Would it not be best for creativity to be expressed freely?


Heart shall be of an Ubermensch.

Unrelenting, yet oh so free.