Arsenal, The PGMOL, Authority And Power

The innate sense of justice and fairness hardwired into human beings

Photo by Nelson Ndongala on Unsplash

Did you know there is a class of magical and unpredictable expectations in the real world? Some of our expectations are more like prophesies or anticipations and involve a range of feelings from beliefs and imaginings to hopes and fears. Like for example, to expect to live a good life or to expect to find love. These are expectations in the social universe.

Then there are expectations based on rigorous predictable data. One might expect water to boil at 100C at sea level. Or that an orange tree will grow from an orange seed. These are expectations in the material universe.

And then we’ve got a whole class of expectations that have no relation to anything, no use of rigorous data and no anticipatory potency. These are called the PGMOL expectations. PGMOL’s expectations are similar to magic. Sometimes the ball is in, sometimes it’s out. Sometimes you can blatantly foul an opponent, sometimes you can’t. Sometimes you’ll be booked for time-wasting, sometimes you won’t. It all depends on…well, who actually knows? These are expectations in the fairground universe.

The only tricky thing with PGMOL expectations is that they claim to be in the rigorous predictable data camp. They’ve even got technology with cameras and computers to enhance their dependability and predictability. They pretend to be operating in the material universe. But in reality, you plant an orange seed and up comes peanut butter sandwich. Pure fairground universe.

Ok, here at AW I like to try and find angles, new ways to look at old conundrums. Be a little offbeat. But the PGMOL is beginning to test my abilities. You’d have to be a talented poet or genius philosopher to imagine new intuitions or narratives for this level of consistent incompetence.

The best I can do through my frustrated anguish this week is to talk about authority and power. Which, strangely enough is something I’ve been pondering recently.

There are all kinds research methods or games, the prisoners dilemma, the ultimatum game, the sequential dictator and many more, which all essentially test for fairness and reciprocity. Players are given the chance to either be fair and make a choice that is mutually beneficial or make a choice that’s not. The recipient of the choice then can decide to accept or reject the offer.

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash