Ultimatum Game

What happened, and is still happening with the whole Gamestop episode is yet another sign that we've had enough of being screwed over by the elites. And we're sick and tired of always ending up with the short end of the stick.

The insanely rich and powerful, the ones who are the true rulers of almost every aspect of our daily lives, have been pushing the limit in an age old game. The game's object is to find out how much you can get away with, how far can you go screwing over the citizenry without pushing them over the edge, without them reaching for the pitchforks. Western societies, and America in particular have been living under decades of their elites playing this game. In 2015, after the crash of 2007 / 2008 and eight years of Democratic rule under Obama where nothing changed, Americans were finally pushed over the edge; electing Donald Trump was the first sign that Americans had had enough of business as usual. Trump won by making a solemn promise that he would "drain the swamp", and desperate American voters believed him. It's unfortunate, to say the least, that Trump was of course part of that swamp. What you need to understand is that the elites have a very strong sense of class solidarity, and Trump sees himself as a member of that ruling class. He never intended to drain that swamp, only to enrich himself, as is customary for members of that upper class.

And however despicable it was, the January 6th popular uprising against America's legislative branch, the storming of the Capitol in Washington, was ultimately caused by that same feeling of being screwed over by the elites. Americans and many other western citizenries have lost faith in their governments and in their democracies because politicians have become the spokespersons of that elite class. And it doesn't matter what political party those politicians owe allegiance to: Biden's pick for Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, reportedly received over $800,000 from a hedge fund tied to the bubbling GameStop situation. When Biden's press secretary, Jen Psaki, was asked if Yellen would recuse herself from advising President Biden on policy decisions involving GameStop due to a suspected conflict of interests, she answered: "The secretary of the treasury is one of the world-renowned experts on markets and on the economy. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone she was paid to give her perspective and advice." This is of course a bullshit answer and completely circumvents the matter at hand, which is that Yellen will probably rule in favor of the ones who paid her those speaking fees. In the end all signs point to the probability that Joe Schmoe will once again end up with the short end of the stick, and that the hedge funds and trading apps like Robinhood will once again be bailed out.

The whole Wall Street VS Reddit affair is a clear third sign in short succession that we, the people are at the point of reaching for the pitchforks. The beauty of the r/WallStreetBets sub-reddit uprising is that this time it were digital pitchforks, that regular people won for a change and that no one was hurt. Well, some billionaire hedge funds were hurt in their extremely deep pockets, but they've had it coming for decades now. What we're witnessing here is a nation-wide version of the Ultimatum game, it's game-theory on a national scale. Ultimatum game is one of the many experiments contained within game theory, the study of mathematical models of strategic interaction among rational decision-makers. The funny thing is that game theory is often cited by proponents of capitalism, when in practice the experiments show that most people are anything but "rational decision-makers". Capitalism's fanboys like to think that they are, but everyday observation of people's behavior shows that we are far removed from being homo economicus, which is a good thing. In reality, only companies, who have been bestowed the status of "legal personhood", behave like this, which is a bad thing...

The ultimatum game is a perfect example of this, and also gives us a rudimentary understanding as to why we're fed up with what's being offered to us by our ruling class. The experiment is simple: there are two individuals, one of which is given a sum of money, say 100 dollars. Let's call him or her person A. Person A must then offer a portion of those 100 dollars to person B. If person B accepts the offer, they both can keep the money, but if person B rejects the offer, they both get nothing. It's that simple. Now, this experiment has been repeated countless times among countless different groups of people from many different societies, and the outcome is always the same; average humans are willing to agree to any offer up to a 70 - 30 split. If person A offers less than 30 percent of the money, it's rejected most of the time, with the chance of rejection going up if even less is offered. What you need to understand here is that this is NOT rational behavior. Both players start out with nothing, so even a meager 5 percent offering constitutes a beneficial outcome for person B. Human beings apparently have a deeply seeded sense of fairness, although that's not officially and scientifically decided yet. Here's the Wikipedia snippet on this subject:

Since an individual who rejects a positive offer is choosing to get nothing rather than something, that individual must not be acting solely to maximize their economic gain, unless one incorporates economic applications of social, psychological, and methodological factors (such as the observer effect). Several attempts have been made to explain this behavior. Some suggest that individuals are maximizing their expected utility, but money does not translate directly into expected utility. Perhaps individuals get some psychological benefit from engaging in punishment or receive some psychological harm from accepting a low offer. It could also be the case that the second player, by having the power to reject the offer, uses such power as leverage against the first player, thus motivating them to be fair.
_{source: Wikipedia}

As a nation, America has decided to not accept the offer any more. And as a sub-reddit, r/WallStreetBets has decided to stick it to the hedge funds that are ruining the lives of common folk with the digital pitchforks handed to them by the internet. As always however, the regular Joe Schmoe is being painted the villain in the mainstream media, who are also part of the tightly knit class solidarity among the elites. Common people organizing and banding together against the rulers who screw them over day in and day out is what they fear the most. How I wish that we could exhibit the same kind of class solidarity that is so apparent among the ruling elite. To achieve that we'll have to stop listening to them, and that's including Trump who was the most divisive president in modern history; all they do is divide us when what we need is unity. United there's no force on Earth that can stop us, and r/WallStreetBets have given us a small taste of that truth.

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