Rock, Paper, Science, Technology, Society

I have to say my initial reaction to the title “Rock-Paper-Scissors a Parable for Cycles in Finance, Fashion, Politics and More”, was chuckling at remembering Dr. Sheldon Cooper’s explanation of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock on the TV show, The Big Bang Theory.  And before even starting the article, I was then concerned that my immediate connection to the text was through media and how as a society we are so impacted by technology.  That being stated and then proceeding to actually reading the article I realized the connection.  In the article, professionals suggest that as humans the “moves” played are by analyzing the opponent and anticipating their moves.  The point of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock is to eliminate some of the anticipating of one’s opponent because, also stated in the article, in allows for more variety, less predication and ultimately more effective for a game of “random” chance.  Rock, Paper, Scissors was initially viewed to be a sequence of random moves and the “human element” was not considered.  Professionals also made this wrong assumption when dealing with people leaving an area such as in the event of a fire.  Originally, the models were based off the random movement of tennis ball like objects just trying to squeeze their way through the exit.  However just like Rock, Paper, and Scissors they realized that human element is a large component to determine the outcome of events.  In real life, people would stop to help others and actually cut down the amount of time needed to leave an area because instead of acting like a brainless mob, they could anticipate others’ actions and would readjust theirs accordingly.  So linking back to how technology’s impact on society we are able to predict trends based on this cycling principle and think further ahead.  However my question is how does a paradigm shift impact this concept of anticipating? Does a shift or major advancement in technology in a way reset the society’s ability of interpreting their surroundings or does the way we have been seeing the world now just make more sense?

article:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130219161246.htm

clip of Big Bang Theory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqlDc2VICZ0

Live long and prosper,

Angela Rose