#keynesian beauty contest

[landofzero-archive]

Battle on the Sugoroku Board - God Won’t Roll The Dice 8

(Location: “Battle on the Sugoroku Board” program set)

Ibara: Is everyone familiar with the “Keynesian beauty contest?”

Yuuta: ………?

Ibara: Well, it has nothing to do with idols, so you wouldn’t know it.

It’s an analogy for the stock market. In the financial market, the value of a company—its stock price, is determined not by its performance or financial soundness, but by its popularity.

A contest where a vote is held to determine the most beautiful woman out of 100 participants, and a prize will be given to the person who votes for first place—

—When gambling on something like this, voters vote not for the woman they think is beautiful, but for the person they think is beautiful on average.

That’s what we call the Keynesian beauty contest.

If the Keynesian beauty contest were held in “Battle on the Sugoroku Board,” the popularity would probably be shared between the NewDi and CosPro teams.

Popularity has nothing to do with determining who wins or loses “Battle on the Sugoroku Board”…… But it is a consequence of it.

That’s why NETV is trying to let the idols from weaker agencies win, correct?

So they can gamble behind the scenes and profit greatly from the stakes.

Rinne: Oi…… Are we the targets of gambling!?

I’d rather join their side!!

Yuuta: This gambling addict is a worthless adult.

Rinne: Whaddya mean “worthless adult.” You have a weird way of speaking, don’t you.

But that doesn’t explain it. It’s true if an unpopular idol wins, they’ll make a lot of money.

Arashi: Natsume-chan said that may be why they brought in a shady director.

It’s been a while since he last worked. He couldn’t turn down the opportunity to produce a program, right?

Madara: As a result, he couldn’t escape from this evil deed.

However, NETV is a company that distributes programs overseas, so it’s not illegal is it?

Natsume: YeS. The headquarters is located in areas where gambling is legAL. In other worDS, what we’re trying to do is a matter of feeliNGS.

A matter of feelings—nO. It might be more accurate to call it a moral issUE.

Don’t involve us in that shitty “stagING.”

Don’t look down on idOLS.

…… Just for thAT, we’re fighting togethER.

Naturally, this’ll be a blow to those invested in NETV, like Ibara-kUN.

But you don't just see idols as pawns for your businesses, riGHT?

You just want to make monEY, I’m sure there’s better jobs out theRE.

Ibara: Hmm. Are you trying to appeal to compassion?

If they’re not breaking the law, then I have no obligation to cooperate.

In fact, if the company I’m invested in is trying to make money like that, then, from a manager’s perspective, I’m in luck♪

Rinne: …… Oi.

Ibara: Oh! Don’t lose your temper!

Stable management also means that they can invest in the entertainment industry, where you don’t know whether it’ll hit or miss.

Profits are important for keeping idols alive when their asses are on the line.

In fact, because of this, no-name idols are being used. That fact is unshakable.

Natsume: I didn’t think you were that heartlESS. Negotiations have broken down— it looks like the NewDi team has no choice but to try our beST.

Ibara: Make no mistake, I’m not saying we won’t cooperate.

I merely told you the facts. There’s a strong will to fight together—but simply fighting together won’t solve this problem.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If you’re hit with capital, you can fight back with capital. That’s how society fights.

If the gambling house is open for us, it’s a matter of joining the table.

For example, raising the bet—what if we raised the stakes?

Rinne: Raising the…… Heh, I getcha. We’re in for a do-or-die game.

Arashi: Don’t use gambling as an example. We’re still students, aren’t we?

Yuuta: Please explain more clearly, vice prez.

Ibara: Yes, yes. Don’t worry!

This is just a hypothetical. Do you know what would happen if a bet was being held in front of you, and the person you were betting on won via match-fixing?

You know that only those who know about the match-fixing will benefit immensely, right?

So, what if that match-fixing doesn’t work, and you fail?

Those who know about the match-fixing will be wiped out. The risk and return of match-fixing are balanced because the underdog targets win.

In other words, you do two things. Stop the match-fixing, and then bet big on another candidate.

We’re going to take back the match-fixing. I have a vision in my mind of everyone involved going out onto the streets, and they’d bet so much money that they would win that they’ll consider CosPro a threat!

If we do that, they’ll never gamble again. …… What do you all think? It’ll be quite enjoyable♪

Natsume: …… I’m stunnED. I wasn’t telling you to go that fAR.

Ibara: Ahaha! That’s what it means to make an enemy out of me♪

Philanthropy! Fraternity! Benevolence!

A loving punishment for those who trampled on their love for idols……☆

Yuuta: Huh, your catchphrase changed!?

Ibara: I don’t know what you’re talking about? I’ve always had a love for idols?

Yuuta: Scaryyy…… This person’s really troublesome to make an enemy out of, huh.

Madara: I’ve accepted things like that up until now, so I think it’s fine to do whatever you like.

But, that gambling place—it’s open in secret and seems impossible to enter.

Even if it’s not a real place, but an online one.

Ibara: Well, I guess I’ll have to look into that now.

In order to ensure the fairness of the gambling, this program is probably broadcast in real time on a site that can’t be accessed from within Japan.

In fact, its real-time nature will support our plans. We can delay the response.

If we ask the complicit production director for information about the gambling parlour, he’ll tell us right away.

He seems to be talented, and just like Natsume-kun, he’s someone who just wants to make a “good program”—

“Staging” may also be accepted as part of the production.

This program, like NETV, is not pandering to existing forces. They want a program that supports the underdog…… And I think I can persuade them to do something like that.

And so, first, we contact His Majesty, who seems to be close to the staff.

If he can back it up, it’ll be the beginnings of a fun show♪

Let’s follow the example of Natsume-kun’s beloved Hibiki-shi and make it a fun event for us too!

Natsume: HmM, what kind of cruel drama (Grand Guignol)(1) are you planniNG? If you’re going to use Nii-san as a reference, you should be planning a comeDY.

Just don’t let your vice flourish. If you screw them, they’ll screw you baCK—and on that one point I’ll agree with yOU.

TL Notes:

A Grand Guignol is a play of macabre or horrific nature.

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[goingnoowhere]

لو عملنا مسابقة اختيار ملكة جمال وخلينا الناس العاديين زيي وزيك هما اللي يختاروا، فالبديهي إن الناس هتختار أكتر واحدة شايفنها جميلة من وجهة نظرهم، مفيش خلاف على كده صح؟ الغريب إن فيه شرط واحد لو زودناه على المسابقة، كل اختيارات الناس هتتغير ونتيجة المسابقة هي كمان هتطلع مختلفة تماماً!

خلينا نفترض إننا عملنا المسابقة فعلاً، نشرنا صور 10 موديلز في الجورنال وقولنا للناس ابعتولنا مين المفروض تكسب المسابقة. لحد هنا الناس هتختار اللي شايفنها اجمل. لكن المرادي زودنا شرط واحد بس وهو إننا قولنا للناس إنك لو اخترت واحدة والواحدة دي كسبت المسابقة، فانت كمان هتكسب معانا مكافأة مادية .. لو زودنا الشرط الواحد ده بس، على الاقل 80% من اختيارات الناس هتتغير!

ولما هنسألهم ليه، هتلاقي كل واحد فيهم بيجاوب بنفس الجملة بالظبط: اختياري الاولاني كان بناءًا على ذوقي في المتسابقة اللي أنا شايفها أجمل وتستحق تكسب، إنما أول ما عرفت اني هكسب لو اختارت المتسابقة اللي هتكسب، غيرت اجابتي واخترت المتسابقة اللي بتوقع إن بقية الناس هتختارها، يعني ببساطة اختياري التاني مكنش بناءًا على ذوقي بل على ذوق معظم الناس، كل ده عشان أنا اللي اكسب مش عشان متسابقة ما تكسب!

النظرية اللي حكيتلك عنها دلوقتي دي اسمها Keynesian Beauty Contest واللي طورها عالم الاقتصاد الانجليزي چون كينز في كتابه الشهير The General Theory of Employment (1936).

والراجل كان غرضه من كده إنه يشرح ازاي سوق الاسهم بيشتغل، ف وانت بتستثمر مش هتستثمر في السهم اللي عاجبك انت لإن ده محدش هيشتريه غيرك، لكن هتفكر في السهم اللي تتوقع الناس كلها هتشتريه، ولما تعمل كده والناس كلها تشتريه فعلًا فقيمة السهم هتعلى وهنكسب كلنا .. هتقولي الله طب ما حوار البورصة سهل اهو امال ناس كتير بتخسر فلوسها هناك ليه؟

هقولك مهو مش انت بس اللي بتفكر كده، تخيل كل واحد يبدأ يختار حسب توقعاته لاختيارات بقية الناس، الموضوع عامل كأن أنا وانت اعداء ومش بنطيق بعض، وفجأة لاقتني داخل عليك بكوبايتين شاي وكيس السم بيدلدل من جيب قميصي. جيت قعدت جنبك وحطيت كوباية قدامك وكوباية قدامي، 100% فيه كوباية من دول فيها سم، بس السؤال بقى انت هتختار انهي كوباية؟

أبسط اجابة اكيد هتشرب الكوباية اللي قدامي أنا عشان اكيد مش هحط السم لنفسي، بعدين هتقول لنفسك مهو كريم برضه مش غبي، هو خد باله اني شوفت السم وعارف اني مش هشرب الكوباية اللي قدامي، فتلاقيه حط السم عنده هو عشان لما اتذاكى اخد كوباية كريم واموت، فبكده المفروض تاخد الكوباية اللي قدامك انت. وبعدين تفكر شوية وتقول لنفسك، تصدق كريم ممكن يكون أذكى مما اتوقع، وسابقني بخطوتين مش خطوة واحدة وعامل حساب اني هفكر كده.

وهكذا كل ما تفكر اكتر كل ما الاحتمالات تكتر اكتر، وكل ما تحاول تتوقع تصرف اللي قدامك كل ما تحط في الاعتبار إنه هو كمان بيحاول يتصرف على اساس توقعه لتصرفك، وبكده اللعبة بتكبر منك والاستثمار يصعب اكتر ويبقى واحد من اصل كل اربعة بس هو اللي بيكسب في البورصة!

بس ده مش بالظبط الموضوع اللي عايز اتكلم فيه، استنى اقولك إزاي الناس بتعمل كده في حياتها كلها مش في البورصة والاقتصاد بس.

عارف القصة الكلاسيكية بتاعة البنت اللي كل ما تكرفلها كل ما تنجذب ليك اكتر، كل ما تتجاهلها كل ما الاتينشن بتاعك يبقى valuable ليها زيادة، كل ما ترفضها كل ما تبقى هتموت على الفاليديشن بتاعك. وطبعاً بمجرد ما تديها شوية اهتمام هتبقى خدت اللي هي عايزاه وتتكل على الله (ودي ملحوظة للناس اللي بتلعب hard to get، لان اللي قدامك بيقع في غرام المطاردة مش في غرامك انت).

لكن بشكل ما لو عجبك الحوار وبقيت عايز البنت دي تفضل متشعبطة فيك فعلاً، هتكشتف انك مينفعش تبقى على طبيعتك، لاننا عارفين إنك ماماز سويت بوي وملكش في التكسكة، عشان كده لو عايز الموضوع يستمر لازم تكمل اللعبة.

وهنا هتكتشف، مش لازم هنا اوي يعني لكن في نقطة ما في حياتك، هتكتشف إن فيه طريقين ممكن تتعامل بيهم في العالم: الطريقة اللي على طبيعتك والطريقة اللي بتنجح، اختيارك لمتسابقة الجمال اللي شايفها حلوة واختيارك المبني على ذوق الناس، تعاملك مع البنت على طبيعتك والتعامل بالطريقة اللي هتخليها تفضل متشعبطة في سيادتك .. ومشكلة الطريقة اللي بتنجح إنها على قد ما بتوصلك للي انت عايزه، إلا إنها مش بتوصلك للي انت عايزه برضه، تعالى احكيلك حكاية.

لو افترضنا إن الهدف اللي كل الناس بتشتغل عشانه هو الاستقلالية المادية وصاحبنا بعد ما اتعين في الوظيفة اللي بيحلم بيها اكتشف إن فيه حاجات المفروض يعملها مع الوظيفة عشان يضمن استمراره فيها بغض النظر عن اداءه، زي إنه يلبس بشكل معين ويركب عربية ماركة معينة ويودي عياله مدارس بالشئ الفلاني مع عيال زمايله في الشغل.

بالطريقة دي هيضمن اللي هو عايزه aka استمراره ونجاحه في الوظيفة، لكنه في نفس الوقت فقد اللي هو عايزه فعلًا وهو الاستقلالية المادية، لان الفلوس اللي بتجيله من الوظيفة بيصرفها عشان الوظيفة ويفضل يلف في لووب عمل الاشياء بالطريقة اللي بتنجح مش بالطريقة بتاعته.

زيه زي اللي فضل يعامل البنت بطريقة معينة عشان يضمن انها تفضل اتراكتد له، اينعم نجح في انه يفضل يخليها متشعبطة فيه لكنه في نفس الوقت خسر الغرض الاساسي م�� الشعبطة أو من أي علاقة وهو إنها تحبه، تحب شخصيته الحقيقة مش البيرسونا اللي بيلبسها عشان يمشي حاله.

هتقولي يبقى خلاص الكونكلوشن إن كل واحد يعمل الحاجة بطريقته وميسبش العالم يغيره زي حامد سنو ولا يضحي بروحه في سبيل إن الحاجات تنجح معاه.. امم هقولك لو نيتشه سمع اللي انت بتقوله ده هيجي يولع فيا وفيك.

وده لإن نيتشه مؤمن إن الانسان في الاصل زيه زي الغابة، وتجارب الحياة عامله زي النار اللي كل شوية تحرق ما لا يقل عن 10% من الغابة كل سيزون. وإن الغابة الحكيمة -الانسان الحكيم يعني- هي اللي مش بتقاوم النار، بالعكس بترحب بيها عشان تقضي على كل الشجر الغير صحي والعشب الضار اللي مش هيكبر واللي التخلص منه ضروري من أجل بقاء الغابة ككل.

وكذلك الانسان عند نيتشه، لو مسمحش للتجارب انها تنحته والمصاعب انها تولع فيه ويـ let go لصفاته السيئة والنسخ الغبية منه، لو مسمحش بده ومتمتعش بالمرونة الكافية لكده، فالحريقة هتولع في الشخص كله مش في الصفات الغير ضرورية بس.

وعشان كده لازم الواحد يبقى عنده القدرة على السماح للعالم بتغييره وتعليمه وتجديد نفسه من جديد عشان يعرف يعيش أحسن حياة ممكنة، حتى لو ده معناه يتعلم يلبس بشكل معين عشان الكلاينتس متهربش منه، أو يتعلم يتعامل بشكل معين عشان ميبقاش غشيم مع الجنس الاخر، أو يختار السهم الصح عشان ميخسرش فلوسه في البورصة.

كل ده باعتدال ومرونة كافيين لإنه يوصل لنسخ احسن من نفسه، لكن في نفس الوقت مش زيادة عن اللزوم لدرجة إنه يخسر نفسه في البروسس، كل ده بدل ما يعيش ويموت ساذج وغشيم وخايف يتعلم، وبدل ما في أثناء رحلته في الوصول للي هو عايزه، يخسر كل اللي هو عايزه.

[notdoneintentionally-blog]

Atypical friendships: Yaba-Mira

Notes:  I’m perfectly aware they didn’t interact a single time in canon and personally I think that’s a crime so I’m here to fix that. I’m tagging @mira-hearts-queen​ and @mister-sane​ as Mira and Yaba so they can tell me how many I got right!

If you want to see the other parts of ‘atypical friendships’, look under this tag in my blog. 

First, a little context on how they met: 

-Mira had already heard about him from the dealers, about a man always dressed in a suit who managed to solve every hearts game with ease

-She was intrigued and designed one for him. True to his reputation, he cleared it without getting a single blood stain on his shirt.

-Needless to say, Mira was impressed. 

-What caught her eye the most was how despite hearts being clearly his strongest suit, he lacked the affinity for bloodlust she’s seen in other players. Games built around deceit tend to attract people who thrive on betraying and stepping on others to come out on top, but not him. It’s not like he avoids lying and manipulation tactics though, he just does it when he deems it a necessity. 

-Her first thought was ‘I bet I could break him,’ so she decides to approach him to recruit him for the Beach. She wants to see how he’d fare in the ten of hearts she’s planning with Kuzuryuu. 

-However, she makes a mistake. She uses her tactic of appearing gullible and charmed by this tall, handsome man and of course, Yaba is a shark and smells blood in the water. He quickly realises there's more to Mira than meets the eye, and since they're not in a game and he doesn't benefit from lying to her, he tells her.

-Again, Mira is impressed.

-Thus begins a series of chance meetings after games. Some of these are coincidences, most of them are not. 

Now, onto the head canons!

-Yaba ends up showing Mira where he lives (the place is absolutely SPOTLESS) and they spend entire nights talking. It starts off with just game talk, considering different strategies they could've followed or bringing up other games they've been in. They bond over an appreciation of the borderlands’ beauty and an interest in human nature without it being sadistic.

-Then they start speaking about their own lives before the borderlands. Mira's eyes light up when Yaba tells her he's an institutional investor, and asks him if she knows what the Keynesian Beauty Contest is. When he tells her he does, she lets out a giggle but refuses to elaborate further. 

-Yaba is really interested in Mira's job as a psychiatrist. He's spent hours (literal hours) listening to some of her anecdotes with patients. 

-Both Yaba and Mira drink tea, but Mira prefers fruity tea and Yaba likes darjeeling, so Mira ends up leaving some of her own tea at Yaba's place. She also gifts him a teaset, which not coincidentally, is the same one she'll use in the Queen of Hearts. 

-Mira has tried to convince Yaba to sneak into the Beach so he can see what it's like, but he doesn't see the point, so he's never attempted it. Mira tried riling him up by claiming there's a better hearts player there than he is, called Chishiya. It didn't work (and when Yaba actually met Chishiya he had to stifle a scoff because he realised Mira was just messing with him, as Chishiya seems a diamonds player through and through. Better than him? Absolutely not).

-Mira likes giving him small gifts every now and then. One of them is a copy of the DSM-V with hearts drawn on the margins of every single page. The DSM-V has 947 pages. She was really committed to her hearts.  

-Another gift she gives him is a Walkman, after he mentions he missed listening to music. He asks where she got it from and she just says ‘I stole it, but don’t worry about it.’ As she says this, back at the Beach a white-haired executive is planning revenge on Niragi for a crime he didn’t commit. 

- They've made it a tradition that after spades games, they have to play a game themselves at Yaba's place in which they make up the rules, to push themselves beyond physical tiredness. So they might be playing chess and suddenly Mira says 'if we move our rooks we immediately lose'. Then Yaba adds 'knights can now only occupy black squares'. And keep on adding rules until one of them messes up. 

-Yaba has three hairbrushes he’s used to brush Mira’s hair after a game. The repetitive action feels relaxing for the both of them, and it’s the only physical contact they have.

-Whenever Yaba says he wants to rule the borderlands, Mira says he'd make a fine Queen of Hearts. Yaba would reply that if anything, he'd be the King of Hearts, and Mira would laugh and say 'that's not the compliment you think it is. Trust me, the Queen of Hearts is much better'. Eventually, Yaba stopped saying he'd be the King of Hearts and now instead says Queen.

-Yaba does push ups first thing in the morning to wake his body up. Even if Mira's still there, he will do his push ups, there's no two ways about it, she'll have to wait to talk to him. One time Mira got so annoyed by him ignoring her that she sat on Yaba's back to provoke him, and he simply kept on doing push ups without acknowledging her. For anyone wondering, he did a total of eleven with her on his back. 

-They favour style over practicality. While others ask Mira why on Earth she would attempt a game in heels, Yaba makes a comment on how tasteful her Loubutin are. If Yaba almost doesn’t make it to a game because there was a wrinkle in his shirt he couldn’t get rid of, Mira understands it was a risk he had to take. 

- The night the Beach burned down, Yaba saw it in the distance but didn't feel worried in the slightest about Mira. In fact, he thought she might be the reason behind the fire (and was completely right about it). 

- He wasn't surprised either when she announced the beginning of the second stage of the games with her as the Queen of Hearts. He simply thought that if someone were to be the Queen of Hearts other than himself, it'd be her. He felt a mixture of pride and tenderness when he saw every game get cleared one by one until the only one remaining was hers. Of course she'd be the last one standing. Mira Kano was a force to be reckoned with. 

- Once the games had ended and he accepted citizenship, the Joker gave him a small book Mira had left behind for him, titled 'Manual of Survival: Citizenship in the Borderlands'. When he opens it, curious, he realises it's a very detailed guide as to which one of her dresses to wear for each occasion. There's hearts drawn in the margins of every page, a ten-page epilogue on why fruity tea is the superior choice to darjeeling, and a note at the end which says 'you're going to be an amazing Queen of Hearts, darling. Have fun ❤️.'

[dwagom]

experiencing a pang of disappointment after voting on a poll and seeing that i've not voted for the winning option. literally the definitional form of the keynesian beauty contest at work

[attackoneyebrows]

kinda sad.....i don’t love the tone / writing of s2.....pacing issues and somehow the writing isn’t as good as s1.......also s1′s emotional seasons actually had a lot of heart / was v v poignant whereas s2 feels manufactured for tears it’s really weird.........there were some good moments and surprisingly kyuma’s char was v well done but kuzuryu who i was looking forward to the most kinda fell flat.........and also the ending was so rushed but i guess they really wanted to wrap the story in s2 in case of cancellation. 

anyways osmosis and solitary confinement were standout games with keynesian beauty contest being good but just slightly missing the mark i think

[mourning-again-in-america]

the "empowerment zone" sounds like it could be a good idea, but urgh! why turn everything into a keynesian beauty contest when you can just make it a normal contest!

[spilledreality]

Games of Strategy are Games of Reading and Writing

1.

Schelling defines games of strategy as any situation in which each player's best choice of action depends on the actions (he expects) the other player will take (and vice-versa, reflexively). This is in contrast to games of skill and games of chance. "Strategy," then, is the study of conflicting parties' behaviors as they are premised on "the interdependence of the adversaries' decisions and on their expectations about each others' behaviors."

We will call "script" a set of moves, from start to end, across a game. Games of strategy are definitionally marked by their lack of a player-independent & globally optimal ("PIG-optimal") script—that is, a script which will produce the best possible outcome in every game against every possible player.

(Or at the very least, these games of strategy have not had their PIG-optimal strategy discovered yet, so a successful move, or script, is functionally indexical—"indexical" as in, "player and context-dependent.")

When moves are indexical, it means that their efficacy depends on the opponent's future move(s). In "Rock, Paper, Scissors," no single move is PIG-optimal. The efficacy of playing "rock" fully depends on whether the opponent will play rock (resulting in stalemate), paper (defeat), or scissors (victory).

2.

Strategy games span a continuum between cooperative and adversarial.

In games tending toward the cooperative side, it behooves players to be legible, and thus predictable. This is because, if any individual player's best move depends on other players' next move(s), then Pareto optimal aggregate play among all players requires players perfectly anticipating each other (so they are each, individually, able to make the best move dependent on each other). In a cooperative game of Rock, Paper, Scissors where winning consisted of matching moves (e.g. two rocks, two papers, etc), it behooves players to get into a rhythm, to repeat themselves, etc.

This goes some way, I think, toward explaining social customs and conventions, the inculcation of habit. It is a pro-social gesture to be legible, insofar as it allows other players in a social space to optimize around you. This reciprocal self-legibilizing allows for spontaneous organization, where sophisticated behavioral patterns emerge in e.g. conversational turn-taking, team sports, drivers who efficiently and safely manage an intersection with a broken traffic light, etc. Meanwhile, those who are unpredictable or illegible are "creepy," "unsettling," etc...

(Convention—settling on a shared script—is also computationally tractable, whereas assessing other players' next move in order to make your next move, when their move depends on their assessment of your next move, which depends on... is an NP-hard recursive problem. More on this soon.)

In games tending toward the adversarial side, it behooves players to be illegible, and thus unpredictable. This is because, if any individual player's move efficacy depends on his opponent's next move(s), then that player is disadvantaged if his opponent can anticipate, and thus thwart, his choice. For a competent opponent to know that he is about to play "rock" is equivalent to losing. So long as he can be anticipated, he cannot win, because in a game like Rock Paper Scissors, moves are fully indexical in their "quality" or efficacy. There is no "better" or "worse" move in a vacuum; only better or worse moves given an opponent's move.

Another high-level strategy, for adversarial games, is what I'll call "pseudo-legibility." This approach involves setting up an opponent expectation, by intentionally leaking information, or displaying a pattern, during low-stakes rounds of the game. Then, when a high-stakes round approaches, the player "cashes out" by breaking his pattern. Here he has flipped the script: by making himself appear predictable, he has in actuality made his opponent predictable.

For instance, a poker player may feign a tell, and then display that tell several times during small pots. Later in the game, when a large pots (and a good hand) comes around, he can once again display the tell, and lead his opponent to believe he is bluffing. At this point, he can just "take his opponent's money": he can "play" him by ratcheting up the bet and clearing house.

3.

Note that there is in some sense a player-independent optimal strategy for Rock, Paper, Scissors, which is pure randomness. The problem is that pure randomness will secure a lower win percentage against sub-optimal players than a player-dependent strategy would have. Randomness is only "optimal" in that, if one has no idea who his opponent is, it is the optimal strategy. We will call this a player-blind optimal strategy, or PB-optimal. In a one-round game of Rock, Paper, Scissors against an anonymous opponent—or in a multi-round, blindfolded game, where neither player learns their opponent's moves (and by extension, the outcome of the round) until all rounds are over—pure randomness is the most effective strategy.

(This has something to do with "exploitability"—@natural-hazard has written that "Traditional game theory sacrifices any plausible yet uncertain edge you might have for the guarantee that you will never be taken advantage of." But I have yet to integrate this concept of exploitability into my broader understanding.)

One interesting property of PB-optimal strategies is that they are also the optimal strategies when playing against other PB-optimal players. That is, the PB-optimal strategy becomes more and more effective the better the players one is competing against. In a tournament of professional Rock, Paper, Scissors players, winners would be those best at cognitively simulating randomness. In a tournament of amateur Rock, Paper, Scissors players, winners would be those best at reading their opponents, at "playing the player."

(Also, in some meaningful sense, winners would be playing the room: If, thus far in the tournament, you've noticed that players are rock-heavy, you might be inclined to play paper OR, alternatively, hypothesize that, since other players have thus far had outsized success—premium returns—on playing paper, then a preference for scissors may be a successful tactic.)

4.

Playing the player involves what we can call generalized reading. There are conceptual reasons to call it this, but the idea is bone-achingly simple: to play a player—to recognize his patterns and regularities, in order to exploit them—one must interpret the player. Look for clues, watch his face for tells, pay attention to how he responds to certain moves, or what biases or preferences exist in his play. And inevitably, if one plays with patterns, then these patterns are on display—all moves are publicly visible in their entirety by both players. One cannot play "rock" while hiding that one is playing rock. In this sense, information inevitably "leaks" in the process of play.

PB-optimal play, in other words, becomes optimal when player moves do not leak information. Only in the "blinded" version of Rock, Paper, Scissors can one "play rock" while hiding "playing rock."

In a game like Rock, Paper, Scissors, virtually all players are equally competent at selecting and deploying moves, conditioned on knowing what their opponent will play. (Each player knows rock beats scissors, scissors paper, paper rock. And each player is equally physically competent at using a given move; there is no level of skill that bars them from countering rock with paper.) Therefore, success in the game is one-to-one with success at anticipating one's opponent. This makes it an extreme case of strategic indexicality, the property of strategies depending on opponent strategy. But there is always, in games of strategies, an element of indexicality to a given move's efficacy—otherwise it would not be a game of strategy, it would have a PIG-optimal solution.

Randomness is PB-optimal insofar as it prevents the opponent predicting, at a rate higher than 1/3, what move one will play next. Illegibility is chosen deliberately as a descriptive term here: one cannot be "read" by one's opponent, when one plays randomly; there is no pattern to pull out of gameplay. It is ironic, and perhaps deeply important, that the strategy which is optimal when blindfolded is also the strategy which blindfolds (one's opponent.)

Pseudo-legibility, then, is a strategy of generalized writing. Insofar as your opponent is basing his moves on what he predicts you will do, and he is making predictions based on his interpretations of your previous play (including e.g. body language), then it is advantageous to present him with a false reading, a false interpretation. By planting such a false reading in his mind, one can thereby begin predicting his behavior while simultaneously remaining unpredictable oneself.

This occurs in situations of mixed conflict and coordination. When one feels like they have been "led on," or that they operated under a false impression, they feel they have been "played." They believed the Other was presenting—pro-socially and honestly—a certain pattern, and thus presented their own pattern pro-socially and honestly. This makes them manipulable to the Other, while the Other remains un-manipulable to them. (Because the Other's real patterns are unknown.)

5.

Strategy games get weirdly recursive, in their induction patterns, because one is not modeling what "is" but what their opponent believes. Simultaneously, the opponent is modeling what his opponent believes. Thus, one must model what one's opponent believes one believes one's opponent believes... etc. The "level" at which this mutual modeling bottoms out matters quite a bit, insofar as a player who is thinking too many "levels" deep will mis-model his opponent.

In this sense, strategy games share many structural similarities with Keynesian Beauty Contests, the world of fashion, stock bubbles, sexual fitness etc. A female of a species inclined to find those males handsome which other females find handsome is, in some sense, looking for genetics that will produce a sexually desirable offspring, to the extent that the sexual taste of females in her offspring's generation can be modeled via the sexual taste of females in her generation.

Hyperstition is at its most effective in such systems. The difficult part is breaking inertia, giving the meme a kick-start. But once it picks up momentum, this momentum builds via the positive feedback loops of a Matthew Effect. The meme goes "viral." This is known as runaway selection, and it can come at the cost of an organism's non-sexual fitness. That is, in optimizing for some intra-species game, it becomes less optimized for the inter-species game. Which, of course, is the opposite of how these things are "supposed" to work.

I'll let @mclegibilist take it away, about how the socially valuable byproducts of strategy games are what we really care about, when we organize, host, regulate, and manage such games.

[argumate]

I assume you've been asked this - but as for a Definitive Edition: Which Linux distro do you use regularly? (i use arch, btw)

I use whichever distro has won the Keynesian beauty contest and attracted the most users, hence in the past mostly Red Hat and in recent years mostly Ubuntu.

[xiaoquanquans]

at my disposal

sypnosis : y/n and chishiya became allies after y/n had saved chishiya from getting killed in a game of tag . they helped each other stay alive in the borderlands while also collecting all the needed cards to return back to the real world . after following chishiya around religiously , y/n had fallen hard for chishiya and he had explained to her that he did not care for her and would do anything to keep himself alive . all the remaining players had split out to collect the face cards . y/n and chishiya were focusing on completing the diamond cards . but chishiya did what he had to survive .

tw warnings : swearing , manipulation , death , betrayal , mentions of alcohol , self harm , blood , depression ( do not read if you somehow relate to the tw’s , i genuinely care okay ? take care of yourself bby 🖤 )

notices :

• MANGA SPOILERS!!

• mixed pov’s

• the game announcer speaks in bold and sly remarks or important sentences are written in italic

• lowercase

• this ff might be a bit confusing , because it’s a knowledge diamond based game

• chishiya’s true nature / canon chishiya

• gender neutral reader

• not proof-read

—

the game that we will be playing is the keynesian beauty contest . difficulty K♦️. henceforth, the rules shall be explained . within one minute all of you will pick a number from 0 to 100 . after everyone has entered their numbers , an average number will be taken from the addition of the numbers of all the 5 players . the player that has the closest number to the average number will be the winner and earn one point.

here we were , all five of us facing each other at this pentagon shaped table awaiting for our deaths . the rules were simple , win or die .

if you get an answer wrong you’ll receive -1 point. it’s game over for those who reach -10 points.

kuzuryuu keiichi , the third highest executive at the Beach was directly facing me , chishiya was to my left and an additional two players as well .

benzo, an wise old man and hinako a snobby looking woman .

upon heading the rules it was obvious that only one of us would make it out alive . i wished that i had known that before entering the courthouse .

i turned to face chishiya only to see him sneering at keiichi.

only one player will make it out alive .

-

chishiya

why was he so special to me , so intriguing .

i was the one who saved him but for some reason i’m also the one following him around .

i was a smart person , i figured it out quick .

it was obvious to me that i was in love with him , and he noticed it as well .

one day , we were both hanging around the poolside of the Beach far away from each other when we exchanged glances .

not long after he made his way towards me and pulled me aside .

he stared me blankly into my eyes , no emotion portrayed through them . listen , i’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at me and it’s genuinely really annoying but you have to know .

i do not like you , i don’t want to like you and i never will . if we were in a bad situation i would not hesitate to sacrifice you to safe myself . i would use you at my disposal if i had to so stop giving me those looks , you should know that i hate them and i do not care about you .

after that day , we rarely exchanged words . but for some reason i still kept following him around . he was cold to everyone else , i wasn’t anyone special . but god forbid him , he was just so unique to me . he couldn’t keep me away from him and his god complex even if he wanted to .

-

before i could speak up i was quickly outspoken by keiichi .

“ you’ve all heard the rules . if you have no further questions we will continue and start the game. ”

chishiya snickered. he knew that it was going to be him . he knew that he was clever and he showcased that every chance he could .

he knew he would be the one to walk away from the court with the card in his hand . the K of diamonds would just merely be another addition to his substantial stack of cards that he had collected or as some might say , stole .

the first few rounds had passed and everyone had gotten the hang of the game . it was simple to everyone in the room . all you had to do was get the calculations right in the time limit of 5 minutes .

hinako spoke up , “ so this game , is merely a deduction of how far the opponents can calculate? ”

i let out a quiet laugh , everyone had already registered that after the first round and here she was only figuring it out now .

you made a bet with yourself , she’d be the first one out , if not the second .

“ but what we’re reading isn’t mentality but rationality . ” chishiya replied .

after a few rounds the tables weren’t turning , keiichi had been winning every round because of his solid strategy of everyone keying in either 0 or 1 . someone had to do something or else we’d all lose to him .

so i realised i had to change it up a bit .

i quickly inputted the number 100

it took everyone by surprise , i knew i had no chance of winning because 100 was definitely too far from the average but i inspired the rest to take part in what i was doing while also taking away keiichi’s advantage.

a few more rounds passed and both Benzo and Hinako had reached -9 points . I was on -7 and Chishiya was on -8 . Keiichi was leading with -4 points .

Both Benzo and Hinako were one point away from death , so they had to be extra careful in the next round .

Unfortunately for them , they guessed a number that was too off from the answer , causing the acid on top of them to pour down , melting and disintegrating their bodies until they were gone .

Chishiya smirked at it . Their lives had meant nothing to them and so did yours . He knew what he had to do after this . How he could ensure his survival by taking you out .

-

and here you were , in the pitch black bar of the Beach . gulping down bottles of alcohol , trying your best to forget about what had happened . you weren’t weak , you kept telling yourself that even if you didn’t believe it . but deep down you knew you were .

once you were done with your bottle you slammed it against the counter , breaking it into hundreds of shards .

you took the biggest one you could find and lifted up your sleeve .

this wouldn’t be your first mark, your arm was filled with lines that were distinct in width from past experiences that you had before coming to the Borderlands .

before you could hesitate you did it . the glass shard sliced it’s way through your skin with ease .

you dropped the shard out of pain causing it to break off into many smaller pieces .

once again you scavenged for more alcohol , looking for fire whiskey which was something that could help numb the pain .

after minutes of searching you finally found a bottle-

“ y/n what happened , why is the whole bar in a mess? ”

you turned around to face kuina , a look of worry was displayed all over her face .

she made eye contact for a moment before looking down towards your arm .

“ what were you thinking? ” you heard her mutter .

she quickly took the bottle of whiskey out of your hand and placed it on the counter , after that she slowly brought you to the other side of the bar due to there being shards of glass everywhere on the floor.

once she sat you down she went to look for a medkit, leaving you to yourself and your thoughts . kuina took as little time as she could because she knew you weren’t in the right state of mine to be alone .

once she found the kit she rushed back to the bar , only to find that you’ve fainted from the all the loss of blood . it was a thin cut line but a very deep one , it looked like you might have even accidentally cut off a vein .

after you had woke up the next day you and kuina had a long talk and after that you felt much better .

until you ran into chishiya again on the same day.

-

since there are only 3 players remaining , a new rule will be added into the game. if two players pick the same number they will both get -2 points .

i was already on -8 , meaning any wrong choice would lead me to my death .

picking 0 or 1 would definitely lead me to my death , so I’ll choose a random number between 2 and 100

how about , 62 .

the results are in , chishiya is the winner , number 23.

-

y/n ( -10points )

chishiya (-8 points )

keiichi ( -7 points )

-

and that was it ,

endgame for me .

before accepting my death i had one question , how did he figure out i was going to pick 23 .

and as if he read my thoughts , chishiya spoke up .

“in order to distance yourself you would’ve picked a number in between 2 to 100 because 0 or 1 had the highest chances of being duplicates .

after clearing all the possibilities of you picking a random number i was left with 62 and 74.

and i chose between those , and to my luck you picked 62 and all i had to do from there was divide 62 in half . leaving me with 23.

with this , a player has reached -10 points , it is now game over for that participant .

chishiya laughed , “ like i said you’re at my disposal , should have listened the first time . ”

and those were the last words i heard before meeting my end .

- END -

tags: @donnyhateslife @hvrriicane @myloveforchishiya ( dm to be added to tag list )

oui oui love yall 💖

[fr-economics]

Oh! You can perhaps consider G1 pricing using the Keynesian beauty contest allegory.

Say there's a contest in the newspaper. Here are 10 beautiful faces; pick the 6 most beautiful. Anyone who picked one of the most voted-for faces is eligible for a prize!

Now, according to the contest, the reader should pick the most beautiful faces. But you have unique tastes. If we go back to dragons, you might prefer matchy XYZs, or rare Light eyes or something. This is reason #1 that G1s are horribly mispriced.

A smart reader would pick what he believes to be the most popular faces. Some features are enduring: primal eyes, multigaze, XXXs, XYYs, etc.

Further, if you assume that every reader is doing this, you should pick what other people will think the most popular faces will be.

For example, you might personally think your xxx white mirror hatch with arcane multigaze is ugly. Other people will think, hey, this is great! I hate it, but arcane multigaze on a white dragon is saleable! I'd totally resell this at an inflated price, or regene it and sell it down the line! Or maybe I'll just keep it, but other people will see it as wayyy more valuable with all its genes and art than the price I bought it for.

Hang on a minute! You don't want them to do that! You don't want other people to see mirror's beauty, if it means you aren't fully capitalising off it! Now you have to charge 1000g for a mirror that you think is ugly, that its buyer might even think is ugly.

Imo, this is reason #2 that G1s are mispriced. By this stage, you're under so many levels of assumption that you don't even know what the people want anymore. You don't know what you or anyone else should be paying. All you know is you're sick of this goddamn mirror's 17 purple eyes staring into your soul.

So, put simply, a normal seller will price the G1 according to whether they think the G1 is pretty.

A smarter seller will price the G1 according to how they think it will be seen.

A total nerd will price the G1 according to how they think, other people will think, it will be seen.

Sorry, this is so long, and is really just putting into words what a lot of people already know. Hopefully this was an interesting read, at least.

This is an awesome comparison and totally makes sense! Thanks so much for sending this in. There are a lot of levels of assumption going on, as you put it.

Wiki link for anyone who wants to read more.

(Also RIP this post was submitted before the eye update 😅)

[arcadysworld]

I haven't talked about it at all, but ne and a few other people are working on a game called "Project Arisu"

Project Arisu is an Alice-In-Borderland-inspired game development project, by AiB fans for AiB fans. And we’re looking for more people to join us!

We plan to make an online multiplayer game arcade where players have to play games to earn visa days and stay alive. The games will be randomly selected when you enter an arena and feature a mix of AiB-inspired games and original custom-made games.

We’re currently in the prototype phase and testing out games for our demo, including: Keynesian Beauty Contest (from the manga), and Honour Among Thieves (an original Hearts game).

We’re currently looking for people to help out with the following:

Programming (Unity/C#)

Graphics (both 2D and 3D)

If you’re interested to help out, or you’re just curious with our progress, join us on our Discord:

I hope to see you there!

[ryotarox]

美人投票（びじんとうひょう、英: Keynesian beauty contest）とは、金融市場における用語の一つ。 経済学者のジョン・メイナード・ケインズが『雇用・利子および貨幣の一般理論』第12章第5節で、金融市場における投資家の行動パターンを表す例え話として示したことから使われるようになった。 ケインズは、玄人筋の行う投資は「100枚の写真の中から最も美人だと思う人に投票してもらい、最も投票が多かった人に投票した人達に賞品を与える新聞投票」に見立てることができるとし、この場合「投票者は自分自身が美人と思う人へ投票するのではなく、平均的に美人と思われる人へ投票するようになる」とした。（略） 美人投票でのナッシュ均衡は、ちょうど美人候補の立候補者数だけ存在し、一人の候補者に全ての票が集まるというものになる。

美人投票 - Wikipedia

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

美（価値）を決めるのはなにか • 自然の摂理として美は決定されてる • 個人の感性で決める • 社会の他の人々の動向で決定される

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

美人ではなく悪人を投票で決めるとしたら。悪人投票。負の価値の決め方。

[xhxhxhx]

Cryptocurrencies are strange animals.

Capital asset pricing is conceptually simple. Capital assets are worth what their expected future income stream is worth. For real property, that’s discounted future rental income. For corporate equity, that’s discounted future cash flows. Capital asset pricing can be difficult, but it’s not complicated. 

Currencies do not generate income. They have no rents, no dividends, and no yield. Even that no-income stream might be worth something, however: To the extent that income-generating assets might not generate income, and might lose it, no-income assets have value. They limit your potential losses. 

Currencies have some value because their returns are uncorrelated or anti-correlated with your portfolio returns. If a recession coincides with price level deflation, as is usually the case, you can expect the purchasing power of your money to increase even as purchasing power of the other assets in your portfolio declines.

That means that money can be a useful hedge. But it is not usually the best-available hedge. There are other assets that are uncorrelated with equities that still generate income and outperform money: Bonds. There are exceptional circumstances where money holdings outperform bonds -- the Great Recession happened to be one such period -- but, in the long run, bonds are better safe assets than money.

But you don’t usually hold money to improve the risk-adjusted return in your portfolio. You hold money because you need the liquidity. You cannot pay your taxes with stocks and bonds. You cannot buy a home or pay your bills with them, either. But you can pay them with money. That is its cardinal virtue: It is accepted almost everywhere.

Against this standard, cryptocurrencies are odd ducks. Their stocks are illiquid, they are not usually accepted in payment, and they are not legal tender. Cryptocurrencies never became a revolutionary payments system. They were never even a workable payments system. At full capacity, Visa can process 65,000 transactions per second. Bitcoin can process ten. 

Cryptocurrencies are still around, but they are not money. They are an asset class, but they are not capital assets. They are speculative assets. Cryptocurrencies are here not because they generate income or have use value, but because their owners expect that their value will increase. Cryptocurrency value is determined by an almost-pure Keynesian beauty contest: “We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be.”

There are two areas where cryptocurrencies have intrinsic value: Illegal transactions and money laundering. In China, Venezuela, and Cyprus, they help investors evade capital controls. In North Korea, Russia, and Iran, they help investors evade international sanctions. In North America and Europe, they help ordinary consumers buy illegal drugs. 

Not coincidentally, illegal transactions are where cryptocurrencies are most like money: If you want to purchase illegal drugs, cryptocurrencies are a commonly-accepted medium of exchange. If you want to liquidate your Chinese or Venezuelan assets, cryptocurrencies are a better store of value and medium of exchange than anything in China or Venezuela.

I think that points to the broader limitations of cryptocurrencies: If China or Venezuela have the capacity to effectively repress cryptocurrency transactions, then their value will fall, much as it fell after the FBI shut down the Silk Road. If China loosens its capital controls, or establishes a less repressive banking system, then the same thing will happen. But that’s crypto’s fundamental value: It helps people get their money out of China.

This topic was suggested by a Patreon backer.

[nonnui]

Super Stylist

Title: Super Stylist Genre: Dressup

Intrusiveness: 1/5.  Constant ads just as the price of doing business, let alone for incentives, and many of those ads are, additionally, buggy (or perhaps just intentionally hostile) in such a way that I have to do weird shenanigans to make them go away when they've overstayed their welcome.  Opening the game requires dismissing three or four or five or six suggestions that you buy things.

Generosity: 3/5.  Mixed bag.  It tantalizes you nonstop with stuff you can't afford to unlock (unless, of course, you'd like to give them your credit card information), but - as long as you don't get instantly tired of the shoes and purses you have already achieved access to - everything else you need keeps coming.  I'm virtually never bottlenecked on energy (very refreshing, on the heels of Dragonscape) and while it takes a while to save up for things and you can only get them in bundles of mixed quality, the money and the gems you're saving enter your possession steadily.  The more throttled minigames are playable occasionally as rewards for other minigames, not paid-only.

Aesthetic: 3/5.  You'd think they'd try a little harder in a fashion game, but they don't have the clothes looking good at all the resolutions you see them at, articles can clip into each other and don't layer sensibly, you can't wear a coat over a dress for some reason, many of the individual items are impressively hideous, and everybody's faces and body language and most possible hairstyles are lowkey unpleasant to look at.  At flattering resolutions, it's entirely possible to put together a pleasing outfit!  But for a visual-forward game they should have put in more work here.

Writing: 3/5.  It's fine.  Within the constraint of the premise that you with your arsenal of twelve dresses all of which you've used before are a professional stylist whose time is worth hundreds of dollars, and that everything is gamified, the writing is a workmanlike delivery of that information.  There are only a couple typos ("ritches" for "riches" in an achievement, for instance).  Like most of these games there is more writing than there needs to be.

Interface: 2/5.  Some kinds of minigames are hard to find; the hostile ad problem above dings it here too; the clothes catalogues auto-sort themselves in response to the conditions of challenges, but not very intelligently, and you can't re-sort them yourself; I can't for the life of me figure out what the point of the makeup/nail polish application minigame is supposed to be since it has no degrees of freedom beyond which options you pick out of the available set; I strongly suspect the "shopping" minigame of nonrandomness shenanigans; and, as mentioned above, you can't wear a coat over a dress for some reason.  Voting on other people's outfits is an explicit Keynesian beauty contest - you get a prize if you pick the option that already has more likes.  I think the voting must be substantially faked, though, because there aren't enough opportunities to do it to explain how many likes some of the looks rack up and the results often come in much too fast.  I do like the experience point bar being clearly marked so you can see how many missions away from leveling you are, and the photography minigames.

Coherence: 5/5.  Firmly on theme at all times.  Of course it's gameified to hell and back - it's obvious very early on that your clients' social and professional lives are being puppetted by the hands of plot that they may come to you begging for new pants at the correct moments in your own journey; you pose the same ways at the same distances for your promotional selfies whether you're shilling earrings or skirts; your finances do not bear resemblance to any economically reasonable real-world stylist's revenue and budget.  But it's relentlessly about the clothes and accessories, your job as a clothes and accessories picker, putting models in clothes and clients in clothes and yourself in clothes, losing at fashion battles by not having high-star-rating clothes with the correct feature metadata.  The one exception to Super Stylist's best-in-class coherence is that for some reason it has a color by number minigame, which sucks and has nothing to do with anything but is sometimes called for to complete quests.

Gestalt Experience: 3/5.  I think it could earn a 4 if the new clothes came faster (cheaper catalogs, easier-to-get card thingies for getting individual things out of collections, maybe getting to keep stuff from promotional selfies) or if its ads worked less evilly; both of those are really pulling it down.

Like Time Princess, Super Stylist uses metadata like "cute" or "elegant" to describe items and uses those to generate outfit scores - but not frequently.  It's only a thing in a specific challenge minigame; otherwise you can choose any combinations you want, within the relaxed requests of your clients ("pants", "red") or no restrictions at all (dressing yourself up just for fun in the middle of the day).  This prevents the metadata and the star ratings that determine how much oomph each item's metadata contributes from eating up the game.  Even without that narrowness of scope, though, the fact that the setting is at all times modern Earth means that you don't get the "plastic sunglasses in Versailles" problem.  Are the thigh-high black boots what I would have chosen for this outfit if they didn't claim to be "simple" and have four stars?  Nah.  Do they at least look like they come from the same setting, broadly speaking, as the dress?  Yeah!

[dwagom]

keynesian beauty contest with a twist

[itswallstreetpr]

Top Opportunities in the Cannabis Stock Space (ACB, NUGS, CGC, SNDL, GRWG, TLRY, IIPR, CRON)

The best traders know how to find stocks that investors will seek out on pullbacks. And the best investors know what stocks to seek out on pullbacks. Hence, differentiating between the two groups is a Keynesian Beauty Contest kind of process. Understanding how that contest works is about figuring out which trends are capable of delivering on deep value out-of-favor moments due to long-term secular growth themes that will stand the test of future history. From that perspective, one group that deserves attention right now is the cannabis space. The defining trend of legislative change is the operative idea. As more and more states move to legalize marijuana, both medically and recreationally, we stand to see fuel under stocks involved in pick-and-shovel goods and services, retailing, and cultivation in the space. Another cue is how well the cannabis marketplace fared through the pandemic. In fact, while many industries suffered, legal cannabis sales soared by over 50% last year. Analysts now see the global cannabis market surpassing $70 billion in annual sales in less than a decade. But throwing a dart at a list of pot stocks won’t get the job done for either traders or investors. With that in mind, we have sorted out a list of some of the most interesting opportunities in the space according to our analysis and highlighted several below. Sundial Growers Inc (NASDAQ:SNDL) has been on and off the relative strength leaderboards in the cannabis space over the past year, but has shown the capacity to get trading groups excited with commitment during several trends. That factor shouldn’t be overlooked in the analysis. The company engages in the production and distribution of flower, pre-rolls and vapes. The firm offers licensed producer, ACMPR, cannabis, medical cannabis, health and wellness, and cannabis extracts. Sundial Growers Inc (NASDAQ:SNDL) recently announced that it has launched Caviar Cones, its newest product innovation, under the award-winning Top Leaf brand. The Forbidden Lemon Caviar Cones will be the first caviar cone product to hit the Canadian market. This launch reinforces Sundial's focused innovation pipeline around premium inhalables in the Canadian cannabis market. "Top Leaf's brand promise is to deliver top quality inhalable products to consumers in the premium cannabis segment," said Andrew Stordeur, President and Chief Operating Officer at Sundial. "In order to compete in this preferred segment of the cannabis industry, product quality is absolutely vital. Top Leaf's Caviar Cones is the first of many high quality, high THC and flavourful products developed to satisfy even the most experienced cannabis user." Even in light of this news, SNDL hasn't really done much of anything over the past week, with shares logging no net movement over that period. Over the past month, shares of the stock have suffered from clear selling pressure, dropping by roughly -16%.  Sundial Growers Inc (NASDAQ:SNDL) managed to rope in revenues totaling $7.5M in overall sales during the company's most recently reported quarterly financial data -- a figure that represents a rate of top line growth of -48.9%, as compared to year-ago data in comparable terms. But the company’s strong balance sheet – with cash levels exceeding current liabilities ($838.5M against $63.8M) by a massive margin – creates the potential for rapid growth through strategic action ahead. Cannabis Strategic Ventures (OTC US:NUGS) is an up-and-coming interesting story in the space given its growth rate and the small numbers still involved for the company that seems to have a path toward becoming a serious vertical “farm-to-sale” player in the California cannabis marketplace – which is the biggest market in the world right now for cannabis. As discussed in the company’s release last week, NUGS entered into a material definitive agreement in 2019 for the transfer of four cannabis licenses issued by the City of Los Angeles and the State of California for the Retail Sale, Cultivation, Distribution, and Manufacturing of cannabis products. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, approval of the transfer of licenses was delayed until recently: On August 9, 2021, following prior approval by the State of California, the Company was notified that the City of Los Angeles approved the change of ownership applications resulting in final regulatory approval to transfer all four licenses to NUGS. Cannabis Strategic Ventures (OTC US:NUGS) now builds on that story by announcing this morning that it has begun to deploy those licenses through two steps.  First, it is announcing the upcoming grand opening of its customer-facing cannabis dispensary brand, “MDRN Tree”, which will open its first Los Angeles location at sometime this fall.  Next, the company plans to deploy another of its new licenses for the establishment of an indoor cultivation facility with the capability of up to 1,200 grow lights, projected to produce 2-3 lbs. of premium exotic cannabis flower per light per harvest across an estimated 5.75 harvests per year, suggesting an upside potential for total production capacity of 15,000 lbs. of premium cannabis flower per year. Cannabis Strategic Ventures (OTC US:NUGS) CEO Simon Yu commented, “After securing key licensing, we are wasting no time in deploying those assets to launch one of California’s top vertical cannabis models. MDRN Tree will be our factory retail store – our direct interface with our end-market community – where we plan on showcasing the cannabis flower produced at our NUGS Farm North cultivation site. This farm-to-sale model offers the potential to drive simultaneous gains in quality control and profitability, and I look forward to providing further updates as we make strides in this direction.” Tilray Inc (NASDAQ:TLRY) has emerged as one of the biggest players in the space following its merger with Aphria, Inc. The combined entity has enormous potential to define aspects of the marketplace, though it has occasionally gotten a bit ahead of itself in valuation terms, leaving a trail of burned bag-holders over shorter time horizons. That said, for long-term-minded players, deep value opportunities in the stock could be very interesting. According to its materials, the firm is focused on medical cannabis research, cultivation, processing, and distribution of cannabis products worldwide. Its products include dried cannabis and cannabis extracts. It operates through the following segments: Cannabis and Hemp. The Cannabis segment consists of adult-use, medical and bulk sales of cannabis under regulated licenses and sold to retail, wholesale, pharmacy, government, and direct to patient. The Hemp segment consist of hemp seed, hemp foods, board spectrum hemp extract containing CBD, which are sold in an unlicensed operation and sold to retail, wholesale and direct to consumers.  Tilray Inc (NASDAQ:TLRY) recently partnered with ROSE LifeScience Inc., a local Quebec cannabis player. According to a release from Rose, the news follows the recent industry-impacting business combination between Tilray and Aphria Inc, creating the world's leading cannabis company. As a result, ROSE is now an official partner to the new entity, representing an array of recreational cannabis brands in Québec. "Expanding new business in Québec is always exciting," said ROSE LifeScience President and CEO Davide Zaffino, of the partnership which includes sale, supply, distribution, and marketing. "Québec is the third largest cannabis market in the country. Partnerships like this show us why." The stock has suffered a bit of late, with shares of TLRY taking a hit in recent action, down about -4% over the past week. Over the past month, shares of the stock have suffered from clear selling pressure, dropping by roughly -19%.  Tilray Inc (NASDAQ:TLRY) managed to rope in revenues totaling $48M in overall sales during the company's most recently reported quarterly financial data -- a figure that represents a rate of top line growth of -7.8%, as compared to year-ago data in comparable terms. In addition, the company has a strong balance sheet, with cash levels exceeding current liabilities ($416.4M against $284M). Other core growth names in the cannabis patch include Aurora Cannabis Inc (NASDAQ:ACB), Canopy Growth Corp (NASDAQ:CGC), GrowGeneration Corp (NASDAQ:GRWG), Innovative Industrial Properties Inc (NYSE:IIPR), and Cronos Group Inc (NASDAQ:CRON). Read the full article