simont | Picture this (rpt)

Picture this (rpt)

A couple of weeks ago I posted a question asking my readers to gauge their general life luck using the metaphor of some dice which might or might not be entirely random.

I expected the answers to divide into two categories: simple answers giving a number in the range 1 to 6, perhaps with some justification, and clever lateral-thinking answers which stretched or extended the metaphor in order to express something more complicated. I wouldn't have been surprised if the former class of answer had given rise to some sort of debate about what level of luck we take for granted in the privileged western world and whether it's plausible for (say) anyone at all who isn't homeless or starving to rate their overall luck at anything below (say) 4.

Instead, somewhat to my surprise, every single answer I got was a clever lateral-thinking answer; everyone who had an opinion at all felt that a single number from 1 to 6 was insufficient to adequately summarise the nature of their life. The overwhelming consensus, as I see it, was that life simply isn't that simple; and as I entirely agree with that (my own answer wasn't simple either), this absolutely delighted me.

It also made me think that an audience of this nature might appreciate me re-running a lateral-thinking audience-participation question I posted in this diary way back in 1998, when LJ hadn't even been thought of and this diary only existed on Monochrome. When I posted it, I didn't particularly intend to solicit answers from the audience; I was mostly whinging, in a cryptic and metaphorical way, about some things which were happening in my own head at the time. As it turned out, though, I received a wide variety of excellently lateral responses, some of which even made sense when translated back through the metaphor. On the basis that many of my current readers were not my readers then and might enjoy coming up with their own answers to the same problem, here it is in full:

Picture this.
To protect yourself against the marauding Enemy, you have built two fortresses, one inside the other. In the inner one go all the things you really can't afford to lose; in the outer goes the less critical stuff. Also in the outer goes an absolute shedload of heavy weaponry, for defending the walls.
The Enemy comes, as you knew they would, and you fight them. You successfully hold the wall for over ten years. Then – for whatever reason, maybe an Act of God, perhaps a tactical error, possibly a genius taking over on the other side – the outer citadel falls. You'd hoped this would never happen, but you'd been prepared for the idea that it might; so as you'd planned, you retreat to the inner fortress, which should have enough weapons in it to protect the truly vital things therein.
The Enemy masses for its assault on the inner fortress, your last line of defence. As they prepare for their attack, an icy feeling sweeps through you. You've just realised that the Enemy is better armed than you'd expected. Why? Because they've taken over all the weaponry in the outer fortress.
What do you do?

In a week or so I'll post the answers I received in 1998.

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Hope they didn't notice that the last thing I did before I bolted the door was booby trap all the weaponry I left behind.

Although actually, I don't think I'd have arranged my citadel that way in the first place. It's too obvious that if the outer wall does fall, you're then trapped and surrounded with no possible escape.

I'd have pre-built a cunning network of hidden tunnels underneath allowing me to flee all the way to Outer Magnolia while the Enemy still thinks I am cowering inside.

You're trapped as soon as the seige arrives, never mind when the outer wall falls...

I was already thinking the first paragraph that there was a problem with the weaponry between the two walls. The question seems to be based on the assumption that you didn't think of that until too late, though, despite having a decade to mull it over.

Indeed. Last time round, most respondents calmly accepted the premise that they hadn't realised the tactical error until it was too late, and then had to find some sort of desperation measure or other; I did get a couple of responses of the form "you should have done something or other different before even getting this far", but they were greatly in the minority.

Failing to spot the tactical error for ten years admittedly makes a lot more sense in the real situation than it does in the metaphor. No metaphor's perfect.

Perhaps because in the metaphor, everything’s been pared down to a bare minimum, whereas in the original it’s all messy, real-life, and infused with a different perspective.

If a metaphor was perfect, it would be an isomorphism.

Equivalently, weapons "only usable by wizard" (or whatever Simon is).

Instead, somewhat to my surprise, every single answer I got was a clever lateral-thinking answer;

I think I would have expected that. I (and many of my friends) don't have a clear idea if I'm more normally lucky or not; nor be sure that other people would be interested if I did; but often find myself unable to help amusingly overextending metaphors.

To protect yourself against the marauding Enemy,

Is this is what you and Owen were telling me about?

Is this also a metaphor for life?

Is this is what you and Owen were telling me about?

If it involved glue, then possibly.

(S)

It did. Though I can't remember in what configuration.

People who were going to comment with something like “I always roll 5s, except when I roll a 4” thought it was so pathetic as to not be worth mentioning.

Are you going to tell us who gave each answer in 1998?

Dig your way out of trouble! (Unless you anticipated your enemy tunnelling in.)

Catapault your way out of trouble! (Unless you have a roof.)

Get the U.N. to act as peacekeepers! (Unless your enemy sits on the Security Council, or wields undue influence on someone who does.) (This won’t work.)

> every single answer I got was a clever lateral-thinking answer

You obviously know too many smart arses ;P

I'm afraid I'm deeply dull, because I don't see anything interestingly lateral to say about that 8-( I don't see that it makes a difference if they're overwhelmingly better armed because I made a mistake or because they were just overwhelmingly better armed to begin with, and I don't imagine they're going to be sympathetic if I say Oi that's mine, otherwise they wouldn't be invading my citadel to begin with.

Except that I know what the weaponry is. But since you haven't told us that I assume it isn't vitally useful. I take it it isn't interestingly remote-controllable.

So I think I do just what I would have done anyway, which is fight as long as I can and then either surrender or kill myself depending on the nature of the enemy. I hope I'd have put some pretty damn useful stuff in the inner fortress, but it's a bit late now if I haven't.

I laugh as I realise that the weaponry is so heavy it can only be fired from special mounting points, and that these are all directed to fire outwards :-)

I thought of something like that. Singapore had the opposite problem: it was invaded overland, and the coastal guns could not be used to assist in defending it as they were all pointing outwards.

I would remain fearless as all the ammo in the outer fortress was used up when we were trying to protect the outer wall.
I would then order my army to cheerfully shoot them in their confusion.

I would wait untill the opposing army had all crowded into the space between my walls and then flood it. Boiling oil optional.

Sit down and have some tea and cake. Defeatist, of course, but if you're clearly going to die horribly, you might as well have had tea and cake.

(I realise this is supposed to be some sort of game theory thing, but I've got no truck with it myself. People don't behave like you'd expect).

Thought #1: Perhaps the reason you had to abandon the outer fortress is that you've run out of ammunition there anyway.

If not, then you're far from screwed. You know well the location of the weaponry of the outer fortress. Further, that weaponry is only likely to be well protected from the outside. Hence, you need only wait for your opponents to cluster around the weapons thinking "woo yay, weaponry", before you unleash doom upon them.

Further again, your icy feeling is probably ill-founded. Weapons for repelling sieges aren't the same as conducting sieges; your Enemy will find your weapons far less useful than you did.

Several people suggest that the outer citadel fell because you ran out of ammo. But perhaps it fell because they knocked the walls over, in which case all those weapons are buried under piles of rubble. But neither of these can be the case, in fact, because otherwise you wouldn't be so worried about the weapons being out there: they are reasonably available and either have ammo, or can be readily supplied with ammo, or are some kind of weapon that inherently doesn't need ammunition.

Still, it's not the end of the world: the inner fortress was built against desparate contingencies. Indeed, on the bright side, you've just discovered it wasn't a waste of time and effort building it.

So what's going on? There's some at least partially damaged walls; there's enemy troops swarming in thru the gaps; there's weapons and ammo lying around for the taking. And there's you up above it with the weapons you had inside, pouring boiling oil, rocks, rotten eggs etc down on the heads of the invaders, who are then forced to retreat across rubble- and body-strewn terrain and exit through narrow gaps. You've just claimed a small tactical victory out of a major strategic defeat.

In a few weeks time they'll have made bigger gaps in the wall, sneaked the weapons out to more useful places at night etc, but it'll probably cost them lives. Until they can actually start to mount an attack on the inner fortress you actually get relative peace.

Eventually you're back to the seige. You held out ten years last time; everything critical is inside the inner fortress, and whatever your source of food and clean water is, it's clearly critical so it's in there. Holding out another ten years doesn't seem so implausible, and you have no choice; the enemy does have a choice and can get bored, or attacked by another enemy, or wiped out by the plague, any time they like.

Stick rockets on the keep.

Start digging a tunnel (completely useless when translated back from the metaphor, of course).

I get more facts. Urgently!

Your other one was easier - rehearsing possible courses of action but hesitating through fear in the event. They called me "Spock" at school: I would think through all possible outcomes of an event of a conflict, so I would know what to do when it happened. This didn't help in proportion to the amount of effort I put into the planning, as a) in real life there were a lot more random factors and b) I would overthink the possibilities.

Picturing Spock Bridget, deciding what to do if she saw someone getting mugged or attacked - what if they turn on me? What if they have a concealed weapon? Sometimes the people fighting are "friends" are gang up on anyone who intervenes. What if it's just an argument, and they tell me to butt out, or I've embarrassingly misinterpreted the situation?

I don't do that any more. I found the Bridget of Now turning to then Bridget of Then, cowering and wrestling with the statistical probability that she can't help, saying "Damn your logic, I've got lives to save!" Somewhere along the line I've turned into Bones. I'd like to think I'd jump in with feigned self-confidence to ask if help is required, or to threaten with police. What course of action would I take? - the one which, in hindsight, I would most regret not attempting.

This scenario looks more like a Kirk thing, and I'm no good at Kirking ;-)
Plus, lots of questions like What will the Enemy do when it gets in? Kill me, hurt me, or just take my stuff? Is there any grounds for a compromise? I will assume a handy deus ex machina is out of the question, as is suddenly discovering the ability to fly. What do I think is sufficiently important to go in the inner fort? Also, I'd have had ten years to think about what to do in this situation.

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