In Defence of Pokemon

Often, I hear parents complain about Pokemon. For those who do not know what they are, I am talking here about the fantasy world where humans and creatures called Pokemon coexist. The Pokemon can be domesticated and trained for battles by Human trainers. Pokemon are all strange looking creatures, often resembling some kind of animal and with a name that is almost always a mangling of some real words with makeup words, resulting in gibberish to the uninitiated.

I think these parents are misguided and are themselves turning into a curmudgeoning generation that mistakenly bemoans the lack of taste/ethos/skills in the young ones. Rings a bell? It should, since it is a recurring theme.

But to the point. The movies may not be your cup of tea, but most of the major literary themes can be found in there -- love, ambition, jealously, rivalry, sacrifice, courage, perseverance, duty etc. The Pokemon world is coherent enough to suck in the watcher and appeal to kids. The one movie that for me signifies this quite clearly is Lucario and the History of Mew, where Truth, Friendship, Sacrifice and Duty feature strongly. Please forgive your children for not watching De Avonden (talk about boring), but do not accuse them of having no taste.

Then there is the computer game on the Nintendo DS. In game terms it is a grind, full of micro-rewards, a very effective way to draw people into games. What I see in my own kids is that they learn to cope with setbacks, think about ways to succeed and persevere through it. The game is in english and they try very hard to understand the words, even picking up a number of them. I am amazed at how much they can already understand of the text. Besides the solo version, the game offers easy ways for groups of kids to hook up and play/trade/fight/chat together. Calling it anti-social just becase the means for conducting social traffic is not well understood is not doing it justice.

Finally, there is the trading card game. This strongly stirs the collecting fever that seems to be part of our genetic heritage. The cards of the game come in four varieties: common, uncommon, rare and ultra-rare. A tried & tested tier system that was first introduced by Magic the Gathering. I am surprised to see how easy markets are formed ad hoc and anywhere by groups of kids with their books, boxes and single cards stuffed in pockets. They deal easily and smoothly. Yes, there are some negatives, for example stealing and ripping off smaller kids, but more importantly, I see my own kids building up stamina, tolerance for trading away their own property, empathy for what the other kid wants (Theory of Mind anyone?) and developing savvy in what constitutes a good deal.

The last reason why I think Pokemon is not bad is deeply personal. My youngest son is suffering from Selective Mutism, which is often misunderstood by people to be shyness. It's hard to explain the affliction, but it is probably best described as a persistent, strongly rooted refusal to speak in certain situations with certain people. The affliction is curable by therapy and one way for kids to overcome Selective Mutism is, in clinical terms, if the price of persistant silence is higher than the social cost. Ever since my son has been engaged in trading Pokemon cards, he often found the cost of maintaining silence too high, and sometimes breaks that silence to fuel his trades. This blends in nicely with his therapy and has every appearance to speed up the process considerably. You can imagine that for this fact alone, the Pokemon movement has my undying gratitude.

Money for Nothing

Some 375 years ago, the Netherlands (then the United Provinces) just recovered from a bout of intensive fighting with the Spaniards. It had a lively trade, resulting in the Golden Era. This boosted the cash income for the upper class so much, that it desperately sought outlets, burning in the pockets of rich people. My fellow countrymen therefore developed an appetite for the beauty of the tulip; a rare item in limited supply. The insatiable appetite for exotic varieties turned into the first real economic bubble, as middle class speculators joined the fray and short selling (ie, gambling on price increases with borrowed money, effectively incurring double risk) was introduced. The history of this mania is described eloquently in the book Tulipomania.

The appeal of easy money has always been big. It is what any casino thrives on, and what makes Pyramid Schemes so successful in preying on the naive and gullible. Ratio is thrown out of the window in pursuit of the big fish and the fact that so many people join in only reinforces the herd mind that the mass is on to something.

Some of the appeals to people's lust for easy money is cleverly guised, such as The 4-Hour Workweek describes. And appeal it does -- how could it not? Gaining big money while doing (almost) nothing is so enticing, so seducing that it triggers the same mental area as it does when participating in bubbles, lotteries, casino games and pyramid schemes.

The author of The 4-Hour Workweek is obviously a gifted person -- and well aware of this fact given how he flaunts his accomplishments! -- which is a hurdle, inhibiting mass adoption of what is described in the book. To be system beater like the author is, is a rare gift. The author goes forth to describe how he delegates work to others in such a way that he gets relieved of all toil, except a couple of hours to keep things moving.

The 4-Hour Workweek is a bit more subtle in its negative effects however, when compared to the afore-mentioned economic phenonema, and it is all about added value. What the author works on is a mix of differences in price (the same argument used for outsourcing), his own considerable insights, available talent abroad and a non-transparant market. As opposed to outsourcing, which requires lots of actual work, experience and management to succeed with, the author adds no further value to the process, so builds up no competitive advantage whatsoever.

Let us just fantasize for a moment that Timothy Ferris' approach is broadly adopted. We have all these entrepeneurs, managers and experts whose sole aim is to minimize their working hours as soon as possible. What added value does that person build? What added value does the company build? What added value does society as a whole build? You can delegate your work away as much as you like, but there is always a downside to every upside. In this case, the downside is the loss of skills and experience and henceforth any competitive advantage that may have been wielded. A downside that is felt all the more if well-packaged parasitism becomes the norm. Just ask yourself how easy it could be for the delegatee to run away with your business.

Structural shortcuts to success are only for a few lucky or brave souls, and are by their very nature not intended for the masses. Contrary to popular belief, the best way to achieve your goal is still to identify it, set the parameters and work hard to make it happen. Like Erasmus said, Qui vitat molam, vitat farinam, or He who runs away from the mill runs away from the meal. In short: No pain, no gain.

Truth hurts

"Ignorance is bliss", as Cypher so succinctly put it in the Matrix, after he describes how Knowing spoils his dinners. He was probably inspired by Thomas Gray's "Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise". Not knowing Cypher lived in an artificial world would have preserved the joy of eating food. Knowing that he did, spoiled it all. He bemoans the fact that he Knows.

The Search for Self is a murky path, full of unpleasantness. You will find things about yourself that you dislike, weaknesses and imperfections, things you did or were done to you and do not want to be reminded of, or choices you made that had unhappy outcomes. It might make you feel depressed, angry or sorrowful, or perhaps even spirals you down into self-destructive behaviour. Compare that with a lot of people who have a skewed Sense of Self, yet are perfectly happy in their bubbles and even perform well in society. Why then do we still doggedly pursue this knowledge? What is so great about it?

There are a couple of reasons. Knowing thyself...
... paves the way for improving yourself
... helps you to prevent disadvantageous situations
... helps you to determine a career path
... makes you stronger, because no one can tell you anything about you that you did not already know
... helps to manage expectations about what you can and cannot do
... allows you to better understand other people

On a company-level, self knowledge becomes even more critical. The temptation to see life through rose-tinted glasses is enormous. Optimism is often seen as the driving force for a venture. I say here and now that optimism is overrated and even dangerous -- a culture of optimism disallows bad news to be merged into painting the big picture, therefore always putting decision makers on the back foot.

Optimists often have short-term success, but know not how to deal with setbacks. They disbelieve, ignore, deny, and do basically anything to keep their world view intact.

Any company is much better served by a good sense of what it can and, more importantly, what it cannot do. It can set ambitious, yet attainable goals for itself, that boost morale in a way that pep talks and speeches could never accomplish. It sets its goal and then does it.

On a society level, the refusal to Explore Self, or discuss that what happens is well known: Political Correctness. An affliction that seeks to, as biologist Matt Ridley puts it, "argue from ought to is". Political Correctness is carried by none less than all those sweet and well-intending people who want the world to be a good place.

To prevent all that nastiness from entering decision making, it is ignored. Euphemisms, censorship, and looking the other way are all manifestations of Political Correctness. The consequences are that a society is unable to deal with wrongs that it even fears to identify.

So instead, we retreat inside a safe bubble that tells us life is good, people are good and we are good. No pain, just bliss.

And that is just the truth of it.