Thanks for the response to the last blog, I appreciate most comments, because at least I know people are reading this and writing the blog is slightly more than intellectual masturbation.

Whenever I see a reference to the seven deadly sins; I usually do the most childish thing possible and try to list them as quickly as possible. The one sin that usually stumps me is pride; in contemporary society pride doesn't have the same negative connotation as lust or greed or sloth, eventhough pride was traditionally considered the worst sin since it enabled all others. Pride doesn't conjure up the same negative emotions because it can be a good characteristic; one should be proud of good things they do. Currently I think pride deserves it's classical notoreity because people are prideful of things they shouldn't be. People are proud doing everyday activities that anyone can do. This is frequently seen in national pride; it takes no skill to be born in a good country, so one shouldn't be proud of themselves for being born there. This differs from being proud of the actions or beliefs of the country you live in, however being associated with a group that was chosen randomly isn't something one should be proud of.

I have noticed pride of association in the poker world based on where people play and what type of games they play. Most of the best NLHE and PLO cash game players in the world are online players, there are many live pros who's fame isn't equal to thier poker ability and they seen as being world class because they have been on TV. For some reason many online pro choose to group themselves with the top players, because they make most of thier money on the same medium as these to players. Obvioulsy most online games are harder than the equivalent live games, however many people are proud essentialy because they began playing online as a default. If I started off playing live I am sure many of my default lines would suck, but they would work very well in the games I cut my teeth in, luckily I started playing online first, but that was mainly because I was too young to play live and not because I was a savant and realized that online would be a better arena to hone my skills. The same applies to live pros who think they are playing "real poker" I am sure if these guys were born 20 years later they would be grinding online games, the games you pick are largely chosen out of circumstance and developing skills to beat the games you arbirtraily chose isn't something to be proud of.

If you sub dividde this even further many players think they are superior because they play different forms of poker, while ignoring that they arbitrarily chose a tougher game and luckboxed their way into a correct strategy. This is most apparent in the dichtomoty between cash games and tournaments, many cash regs started playing 100bb 6max cash and have gotten really good at beating that specific game. They have put in a lot of hands and have great fundamentals, but they don't necessarily mean they have a special aptitude that allows them to beat 6max cash, that others don't have. They just ran good by playing 6max cash when they begun playing poker. Some tournament players have a similar aptitude, but have put all their time and energy into mastering another form of poker. I am not saying that these games are equally easy, because they aren't. There are people who couldn't beat certain games no matter how much work they put in, however there are people who could beat tougher games, but they haven't attempted mastering these games due to other circumstances. Bragging about beating a game that someone else hasn't attempted to beat, is a pretty lame brag; I'm sure right now I am better at poker than Stephen Hawking, however if he applied himself he would certaintly be better than me, so my hypothetical brag is futile.

Another form of sinful pride I have noticed is intellectual pride among people who just regurgitate others ideas. I don't know if they are proud because they have good reading comprehension or if they believe they are smart because they can summarize others arguments. It seems like many people are concerned with having similar opinions of other smart people than actually analyzing problems in an intelligent way. I noticed this a lot among athiests, who think they are a genius for taking grade 9 philosophy and concluding that God doesn't exist. Being an athiest doesn't make you smart, it is correlated with intelligence, but that correlation is decreasing as athiesm becomes more popular. When people like Galileo fought against the church they created logically consistent arguments and believed in thier convictions so strongly that they were willing to get punished for it. Currently that deterrent doesn't exist, I know very few people who have been blackballed or had any serious reprecussions from being an athiest. Most people I know didn't go to church every day or even every Sunday growing up for them being an athiest wasn't a tough decision. If anything it is a an easy decision, because it can lessen moral accountablity, since there is no deterrent in the after life. I am not arguing that god's exists, I'm arguing that people who feel intelligent for regurgitiang a fairly simple argument, without even attempting to look at a counter argument are simple minded. Thomas Aquinas' five proofs for god's existence requred much more original thought and intelligence than some random douche telling me that he doesn't believe in god because organized religion has killed more people than AIDs and Cancer combined. It doesn't matter that if his conclusion is wrong, because he used original rational thinking to come to that conclusion, instead of trite, cliche arguments that are plagarized from someone who had an original thought.

Similarly in baseball I have noticed more and more people following SABRmetrics and while thier conclusions are often correct their process is uninspired., I have noticed people repeating arguments that don't apply to the situation or arguments they don't even fully understand. Tuesday night I noticed many people complaining that Roy Halladay should have been pulled before he could throw too many pitches in the Jays Angels games. These people have obviously empirically noticed many pitchers with high pitch counts getting injured or read statisical studies showing how pitch counts and injuries are correlated. Because of this having pitchers on pitch counts have become en vogue and it makes sense, many young pitchers have blown out thier arms pitching in low leverage situations, ruining otherwise promising careers. As pitch counts became more popular, traditionalists expressed outrage citing anecdotal evidence about Three Finger Brown's rubber arm or Juan Marichal's 17 inning game. Reactionary fans started using 100 pitches as an arbitrary benchmark so they could prove that they aren't a traditionalist who don't understand simple statistics or what creates value. These same people were quick to criticize Cito Gaston for leaving Halladay in because they have developed a knee jerk reaction to anyone throwing more than 100 pitches. While they may think they have an insight, they have just overadjusted and are ignoring context to confirm their "rational" belief. Throughout his career Doc has been much more durable than other pitchers, he probably has a good idea if his arm is tired and one game will likely not cause any serious injury in the long run. Halladay isn't like every other pitcher in the big leagues so holding him to the same arbitrary pitch count that Tim Lincecum should be held to is sub-optimal.

Pride can be good, but being proud about meaningless things so you can delude yourself into thinking you are better at something than you really are is counter productive and makes you appear like a douchebag. I guess I just summed up 1000 words in one sentence, so maybe this blog just is intellectual masturbation.


Sam