Why Wordle works; learnings about risk in every day life
I'm hosting a small gathering 27 Jan, London. I consider why Wordle is so satisfying. My podcast chat with a leading statistician, David Spiegelhalter on how to think about risk + COVID statistics.
Hosting small gathering
Why Wordle is so satisfying
How to think about risk, COVID statistics
The UK Climate Change Committee needs new members + Update
I’m hosting a Meet-up! More informal and relaxed than a round table but smaller than a party these meet-ups are a small experiment in bringing people together. Smaller than my previous mingles (I’m expecting maybe about 12 of us) respecting the virus and enabling longer form conversations. I have a studio space and will likely bring gluten free marinara pizza.
Date/Time; 27 Jan, 6pm-ish to 9pm-ish (but OK to be late).
Address: Theatre Deli Broadgate, 2 Finsbury Avenue, London, EC2M 2PA
I succumbed to Wordle. My previous podcast chat with games philosopher C Thi Nguyen has, I reckon, hit upon the pleasing mechanics in this thread. See our podcast here on games philosophy. Or below.
This is his thread on thinking about the game.
I’d like to expand on his point on the social diagram graph.
Once you have played the game a couple of times, and once you have finished a word. You can examine the struggle/journey of everyone else that day. There is only one a day, so you know everyone is playing the same word at the same time. One a day means you will not overcommit/addict like Candy Crush or Farmville might have done for you. (Other viral social games, though those games were tryingt to/were making money).
When you look at someone’s completion graph, you can know fairly accurately where they struggled, how they struggled or not. And either admire in awe at an amazing step change guess, or sympthasise on a tricky journey.
As you know the word and the rules (or even if you don’t know the word, but can see the guesses) the design of the word gives you a replay into their game.
In this sense, it’s like watching the replay of a well constructed football goal in slow motion. You can see how the moves were put together and placed to an ending.
The social element recalls a time when people did many cultural activities together and still do, like watching a new episode of Friends, or in the UK, Bake Off and Strictly Come Dancing; or playing Among Us, Minecraft.* There is a large cultural shared language. Decades ago Brits listened to the wireless together, or Radio 4 was a very commonly shared cultural outlet.
The partial atomisation of aspects of culture to where you can find your “tribe” means to some extent this sharing is different, maybe diminished. The typical Guardian reader, does not read the Daily Mail (and vice versa).
Strictly, Bake Off; to some extent Squid Game; Harry Potter and the like cross those boundaries.
Wordle achieves this cultural synchronicity as well. The achievement is daily and almost real time and crosses many boundaries.
So, in a rather amazing piece of social game picture design (the design of the final outcome was actually inspired by an early player), I say hats off to game maker, Mr Wardle.
I note the developer is feeling somewhat stressed about the responsibility of it all, and as of now, only unrelated games with similar names have benefited financially. This is a VC orientated interview and here in the Guardian.
*As an aside, noted Rationalist blogger, Scott Alexander got married recently, and one of his early dates was a building a house together in Minecraft with his now wife. Seems to represent something about the time we are living in.
I clarified and learned much about “risk” on preparing for and podcasting with David Spiegelhalter.
David Spiegelhalter is an expert on medical statistics. He was the president of the Royal Statistical Society and is Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence communication.
(Self-recommending) the whole podcast or transcript is worth thinking about in terms of everyday statistics and risk. [Some of these techniques extend into investment thinking, eg baseline forecasts which I’ve written about before, but mostly it’s the more important thinking around everyday risk and what we face]
Much of this, I will write more on as I was aware of many of the ideas but had not fully thought them through into practice.
One concept, which was also echoed by Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist, was the importance of thinking about risk as a gradient or a tolerance, rather than only point estimate.
Zeke made this point in terms of temperature thresholds. His view is that a 1.5c increase as a point estimate will likely be surpassed, but that is not as important as realising that 1.8 is better than 2.5 is better than 3.6. It’s a gradient (and every season / year will be different). In terms of climate, the risk of an extreme event (a fat tail) also falls at a lower average point, and certain geographic areas remain liveable as opposed to a dead zone. That’s a challenge with a simple point estimate average.
Emotion of numbers. Another concept which is obvious when pointed out is that numbers are emotional and can be weaponised. In the UK, think how big numbers on a side of a bus was used to promote the Brexit idea. There is no “neutrality” in how most interest groups use numbers. Not only is there manipulation in context and graphic design, but using percentages or percentages of percentages to make concepts seem bigger or smaller than they are. Or different “orders of magnitude” eg expressing ideas in millions when billions is more appropriate; or the other way round.
We speak about some techniques to defend against this. Translating numbers into absolute risk, and knowing what the default baseline should be. Eg Thinking how 2 in one million is “double” 1 in one million; but that’s relative while the absolute risk is low.
And how for instance if you were told you received 3 millisieverts of radiation last year, you’d need to know what the base line amount to know if that’s a lot or little. (It's about average).
I’m still dwelling on a range of ideas that came up. (self-recommending). Link to transcript.
Links:
David Finnigan thinking about eras:
This paper suggests that college grads in the US have similar living standards everywhere. But if you have less education than that, then living standards are better for you in cheaper places.
Ken Pucker aruges that sustainable fashion mostly does not exist. This area is fruitful for degrowth thinkers because there is likely over consumption of fashion for certain people and this cultural signal could move digital, I guess.
Interesting postdoc opportunity if you are thinking something different/innovative on the aftermath of the Holocost or on conspiracy theories.
Funny:
Update on from the UK Climate Change Committee
The CCC also looking for new members.
2021 temperature data:
Sustainability Consultant Opportunity:
Me on learning:
Hana on food