Talking to Esha of Historic.ly about imperialism, communism, Bernie Sanders, Republicans vs Democrats, AOC, and her first days in & impressions of Russia...

• Esha Substack: Historic.ly | Esha | Substack (historicly.net)
• Esha YouTube: Historic_ly - YouTube
• My joint episode with Esha on H YT channel many months later: TAKEDOWN: Kyiv Independent pro-b&ndera Video with AI - YouTube
• What Do the World Bank and IMF Have to Do with the Ukraine Conflict?
• History of Ukrainian Land from 1000 to 2016 on YouTube

Chay Bowes is an Irish entrepreneur and an independent journalist, and has an MA in Strategy & GeoPolitics. His @BowesChay Twitter slogan is: "Facts should define the Narrative, the Narrative shouldn’t define the facts."

I spoke to him in 2022, after he wrote an article on the Absolute Truth called War Propaganda About Ukraine Starting to Wear Thin and before he wrote An Inevitable War..

His article about the Absolute Truth was recommended and retweeted by none other than John Pilger.

How I Lost Trust in the Western Mainstream Media and What to Do About It.

This is a "voice-over" of the first half of the NY Disinformation article available here: NY Times: Disinformation Central?

Subscribe to our NEWSLETTER here: Business Games

I've done something different this time: instead of reading the script, I went through this article and did a "voice-over" of the first half (the NYT takedown + Summary) for the pod—the timestamps correspond to the parts where I go through these.

• Intro
• The Primary Purpose of This Takedown of NYT [03:14]
• Part 1: The "Russian Disinformation" Campaign [06:00]
• Part 2: 2014 v 2022 Narrative Change [24:48]
• Donbass Defenders from 2014 and Bitterness Towards Kyiv Killing Donbass Civilians
• The NYT Nazi Disappearance Act: "Dangerous Nationalists" From February, 2022 Become "Kremlin Propaganda" by July, 2022
• NYT Guest Writers: From "My Family Members Hated the Neo-Nazis and the US-Backed Kiev Government" to "Euromaidan Uprising Demanding Partnership With the EU"
• Part 3: Verifiable Lies as Exemplified by the "Systemic Rape as a Weapon" Hoax [41:09]
• Part 4: NYT Nepotism and Hit Jobs [56:03]
• Summary [1:00:05]

Hello there, Fellow Learner—and Welcome to!

a Learner's Digest edition of Business Games, an educational series where we help you improve your strategic and critical thinking, make sense of the world and make better decisions under uncertainty.

This is episode "2022 and 11/12-ths".

I wish 2022 were better, but it's not.

Which, in a way, only underscores the importance of strategic thinking, good decision-making under uncertainty, interpreting weak signals, and everything else we've discussed to date on Business Games.

In a minute, there'll be an explanation for my hiatus.

But first, housekeeping…

1. New Pricing
2. Wrapped Up Experimental Season
3. Hiatus Explanation
4. Next Steps

JP Castlin is our first-ever "repeat offender" and in this episode, we preview a conclusion of our Experimental Season. We started with JP in our first interview episode, and it's fitting to discuss with JP what have we learnt, in the final interview of the season.

JP Talks about robustness versus resilience, strategic drift, why it's imperative to experiment on the edges and try and create new revenue streams, how tough it is to manage children using fun objectives and why boundaries are a must, and the very many uses of a Kaufmann screwdriver.

Next week, we'll provide a Season Finale where we wrap everything up and address some of your Questions.

For the FULL episode, subscribe here: www.business-games.ai

• Introduction [00:00]
• On Naturalized Strategy-Making: ABCDE Framework [07:20]
• On Coherent Hypotheses and How to Get Them [11:55]
• On Crisis Management, NZ COVID Response, Moving Through Domains From Chaos to Order, Entrenched Place Dilemma and Brittle Organization and Revenue Stream Substitution, Adaptive Strategies and E-Commerce [15:30]
• More on Adaptive Strategy, Pivots, and E-Commerce [31:52]
• On Predictable Mutations [42:22]
• On Certainty and Uncertainty, Expecting What Could Be, WFH and More on Entrenched Place Dilemma, Resilience, Robustness, and Multiple Revenue Streams With Parallel Safe-to-Fail Experimentation [48:02]
• More on Working From Home, People, Culture, and Employee Representation [53:58]
• On Humanizing Businesspeople and Its Relation to Decision Making [59:09]
• On When Is a Pandemic not a Pandemic, More on Flexible Time and Final on Working From Home [1:07:40]
• On Theory-Informed Practice and Pre-Mortems: How to Put Praxis in "Theory and Praxis" [1:16:27]
• Some on Screwdrivers, More on Robustness versus Resilience, Repeated Betting Over Time, Strategic Drift, and Porsches [1:22:05]
• ABCDE: Aspirations, Boundaries, Coherence, and the Other Two [1:40:47]

• Full transcript on Business Games Premium
• Woolworths launches new 'Basics Box' grocery delivery amid COVID-19 crisis in March 2020 and also a NZ trial version of something similar in April 2020: Covid-19 coronavirus: New World supermarket trialling essential food box sales

Benefits: full transcripts of everything if you want to have notes or prefer reading + deep dives into selected topics.

Subscribe by clicking here: Business Games Premium

20% of the bees in the hive ignore the waggle dance. Why? What do the efficiency-oriented bee accountants say? How do you measure the RoI on the rogue bee activity? How is any of this relevant to innovation? Listen to Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, to get the answers.

Become a Premium Learning Member here: https://www.business-games.ai/about/#/portal

• Introduction [00:00]
• On Measurement, Creativity, and Exploit-Explore Trade-Off
• On That We Don't Know Everything There Is To Know [04:06]
• On the Role of Experimentation in Explore, and Testing Things That Don't Make Sense [08:53]
• Abduction and Innovation: Reasoning Backwards and Business Significance
• On Abductive Reasoning [13:19]
• On Innovation in Start-Ups Versus Established Companies: Stock Markets and Shareholders [18:10]
• On the Benefits of Being a Rogue Bee [23:17]
• On the Necessity of Probabilistic Thinking and Accounting for Search Costs: Creating the "Explore Department" in a Firm [26:25]
• On Statistical Significance Versus Business Significance [39:08]
• On Murders and Detectives: More Backward Reasoning [42:47]
• On How To Innovate Through Mistakes: AI Poetry, Meerkats, Charities and Sex Toys [49:15]
• On Just Reading the Data and More Murders: How To Be a Data Detective [57:33]
• On "Alchemy", Financial Alpha, Comedy, and Those at the Peak of Their Professions [1:04:45]
• On Cryptic Crosswords and More Detective Work [1:09:01]
• On Why Is There Too Much Logic and Not Enough Exploration: You Don't Get Fired for Being Logical [1:11:23]
• On How Innovation and Marketing Works, Habits and Mimetics, and How To Practice Ethical Capitalism [1:17:59]
• On Why Aussies and Kiwis Go To London [1:23:04]
• On Future of Work and Futuristic Cities: Mega- Or Small? On Why Nassim Taleb Advocates for Suburbia. And On Berlin, London, Auckland, Frankfurt… [1:28:03]
• Mini-Summary: Explore-Exploit and Behavioural Science [1:37:25]
• Homework: Books To Read (and Cryptic Crosswords) [1:40:23]
• On Good Tea: TIELKA® [1:47:14]

• Twitter: @rorysutherland
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rorysutherland/
• The wiki man | The SPECTATOR: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-wiki-man
• Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense (book): Amazon.com: Alchemy
• TED Talks: Rory Sutherland | Speaker | TED : https://www.ted.com/speakers/rory_sutherland
• Nudgestock: 

Guesting on Call To Action with Giles Edwards & 1/200 with Kyle Church + what does the 2022 have in store for us?

This would've made a fantastic 1980s SciFi title, wouldn't it?

The absence of flying cars aside, here's what we have for you in the first few months of 2022:

1. Closing off the Experimental Season with the Lit Review episode (maybe 2), another JP Castlin chat, a wrap-up episode, and a mailbag episode
2. Starting the Mental Season, focusing on the embodied mind, mindset, biases, and similar
3. Starting decision-making block courses based on this content

• Learning How to Make Better Strategic Decisions by Maggie S.D. Khoo 美智幸子 Post | LinkedIn
• Call to Action | Gasp | An Independent Creative Agency Berkshire
• 1/200 (1of200.nz)
• "Measurement Is Creativity's Bizarre Half-Sister" (business-games.ai)

Season's greetings and a quick overview of the upcoming 2022 content | Learner's Digest # 7

Welcome to! the Learner's Digest edition of Business Games.

I wanted to share the festive season's greetings and the best wishes for the year's turn!

Now, I'm not going to get all emotional and write or speak with pathos—it's not that kind of show.

However, the year will turn, and with its turning we will get reflective and nostalgic and hopeful.

I'm saving my reflections for the end of the Experimental Season, which will come in January / February 2022.

And just like that… let us cover where we are and what's happening next.

We are about 60% through our Experimental Season.

We've covered an overview with JP, Experimental Economics with Ananish, corporate experimentation with Dawie, board-room and start-up experimentation and predictions with Melissa, SME experimentation with Ashlee.

The private feed contains twice as many episodes, providing deep dives and connective tissue episodes.

What's left is the following:

1. Rory Sutherland discussing experimentation and creativity;
2. A bonus JP episode discussing a sort of a wrap-up where I share with JP what I've learnt through this season and he shares his reflections on complexity;
3. A lit review of the business articles on experimentation;
4. A fuller wrap-up where I provide the reflections on the whole season, and the key takeaways.

Most of these episodes will be on the private feed.

Given that this is a turn of the year and it is a festive season, I'm giving my listeners an option to get a trial month of premium content for free.

All you have to do is:

1. Go to www.business-games.ai and subscribe to the free newsletter.
2. Then, in early January, watch out in your Inbox for an email with the instructions on how to get your trial month.

Note: it's not advertised and is only available to the free newsletter subscribers—so head over to our website and choose the free subscription.

"One of the Biggest Detrimental Habits [for Entrepreneurs Is] a Shiny Object Syndrome"—The Entrepreneurial Marathon With Ashlee Berghoff.

This week, we turn to our final context: SME, lifestyle entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs. Ashlee Berghoff tells us her insights after having swapped a corporate consultancy lifestyle for helping lifestyle entrepreneurs get out of the "messy middle" of the entrepreneurial marathon.

Last interview, we discussed experimentation at the boardroom table and predicting pandemics with Melissa Clark-Reynolds ONZM.

Next interview, we cover creativity and random bees with Rory Sutherland.

• Introduction [00:00]
• On the Entrepreneurial Marathon, Maximizing the Chance of Success, and Dealing with Experimental Failure [06:00]
• On People Resisting Systems, on Enabling Creativity via Systems and Constraints [10:49]
• On Uncertainty [14:28]
• On the Difference Between Solopreneurship and Hiring Employees When It Comes to Risk-taking and Experiments [18:29]
• On How to Involve Your Employees in Experiments [20:47]
• Two Anecdotes on Small Business Experimentation [25:00]
• On the Hero Journey to Be a Guide; On Leadership and Communication [29:42]
• On Process Versus Achievement, Perfectionism Versus Failure, and Dealing with the Messy Middle [36:56]
• The Homework: Long-Form Reading, Writing Things down, and Business Wars [41:47]
• Own Work of Ashlee as It Relates to SMEs and Solopreneurs, the Book, and Systems [52:45]

• Eureka Results (book): https://eurekaresultsbook.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleeberghoff/
• A Squared: https://asquaredonline.com/

• Road Runner Creativity Guardrails Tweet
• Netflix vs Blockbuster | Wondery's Business Wars
• Other links available in the transcript on Business Games Premium

… and a 50% Off Offer | A short connective episode + a call to survey | Learner's Digest # 6

Omicron news +

Where we've been: the Experimental Season to date.

Where we're going: the upcoming few episodes + Xmas.

Fill out this survey and get 50% off on your Year 1 of the annual BG Premium subscription: Business Games Survey: www.business-games.ai/survey/

Subscribe by clicking here: Business Games Premium

How could Melissa Clark-Reynolds ONZM predict the pandemic collapse of seaports in the US? And Why is your board bad at strategy?—If you can answer these two questions, your firm would be much better off.

This is only part of the full episode that is available on Business Games Premium's private podcast feed.

A note about the new Omicron variant of Covid discovered in South Africa in November 2021.

We recorded this episode with Melissa in early 2021, a good 6 months before the news broke about the new variant B.1.1.529 that later got the name Omicron.

With Melissa, we talked about many things on predictions, the central topic being how she was one of the first within the business community to have predicted the coming pandemic.

We covered what a foresight professional should do, and how to predict the next pandemic—including some signs that she was monitoring in early-mid-2021 when she had concerns that there could be something else popping up in late 2021.

We put up this episode on Monday the 22nd November.

On Thursday the 25th, the news broke about the variant B.1.1.529.

Revisiting this episode, it is startling how ever more relevant the content is.

Now, normally, we only release full episodes to Premium Members.

This particular episode was available in full for almost a week now, and I communicated on social media that I'd be removing the full episode from the public feed.

If you want to hear the full episode, you can subscribe to Business Games Premium on www.business-games.ai: Subscribe by clicking here: Business Games Premium

You should also subscribe to our free newsletter if you want to learn more about making predictions in business, business strategy, and making better decisions under uncertainty. In content terms, you get: Premium >>> Newsletter > Free

Full transcripts of everything if you want to have notes or prefer reading + deep dives into selected topics.

Subscribe by clicking here: Business Games Premium

How could Melissa know the pandemic was coming before most? How to read weak signals. How does anthropology help in forecasting? How did Melissa predict the pandemic-related collapse of seaports in the US? What should your board understand about strategy? How is prediction like experimentation? We cover all this and more in this episode.

Last interview, we discussed Corporate experimentation with Dawie Olivier.

Next interview, we cover SME and solopreneur sector experimentation with Ashlee Berghoff MBA.

• Introduction [00:00]
• On Predicting the Pandemic: Habitats, Mammals, Climate Change, Patterns, and Weak Signals [02:47]
• On Linking Forecasting and Experimentation, Chess as an Analogy for Strategy, Anthropology, Culture as the Basis for Business Moves, Creative Writing and Analytics [17:24]
• On Where to Play, How to Win [27:30]
• On Business Model Innovation versus Tech Innovation [28:40]
• On Strategy Versus Strategic Planning [39:01]
• On Experiments at the Board Table [46:24]
• The Homework: Read Widely, Capture and Review Signals [56:52]
• Own Work of Melissa as It Relates to Experiments, Signals, and Subscription Services...

How to deal with ambiguity: an example [18:14]. Plus: Introducing Learner's Digest, review of the Experimental Season to date [02:07], connecting everything forward and back [04:17].

Topics covered: complexity, jobs to be done, problems to be solved, curiosity, predictions and experimentation—and many more.

• Business Games about positive ambiguity view | LinkedIn 👉 share and comment on it
• What’s Staying the Same | Farnam Street
• Eat Your Greens | Amazon
• Robert van Ossenbruggen | LinkedIn

Subscribe by clicking here: Business Games Premium

Johnny Miller talks about:

• being influenced by Noam Chomsky,
• good and bad mainstream journalism,
• working for Iranian Press TV,
• propaganda,
• choosing and turning down stories and projects,
• working in Syria, Libya, Burma, Africa, …
• … and Ukraine—especially 2014 Maidan in Kiev, 2014 Anti-Maidan in Donbass, and 2022 Donbass,
• genuine protests and not,
• Portaloo availability as protest success predictor,
• coming under Kyiv shelling in Donetsk,
• ethnic hatred,
• the whitewashing of Nazis,
• being on Mirotvorets "kill list" together with Donbass children,
• the Western sanctioning of journalists,
• being careful not to spread propaganda.

Link to the episode on BG: www.business-games.ai/she-knew-it-was-gonna-succeed-when-she-saw-the-portaloos-being-installed

"…Only the Place You Can Charge Into With Listening"—Dawie Olivier on dealing with crises, creating emotional safety, and fostering curiosity & creativity in a large corporate.

Also: full contact leadership, progressive learning mindset, reading widely, and journaling.

When we talk about experimentation with Dawie Olivier—an experienced leader, CIO/CTO, and an advisory board member to several tech firms—we end up talking about biases and how to deal with them, emotional safety, curiosity… and not at all technology. Find out why one set of these concepts is much, much more important than the other.

Last Episode, I did a deep dive into electronic decision markets and how they can help setting up experiments in your company.

Next Episode, we dive deeper into one theme from this week's interview.

Note: this is the contents of the full episode available on Business Games Premium. Public feed contains an abridged version.

Subscribe by clicking here: Business Games Premium

• Introduction [00:00]
• On Tragedies and Response [02:47]
• On Corporate Might and Listening Before Acting [08:35]
• On Strategic Effects of Crisis Response [12:57]
• On Corporate Experimentation, Disruption, Fear, Anxiety, Risk, and Progressive Discovery
• On Corporate Experimentation and Anxiety [15:00]
• On Progressive Learning and Experimentation as Core Function of Business, Not an Add-On [16:58]
• On the Value of Progressive Discovery in Overcoming Fear and Biases, and in Creating Fast Learning [18:52]
• On Fear of Not Being in Control, and Making Bets in Ever-Changing Contexts [20:19]
• On Problems to Be Solved and How They Relate to the Progressive Learning Mindset [22:22]
• On History of Vulnerability in Leadership [27:33]
• On Discomfort, Safety, and Creativity [30:07]
• On Unlocking Curiosity and Its Role in Progressive Learning [32:19]
• On KPI Versus Useful Measurement and Measures [40:16]
• On Making Collective Decisions Around Senior Leadership Teams and Boards [46:21]
• On Experimentation from the Senior Leadership and Board Tables [51:10]
• The Homework: Read Widely and Do Journaling [54:55]
• Rapid-fire Questions and Concepts [57:23]
• Leadership BS [57:42]
• Map Is Not the Terrain [59:08]
• Gemba Technique [1:00:19]
• Own Work of Dawie as It Relates to Corporate Transformation and Improvement, Leadership, and Board Advisory Work [1:03:37]

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawieo/

Subscribe by clicking here: Business Games Premium

Robert Sarver of the Phoenix Suns is by many accounts an arsehole—but how is this relevant to good decision making / bad decision making? | Newsletter # 4

Robert Sarver of the Phoenix Suns, good decision making / bad decision making, wisdom of the crowd, diversity, and a boon from one of NZ’s top universities 😊

Please, rate and review us!

Go Premium Here: Business Games Subscribe (business-games.ai)

What do Devil's Advocates, information cascades, egos, and gender pay equity have in common? Find out here as Prof. Ananish Chaudhuri introduces experimental economics. Part 1/2

Prof. Chaudhuri introduces behavioural and experimental economics [04:38]; talks about how to start experiments by using existing published knowledge, first [12:25]; carrots & sticks versus intrinsic motivation [14:37]; wisdom of the crowd versus information cascades [29:30]; HR and gender pay equity [16:58]; individual versus group decision making [33:46]; electronic betting markets [35:43]; egos and buy-in [38:08], and more.

A bonus, paid-members-only follow-up discussion available on the personal Premium podcast feed (subscribe by clicking here) will dive much deeper into all the above + online experiment platforms & how to use them to set up experiments in your firm, separating incentives from beliefs, COVID vaccines & response, Pilots versus Doctors making mistakes, and much-much more.

Next week, we’ll look at corporate experimentation, crisis response, psychological safety, creativity, and more with Dawie Olivier—an established CIO and advisor to corporates & start-ups.

Last week, we introduced complexity theory and set up the experimentation contexts with JP Castlin.

• WWW: https://ananishchaudhuri.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ananish-chaudhuri-571782203/
• Twitter: @ProfAnanish
• Behavioural Economics and Experiments (book, 1st edition): https://www.amazon.com/Behavioural-Economics-Experiments-Ananish-Chaudhuri/dp/0367463938/

• Could Blind Job Interviews Take on Gender Pay Pap? | Newsroom
• See Great Leadership: The Obligation to Dissent (greatleadershipbydan.com) for the discussion of the concept and the suggested antidote.

https://www.business-games.ai/about/

What do Pornhub calculus and Jurassic Park experiments have in common? Listen to find out!

Emergent: endorsements, behaviour, Pornhub calculus, and Jurassic Park experiments. #3

Go Premium Here: Business Games Subscribe (business-games.ai)

JP Castlin on Complexity, what it means for your business, and how to deal with it via safe-to-fail experimentation.

Originally planned to be Episode 1 of Season 1 (as per audio), becomes S02e02 because we now have 2 full intro episodes and can't have Episode 0 or Season Zero on the podcast platforms.

Next week, we'll talk about Experimental Economics—but in this episode, JP Castlin talks to us about complexity, how understanding complexity is relevant for running a business, and how it all relates to experimentation.

About Business Games: www.business-games.ai/about/

Add ~1 min to the timestamps after 11th minute mark.

• Introduction [00:00]
• On Complexity: A Primer [03:55]
• On Systems: In Nature and Organizations—Ordered Clear, Complicated, Complex, and Chaotic [04:38]
• A Marketing Example of a Dispositional System [06:14]
• …and a Chaotic System [06:53]
• On Experimenting in Different Kinds of Systems [07:09]
• On Two Types of Uncertainty: Epistemic (Knowledge-based) and Aleatory (Inherent and Irreducible) [08:11]
• On Contexts and More on Quantum Mechanics Vs Newtonian Physics [12:02]
• On How to Deal with Uncertainty in Complexity [13:49]
• Fail-safe Vs Safe-to-fail: Marvel Vs Blumhouse [15:15]
• Experimentation in Various Contexts [19:13]
• Online Vs Offline, and Operational Efficiency Vs Strategic Choice [20:28]
• On Eternal Boiling, Premature Convergence, A/B Testing, and Local Optima [23:46]
• System Has Its Own Behaviour: Ants and Colonies [26:52]
• Strategy and (Equi-) Probability [27:53]
• On Not Getting Disheartened [30:58]
• On Boundary Conditions, Company-specific Metrics, Scaling and Dampening [31:57]
• On Corporate Versus SME, Small Versus Big [34:28]
• On Product Versus Service [36:40]
• On Services, Complexity, Causality, and Defensive Decision-making [39:24]
• On the Value of Consultants in Complexity [46:12]
• On Cost-out Versus Value-add, Start-ups and Scaling [49:36]
• On Start-ups and Proprietary Data [51:09]
• On Deliberate Versus Emergent Strategy [52:54]
• (More) on How to Deal with Complex Problems in Practice [55:02]
• The Homework [57:39]
• JP’s Own Work as It Relates to Experiments, Strategy, and Complexity [01:00:17]
• On the Key Takeaways: Both Jokingly and Seriously [01:07:18]
• On Emotions in Experimentation [01:10:24]

• Substack: Strategy in Praxis https://strategyinpraxis.substack.com/
• WWW: JP Castlin https://jpcastlin.com/
• Twitter: @JPCastlin https://twitter.com/JPCastlin
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpcastlin/
• MarketingWeek: 

How should you think about prediction and measurement success. An introduction.

A quick Newsletter-ish episode.

1. Schedule of episode “drops”
2. Predictions
3. Measurements
4. How do you listen to podcasts? Would you like a full transcript?

• Subscriptions About Business Games (Premium)
• Companion to Business Games Newsletter: The Opposite of “Measurement Is Impossible” Is Not “You Can Measure Everything!”—Predicting & Measuring Success
• NBA Finals Prediction Article On Decisions, Predictions, Betting Markets, and Los Angeles Lakers v Brooklyn Nets 2022 NBA Finals in October 2021!
• Prof Byron Sharp’s LinkedIn post here
• Why Marketers Should Be Wary Of ‘High ROIs’ #DigitalSense by Jerry Daykin

Business experimentation is NOT only for tech firms. Why, When, and How do we run business experiments? Yes, even for your portable toilet business.

Originally planned to be 1 week later, now dropped within the same week as the Overall Intro.

Next week, The Experimental One starts—Yay!—but in this episode, I talk about the choice of Business Experimentation to start this educational podcast + newsletter with. We get into many of the building blocks around game theory and business, our two main foci—and how business experimentation helps you make better decisions under uncertainty.

We'll see after The Experimental One if my bet on starting like this—rather than jumping into the deep end with Nash Equilibria and such—paid off. As I said on the last episode, we'll build towards The Gamey Theoretical One as we go along.

It's an experiment in itself!

• 1. Welcome to! Business Games! [00:06]
• 2. Exec Summary / Abstract [00:41]
• 3. The Basic Premise [01:37]
• 3.1 The Topic [01:37]
• 3.2 The Context(s) [02:47]
• 3.3 The Approach [05:01]
• 3.4 Two Words about Interviews [06:48]
• 4. What You Should Expect in Season One (the Experimental One) [09:48]
• 4.1 S01e01 JP Castlin x2 (Public + Premium) [10:54]
• 4.2 S01e02 Professor Ananish Chaudhuri x2 (Public + Premium) [15:42]
• 4.3 S01e03 Dawie Olivier x2 (Public + Premium) [20:23]
• 4.4 S01e04 Melissa Clark-Reynolds ONZM x2 (Public + Premium) [22:45]
• 4.5 S01e05 Ashlee Berghoff x2 (Public + Premium) [25:20]
• 4.6 S01e06 Rory Sutherland x2 (Public + Premium) [29:57]
• 4.7 S01e07 Lit Review [32:56]
• 4.8 S01e08 Bonus Discussion Episode with JP Castlin (Public) + Season Overview + Thoughts (Premium) [36:56]
• 4.9 S01e09 Season One Mailbag Episode (Premium) [37:38]
• 5. The Homework [38:14]

1. Read this fun article, first: Disney is playing a bigger game in its box office battle with Scarlett Johansson (marketingweek.com)
2. Want to Make Better Decisions? Start Experimenting (mit.edu)
3. Building a Culture of Experimentation (hbr.org)
4. Avoid the Pitfalls of A/B Testing (hbr.org)
5. “The Power of These Techniques Is Only Getting Stronger” (hbr.org)
6. Why Business Schools Need to Teach Experimentation (hbr.org)
7. Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business...

What is Business Games, and what's in it for you? Who is it for? What is our promise?

Next week, I'll introduce Season One—but in this episode, I introduce the full concept of this educational podcast + newsletter series where we apply game theory to business, to help you make better decisions under uncertainty.

1. Welcome to! Business Games! [00:06]
2. The Target Audience: Who Is It For? Who Is the Hero of This Journey? [01:10]
3. The Genesis: A Prologue [04:17]
4. What's in a Name? Business Games, Decoded [09:22]
5. What to Expect from the Structure of the Seasons? How I Analyse and Learn and Why This Is Relevant? [18:48]
6. My Promise to You + What I Ask from You [28:25]
7. The Upcoming Seasons [37:26]
8. The Homework [40:55]
9. The Disclaimer [44:38]

• John von Neumann - Wikipedia
• The Ad Contrarian
• Public Business Games podcast RSS feed
• Business Games Subscription Tiers

A trailer for Business Games: an educational podcast + newsletter series where we apply game theory to business, to help you make better decisions under uncertainty.

Plus, nice music and a smile 😊

And yes, all decisions are made under uncertainty. All the interesting ones, anyway. Less so for chess.

Read more here: About the Business Games Premium (business-games.ai)

https://www.business-games.ai/about/

P.S. Branding by Greenlamp Marketing :: Award-Winning Marketing Agency

Musik by Mozart performed by gcendretti | Profile | Fiverr

URL of the Business Games Trailer post here: Where AI Teases the Business Games Concept | Business Games Trailer (business-games.ai)

PSA: a quick overview of where we're at + starting Dialogues: why "Dialogues", a bit about propaganda, a bit about economics, a bit about Skripal.

Website: Starting Dialogues on Business Games

Why propaganda? How propaganda? and What can you do?

One of the most important dialogues I've ever had a chance to be a part of.

Oliver goes into detail about provable propaganda in Hollywood and the (predominantly) US media, with examples from US lead-up to conflicts in Iraq (twice), Syria and Ukraine coverage, as well as Russiagate. We also touch on modern leadership and Russophobia.

Iraq, in particular, is a fantastic example of learning how the propaganda game is played, because the truth is already accepted knowledge.

Transcript and content with timestamps to follow.

Kyle and I pick 1 topic each to rant about and a 3rd one to discuss:

• AI: Media coverage of the poisonings of the Iranian schoolgirls [01:25]
• KC: Media coverage of the Mexican electoral institute reform [17:38]
• KC & AI: Change of the media narrative on the Ukraine conflict [27:00]

• Kyle C Twitter: @KyleDChurch
• AI Telegram: @BusinessGamesAI
• AI Twitter: @BusinessGamesAI

• Iran investigating after 650 school girls suffer 'mild poison' attacks | Newshub; 1 March, 2023
• Dozens of schoolgirls in Iran taken to hospital after poisoning | The Guardian; 2 March, 2023
• Hundreds of Schoolgirls Fall Sick in Iran, and Officials Suspect Poisoning | NY Times; 1 March, 2023
• Protests break out in Iran as more schoolgirls hospitalised after suspected poisoning | ABC; 5 March, 2023
• Are Iranian schoolgirls being poisoned by toxic gas? | BBC; 4 March, 2023
• No, AMLO Is Not Undermining Mexican Democracy | Jacobin; March, 2023
• Avoiding a Long War — U.S. Policy and the Trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict | RAND Corporation; 2023

In this episode, I'd like to address the brand image of LinkedIn, censorship, and pose a question: What's the point of LinkedIn?

As usual, feel free to disagree with my position—but please, listen through to the end, it won't be long.

• 1. What's the Point of LinkedIn? [03:09]
• 1.1 LinkedIn's Purpose [03:11]
• 1.2 A LinkedIn Problem [04:54]
• 1.3 Damned If You Don't, Damned If You Do [06:50]
• 2. LinkedIn's Misinformation Policy [11:12]
• 3. My Posts on Bucha and Mariupol Humanitarian Corridors [13:22]
• 4. Does LinkedIn Know What They Are Doing? [16:27]
• 5. Go Get a Lawyer [29:35]
• 6. Let's Ponder Free Speech and the Law [32:59]
• 7. Let's Ponder Censorship and Brand Value [36:53]
• 8. Conclusion [48:41]

https://www.business-games.ai/the-linkin-lawyer-unprofessional-network/

In the modern discourse it seems, any political opponent is immediately a "Nazi", and any historical grievance is a "genocide".

The problem is obvious and three-fold:

1. Politically, the elites in a less wealthy and/or numerous nation want to use the victimhood status to gain potential reparations from the wealthier/more numerous nation, by any means possible—all's fair in love and war;
2. The impacts on the (wrongfully) accused are also clear: accusing various historical governments of (alleged) genocides smears their modern successors as well as the whole nations, thus dehumanizing them in a way;
3. And in turn, overusing such terms as "Nazi" and "genocide" cheapens these and diminishes the crimes of the actual Nazis, creates possibilities for denial of actual genocides such as the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide, and whitewashes the Nazi revival such as various neo-Nazi movements.

I can think of no example more insane than the whitewashing of the Ukrainian Nazi collaborators Bandera and Shukhevich, their organizations OUN and UPA, and their modern Ukrainian equivalents such as Azov, S14, and the Right Sector—and at the same time bringing out all the decades of smear campaigns against the USSR and Russia, accusing them of multiple genocides.

Though maybe "Holodomor" myth is at least equally insane.

Russophobia deserves its own post, and so do the Ukrainian Nazis both historical and modern. For now, I'll look at genocide accusations against the historical and modern Russias.

• Genocide as a Weapon of Propaganda [00:00]
• Modern Days: 2022+ "Genocide" of Ukrainians [09:42]
• Goebbels Propaganda Rules and Brand Management [20:42]
• Russia's "History of Genocides" [32:17]
• Circassian "Genocide" [37:09]
• "Holodomor" as a National Foundation Myth [56:20]
• Final Thoughts [1:12:11]

2014 Maidan, 2022 Mariupol and Bucha. One is a proven false-flag massacre perpetrated by the Ukrainian far-right. The others fit similar patterns. Having already made a case for why this is not a coincidence, I discuss further implications.

Here, I give more background to my Mariupol & Bucha: Narrative v Reality article, how it came together, and what makes me confident about the conclusions.

The text version of this Newsletter episode with all the links is here: False Flags, False Narratives.

Subscribe to our free newsletter or support our analytical and educational work with a paid subscription at one of the two prices (you choose the price, they both have the same benefits): Normal Premium or Student (Recession-Proof).

• False Flags: Censoring Peer-Reviewed Academic Study as a "Political Decision" [00:00]
• False Narratives: War Crimes [04:32]
• Guilty Until Proven Innocent [09:16]
• Critically Thinking [18:52]
• Who Shot at the Mariupol Humanitarian Corridors [21:28]
• What Really Happened in Bucha [25:22]
• Conclusion [32:35]

A word of caution: if you have an emotional response to the 2022-ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and especially if you believe the mainstream media narrative in the West and you are not ready to have this challenged, this might not be for you.

I'm happy to discuss the facts and my thinking, but I'd like to refrain from ad hominem attacks.

Finally, I have an agenda:

1. I'm trying to challenge your thinking in order to strengthen it. To do so, I'll present to you my way of analysis, the signals I use, and the questions I pose. I will build a narrative that may or may not be your narrative (certainly, isn't the mainstream western punditry narrative) and I will try and defend this narrative using evidence. You may or may not agree—my job is to make you think, and to help you think better.
2. I'm trying to influence people to find a helpful, lasting peace solution for the benefit of common Ukrainians—in my opinion, the current western position is neither correct in its narrative nor helpful for this goal. This requires a separate investigation.

I wrote a more personal note with my history as a Ukrainian in the previous newsletter post 2022 and 11/12-ths.

This topic by its nature will most likely be the most controversial we touch on.

Recently, I wrote the blog post NY Times: Disinformation Central? Or: How I Lost Trust in the Western Mainstream Media and What to Do About It, in which I investigate the New York Times in their mis-representation of facts on 4 counts: "Russian disinformation" campaign, changes of the narrative on Ukraine and Donbass from 2014 through to 2022, outright lies such as the (fake) claim of "massive rapes" propagated by the former Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman Denisova (who was fired by the Ukrainian Government for this lie), and protecting the NYT ownership while running hit jobs on competitors.

Read the post OR listen to the previous episode to get the full picture about the NY Times transgressions.

In this newsletter episode, I take parts of the NY Times piece and expand the principles I use when reading the news and processing information.

If you're OK with the above, let's go.

• Previously on Business Games Re: Information Processing [03:18]
• Narrative Versus Reality: You Are Being Manipulated [07:14]
• How Much of a Problem Is It? [08:55]
• A Dozen Thinking Principles I Use [11:56]
• Frame of Reference = The Most Important Factor
• On Sources of Information [40:55]
• Is Wikipedia a Good Source? [41:20]
• Alternative Journalists to Follow on Ukraine and Beyond [43:50]
• Conclusion