How to Make Friends and Influence People [Tuesday, February 11, 2014]

[sith_happened]

"Right, so this weekend I apparently used my influence to blackmail and murder people," Anakin said dryly as he paced around the frozen simulation of a herd of zebras and two groups of people pointing spears at each other. "And for the record, as far as I'm aware, there's no diamond mine fortune to be found on this island. Today we're going to add a bit more violence to our negotiations."

He pointed at one group of people. "These guys think that zebras are black with white stripes." He pointed to the others. "They think they're white with black stripes. You have five minutes to brainstorm ideas before they start poking each other with those spears."

He clapped his hands together. "Go."

Comments

Re: Brainstorm!

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

Joker poked around on his omnitool for a few moments.

"Okay, so, a few thoughts," he said. "First of all, real actual scientists" -- he pointed to the glowing paragraphs of text floating in the air above his wrist -- "say that they're black with white stripes. Good enough for me, but when has science ever solved a debate? These people are willing to kill for their stupidity, so they're probably not going to just take a smarter person's word for it."

He turned the omnitool's screen off, because it waving around in the air every time he moved his arm was getting distracting.

"Secondly -- and, again, science, but more practical this time -- we could take, I dunno, twenty or so zebras, find a way to measure the surface areas of the the black and white stripes on each one, and average it out. We could get them involved, and have a team of one person from each side measuring each zebra. But I dunno how you'd measure, and that white underbelly is really gonna throw things off."

He shrugged. "But thirdly -- and, really, I think this is the most important point -- do all of you not have eyes? Because what I see are stripes that are dark brown and light cream."

Re: Brainstorm!

[sith_happened]

"Well, what we think tends to have very little bearing when you're negotiating," Anakin said. "Most of the time you'll be thinking 'what a bunch of idiots.'"

Which was why Obi-Wan had handled most negotiations.

"What do you think would happen with the angry guys with pointy sticks if you tell them straight out that they're wrong?"

Re: Brainstorm!

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Well, it depends," Joker answered. "A rational person, when confronted with enough evidence, will eventually... AHAHAHAHAHAHA yeah, no. We're gonna get slaughtered. Anyone bring a weapon?"

Re: Brainstorm!

[sith_happened]

"Jedi always have at least one," Anakin said, "but the goal is to come up a solution that doesn't end up with everyone trying to kill the messenger."

Re: Brainstorm!

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Well, sure, that's always the goal..."

Joker thought for a moments. "Okay, how about this: These people, which you've presented as caricatures, have a full and rich civilization outside of their stripe-related warfare. Is there something that they want or need that we can provide for them? Or, even better yet, something they each need from the other, so they can symbio... symbioti... symbiosi... synergize?"

Re: Brainstorm!

[sith_happened]

"Very good," Anakin said, nodding. "Let's say that one has access to better water and grazing lands, but the other has the only real grove of trees in 50 kilometers. What would you do with that information?"

Re: Brainstorm!

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

Joker frowned in thought. "I'd... probably try something along the lines of 'I will talk the other people into letting you use their trees if you agree to stop fighting over the damn stripey-horsies already'. I'd try to frame it as me bribing them, 'cause if honest negotiations were gonna work, they'd've done it already."