On balance, Mafia is a waste of time

Contention 1: Leisure activities are not a waste of time Subpoint A: Downtime and brain function Imagine that you just got off an 8-hour shift at work or just finished a massive cramming session for school. Your brain is exhausted and doing more work is the last thing you want to do. Zarroette's main case is that mafia is a waste of time because you could be doing something more productive. Zarroette would argue that instead of coming home and playing mafia, you should come home and -- for example -- learn to code Python by watching Kahn Academy videos. However, a host of studies have proven that downtime is important for proper brain functioning. Scientific American explains, "Downtime replenishes the brain's stores of attention and motivation, encourages productivity and creativity, and is essential to both achieve our highest levels of performance and simply form stable memories in everyday life." [1] As this source explains, if you come home with an exhausted brain and force yourself to study coding, you will (1) have depleted stores of attention and motivation when you go back to work the next day, and (2) find it difficult to remember any of the coding you studied the prior day because your brain was too exhausted to absorb the information. You will also find it extremely difficult to remember anything you do at work or while cramming the next day. As Eitner et al. explain, "the brain needs downtime to recycle chemicals crucial for long-term memory formation." [2] That's why studies show that children who are allowed play-time during school (e.g. "recess") actually have higher test scores than students who are not given a break. [2] In addition, most of our thought processes work on a subconscious level. When we have a "light bulb" go off in our heads, what is actually happening is that a task that we have assigned to our subconscious mind has finally come up with an answer, and our conscious mind is suddenly made aware of this. Without downtime, our subconscious mind has no time to work on our problems, so we will be less productive and creative if we allow ourselves no downtime. Tim Kreider of the New York Times explains, "Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets . . . The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for . . . making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration -- it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done." [1] Thus, playing mafia during one's downtime is not a "waste of time" because downtime is essential for proper brain functioning. We can't be at 100% productivity every second of the day; doing so would drive us insane. Subpoint B: Happiness For people who enjoy playing mafia, doing so makes them happier. Happiness has a host of positive spillover effects. Happiness increases your productivity by 12%. [3] Happiness improves your health; the magnitude of the effect on physical health from being happy is the same as the effect from *not smoking.* [4] Happiness improves one's marriage and other personal friendships. [5] And studies show that happiness is the biggest predictor of success in life. [5] Happy people search for more opportunities and deal better with setbacks (treating them instead as learning opportunities). [5] Even if all that playing mafia did was make people happy, the pure pursuit of happiness is not a "waste of time." Contention 2: Mafia improves mental acuity in a variety of areas (1) Reading people The game of mafia generally involves two factions: mafia and town. If you are in the town, you must attempt to read the other players to tell who is lying to you (so you can find out who is mafia). If you are mafia, you need to read the other players to see what motivates them, so you can trick them into lynching one of their fellow townies. "Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to read people as well as we read books." [5] EQ is extremely important to develop. Dr. Daniel Goleman says, "People who only use IQ can be stunningly poor pilots of their personal lives." [5] Up to 90% of human communication is non-literal and requires reading between the lines of what is said. [5] Mafia teaches people to read between the lines, so playing mafia increases EQ. Mafia also teaches you to: (a) detect lying, and (b) persuade others your analysis is correct. Both useful skills that form part of EQ. (2) Game theory People who play mafia often become "moderators" who plan and administer the games. A key factor for a moderator is game balance, which means the moderator needs to select the correct ratio of mafia to town and has to choose roles for the mafia and townies that will give each side a fair chance at winning. Choosing the correct game balance involves a lot of game theory because it requires predicting various possible outcomes near end-game. Game balance is so difficult that mathematics researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of California, Berkeley, wrote an entire paper on what the best ratio of mafia to town was in a mafia game. [7] So people who moderate mafia games are actually teaching themselves a form of game theory and advanced prediction skills. (3) Cognitive ability Mafia is probably one of the most cognitively difficult games one can play without stressing one's brain to the point where playing is no longer restful. Studies have shown that playing cognitively challenging games (like the puzzle game Portal 2) increases cognitive abilities. [8] Anyone who has played mafia knows the game is difficult. If you're mafia, you have to sell some pretty big lies. If you're town, it's really hard to tell who is in the mafia. For all the foregoing reasons, it is likely that mafia is also a game that improves cognitive abilities. Rebuttal Since I had to spend so much time building my case, I reserve the right to address Zarroette's points more fully in the next round. But for now, group her entire case together. I have three main responses. (1) None of her examples are mutually exclusive with playing mafia Zarroette says that the average mafia game takes 4 hours of play time spaced out over 18 days. Her own estimate proves that you could come home from an 8-hour shift at work, go to the gym for an hour, check the mafia thread on DDO and post your analysis, read a book for a few hours, and then be in bed in time to get 8-10 hours of sleep. (2) Infinitely regressive Zarroette never claims there is *no* utility to playing mafia. She argues there are more productive uses of one's time, so mafia is a "waste of time." However, you could always be doing something more productive. Are you doing crunches at home as Zarro suggests? You'd be more effective at getting in shape if you went to the gym and did a wider variety of exercises. Does that make doing crunches at home a "waste of time"? No. Did you go to the gym by yourself? You'd have been more productive with a personal trainer. Does that make going to the gym a waste of time? No. Perfect is the enemy of the good. If you follow Zarro's framework and only do things if they are the *most* productive thing you can do, you'll be mired in inaction trying to plan the *perfect* activity. (3) Subjective A lot of Zarro's examples reflect her personal views on what is a productive use of time. What if someone hates reading; or doesn't want to be a writer? What if they already work at their dream job and want to play mafia? We can't "value" time based on Zarro's assessment about what is a useful pursuit. Every person values their time differently and would rank the "worthwhileness" of the tasks Zarro listed differently. If someone subjectively ranks mafia as being "not a waste of time," Zarro cannot impose her own views on that person. People should decide for themselves what pursuits would be a waste of time *for them.* And mafia is not one for a lot of people. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] http://tinyurl.com... [6] Holly Elissa Bruno, "Emotional Literacy," p. 1 [7] http://arxiv.org... [8] http://tinyurl.com...