[HN Gopher] Gunslinger Effect
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Gunslinger Effect
        
       Author : CharlesW
       Score  : 115 points
       Date   : 2022-07-02 15:23 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
        
       | perihelions wrote:
       | - _" Based on the inevitability of this outcome, Bohr suggested
       | that the most logical conclusion to a gunfight would be a
       | peaceful settlement, since neither gunslinger would want to draw
       | first knowing that they would lose."_
       | 
       | I think rational actors wouldn't choose to fight a duel with a
       | 50/50 chance of death either. The second-mover bias makes it even
       | _less_ rational, but does it matter?
        
       | j-pb wrote:
       | Makes you wonder if the ultimate winning strategy is picking an
       | arbitrary external stimulus, like the ticking of a clock, or the
       | opponent placing their foot.
       | 
       | You could also think of a special purpose revolver with a timer,
       | that provides a haptic click, with a n-second delay when a button
       | is pressed.
        
         | Kinrany wrote:
         | I'd expect the reaction time to be better when the event is
         | unambiguous. So a church bell tolling noon would work, but a
         | randomly chosen swing of a pendulum wouldn't.
        
       | formerly_proven wrote:
       | I guess nobody ever told Bob Munden about this.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSd8V-kb6Ro
        
       | ccvannorman wrote:
       | _I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has
       | forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind._
        
         | M_bara wrote:
         | Mister, I deal in lead...
        
       | im3w1l wrote:
       | > However, the study also found that reactive movements were less
       | accurate than intentional ones, and that the increased movement
       | speed did not make up for the initial delay.
       | 
       | This makes some game theoretical sense I think. If the first
       | mover is allowed to take his time he will hit and win. The second
       | mover rushing denies this, it creates the opportunity for a lucky
       | hit. Now the first player adapts by aiming a little less than he
       | would want, also creating a possibility of a miss-miss.
        
       | chmod600 wrote:
       | At first I was skeptical, then I thought "wait, this was done by
       | a physicist, so it must be reproducible".
        
       | jotm wrote:
       | Makes sense I think for anything that requires at least some
       | intelligence to perform/finish.
       | 
       | Baiting animals (incl. humans, for that matter) into making the
       | first moves gives you a distinct advantage, as you are reacting
       | consciously to their unconscious. Practically controlling the
       | fight.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | sebastianconcpt wrote:
       | Deterrence once again!
        
       | jamestimmins wrote:
       | This is a plot element in Unforgiven, the 1992 Best Picture
       | winning western starring Clint Eastwood. His character, an old,
       | ex-gunfighter, routinely fires last in shootouts, but still wins
       | because his opponents get caught up in the moment and miss.
        
       | yadaeno wrote:
       | This is very obvious if you've ever played CSGO.
       | 
       | Your character dies extremely quickly, so most people will panic
       | and quickly react when taking fire. If you do this, you can
       | usually land a few body shots before dying, however unless you
       | manage to headshot them you will surely lose the exchange.
       | 
       | You eventually train yourself suppress this reflex and calmly aim
       | for a headshot in high stress situations.
        
       | Borrible wrote:
       | Bohr was an observant observer.
       | 
       | Does a wave function collapses faster, when the measurement is
       | not intentional?
        
       | yonaguska wrote:
       | My experience in martial arts competition lines up to this. The
       | best way to "win", although not the most interesting or fun, is
       | to train with an emphasis on drilling and repetition. Which is
       | one of the many reasons wrestlers do so well against non-
       | wrestling grapplers. Their training creates a very reflex based
       | application of moves. You're always faster than your opponent
       | when you don't have to slow down and make decisions on the fly.
        
         | dixie_land wrote:
         | so like Goku's Ultra Instinct, but IRL
        
         | EForEndeavour wrote:
         | Isn't the Gunslinger effect actually distinct from drilling
         | movements to become automatic/second nature?
         | 
         | Imagine two equally trained gunslingers. Both have drilled the
         | drawing movements endlessly to the point where they're fluid
         | motions that require no conscious decision-making. But the
         | gunslinger who draws _first_ ends up losing because the one who
         | draws second is _actually_ reacting, as opposed to making the
         | conscious decision to draw first.
        
           | uoaei wrote:
           | No. Consider drills (and building habits more generally) as
           | _compressing knowledge into preconscious processes_. The
           | first gunslinger could be just as engaged as the second.
           | Because they don 't have to devote brain calories to the
           | draw, they are focused on other things actively in conscious
           | thought.
           | 
           | I think the "OK Corral" analogy breaks down here because life
           | isn't like gun duels. But the first gunslinger is given
           | freedom to approach with "higher-level thoughts" just as the
           | second is. Requiring some kind of stimulus to react to
           | doesn't pass the sniff test here.
        
           | dymk wrote:
           | I don't think it's different. When shooting sporting clays,
           | in which you call for the clay and then move the gun once you
           | see where it was thrown, I miss when I'm putting in too much
           | conscious effort. I hit the target if I'm letting muscle
           | memory take over, trained over tens of thousands of rounds.
        
         | marcodiego wrote:
         | As someone who plays the classical guitar as a hobby,
         | automation through repetition is key to clean execution.
        
         | mistrial9 wrote:
         | a professional drummer (full-kit) told me something very
         | similar; the topic came up many times since we both did
         | tutoring
        
       | Barrera wrote:
       | Quite a shock to see Niels Bohr staring at me from that page.
       | He's a towering figure in atomic theory.
        
         | zach_garwood wrote:
         | I'm used to seeing the picture of him as a younger man.
        
       | rytill wrote:
       | This seems really wrong. No way you would see this effect with
       | more highly trained participants. Did anyone try more than some
       | mock experiment with two unpracticed students?
        
         | MrsPeaches wrote:
         | From TFA:
         | 
         | "A 2014 study conducted with two groups, karate practitioners
         | and people without karate training, found that reactions were
         | faster than intentional movements, regardless of training.[15]"
        
         | Toutouxc wrote:
         | There are various references listed under the linked article,
         | including "more than some mock experiment".
        
       | User23 wrote:
       | Wyatt Earp knew a bit about gunfighting so here is his take:
       | When I say that I learned to take my time in a gunfight, I do not
       | wish to be misunderstood, for the time to be taken was only that
       | split fraction of a second that means the difference between
       | deadly accuracy with a sixgun and a miss. It is hard to make this
       | clear to a man who has never been in a gunfight. Perhaps I can
       | best describe such time taking as going into action with the
       | greatest speed of which a man's muscles are capable, but mentally
       | unflustered by an urge to hurry or the need for complicated
       | nervous and muscular actions which trick-shooting involves.
       | Mentally deliberate, but muscularly faster than thought, is what
       | I mean.
        
         | skmurphy wrote:
         | This is from Wyatt Earp Frontier Marshall by Stuart Lake
         | https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671885375/
         | 
         | according to Jul-2-1956 Life Magazine article "Bang" which
         | several longer excerpts
         | https://books.google.com/books?id=7UgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA29&lpg=P...
         | 
         | See also
         | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TranquilFury/RealLife
        
       | valbaca wrote:
       | Someone had fun in the Abstract for one of the papers:
       | 
       | "To obtain bullet-proof evidence for a true reactive advantage,
       | we investigated willed and reactive movements during a
       | cooperative interaction of two participants."
       | 
       | HAR HAR
       | 
       | "Disarming the gunslinger effect: Reaction beats intention for
       | cooperative actions"
       | https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-018-1462-5
        
       | hprotagonist wrote:
       | _A good fight should be like a small play but, played seriously.
       | When the opponent expands, I contract. When he contracts, I
       | expand. And when the opportunity presents itself, I do not hit.
       | It hits all by itself._
        
       | motohagiography wrote:
       | When I watch olympic track cycling in the pursuit event, what
       | they seem to be angling for before the bell is to cause their
       | opponent to start the sprint first, likely to leverage this same
       | effect. In boxing there are "counter punchers," whose strategy
       | appears to be similar, where they draw out their opponents. In
       | chess, a pawn sacrifice to draw out aggresive moves and open up
       | their defensive position seems related. In poker, "limping in" to
       | a hand draws out inexperienced but aggressive players. In
       | organizational politics, some experienced players use exaggerated
       | humility to draw out politically aggressive managers who make a
       | play for the percieved weakness and embarass themselves. In
       | public politics and debate, the "motte and baily" argument is
       | related in that it is a seemingly weak provocation before
       | retreating behind a stronger argument.
       | 
       | These aren't the exact same as this gunslinger's advantage, but
       | each of them is related in that they rely on a second movers
       | advantage in responding to aggression, and what's not specified
       | in the gunslinger version is how the second mover has necessarily
       | already provoked the first mover into acting. If you want to
       | domainate a competition, this upstream provocation to pre-empt
       | downstream action is straight forward sports psychology. To be
       | provoked is to be played, and to be masterfully provocative is
       | almost the very definition of strategy, which is to purposefully
       | influence others to achieve an outcome.
        
       | zelos wrote:
       | > Bohr suggested that the most logical conclusion to a gunfight
       | would be a peaceful settlement,
       | 
       | And there ain't been a gunfight for a long time Maybe never, but
       | nobody knows for sure...
        
       | AcerbicZero wrote:
       | The person who shoots accurately, first, wins. Drawing quickly is
       | only one component of that goal.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-07-02 23:01 UTC)