The Inquiry Club

We've all heard the saying: “It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
Is it actually a good strategy?

Without getting too philosophical or making moral judgments, we'll use some basic ideas from game theory to examine the strategies we use in everyday life.
What works in a one-time interaction? What changes when we expect to deal with the same person again and again? And what happens when we keep playing similar games—but with different people?
Think dating, workplace relationships, negotiations, friendships, and even our current political climate.

We'll explore questions such as:

• Is there a winning strategy—and what does “winning” mean?
• Can a strategy that works today cost us later?
• How does the length of the game change how we play?
• What should we learn from previous experiences and carry into the next game?
• What should not be transferred to a new person or situation?
• When the same outcome keeps repeating, should we update our understanding of the game, the other players, or our own strategy?
• When the environment changes, should our strategy change too?
• How do we know whether the game actually changed—or only our understanding of it?

If time allows, we'll borrow a lens from accounting. Can the basic ideas behind a personal P&L and balance sheet help us evaluate our strategies? A decision may produce an immediate gain while quietly damaging a long-term asset—trust, reputation, relationships, capabilities, or future opportunities. Does looking at both change who we think is “winning”?

No background in game theory is needed. We'll start with a few simple games and test the ideas against situations we've actually experienced.
Come prepared to participate—ask a question, offer an example, share an observation, test an assumption, or bring a counterexample.

Bring a question. Leave with a broader perspective.

Think. Participate. Learn.

## The Inquiry Club #5: Life, Entropy, and the Work of Maintenance

The Work of Maintaining a Life
We build relationships, develop skills, improve our health, organize our homes, and create systems that work.
Then we stop paying attention.
The house gets cluttered. Friendships fade. Skills weaken. Processes accumulate friction. Our bodies lose capabilities we once took for granted.
Life is how entropy moves through us.
Or is it?
Without stretching the science too far, we'll start with the idea of entropy and examine what happens to the systems in our lives when energy, attention, and corrective feedback are withdrawn.

We'll explore questions such as:

• Why does order require effort while disorder often seems to happen on its own?
• Is doing nothing actually a neutral choice?
• What happens when we stop putting energy into a system?
• Can something appear stable while it is quietly deteriorating?
• Why are we often surprised by decline when the process was happening all along?
• Is maintenance simply the cost of keeping something alive?
• When does maintaining order become resistance to necessary change?
• What should we allow to fall apart?
• If our energy is limited, what deserves to be maintained?
• Can we understand a life by looking at where its energy continuously flows?

No background in physics is needed. We're not going to claim thermodynamics explains your marriage or your messy garage. We'll use the concept carefully, test where the analogy works, and identify where it breaks.
Come prepared to participate—ask a question, offer an example, share an observation, test an assumption, or bring a counterexample.

Bring a question. Leave with a broader perspective.
Think. Participate. Learn.