Rock, Scissors, Treaty

Resident Satirist Rubert Pupkin talks about the oldest game in the book...

This is a variation on the children’s game of a similar name that has been around since ancient times, or the invention of scissors, whichever came first. There are no set rules to the game, but it helps to have a good poker face and a lot of chutzpah.

Two or more people can play, and the game begins with the players facing each other with one hand behind their backs, thereby concealing their objective, i.e. whether the plan is to show a rock, scissors, or a treaty. Sophisticated players may employ maps, historical archives and frigates to improve the odds of winning.

A sure recipe for losing, however, is to begin the game with the attitude that you already won the game several thousand years before play commences. The other player(s) will probably have issues with that position and may use a rock to smash the scissors, especially if he or she is hypersensitive and has boundary issues.

So how does the treaty come into play? This is, from a strategic point of view, a very important question, and one that does not lend itself to simple explication, particularly when the rock sits on or about significant hydrocarbon resources.

If one has been holding the rock behind one’s back since, like, forever (or strongly believes he has, contrary to all evidence) and the scissors were purchased at a so-called hypermarket, it stands to reason that the treaty is moot, unless of course it can be shown that the rock only recently (within the last million years or so) sprung up due to volcanic activity or receding tides.

In the latter case, it is only a rock for several hours a day, while the rest of the time it is a shipping hazard or a sandbar or a potential drilling site. It would be hard to establish a colony there, unless each citizen were given an aqualung and a dinghy.

If the scissors cut up the treaty into confetti for a day of national celebration say, and the rock is now home to a small fishery but poses no other strategic value, the players may kiss and make up – the zero sum game of thrones, so to speak.

But if the rock is an inherent part of the player’s strategy, and he/she claims that it has been thus since the start of civilisation, there is no telling what indignation will result.

But it is only a game.

Sometimes one will encounter a player who thinks he’s always in the right and the other player is always in the wrong. It’s not much fun playing with a player like this, and one wonders how it is possible that such a player can always be right, especially when a lot of the archival evidence suggests he is off his rocker completely. In some instances it is the most physically imposing player who assumes a rather pacific posture – a classic deception that rarely allays the fears of opposing players who huddle together to present a united front. 

Try as one might, the scissors cannot possibly cut the rock, unless they are made of diamonds, which, as we all know, are very strong indeed, look good and often win the hearts of resistant lovers. So a player that can afford scissors made of diamonds may, in fact, enjoy some leverage over those who use cheap dull scissors. The super sharp diamond scissors pose something of a danger, but only if one is drunk with power and emotion about the status of the rock, and runs headlong into the rock without considering the consequences.

But enough of these diamond scissors. The players are now showing their hands. And while they may not agree on what trumps what, they are equally confused about the nature of the dialogue, with one seeing it as a game of covenants and treaties and production sharing agreements enjoyed by everyone in the neighbourhood, and the other – the one with the jewel-encrusted scissors – believing he won the game way way back when.