Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Rock Paper Scissors

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Alex Schmidt and special guest Dennard Dayle explore why "rock paper scissors" is secretly incredibly fascinating.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

Rock Paper Scissors. Known for being a game. Famous for I Threw Rock. What did you throw? Nobody thinks much about it so let's have some fun. Let's find out why Rock Paper Scissors is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt and I'm not alone. As you might have heard last week, Katie was out then, and she's out this week as well. She's doing fine, but she'll be back soon.

And in the meantime, I have a wonderful returning guest joining us on the show. He's a phenomenal comedy writer. You can read him every week on 1900hotdog.com, and he's a wonderful author, and his new novel is How to Dodge a Cannonball. It is out now. Please read it. Please welcome Denard Dale. Hey Denard.

Hey Alex, and I am very happy to be here. And yeah, thank you for the plug. It is a very strange time seeing a basket of ideas as insane as that whole book, Enter the General Ecosystem. The New York Times absolutely raved about it if people want to read a New York Times review and also I am slow and I'm only a few chapters in but loving it so far because the protagonist just keeps switching sides in the United States Civil War and also meeting Confederate generals who are doofuses in the exact way I sort of thought they would be but also ways I didn't expect.

It's great. Like the guy who keeps doing things that Stonewall Jackson would have done with his posture. Amazing. Really good. Thank you, thank you. Is that spoiling too much of the book? I'm very early on it. That is jacket copy level stuff.

You are totally good. And it feels very good to have the Smitty seal of approval. I think that's a little more exclusive than the Times one. But yeah, writing it's a good time. I think you guys will enjoy it. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for joining for another CIF. I always start by asking our relationship to the topic or opinion of it.

So how do you feel about rock, paper, scissors? So I have two dominant memories or I guess interactions with rock, paper, scissors. In terms of actually playing it, this was mostly in middle school when I learned all about cheating basically because the entire game lives in that null space when your hand is coming down.

And you make that claw with your hand. Right. Yeah. I could never successfully cheat. I'm not fast enough, but I felt like kids were, yeah. Honestly, I think the nobility of falling into the temptation of rock, paper, scissors in that way is probably worth it.

Because walking away from rock, paper, scissors going, and that way is probably worth it. Because walking away from Rock, Paper, Scissors is going, did I just cheat at the hand game? It's a lesson in and of itself. There's not really a sense of victory at the end, like, yes, I have mastered. On the other hand, maybe people who grow up to become, I don't know, senators, governors, magnates of business, whatever, walk away saying, this is it. This is the edge I've been looking for in all of my affairs.

Yeah. Like it's a, it's a spark. It's a gateway to broader and mightier cheating tricks and exploitation. Yeah. That's interesting thought right there. That cheating, cheating gateway drug. It's, uh, it feels possible. I think, and that's pretty much my whole relationship to it. I was curious if other kids were able to cheat

reflexes-wise and then I can't remember ever doing it outside of a time-wasting situation. I don't think I ever played the game in a way where something important was on the line. We just kind of learned to do it, did it, and we're like, okay, that burned five seconds tops and what do you want to do now I guess. It's like all right let's become one of the ten people that know how batgeman works. I did learn that when I was a kid and I don't remember it now. It is lost to me.

I could not bring out the batgeman deep cuts. The other thing that I remember is they have, I'm forgetting the acronym because it's a combination of letters and numbers in the combat sport tradition, but they have the this janken, or janken, which is another name for rock, paper, scissors, I guess in Japan thing. And they have this thing where, you know, they'll have fun with it. And they'll go over the top like pro wrestling style introductions. And people will come in and play rock, paper, scissors. And it's a good bit.

It's a good bit. Yeah. So you've seen competitive rock, paper, scissors in Japan. Yeah. At least it was an event. I think it was like, I'm going to mangle the acronym. I think it was AK-248 or something like that, that may just be a firearm taking its way into like consciousness from way too many years of Call of Duty and the like.

But that was an event. I remember there was a girl coming out almost in a Shingo Takagi kind of uniform, red, flashy, et cetera. Wow. So that is a funny thing to do. Yeah. That's very interesting. And Japan will that is a funny thing to do. Yeah. That's very interesting. And Japan will come up a lot in this show. It turns out the roots of this game are in China and Japan. And so, yeah, especially like the whole second half, we'll talk about Japan a lot.

I've never been to Japan. I don't know much about it. But if you do, that's exciting. Oh, let's see. I have been there and I do not know much about it, which tells you what kind of visitor I am. But it is a good time a humble one. This is good I trust you more now if you were like, I know everything about Japan. I would be like this guy doesn't know anything about Japan I think if I said that you have to be really close to the mic cutting button That does not need to hit the airwaves, will not enhance general people's lives.

That technical difficulties picture where the cameraman's drug just comes up. Yeah, yeah. Well that's great. And also thank you to at Lil Bbot on the Discord for suggesting this. It ran away in the polls. It's such a perfect SIF topic. So many of us know this game one way or another or like a variant. And so it's a perfect topic for the show.

On every episode, we lead with a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. This week that's in a segment called... It's Numbers on SIF Podcast. But you better not pan the stats. Hey folks, gonna tell you some good stats right now. Nice. Yeah, that name was submitted by Erica. Thank you Erica.

Thank you Denard for dancing. We have a new name for this segment every week. Please make a Missillian Wackian bass possible. Submit yours through Discord or to cifpot.gmail.com. And the first number this week is about 50 months. Five zero months. That's slightly over four years. That's the approximate age when we think humans can learn the rules of rock, paper, scissors in like a child development way.

Little over age four is kind of the average. Oh, okay. A little over 4, and that creates some very adorable images in my head of a three-year-old squinting at your hand. Yeah, and I'll link about this because it's one study with very small sample sizes, so this number is not all that solid but the study tried to teach the game to 38 human children and also teach it to seven chimpanzees as like not a control group or whatever but like let's try this too you know and the children the sort of average among all of them was that if

they got about six lessons in the game, they could learn it at around age four or a little beyond, 50 months. So four years, two months. And then the chimpanzees, two of them never learned it, and the other five needed hundreds of rounds of lessons to figure out the circular set of three conditions in the game. Your job satisfaction running that experiment must be so high. Every day is just confused children and chimps that are on point. Yeah, yeah. That is great.

I think this is the first time that I have heard recently of just an experiment involving chimps in which would followed improved my day. Right, they just learned a game and then I don't know what back to do other thing. Yeah, great. Yeah. Yeah, you know, just a An hour of rock-paper-scissors a day then it's back to back to swinging through the enclosure. That is such a best-case scenario thing Yeah, it's cool. I would love to know the age where kids start locking into the null cheating space at the end of Rock, Paper, Scissors. This is interesting because that's kind of our next numbers and this humans and chimps study and the next thing are all Japanese university studies.

It was a team at Kyoto University teaching this game to children and chimpanzees. And then our other number here is about 60 milliseconds. About 60 milliseconds is the minimum amount of time that we think it takes a person to change their hand position to one of the three rock, paper, scissors throws. So the entire game basically lives in those 60 milliseconds. Yes. And we also think that most people, it takes us about 30 to 60 milliseconds to visually process that hand shape change. And so there's actually not really a lot of room to cheat if both people have relatively similar reflexes.

Because you would need to visually process it and then start changing your hand. Like, theoretically, if there was a referee, they would say, you threw way too late because you were busy cheating. But people can basically only cheat because there's no referee. You know, that raises and answers so many questions because I think of people gambling or whatever, kind of league with it. And I was wondering, is it like that boxing thing where as you get better at the thing

or spend more time with the thing, like time seems to slow down for you? Do you just learn to react in that space? But if it's just that it's unregulated, that also makes complete sense to me. It's just a wild west. In like a real competition, they would tell you to stop trying to see the other person's hand start to shift and essentially cheat. The only way kids can do what we described

is because there's no rules on the playground. That's it. That is something that would be really good onboarding for middle school students. Just hearing there are no rules on the playgrounds. Get rid of the illusion. Yeah, like we're both in prison jumpsuits smoking and they're like, who are you? I'm like, I'm the guy who tells you how middle school works. I'll just be here one day. That about. What a wonderful patch. To the classic gym teacher. Yeah, we'll just do this one time. Everything is dodgeball.

Everything is dodgeball. Some things just admit it. And then the other number here with hand speed is one millisecond. One millisecond. Just one. That is how quickly the camera and the computer in an experimental robot hands can detect and process a person's choice in rock, paper, scissors.

Researchers built this at the University of Tokyo in 2013. And the hand always wins rock, paper, scissors because in one millisecond, it detects what your hand is going to do, and then it has plenty of time to throw whatever beats that. Now, this is a very important point in the conversation for me because, you know, you sent me the preparatory links and I'm trying not to ruin the flow of information. I needed to talk about the greatest video I've seen in some time. Because that is, it's basically the silly person's version of the whole deep blue chess

competition thing. Just technology crossing the threshold where the machine crushes at rock, paper, scissors every time. That is so wonderful. I like it. Right. And it's also like such pointless domination of humanity. Like, take that. But I don't care about this game, so it's fine. Yeah, with these millisecond scales, if the fastest human can see what's happening in about 30 milliseconds, that's not fast enough to beat

the robot. Because it can see what you're doing in one millisecond and then its fingers can move to throw a gesture within 20 milliseconds. So it's 21 millisecond time is faster than any of us and it just wins 100% of the time. It will never be beaten. Also I want to add one little thing to that. The perfect underlying thing to that is that just because it can operate in that 30 second space and works off of that, it is always cheating. It's not predicting. Like, it's not an advanced

projection, and that is almost kind of thematically perfect for it. And all of this gets us into our takeaways, starting with a mega takeaway number one. us into our takeaways. Starting with a mega takeaway number one. Rock, paper, scissors is a skill game based on exactly one skill. And among lots of things, like this is why anyone plays it. The entire skill is guessing what the other person will throw. That's the entire, like there's no other things you need to be good at or bad at or anything. And that's a lot of why it's an appealing game, but like it's simple to play, but in a way that makes it interesting. Yeah, it has that minimalism to it.

Not a lot of games can really claim that. Like I'm trying to think if there's anything that competes with it. Maybe you could say various gambling games are more like only tested risk tolerance. Really, like that's all that's really being tested and say dice. But is that a skill or is that just right? Whereas in Rock, Paper, Scissors, it is extremely simple and an actual skill. Yeah. Unless you count like brow beating someone into not calling you out for cheating as a skill, which I'm not sure.

It seems to have like historic consequences. Maybe not so much that one. Totally. But I think that is a kind of a great observation to it that it's kind of as minimally dialed down as a game gets outside of maybe their little warrior where many games are just pure reflex like who can press a first. Oh It's also exactly one skill in a sense that it's not really physical With no one being able to cheat with no robot hands involved. It's all psychology and math

It's all the game theory of one choice Where there's one kind of outcome and it's, it's one of our most stripped down games that is not flipping a coin at random. It's in a really special place in like, all of human culture kind of. It's very interesting that way. It is, and one thing I've always kind of, and by always I mean, since we started talking about it

20 minutes ago, wondered about it is, when we think of, when we project rock, paper, scissors personality, we sort of start with the assumption that like the basic person is sort of fastball throwing rock down and does that change internationally like the default hand sign kind of assumption? Ooh, excellent question. Apparently the set of three things has globalized to being rock, paper, scissors in the last few decades. And we'll talk later about a few other hand positions people play with.

Wait, so the rock, paper, scissors world is flat? Wherever I go, I'm going to get that as a thing of itself? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Okay, so that is the first step of that universal language, I guess. And then one trope we can talk about here is that people who become competitive players are like, get into this game, they learn ways people tend to think. And there is a slight tendency across everybody who plays the rock, paper, scissors, signs to throw a rock first.

One theory is that it's because your hand is already a rock shape coming in. And another theory is that rocks sound the most solid. It's just like, like if it was a literal rock, it would be stronger than literal paper and literal scissors maybe, even though scissors are metal, but you know. All right. So it's just the extra psychological comfort. I'm a winner. I'm gonna throw down something solid. I'm gonna throw down rock

Yeah, and so then if an experienced player knows that they just beat you with paper immediately and there you go Okay, okay, and I guess I know negative amounts about actual combat fighting or whatever Me too, but I read too many comic books Okay and when they talk about fighting in comic books that they're like, there's that old trope of like, the pure master and the pure novice will make the same strike. And it's this journey across the meta of psychological interactions that lead back to someone throwing rock again.

I'm thinking about. That's a really good comparison. Yeah. Because like, because this is so powerfully stripped down to just outguessing the other person then you get into these like endless layers of bluffing and double bluffing and triple bluffing and like because the The first layer is most people throw a rock I'll throw paper and then the second layer is he knows most people throw a rock So I'll throw paper which means I'll throw scissors to beat his paper

And then the next layer is beyond that and the next layer is beyond that. And it's like you say, it just like wraps around to being everybody thinks everything. At some point it is just, is the amount that you both have gone crazy congruent. Right. And then you end up like children at the end. Like, I like rocks is potentially useful in the end. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just your internal alignment comes back out. It doesn't matter because the machines about to win anyway. And yeah. And so that's a lot of why this game is actually fascinating. And, and this mega takeaway, it also has another takeaway within it. But key sources for the whole thing include a book, it's called Uncertainty in Games.

It's by board game designer Greg Costecan. And then also science writing by Ed Yong for Discover Magazine. And then three different university studies of rock, paper, scissors. In 2014, a team at Zhejiang University published in the Open Access Journal Archive. 2011 study by researchers at University College London in proceedings of the Royal Society B. And 2013 study by a team at Indiana University published in PLOS One. Because it's math and psychology, so there are like game theory things to legitimately study about rock, paper, scissors. That makes sense. It has a lot of human implications, which means we are closer, we're ever closer,

we've got these three studies, whatever happened before, to getting a meta-analysis of studies about rock-paper-scissors. Totally. I'm glad you brought up that, why are you aware in super simple video games? Because even a reflexes-based game, it could involve your eyesight versus your muscles versus your fingers, you know, versus how tired you are. Theoretically, if we are preventing physical cheating, this game is just your mind. Right? Yeah.

Like you could even just write down your moves and never involve hands. And then I guess sort of ableism thing of not everybody has hands. You could just write down or speak your moves into something instead. It's truly everyone plays this if they have a mind and then it's pure theory, the endless layers of psyching out your opponent and figuring them out. This kind of a psych out research I think is very important because it can be a nice gentle reminder as you look at different reactions at things like nuclear ringsmanship that work out too

well that are sort of playing against each other. And you know, that'll be a nice post Cold War lesson for everyone. And the other thing about this game being fascinating in terms of figuring out what your opponent's going to do is theoretically you could try to be totally random. But I'm going to link off to a long ago past-siff about the concept of random numbers and that it's actually very difficult to achieve true randomness, especially if it's your squishy human brain and not some kind of machine you've built. And so the really intense players of this are trying to like beat the opponent's attempts

to be random, if that makes sense. Like they're trying to filter through that and figure out, okay, but emotionally they saw they won with this, so they'll do that. And sort of guessing like that. That's one of those beautiful things in this world that I kind of think can only end in enlightenment or an asylum.

Like you are on a pure either Shaolin or Miskatonic track there and I... Yeah. Yeah, you could be on a little mountain peak in a robe just thinking about this forever. Exactly. Like totally. Even though it's rock, paper, scissors. And silly. Like I could see someone staring at the leaf in their palm

and trying to decide if the nature of the leaf is paper or rock. Like everything has a rock, paper, scissors element. And because this can go so deep, that leads us into a takeaway within the takeaway, which is takeaway number two. The world of competitive rock, paper, scissors has strategies, gambits, cash prizes, and massive winning streaks.

It's legitimately a skill game. People are actually better or worse at it than other people. I kind of would love to know the regimen, know the life, know the thought process of specifically the top three janken players, right? Right, like how they spend their time. Yeah. I couldn't really find anything about that. I wanted to. Yeah. I think they just think about this a lot. Yeah, they just think about this a lot, I guess.

Like, do they have their own banks of research? Are they even doing it the same way? Is one of them going off this more intuitive thing? Has one of them been coasting off luck this entire time and feels like a huge fraud? I don't know. All of those are fascinating to me. So yeah, there is a kind of a shared bank of knowledge and tropes about the game for sure.

That makes sense. We already said one, Greg Costecan calls it losers lead with rock is the saying. It's just the idea that if somebody's a total novice, they'll throw rock the first time. And so you should throw paper. And so the main challenge there is just figuring out whether they're really a novice or whether they're like sort of hustling you and pretending to be a novice. Oh, right.

Because it's sort of the ultimate version of that grand strategy. I know that you know that I know, but do you know that I know that you and how many? It's the entire game. Yeah. That is the entire game. Is the perfect game of rock, paper, scissors two people throwing paper at each other forever and waiting for someone to break? Sort of.

So like another huge trend is that novices basically never do the same throw three times in a row. If someone throws something twice, our psychology, if we're not experienced at rock paper scissors, tells us, I've done the same thing twice. I'm not being random enough if I do it a third time. That makes total sense. But then their opponent says, I know you will think that. So I'll almost definitely win or draw on the next one because I know the two things you might do. I guess that's like the hard experience breakpoint in rock, paper, scissors competition, right? Like no matter that

piece of information is a huge edge on anyone that has not been in the rock paper gym. That is the benefit that you get cross-legged staring at the leaf knowing that there are no threes in rock paper nature, only attempts at randomness. I love rock Paper Gym. That's a great thing to name it. And the other fun idea is maybe just three synonyms for gym. Like gym, dojo, iron paradise. Or whatever. Like it's just, you know?

That is pretty cool. Because we've got the gym, dojo, iron paradise. Only amateurs throw Jim three times. That is good business. And then there's another set of tropes here, which is if players are selecting their next throw based on whether the previous throw won or lost. If somebody, let's say they throw Rack, if they won with Rack, they're likely to pick it again the next time and then if they lost with

Rock they're likely to pick whatever beat that that is a mental rabbit hole I because like then there's have you have you won in the loss have you have you lost and then won like the Compared to the bottom Olympic sport. I think that's enough madness. We can just throw it in there. I'll make this case. Yeah, like it is a very mentally competitive thing because like you could

strategically decide that your opponent is thinking that way of either they're going to repeat what won or shift from what lost. And you could also choose a different strategy. Like it's actual skill and choice here, even though you're so limited in your choices. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's actually it's actual skill and skill and choice. There's at there's at least this there's a big decision tree. And yeah, here's a weird thought. If there are large amounts of money to be made and you know

Technology keeps moving forward and the robot always wins at some point I hope in my lifetime so I could read the silly headline We will get the early rock-paper-scissors like cheating cyborgs Yeah That would be interesting once the gears at that Kmart prices Yeah, that would be interesting. Once the gear is at like Kmart prices, that's part of our world. I'm just going to put a link in the set of links about it because I don't know a ton about it and it's disgusting, but there was a recent scandal in chess where people claimed that one of the players had vibrating **** and I'll bleep the word **** because maybe

that's not for kids, but like they had that in their butt in a way where the set of vibrations told them a sort of Morse code of what to do based on what a computer said. Yeah, that story was pretty special and it's almost a projection of your personality whether or not that is cheating to you. Yeah, right. Because I sit on that and think, okay, well, that's a whole way of interacting with the game that your opponent doesn't have access to. Is that fair or not?

And my and now my idiot brain thinks, well, now everyone knows they have the option of but even adding or taking away the option changes the nature of the game. Like we. Yes. You kind of do lose something if you're just, you know, playing without like a catching glove. If you don't have these. And I don't know if your KY compatibility should decide if you're a chess champion or not. Right.

On the other hand, some people, you know, I guess this is the cyborg mentality or the steroid Olympics mentality, they just think, okay, well, grease everyone up. This is the new game now. Do you evolve or perish? And there is almost a pure Greek Olympics mentality to that. That is kind of interesting in a way. Right. It's the only problem they didn't share

that they're doing that, you know? Yeah, like, I don't know. That's a whole thing. Anyway, I look forward to the Rock, Paper, Scissors borgs, their camera vision, their juice of hands. Cause you also mentioned cash prizes, right? Like maybe they build this to win the money and you can win more money than I expected being a Rock, Paper, Scissors champion.

It's not necessarily life changing, but there's an annual tournament in Toronto called the Rock, Paper, Scissors World Championship. For a few decades, they've given a cash prize of $7,000 to the winner. So that's something. I don't know, $7,000. That's something. That's more than a lot of big breaking tournaments will pay out to the winner and people build their lives around those contests. So if it peaks there and there's a circuit, you can kind of make a real go at full-time rock, paper, scissors then. Yeah, and it seems like it's usually not more than that, but also in 2007, in 2007 in Las Vegas, so big money,

there was a one-off tournament where the champion, Jamie Langeridge won $50,000, five-zero. So that's like money for sure. Well, yeah, that's tax relevant amounts of rock, paper, scissors winnings. Oh, yes, it is. And it leads to the ultimate game, was the IRS paying attention? So the IRS paying attention, I think is like rock, right?

IRS always throws paper, always, always, always. Or e-file, but that's not the game. Yeah, and then also, because this is skill-based enough, because you can do well enough either predicting how your opponent's going to move or trying to fool your opponent about how you act. Because there's the whole pool hall hustle element of like you can pretend to be someone else, right? In your personality and skill.

People have racked up far better than chance winning streaks. And I believe these include draws as like a null value. So a streak of 89 matches in a row, one plus some draws is the all-time record that was at the 2023 Rock, Paper, Scissors World Championship. 89? And 89 wins beat the previous record of 72. And then there were also other similar sets of wins. Yeah, like, that's not chance.

That's a skill game at that point. Yeah, that is not chance. That is the, I think 89 kind of implies you developed a sort of low grade telepathy. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That is super cool. I guess you could bribe 89 people to lose or something, but I doubt it.

I think it's really skill. Yeah. And the power of this is how it's stripped down. Maybe it's comparable to poker, where people will try to notice the other person's physical tell, or they'll adopt a false physical tell as a trick, you know But poker has so many elements going on. This is just the rocks on the paper of the scissors Yeah, this is what if poker was just Poe and

There's just three cards on the whole table, yeah, yeah Yeah, and and because people can only make three choices, they have developed a list of the 27 possible gambits for the first three throws. The 27 gambits are just all the combinations. Is this the new book of five rings? Like the 27 rock, paper, scissors positions? Because we'll link a chart of all the gambits. Oh, the 27 rock, paper, scissors positions. Because we'll link a chart of all the gambits. It's truly just if you played three times the 27 combinations of what you could throw.

And then also, eight of them are common enough that people have given them nicknames. Where apparently, if you're in the scene, you could say a nickname and people would know what you're talking about. Wow. So rock, paper, scissors has its own version of the straight eight. That is very entertaining. It does. Here's the eight famous gambits. The first one is the Avalanche, which is Rock three times.

Okay, that's the first Pokemon gym. Just Geodude, Geodude, Onix straight out the gate. I'm feeling it. And then the next one is the Toolbox, which is scissors three times. I would nickname it differently. It's more of an office supply to me, but you know. Yeah, I would call that more of the filing cabinet. I guess that's sort of,

oh no, filing cabinet completes a paper. Actually, actually it's pure paper. The Toolbox, that's very amusing. The third one here is paper three times is the bureaucrat. The bureaucrat. So it's that IRS thing I said before. Yeah. Yeah.

And then the next one is called the crescendo. The crescendo is paper and then scissors and then rock. I'm trying to, I'm picking based off of these names. First off, my personal rock paper scissors alignment. I'm looking to I'm picking based off of these names. First off, my personal rock paper scissors alignment. I'm looking for that in there. I'm hunting for that amidst the names. Oh, and then I'll use that as something to base my entire personality going forward upon. This will be my moon sign. It's very like tag yourself in the gambits or whatever. Yeah, it's very which of these feels like you. Yeah.

And so that's four of the famous ones. Crescendo was Paper Scissors Rock. The next one is De Numa Rock Scissors Paper. De Numa is the other way. I do like the sense of drama to that. It is. Yeah. It implies that rock is the highest volume and paper is the lowest volume, like

sound, you know? But that's fine. Yeah. I'm into it. It does. It does. What you know is how some people see the world in terms of like the value of action or violence versus, you know, paper is the higher world of thinking and you have trained your rock, paper, scissors eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The burden of philosophy. There's three more gambits here with nicknames. The Fistful O dollars.

Which one is the Fistful O dollars? It's rock and then paper and then paper. Oh, that is, that is pretty good. It is pretty good. That is hard. That might be my front runner so far. I like all these last three. The next one is the paper dolls.

The paper dolls is scissors and then paper and then paper. It's also very good. I kind of like the sort of inherent confidence that sort of implies a bit of a change that's an inherent change of like you unfold the thing and like, aha, you've fallen into my web of dancing figures. And then the last nicknamed one here is the scissors sandwich. The scissors sandwich. What is the middle point of a scissors sandwich? Great question.

Yeah, this could be the nickname for a lot of things, but in this one it is paper, scissors, paper. So scissors are the middle of the scissors sandwich. Ah, but it could be the other way, too. I don't know. You know, Scissors Sandwich as a name has such texture that now in my head, I'm imagining, wait, is that the straight move? Like this is what someone did. This is what someone who grew up outside of the fancy tournament ecosystem, came in with one year and swept the board and they said, they call him Scissor Sandwich.

Oh yeah. He fills out our rock, paper, scissors alignment grid nicely to have. No, you're a Scissor Sandwich, you're a rough and tumble type. You know, you know the rules of the street and the rules of Jankum. It's got something, It's got something. Yeah. And the usefulness of this gambit concept is that skilled players will use it to try to decrease the amount that their squishy brain impacts their moves. Because if you go into a match saying, I'm going to do this three moves no matter what, then no matter what the other person does, you're on tracks like a train, right? And so the hope is it makes it harder for them to predict you.

But at the same time, they could predict what you gambited in the first place. It's the endless mind war. Yeah. Are you a gambiter? Have they read your, which one of the 27 types of people you are? Yeah. It's endless mental war. It's endless mental war. It's great.

Is Rock Rock Scissors just the disgrace, the crying child, the how did you get in here? Yeah, the other, doing math, 19 gambits deserve nicknames to me. Why not just nickname them all? They're equally good throws. I don't know. Yeah, whatever you feel. Get melodramatic with it. Call one of them the Megazord. I want rock rock scissors to be the Megazord

And yeah, and then the last thing here is that because there's so much mind war just within these three options Professional players have not taken much interest in some recent internet attempts to expand Rock Paper Scissors to have more throws. And apparently the most famous example is a game called Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard. Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard. Okay, so Spock has the... is it like the nerve pinch thing or the lid-lung prosper? It's lid-lung and prosper hand, yeah. Ah. Where you separate between your middle and ring finger. the Lidlong and Prosper? It's Lidlong and Prosper hand, yeah. Ah. Where you separate between your middle and ring finger.

And then Lizard, I couldn't find great pictures of it, but it's sort of like making a little dinosaur to me with your hands. Like your middle finger is the long head and then the other four fingers are four legs. This is another one of those personality split things, right? Because there's this innate whimsical appeal to expanding rock, paper, scissors. Like, all right, well, I think that katana should be one or I think that hand grenade should be in there. And that is fun. At the same time, your inner cyborg, like you have disrupted the purity of this art.

How first off, how dare you? I reduced it to one position if I could. And that's a tug of war in there. Yeah, exactly. There's value to both. And Rock, Paper, Scissors, Spock, Lizard came from two friends named Sam Kass and Karen Bryla. They put it online in 2005.

And in 2005, people went wild for it. All right. So shout out to Sam and Karen. Yeah. And they basically said in Rock, Paper,, scissors, it's only one thing beating one thing and losing to one thing. Let's add two more things so that each thing beats two things loses to two things. I know there was a lot of numbers in a row, but basically the rock and the paper and the

scissors do what they've always done. And then lizard beats paper, theoretically, because a lizard can eat paper. And a lizard beats Spock, theoretically, because like, they say it's because Spock can mind meld with lizards, which doesn't make sense to me. What I imagine is that Gorn lizard from the original Star Trek. I was just thinking about that. Beating up Spock. Yeah, it is a Spock just getting the business from a rubber monster.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. So the lizard beats paper and beats Spock but loses to rock and scissors. And then if you're thinking very quickly, you could have filled this in, but Spock can beat rock and beat scissors because he can vaporize a rock and disable a scissors. He has phasers and skills, you know. Oh, okay. He has phasers and skills, you know. Oh, okay, so really phasers is the fifth position. Yeah, right? Shh. Yeah, they say it's because he has a phaser, I guess,

but, and then Spock loses to a lizard because it's a big gorn, and he loses to paper for unclear reasons. I imagine he gets lost in reading it because he's a nerd or something. Oh yeah, this is just him getting buried under red tape and they have to do something about these space whales. Yes.

Star Trek 4. But yeah, and so that game is joyful. And also the people who are really into rock, paper, scissors don't seem to need it. There's just so much, not just complexity, but in a good way, narrow complexity with the three options that they're not looking for more. You know, that makes sense.

I mean, I think there's also just that psychological thing of you're drilled down into this thing already you've learned this thing already. You're not really looking to have this new world thrust upon you, you dang kids. Yeah, yeah. It is kind of fascinating. I kind of almost wonder in the marketing of the new game, if it happened today, they would just frame it as a pure versus thing. Hey, if you're a real thinker, if you're not old and going to the dustbin of history

along with the rest of the crypto less masses, you play five step rock versus scissors, get some Spock in there by Spock calling. Right. Men used to play with 20 options when they were cavemen. There we go. The real man thing comes out. The real man thing comes out. This always ends in someone without a shirt telling you that you will be poor. And they're being pursued by some kind of Eastern European law enforcement and you don't know why but you're sure they're guilty.

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. It is so specific that you are certain that they have earned that sell. Yeah, folks, that's just a nested pair of giant takeaways, tons of numbers. We're going to take a quick break and then come back with a few more amazing takeaways about rock, paper, scissors. We're going to take a quick break and then come back with a few more amazing takeaways about Rock Paper Scissors. Thinking about things you can throw, let's get into takeaway number three. The game Rock Paper Scissors originated in East Asia, often featuring animals.

Animals? Okay, yeah, tiger-style rock paper scissors. That could be fun. Yeah, this comes from the combination of China and Japan. It might have first first originated in China. It might have been parallel invented, might have been shared. But starting around 2000 years ago, people came up with the rules of a cycle of three things where one loses to one, one wins one. And they also did not start with rocks

or paper or scissors. The R&D version of like a three sub thing is kind of a fun thing to think about. Like you're just thinking, okay, what if we try it out? No, man. Pheasant, rhino, wolf, like the wolf can catch the pheasant, the pheasant just runs away from the rhino. No, no, no, this is falling apart. This is falling apart in real time, man. Okay, start over. Peasant, noble, artisan. We have one main animal example here, yeah.

Okay. Because it's an early version that was in Japan. It's called Mushiken. And the throws are a frog, which is basically your thumb out from a fist. And then a slug, which is your little finger out from your fist. And then a snake,

which is your index finger out from your fist. So frog and slug and snake. That is cool. It's cool. I dig that off visually. Yeah dig that a lot visually. Yeah, it's interesting visually. It's also, I feel like it's less of the reflexes issue. You're just throwing one finger out at the last minute, you know?

It's great. Yeah, yeah. There is a real cheating problem there. Good luck like half extending two fingers. Oh, true. You could like feint a knuckle a little bit and then throw the other. That's tricky actually. I take it back.

You know, I said all that stuff about a seven step league, but I think that the reactionary slug league may also be entering the fray here. We need to bring it back to the roots. This is what it meant to be a real person, to be a real man. Yeah, the word return but with a V instead of the U, guys. We have to re-tivern to the frog-slag-snake. Yeah, the word return but with a V instead of the U, guys. We have to revert to the frog's leg snake. All kinds of Greek statue profile pictures are out there with their index fingers out

saying this is what play is. Everything else is a child's abstraction. Yeah. else is a child's abstraction. Yeah, and then in case people do want to play it, I kind of want to play it. Here's the rules for frog and slug and snake. The frog beats the slug. The slug beats the snake. The snake beats the frog. So I'm guessing that this slug is highly poisonous.

Exactly. That's my logic. Yeah, I think it works. If the slug poisons the snake and then the snake eats a frog and a frog eats a slug. It's like the series of bigger fish in a cartoon or something. And then there's a poisonous slug. I think it works. Yeah.

Yeah, the harmony of nature is rooted in vast amounts of neurotoxins. It is a game that teaches you you cannot just wander around eating anything that is an interesting color. In fact, especially not anything that is an interesting color. Go for brown and like a gray. Yeah, stick to your browns or grays or... Green because it's everywhere. And there's two big key sources for this takeaway, a great feature for Popular Mechanics by Anna Ben-Yahuda Ramanan.

And then a Slate.com interview with Wall Street Journal language columnist Ben Zimmer. So we think either China and Japan parallel invented this or China did first and it went to Japan. Because back in the Han dynasty between 200 BC, 200 AD, a book called Wuzhazu written by Shae Joji describes a game called Shoshi Ling. And Shoshi Ling roughly translates to hand commands. I couldn't find what the three options are, but it's the cyclical rock, paper, scissors rules

where one wins, one loses to everything. That is super cool. Thank you, Popper Mechanics and or the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, Pop Mac for that one, yeah. Wow, I thanked the Wall Street Journal for something. That is a nice first for me. Same there. They're not Wall Street Journal for something. That is a nice first for me. Same there. They're not great to work for actually.

I wrote something for them once and it was very bad experience. Really? Do they just crack the whip intensely or are they not fond of paying people? Me and Katie both talked about this in one episode long ago. They screwed up our taxes. They claimed we made the amount of money we made but without the decimal point. So it was really bad. That is grim. And you know, the IRS is there. Well, it's a Wall Street Journal. They have

that kind of money. They must have really given it to you. Why aren't you? Right, right. They sound rich. So it's believable. Yeah, it was really bad. That must have been grim and getting and you know, the worst part is, you know, then you get audited, then all of your actual cheating comes out and. Yeah, it worked out OK, but it was stressful. So anyway. And what was the book? What was the book called again? I want to sort of put this in my memory bank.

So I need a new party quick draw facts. Yeah, a book called Wuzazu by Shae Joji. And they wrote it between the 200s BC, 200s AD. And around that same time, people in Japan either heard about it or thought about it on their own. And an early name for it was Sansukumi Ken. Ken sort of translates to fist, but that longer name, apparently it translates to a phrase along the lines of three who are afraid of each other, which is phenomenal.

I love it so much. It's the best name for this game. That is a great name for a spy thriller or a triple threat match. It's so cool, yeah. Yeah, especially like a triple threat match. I wanna see an NJPW main event called that. Yeah, that'd be amazing. Another name that came along in Japan is John Ken Pong,

which may relate to what you saw or have seen. Yeah. Along the way in China and Japan, a lot of names for this became a three syllable thing. The marketing's right there, I see it. Yeah. Also hand game is a generic name for this kind of thing where it's a game people can play

with just hand signs amongst each other. Oh, boxing is also a hand game. That's a little different, but I get it, yeah. Is it? Yeah. And yeah, and it also a hand game. That's a little different, but I get it. Yeah. And yeah, and it's a little fuzzy how this spread across the world. We're just pretty sure China and Japan spread it and especially through trade, especially through sailors. Oh, okay. Like they'd be bored in ports and play and it's easy to learn.

So people picked it up. It is interesting to think that during one of those crazy China Rome sort of dignitary exchanges at some point, he got real bored and he's like, oh, okay, I need to distract this alcoholic in a toga for half an hour. Wanna win some hand games? I've never thought about it.

So many interactions with the Romans, the other people probably said alcoholic in a toga. What do I do? That's history. That's it. That's history in a nutshell. Yeah. And then we're also pretty sure this originated in East Asia because a lot of the first written mentions of it in Europe and the US and Canada refer to China or Japan.

Oh, okay. That's cool. In the Washington Herald newspaper in Washington DC, August 1921, they had an article referring to these kinds of games as, quote, Chinese gambling. And then 1927, a French children's magazine described this game by calling it the French words for Japanese game. And they called it Chi Fu Mi based on a kind of a good translation of 123 in Japanese. That is interesting. For some reason, I was expecting something incredibly more terrible

from the French name. Like we were sort of getting there with the first one of Chinese gambling. But like, yeah, Chi Fu Mi, huh? It's such a simple game, they didn't get weird. They just kind of referred to the place it's from and that's it. So that's nice. It's good. It's such a simple game. Like, hey, our common humanity is kicking in here. So we're going to, you know, skip the usual ritual of calling it something that... One of those jokes I probably shouldn't even make ironically.

Like, a thousand fixed sheets, right? Nope, nope, not even play that game. But I really like how Jankapon sounds. That one sticks to me. It's good, and it also leads to a very mini takeaway number four. a very mini takeaway number four. The name Rochambeau has nothing to do with France and everything to do with it being three syllables. That makes total sense. Branding is like gravity. Yeah, there's like a US practice, apparently, especially on the West Coast, of some people calling rock, paper, scissors Rochambeau.

And that led to like an urban legend that it's named after a French historical figure named Rochambeau. But it has nothing to do with him. It's just that people picked a new three syllable name around like Northern California, especially. And that's it. I had no idea that definitely led to one of the stickier South Park jokes. Oh I don't know it. Essentially the idea was so I say hey want to play Roy Shambow and then during the exchange it would just

hit them and yeah that that name also I do know it is also being applied to hitting each other in the crotch but like like, I don't know why really. Oh yeah, they just did that. And I think, you know, there's a big chicken egg question of, wait, was that a trend or do people do that because of the South Park thing or, I don't know. There are a lot of ways to get kicked in the crotch as a youth. Maybe a cup should be standard like middle school equipment. It would be helpful.

Yeah. standard like middle school equipment. It would be helpful. And yet this urban legend, it always felt really weird because most people have not heard of this historical figure. But there's a guy named Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimyeux, the Comte de Rochambeau. He was a French army general in the 1700s. And he's in American history because at the Battle of Yorktown in the American Revolutionary War, George Washington led the American troops and Rochambeau led the French troops that were on the land helping them. Okay. And so then like people vaguely said

if rock, paper, scissors is called Rochambeau, maybe it's a tribute to a general most of us haven't heard of. That's not true. That's not what happened. Yeah. At least we constrained our nationalism enough that it's not just called Washington. It's three syllables. It's good enough. It's American Maine. It could have happened, right? I always throw ing. I always do it. That's the other weird thing about Rochambeau. It's not any of the things you throw. Anyway, it's silly. Oh yeah. That would just change the slang you throw. Anyway, it's silly. Oh yeah, that would just change the slang. Eventually, you could sort of say Roe,

Roe try to do a translingual pun there. Exactly. But it's not quite the same thing. I wonder if the British general involved in that affair had a three syllable name, or at least maybe there's a Haitian mercenary company in there for a nice three syllable name to keep it, you know, to keep things nice and even. Lover tour or something. I'm trying to force it. I don't know.

Getting closer, getting closer. Something. The real origin of the name Rochambeau, we don't know exactly how it generated, but it first appeared in print in the US in a 1936 instruction manual for leading children's recreation Oh, and the manual was printed in the Oakland, California area for local Oakland, California kids groups That had a huge Japanese American population at the time We can't totally confirm it But we just think people heard three syllable Japanese names for rock-paper-scissors and came up with an additional three syllable name like that's it Okay, so it's just what came out of just the sort of cultural pinball machine

That's cool. So it's it's simple there. No nobody French had anything to do with rock paper scissors getting here. Really? It's an accident, you know, I think you know, they have a lot of contributions. They can take a free one They can steal a little valor on this one. Oh, France. Yeah, France is cool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Just throw it in the corner of the Louvre,

say, we probably didn't do this, but it's fun to imagine. Funny you mentioned the Louvre, because we have one last takeaway number five. ["The New York Times"] mention the Louvre because we have one last takeaway number five. One game of rock, paper, scissors determined a 32 million dollar art auction. Oh, that is pressure. Huge. And because of this episode, I want to believe in my heart that one person went in thinking of 27 stratagems and one person went in thinking rock.

Yeah, it's a quick story from 2005 and the main sources journalist Carol Vogel of the New York Times who reported on it. There was also further digging on that by the podcast Snap Judgment. This is a quick and amazing story and it also starts in Japan. There was a company called Masprodenko Corporation. It's an electronics company in the Nagoya area. They also, for investment reasons, had a large corporate art collection. They decided to auction it all at once. It was valued at around $20 million then.

That's $32 million with inflation today. They had rare Cezanne, rare Picasso, rare Van Gogh, like amazing art that they'd racked up. All right. So we just have huge chunks of history here going down to this game that we learn is also, I guess, huge chunks of history. So maybe not as trivializing as we hope, you know, the Rochambeau game over Starry Night. And it's like, how much of the MoMA can we win with?

We have to go to the denouement. I can't go unloaded. That makes it my alignment. I'm a denouement rock, paper, scissors player. A denouement, a denouement. Now that there's money on the line, we know. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

When the chips are down, the progression that you will take in with you is your alignment. And they sold the art for money the regular auction way. But Rock, Paper, Scissors came in because a guy named Takashi Hashiyama was the president of this electronics company. The one thing he couldn't decide was which of two auction houses to give the sales job to. They couldn't decide between Sotheby's and Christie's. Apparently they're a little of a duopoly in fine art auctions.

People use those too. They offered similar rates and services and also both auction houses had had at least one representative glad handing Takashi Hakayama for more than six years because they knew this sale might be a thing someday. So six years of pandering are on the line. Yeah. And then one Friday, he called them and said, on Monday, you two should play one game of rock paper scissors to decide who gets to sell probably $20 million of art and get the commission on $20 million.

Given this whole crazed millionaire scenario, they must have been so relieved to find out it was going to be this children's game and not all kinds of other just combat. They could have come in and seen the snap pool cue from the Dark Knight on the table. Private Island hunting a guy. Sure. Yeah, yeah. It's all on the table. It's like, whichever one of you can bring back a piece of my intern first shall inherit this art. Yeah, and Hashiyama said, I want this wrapped up by Monday.

So what you'll do is you'll send representatives to our office in Tokyo, you'll each get an accountant, you'll write down your choice so there's no reflexes involved. And then the accountant will fax each of your choices to me and Nagoya. I don't want to make the trip. I'm not going to bother commuting for this. This is how we can beat the arm. Yes. And so he said, you have the weekend to think about what you'll throw and then we'll wrap

this up. And he also said, this is common in Japanese culture with major decisions between totally equal options. To specifically use rock, paper, scissors, Hashiyama said he's often made major electronics business decisions this way. So this was not a new thing for him either. That is cool. It would be even better if he was just totally making that up.

He's just messing with them. He said, yeah, this is a real, we do this all the time in Japan, just our lives based on jack up on totally. Now, because of how much backroom chatter goes on, if any big corporate move, just the people in your years just screaming the words rock or scissors all weekend. Yes. Like the succession like held by your collar against the wall guy saying, if you will ruin us with your paper nonsense, this is a rock world. Exactly. Like the executives at Christie's and Sotheby's both said, like, I think my career might kind of hinge on what we do, right?

Like I could get a raise for this. We could lose. It's kind of an insane proposition. Yeah. A tie in and of itself is almost a terrible outcome because you just have another week of this elevated blood pressure. A snap judgment especially, they went and interviewed everybody at Christie's they could. They couldn't reach anybody at Sotheby's, but we know how everybody at Christie's felt and how they decided. And also you the listener, you can think about what you

would throw. It's all one match. It's not best of three or anything. What's the one throw you would make? I guess, Dinnard, you can pick. What would you throw? Oh, I am all in on paper in this scenario. This is a wisdom of crowd situation. So that means that if most people throw a rock, if everyone is, okay, if most people throw rock, everyone is screaming at this guy for two weeks. There is a good chance he's gonna mind warp himself into, rock is the way, rock is the divine path. Scissors is coming straight down the middle.

Exactly, it's the endless, how many layers of bluff do you do? Yeah. And what happened to Christie's is it came down to one executive's twin daughters, twin 11-year-olds. He asked them and they told him and he said, that's a good idea. Apparently his daughters were in immediate agreement. They said, everybody knows you go with scissors. And their reasoning was two layers of bluff, not one. They said, most people go rocks, that theoretically you go paper,

but then you need to double bluff and go scissors to beat the single bluff of paper. And they also said if it's a draw of scissors both sides, you just go scissors again and you keep going scissors. Was there like advice? Because theoretically if there's a draw, they need to throw again and keep going. That is amazing.

Was their suggestion the winning thing? Yes. Christie's submitted scissors, Sotheby's submitted paper, and Christie's won the commission on $20 million of art sales. So I'm sorry you lost. I would have lost too, I think. I think I would have gone paper. I would have lost too.

I would have lost too. You have these two uncorrupted young warriors walking into our insane, this is the time, 27 years of contemplating one leaf dojo and just wiping the whole thing. Yeah, I think you just told me about a heist by two 12 year olds. That is 11 11 year olds. 11 year olds. Did they just after that, did they just, you know, check our show? They're like, look, just just take this van go.

It's a tip. You can hang it up on your wall. You can finger paint over whatever you want. You earned it. I think so. They deserve something. Yeah. And the phrase is amazing, too. Everybody knows which first off, just that it's a settled thing in their reality. And you have clouded your eye with the impurities of this world is kind of it's

bang-on yeah like I love the confidence and I also love that they also knew that people tend to feel like they're not predictable if they repeat like they would have beaten that thinking by repeated scissors their advice was throw scissors and then keep throwing it if there's draws, which I think also would have worked Yeah, they have it's great. They have psyched out the other the other auction house Yeah, take that Sotheby's. So there you go Hey folks, that's the main episode for this week. And I want to say an additional thank you to Denard Dale for being a wonderful guest and also helping cover a week. Katie's still out for a bit, back soon.

But really appreciate him stepping in and helping us have an episode for you. Also, I hope you remember him from the maps episode in the past, so always good to have a guest return. And hey, welcome to the outro of this episode about Rock Paper Scissors. We've got fun features for you such as help remembering this episode with a run back through the big takeaways. Mega Takeaway Number 1, Rock Paper Scissors is a unique skill game based on exactly one skill. It's incredibly stripped down but not random and a mind game. Takeaway Number 2, the world of competitive Rock Paper Scissors has strategies, gambits, cash prizes, and extraordinary winning streaks.

Takeaway number three. The game Rock Paper Scissors originated in East Asia featuring different stuff like animals instead of rocks and paper and scissors. Takeaway number four. The name Rochambeau has nothing to do with France and everything to do with being three syllables. Takeaway number five, one game of rock, paper, scissors determined who got the commission

on a $32 million art auction. And then a few numbers at the top, tons of numbers throughout the show. The ones at the top were about the reaction speed of human beings, the age at which humans can learn this game, and also chimpanzees picking it up. Those are the takeaways. which humans can learn this game and also chimpanzees picking it up. Those are the takeaways. Also, I said that's the main episode because there's more secretly incredibly

fascinating stuff available to you right now if you support this show at MaximumFun.org. Members are the reason this podcast exists. Some members get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is a rock-paper-scissors type mechanic in millions of years of lizard mating. Visit sifpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of 21 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, and a catalog of all sorts of Max Fun bonus shows. It's special audio. It's just for members. Thank you to everybody who backs this podcast operation.

Additional fun things check out our research sources on this episode's page at MaximumFun.org. Key sources this week include the book Uncertainty in Games by board game designer Greg Costecian. Also a lot of scientific studies, including a 2014 study in the journal Archive by a team at Zhejiang University, a 2011 study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B by a team at University College London, a study in PLOS One in 2013 by a team at Indiana University, and then trustworthy scientific and historical writing, including a feature a study in PLOS One in 2013 by a team at Indiana University. And then trustworthy scientific and historical writing, including a feature for Popular Mechanics by Anna Ben-Yahuda-Ramonon, a piece for the New York Times by journalist Carol Vogel,

and an interview with Wall Street Journal language columnist Ben Zimmer. That page also features resources such as native-land.ca. I'm using those to acknowledge that Dhanard and I each recorded this in Lenapehoking, the traditional land of the Munsee Lenape people. On my end it's also the land of the Wappinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Skatigok people, and others. On Denaard's end it's the land of the Lenape people and the Canarsie people. And I want to acknowledge that in my location, Danard's location, and many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here.

That feels worth doing on each episode, and join the free SIFT Discord where we're sharing stories and resources about Native people and life. There is a link in this episode's description to join the Discord. We're also talking about this episode on the Discord, and hey, would you like a tip on another episode? Because each week I'm bringing you something randomly incredibly fascinating by running all the past episode numbers through a random number generator.

This week's pick is episode 93, that's about the topic of chocolate, and a fun fact there is the entire bonus show is about Milton S. Hershey. There have been set photos recently from an upcoming movie about the life of Milton Hershey and his wife. It's an amazing life, and if you wanna hear about it right now rather than waiting for a movie

that might mess it up, you can check out the bonus show for episode 93 about chocolate. So I recommend those episodes. I also recommend my cohost, Katie Golden's weekly podcast, Creature Feature. It's about animals, science, and more. Our theme music is Unbroken, Un-Shavin' by the BUDDOS band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand.

Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Special thanks to The Beacon Music Factory for taping support. Extra extra special thanks go to our members. And thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then. Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.