How to always win at Rock Paper Scissors
Rock paper scissors–this is a game that I have not lost a single time since I was a child. My secret strategy has always been to throw three rocks in a row. Think about it, it is the natural thing to do. Your hand is already in the fist shape as you pound away “one two three go!” might as well just keep it it that formation, the natural formation, the rock formation.
People who maybe have never had the pleasure of working with stone often tell me “wow, that must be hard work”! But looking at Rock paper scissors, at least in this scenario, throwing “rock” is clearly the easiest choice. Back to my strategy–three “rocks” in a row. This gambit is known as “the avalanche”, and it’s not hard to see why it is so effective. Rock. It is obviously the strongest of the three, the most sturdy and durable. It will surely long outlast paper which is likely to disintegrate with but a few months of exposure to the elements. The scissors won’t be long behind.
Let’s examine the issues from a more utilitarian perspective. Give me a few good rocks… what can we do with these? Well, we could build, for example, an arch–one of the strongest architectural structures ever discovered:
the arch: Elegant and beautiful in its simplicity, no?
Sure, you could build a similar structure from paper, but the thinner arrangement of papers’ material basis requires many more “sheets”. Five hands stacked atop each other flat just won’t make a full arch, and the logistics of getting many more hands together and working in concert…. it is very discouraging. Plus we’d all be palm upon palm and some of y’all get kinda clammy and gross. I could see the logistics working, but we’d have to get about 100 hands together and then to make them fit into an arch-shape, we’d have to sever the hands first in order to make it work. Without seeing a proof of concept first, I am just not willing to do all that cutting.
We tried to replicate the arch, using only scissors, in the name of science we tried.
The results were discouraging at best. (yes, the hands in this last photo are a bit dirty…we’re stone masons on a jobsite, it gets muddy sometimes)
But this entire dissertation is really just me throwing a bunch of scholarly erudition at a problem that I had solved way back in the fourth grade, using nothing more than natural human intuition:
Nothing beats rock.
I leave you now with a quotable quote from a wise man of much reknown:
"I have seldom encountered any problem in life so vast or insurmountable,
that throwing a few well aimed rocks at it didn't improve matters somewhat"
Doctor Izzle Ignatious
Footnotes:
1) I believe the eminent Doctor Izzle would agree with me that a rock aimed in anger or with violent intent is never considered a “well-aimed rock”
hardscaping services in available from Devine Escapes:
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