The Kobayashi Maru (The No-Win Scenario)
May 19th, 2009
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Randy Pausch‘s autographed photo of Captain Kirk, on which William Shatner wrote “I don’t believe in the no-win scenario.”
In Star Trek, the Kobayashi Maru is a test that puts you up against a no-win scenario.
In this simulation, a civilian ship named the Kobayashi Maru has been disabled by a gravitic mine and is losing life support. If you don’t intervene, the Kobayashi’s 400 passengers will die.
Unfortunately, the Kobayashi lies in the Klingon Neutral Zone. If you attempt a rescue, you’ll be in violation of the treaty, which will cause the Klingons to take hostile action.
If you try to save the Kobayashi, three Klingon ships move in on you. They refuse to communicate, and they start firing. You’re outnumbered, and the computer is allowed to cheat, so there is no option but to lose.
The point of the test is not to win, but to behave well in the face of certain destruction.
How do you face a situation that you know you can’t win?
There’s a psychological concept known as “learned helplessness.” It refers to when a person or an animal learns that it’s helpless, so it stops trying, even after the situation changes.
In a 1960s experiment that I hope to God would be illegal today, learned helplessness was observed in dogs by subjecting them to electric shocks.
Two dogs were kept in separate rooms, but wired to the same electrical circuit. When the electricity was turned on, the first dog was able to press a lever that would turn it off for both dogs. The second dog didn’t have access to the lever, and from his perspective the shocks just stopped at a random time (since he didn’t know the first dog controlled it).
Although both dogs experienced the exact same electrical shocks, the first dog learned that he had the power to stop them, while the second dog learned that he was helpless. The dog in control quickly recovered, while the helpless dog become chronically depressed. In further experiments, the dogs that had learned helplessness were subjected to shocks that they were free to run away from, but they didn’t try.
But wait, it gets worse. It’s somewhat understandable for the dogs to think that because they couldn’t stop the shocks in the first experiment, they couldn’t stop them in the second. But in another set of experiments, dogs were temporarily paralyzed with a drug before being shocked. Obviously, they couldn’t even try to escape the shocks. By the time they regained their mobility, they had learned they were helpless. They didn’t try to escape the shocks, even though they had never tried before.
Here’s the silver lining: not all dogs acted this way. A third of them, the optimistic ones, did not become helpless. They still tried to escape the shocks and did, despite having failed before.
I’m not sure how the Star Trek cadets were supposed to behave in the Kobayashi Maru simulation, but I guess it was along the lines of staying focused and trying everything possible. And some cadets tried some unexpected solutions, with varying degrees of success.
- On his third attempt, James T. Kirk cheated by reprogramming the simulator to make it possible to rescue the Kobayashi, saying he didn’t believe in the no-win scenario. (In one movie he was awarded a commendation for original thinking, but in another he was put on trial for cheating.)
- Chekov evacuated his ship before crashing it into the three Klingon ships. (However, this meant that the Kobayashi was not saved.)
- Sulu realized it was a trap, and didn’t cross into the Neutral Zone. (Again, this meant the Kobayashi was not saved.)
- Scotty used a bunch of crazy tactics that let him bypass the Klingon shields and beam destructive items to them. While this worked at first, the simulator kept adding more and more Klingon ships, finally beating Scotty with 15 ships. (Because Scotty knew that his techniques would work in the simulator but not the real world, he was judged unsuitable for command track and reassigned to engineering.)
- Piper used a bunch of unorthodox commands that tricked the computer into fighting itself, which ended up crashing the simulator. (Her instructors acknowledged that it might have worked in the real world.)
- Peter David made the bizarre move of destroying the Kobayashi, figuring that (1) a rescue attempt could not succeed, (2) destroying the Kobayashi was more humane than letting the crew be captured and tortured, and (3) the Kobayashi may actually have been a setup planted by the enemy.
- Peter Kirk (James’ nephew) faced a different version of the simulation, in which the enemies were the Romulans instead of the Klingons. He invoked an obscure Romulan law that allowed him to challenge the Romulan commander to a one-on-one fight to the death, during which all ships must cease fire. Before beaming over for the duel, he told his people to beam aboard the Kobayashi survivors and escape, leaving him to die. (The instructor stopped the simulation at this point, but Peter was credited with a nearly perfect outcome, sacrificing himself but saving the Kobayashi and his own ship. The simulator was reprogrammed to prevent this solution from being used again.)
Every now and then, you may face a situation that seems unwinnable. And maybe it is. But don’t give more power to it than you have to. Don’t be too quick to declare it as unwinnable, when there may be a solution you haven’t thought of yet.
And if you really can’t win, doing your best anyway will keep you away from the trap of learned helplessness for the future. Besides, you can always change your definition of “winning.”
May 20th, 2009 at 2:38 am
How cool is that – we both mentioned learned helplessness today. It’s like it’s contagious or something.
I like the keys in Learned Optimism … don’t treat things as personal, permanent and pervasive … the 3 P’s can be your downfall.
J.D. Meier´s last blog post..The Quest for Personal Power
May 20th, 2009 at 4:20 am
…and I thought you weren’t a Star Trek guy. You continue to amaze me, Hunter!
I hadn’t heard of the dog experiments. You don’t attribute your source; how did you hear about it?
Ari Herzog´s last blog post..Is the Future Misguided? Are You?
May 20th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Don’t I love the cold war era allegory. (Kobayashi is a Japanese name, as you probably know.)
Great post, Hunter. I think the real issue is the short circuited perception to see a situation as no-win scenario before thinking through all possible solutions.
For instance, some people think the current war against terrorists are no-win. America is threatened by terrorists. But by waging the war and killing the people there (Middle Eastern casualties of the war is multiple times that of the casualties of 9/11. And America has killed many civilians as well, including children), America is making even more people upset and resentful, making this country more of the target of terrorists attacks.
I’d say, however, this is a fake no-win scenario. There are ways to promote peace and mutual understanding. Jumping to the gun, literally, actually made it more like no-win than it really is.
Also, some people may think their career life is no-win situation. They hate their job, but if they leave it, they don’t have income source, and hey, isn’t this recession a hopeless time to start a new business? Perhaps they’ve already tried starting a business and failed miserably.
But, again, I think this is just a premature conclusion and not really a no-win at all. Don’t be like those poor dogs who quit attempting to free themselves. We can keeping trying, and not just blind trying, we have brains (hopefully we can think as well as James Kirk)
Akemi – Yes to Me´s last blog post..Creating The New World, Part 4 Abundance
May 20th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
@ J.D., I came across the three P’s when I was doing background reading for this post. They’re definitely important, but I thought I’d save them for another post.
@ Ari, I hadn’t heard about the Kobayashi Maru until I read “The Last Lecture,” but I like the idea. I first heard about these experiments in college, though it was something about mice. The info about the dogs came from Wikipedia.
@ Akemi, I heard that Kobayashi Maru roughly translates as “small wooden ship.” I wish George Bush was smarter than those dogs!
May 20th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Ney, Kobayashi is simply a common family name. Maru is often used for names of ships, etc.
I don’t know the original Star Trek story, but my guess is its the allegory of cold war between US and USSR (depicted as the opposing side who wouldn’t listen but just start firing when the neutral zone is compromised by any reason)
Akemi – Yes to Me´s last blog post..Ask The Readers: What Is Romantic Love?
May 20th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
@ Akemi, this is what Wikipedia says: “The name is Japanese: Kobayashi (小林?) means ‘small forest’ and is a common family name; Maru (丸?) is a common suffix for Japanese ship names. As a result, Kobayashi Maru roughly translates to little wooden ship, a name that reinforces the helpless nature of the craft’s situation in the exercise.”
Maybe Kobayashi isn’t used in the sense of “small forest” these days. Yeah, it’s probably about the Cold War. The movie is from 1982, near its peak.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:30 am
I’ve always like the idea that sometimes the best thing a person can do is learn to sit back and minimize the damage. There isn’t a quick and easy solution to all things in life and sometimes there may even be no situation at all. I really liked this post, look forward to checking out some more of your stuff.
Chris´s last blog post..stones-reflection.jpg
May 21st, 2009 at 12:47 pm
The Kobayashi Maru is actually a story on audio cassette that I listened to years ago. It has the senior officers stuck on a shuttle with no hope of rescue. So to pass time each of them in turn tell their story of what they did during the test. I got the tape at the library. It’s a very interesting, entertaining story if you can find it.
May 21st, 2009 at 2:19 pm
this picture was for randy pausch? omg, he is my hero and role model. R.I.P. Randy, I am your #1 biggest fan!
May 21st, 2009 at 10:56 pm
@ Chris, true – that’s sometimes the best we can do. We have to consider the situation and decide if we can really do anything.
@ Carol, I bet that’s a great tape! Hopefully they have it on CD too.
@ R.R., always nice to meet another Randy fan!
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 am
Every now and then, you may face a situation that seems unwinnable. And maybe it is. But don’t give more power to it than you have to. Don’t be too quick to declare it as unwinnable, when there may be a solution you haven’t thought of yet.
I needed to read this today, I have situation I think is unwinnable, but I am not going to give in now
Glynis Smy´s last blog post..Flowing Words,Pressure and Endorphins
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:02 am
Great stuff Hunter! I love the analogies that really helped me connect with your message. I did cringe at the dog part, though.
It’s so easy to let live beat you into submission. This kind of encouraging content is just want we need to keep pushing forward and think outside the box.
Thanks for taking the time to do this.
Eric
Eric Hamm´s last blog post..6 Ways To Keep Simple From Getting Complex
May 24th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
@ Glynis, exactly – don’t give in because you’re eager to prove it as unwinnable. Thinking it’s winnable makes it more fun, and may influence the outcome.
@ Eric, the dog part was awful, wasn’t it? But at least we can learn something from those experiments. At the same time, we can avoid beating people/dogs/etc into submission when we know what it does to them.
May 25th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Poor dogs, but hurray for Star Trek teaching us things!
Again, poor dogs…
*cry*
May 25th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
@ Rachael, yeah, poor dogs. I think they’ve stopped that kind of thing though.
July 6th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Excellent post.
I think that the No Win is a test of your faith in yourself and those around you as well as a test of dedication. It tests how dedicated you are to a philosophy and how willing you are to “put it all on the line”. Sort of like a line I love in the musical “The Man of La Mancha”, the song “The Dream”… the line goes “To march into hell for a heavenly cause.”
Are you willing to lay down your life to save the lives of others? Or as Spock said; “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one or the few.”
Sometimes… the potential benefits outweigh the risks.
The biggest problem, though, with the No Win as presented in ST, is that EVERYONE KNOWS what it is… so everyone goes in to challenge it for just that purpose. If everyone knows the answer to the test already, then why not take chances that you would not normally take?
July 6th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
@ SamuraiMarine, good point about everyone knowing what it is. It would be interesting to have one test that’s no-win, and one that’s merely difficult, without people knowing which is which. Would people know when the situation calls for prudence vs. crazy risk taking?
July 8th, 2010 at 3:08 am
Poor dogs, but hurray for Star Trek teaching us things!
Again, poor dogs…
*cry*