The Berne books Rao cites as explanations of Gametalk are solidly good entries in of themselves, although it's probably best to use an LLM to get search results of the best introductions to TA first to see if they've been surpassed.

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gsf_emergency_7 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Adhering to the predictable/ritualistic/comfortable nature of "Gametalk",

Here's one question I asked:

"How does Eric Berne's Gametalk as interpreted by Venkatesh Rao signal to the sociopaths that those who engage in them are losers worth talking to? Distinguish between "channels" that Eric has identified as well as new signals that Rao or others have discovered."

https://youtu.be/9B3oem_56jg?t=52s

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hrimfaxi an hour ago | parent [-]

Can you expand on your included youtube link? It's not clear the relationship.

	▲	gsf_emergency_7 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I'll admit the connection is loose, personally found it amusing because: Mike is the archetypal nihilist (Sociopath), the other two would potentially be engaging in a Clueless interaction if Mike wasn't there, according to the Scott/Rao theory of jokes, you need 3 for a Loser joke. The preceding banter seems to be more of a Loser Gametalk: no social status is at stake; it's irrelevant to their white-collar role. Mike's intervention is typical of a sociopath; the wall breaking joke is that these Losers don't know what his real job is. If they did, the pointless but playful debate would have died right there-- because it'd get too real If these were Clueless middle managers debating their value to their company, it might even be out of character for Mike to notice them..