I agree. My take on this essay is that it is but an early milestone on the path to enlightenment. It asks an interesting question, but ends in a total cop-out,

I agree. My take on this essay is that it is but an early milestone on the path to enlightenment. It asks an interesting question, but ends in a total cop-out, where the author literally claims that divining the meaning of life is "easy": The easy part to culling the bullshit is to ask yourself: Is this activity making a positive, tangible difference in my life or anyone else’s life? Easy for him, maybe. It's fine to make the limited argument that certain games devolve a bit too quickly into flavorless tickling of the brain's pleasure centers. So long as you are clearly arguing about taste in game design, not about the ultimate meaning of life. But when you decide to delve further, to the point that you've argued not just that crack cocaine and MMORPGs are ultimately meaningless, but also that education, money, casual acquaintances, success, and writing comments on HN are ultimately meaningless, shouldn't you keep going until you get to the end? Which would be something like: All achievement is porn; that is, it is ultimately empty. Although I would never phrase it that way; I prefer a more classical phrasing, like this [1]: Life means suffering. The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof. Now that is a general principle. --- [1] I cribbed these lines from http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourtruths.html http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourtruths.html , because that's what came up in Google. There are probably a few other sources... ;)