5 ms·

Resource management in video games is a skill that I'm sure transfers to real world resource management. Apart from the simulators you mention strategy games li

by sdfin 9y ago

Resource management in video games is a skill that I'm sure transfers to real world resource management. Apart from the simulators you mention strategy games like age of empires and red alert also teach about it. Some weeks ago a co-worker told me something similar to what you share, how he learned about resources while playing SimCity. He also said his younger sister asked him "If people doesn't have money, why doesn't the government print money and gives it to people?". He said that playing SimCity would have prevented his sister from asking such a naive question. I also would love so see the results of research about these games on kids. Maybe someday kids will play Sim City and AoE at elementary school or similar games designed for schools.

gowld 9y ago
It's not a naive question. She was on the verge of re-inventing Keynesian Economics, which ended the Great Depression. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/keynesianeconomics.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/keynesianeconomics.asp
- icelancer 9y ago
  >> Keynesian Economics, which ended the Great Depression This is a pretty bold claim and not one that should be stated as fact.
  - gonzo41 9y ago
    Keynesian Economics kept Australia out of recession in 08. They literally gave everyone 800 bucks. It was awesome, went out a bit more, bought lots of takeout and a few bits for around the house. And the economy kept moving. Now if only i could figure out a way to get more people to live in my SIM tower!
    - roel_v 9y ago
      Yeah, I'm sure that mining boom had nothing to do with it...
    - UncleEntity 9y ago
      Why stop at 800? Give everyone a million bucks and you'd have a booming economy.
      - snarfybarfy 9y ago
        That's a bit of a lame argument, along the same lines as the 'trickle down' effect. It probably depends on whether your economy is limited by consumer demand or by insufficient investments. For most developed nations it is clearly limited by consumer demand. Giving rich people more money aka 'trickle down' won't get the rich people to invest, because there is no demand (normal people already spend more than 100% of their income) In this situation giving away money helicopter style makes sense.
  - gowld 9y ago
    What are the competing theories? The most common one is "WWII", which is another way of saying "Keynesian Economics"
    - casefields 9y ago
      Bernanke on the lessons learned: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20130710a.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke201...
    - UncleEntity 9y ago
      There's a ton of competing theories that like to point out that previous depressions lasted a year or two while the Great Depression went on and on because of all the government interventions that prevented the economy from being able to recover.
    - icelancer 9y ago
      Luck and variance are pretty good explanations, though people tend to hate them. The idea that every thing in the universe has to have a specific cause and effect plagues a lot of "analysis" in today's world. We simply aren't built for accepting luck.
- evanpw 9y ago
  Sounds more monetarist: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012615/what-difference-between-keynesian-economics-and-monetarist-economics.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012615/what-differe...
titanix2 9y ago
SimCity, Red Alert, AoE so much time playing on them. I’m not sure what they teach me but I’m confident it exposed me to problem solving and persistance which are always useful skills.
graedus 9y ago
"If people doesn't have money, why doesn't the government print money and gives it to people?" Because people are not systemically important financial institutions :)
- RandomInteger4 9y ago
  They sort of are though. It's just that a person's importance isn't individually obvious, and only becomes obvious in aggregate.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
TimmyMustGo 9y ago
It definitely is not a naive question. Printing money is precisely what the government should do. Income tax should be eliminated, it is a relic of the past. The government should fund itself not by selling bonds, which essentially is printing money that pays interest, but by simply printing money which is more direct.
- fyi1183 9y ago
  To put a finer point on it, most people still believe that (monetarily sovereign) governments are constrained by their income and by the willingness of lenders to accommodate government debt. But that view is incorrect: the real constraint to government spending is only the economy's real capacity for production. Another way to think of it is that the real constraint to government spending is inflation (because excessive government spending beyond the economy's supply capacity would lead to increased demand-pull inflation). Whatever the reason, the empirical observation in these days of low inflation seems to be that most governments aren't even close to the true limit of spending.
  - athrun 9y ago
    Uh, this is a very interesting (and intriguing) perspective. Couple of questions: - Does this mean that there’s a case for QE to be made permanent under a low-inflation environment? - Under this model, govermnents would be directly responsible for the allocation of the newly created money. How can this not lead to a depressed economic output over time? - Where can I read more about this?
    - fyi1183 9y ago
      QE: Not really. The problem with QE is that it's a purely monetary operation, so the only way it could lead to real economic growth is if it somehow lead to more lending. But arguably debt leads to instability, and besides it's like pushing on a string: it doesn't work when people don't want to borrow. It'd be better for the government to outright buy stuff or give people money. Depressing economic output: Absent inflation, economic output is proportional to overall spending, so a policy like this can't depress economic output almost by definition. However, I'd say there is a risk of directing that output towards useless things, plus there's the risk of favouritism that leads to hidden inflation via inefficiency (see also: military industrial complex). So it matters where the money is spent. Personally, I'd like to try something like a "citizen's dividend": just hand out money to all citizens equally each month (or permanent residents, you can argue the details), no questions asked and no strings attached, but vary the amount based on current inflation. That is, increase the dividend when inflation is low, scale it back when inflation rises above some target. So kind of like a UBI, but with a macroeconomic motivation rather than trying to replace the welfare system. It also appeals to me because it's a sort of direct democratic approach to macroeconomic management: people can literally vote with their wallet about how the money is spent. Where to read more: modern monetary theory is a good keyword to start with. I found Randall Wray's book very interesting. Warren Mosler's "7 deadly innocent frauds" is less academic, but it's available online and interesting since it comes from a practitioner instead of a theoretician. Though I admit it's been many years since I read either.
Nomentatus 9y ago
Playing games would have made it impossible to imagine Qualitative Easing? I played a lot of SimCity and it taught me that tradeoffs are very real and that mayors have a tough job; but it didn't stop me from independently coming up with the idea of qualitative easing as it happens. Still, I take the point, one can't use QE every time or in just any year to avoid a tradeoff - only when deflation is a real possibility.
tomjakubowski 9y ago
What? When is monetary policy ever an issue in SimCity? How does managing a city's resources, revenue, or budget teach you anything about that?

by sdfin 9y ago

gowld 9y ago

It's not a naive question. She was on the verge of re-inventing Keynesian Economics, which ended the Great Depression. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/keynesianeconomics.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/keynesianeconomics.asp

icelancer 9y ago
>> Keynesian Economics, which ended the Great Depression This is a pretty bold claim and not one that should be stated as fact.
- gonzo41 9y ago
  Keynesian Economics kept Australia out of recession in 08. They literally gave everyone 800 bucks. It was awesome, went out a bit more, bought lots of takeout and a few bits for around the house. And the economy kept moving. Now if only i could figure out a way to get more people to live in my SIM tower!
  - roel_v 9y ago
    Yeah, I'm sure that mining boom had nothing to do with it...
  - UncleEntity 9y ago
    Why stop at 800? Give everyone a million bucks and you'd have a booming economy.
    - snarfybarfy 9y ago
      That's a bit of a lame argument, along the same lines as the 'trickle down' effect. It probably depends on whether your economy is limited by consumer demand or by insufficient investments. For most developed nations it is clearly limited by consumer demand. Giving rich people more money aka 'trickle down' won't get the rich people to invest, because there is no demand (normal people already spend more than 100% of their income) In this situation giving away money helicopter style makes sense.
- gowld 9y ago
  What are the competing theories? The most common one is "WWII", which is another way of saying "Keynesian Economics"
  - casefields 9y ago
    Bernanke on the lessons learned: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20130710a.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke201...
  - UncleEntity 9y ago
    There's a ton of competing theories that like to point out that previous depressions lasted a year or two while the Great Depression went on and on because of all the government interventions that prevented the economy from being able to recover.
  - icelancer 9y ago
    Luck and variance are pretty good explanations, though people tend to hate them. The idea that every thing in the universe has to have a specific cause and effect plagues a lot of "analysis" in today's world. We simply aren't built for accepting luck.
evanpw 9y ago
Sounds more monetarist: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012615/what-difference-between-keynesian-economics-and-monetarist-economics.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012615/what-differe...

titanix2 9y ago

SimCity, Red Alert, AoE so much time playing on them. I’m not sure what they teach me but I’m confident it exposed me to problem solving and persistance which are always useful skills.

graedus 9y ago

"If people doesn't have money, why doesn't the government print money and gives it to people?" Because people are not systemically important financial institutions :)

RandomInteger4 9y ago
They sort of are though. It's just that a person's importance isn't individually obvious, and only becomes obvious in aggregate.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

TimmyMustGo 9y ago

It definitely is not a naive question. Printing money is precisely what the government should do. Income tax should be eliminated, it is a relic of the past. The government should fund itself not by selling bonds, which essentially is printing money that pays interest, but by simply printing money which is more direct.

fyi1183 9y ago
To put a finer point on it, most people still believe that (monetarily sovereign) governments are constrained by their income and by the willingness of lenders to accommodate government debt. But that view is incorrect: the real constraint to government spending is only the economy's real capacity for production. Another way to think of it is that the real constraint to government spending is inflation (because excessive government spending beyond the economy's supply capacity would lead to increased demand-pull inflation). Whatever the reason, the empirical observation in these days of low inflation seems to be that most governments aren't even close to the true limit of spending.
- athrun 9y ago
  Uh, this is a very interesting (and intriguing) perspective. Couple of questions: - Does this mean that there’s a case for QE to be made permanent under a low-inflation environment? - Under this model, govermnents would be directly responsible for the allocation of the newly created money. How can this not lead to a depressed economic output over time? - Where can I read more about this?
  - fyi1183 9y ago
    QE: Not really. The problem with QE is that it's a purely monetary operation, so the only way it could lead to real economic growth is if it somehow lead to more lending. But arguably debt leads to instability, and besides it's like pushing on a string: it doesn't work when people don't want to borrow. It'd be better for the government to outright buy stuff or give people money. Depressing economic output: Absent inflation, economic output is proportional to overall spending, so a policy like this can't depress economic output almost by definition. However, I'd say there is a risk of directing that output towards useless things, plus there's the risk of favouritism that leads to hidden inflation via inefficiency (see also: military industrial complex). So it matters where the money is spent. Personally, I'd like to try something like a "citizen's dividend": just hand out money to all citizens equally each month (or permanent residents, you can argue the details), no questions asked and no strings attached, but vary the amount based on current inflation. That is, increase the dividend when inflation is low, scale it back when inflation rises above some target. So kind of like a UBI, but with a macroeconomic motivation rather than trying to replace the welfare system. It also appeals to me because it's a sort of direct democratic approach to macroeconomic management: people can literally vote with their wallet about how the money is spent. Where to read more: modern monetary theory is a good keyword to start with. I found Randall Wray's book very interesting. Warren Mosler's "7 deadly innocent frauds" is less academic, but it's available online and interesting since it comes from a practitioner instead of a theoretician. Though I admit it's been many years since I read either.

Nomentatus 9y ago

Playing games would have made it impossible to imagine Qualitative Easing? I played a lot of SimCity and it taught me that tradeoffs are very real and that mayors have a tough job; but it didn't stop me from independently coming up with the idea of qualitative easing as it happens. Still, I take the point, one can't use QE every time or in just any year to avoid a tradeoff - only when deflation is a real possibility.

tomjakubowski 9y ago

What? When is monetary policy ever an issue in SimCity? How does managing a city's resources, revenue, or budget teach you anything about that?