9 ms·

Candy Land was invented for polio wards (2019)

80 points by EndXA 6y ago

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
Reading that article really puts the fear of Polio during this period into perspective, and honestly makes the coronavirus look like child’s play.
- vanderZwan 6y ago
  It also puts into perspective why the antivaxxer movement is so vile, regardless of what the individual people in it might have as their motivations.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    But it also sheds light on the motivation of the anti vax movement. The original polio vaccine program was dangerous... just less dangerous than the disease. As it was irradiated a tipping point was reached and the old vaccine protocol was stopped. The stories during that tipping point are the source of much antivax disinformation.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      > The original polio vaccine program was dangerous... just less dangerous than the disease. A great deal less: "Oral polio vaccines cause about three cases of vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis per million doses given.[2] This compares with 5,000 cases per million who are paralysed following a polio infection." I think "three in a million" is well below what most people would consider "safe" in most circumstances.
      - cgriswald 6y ago
        The numbers make it clear what the correct decision is, but I think you’re wrong about what people consider “safe”. People don’t think and feel about safety rationally. There is a qualitative difference between something bad happening to you and something bad happening to you because of something you did.
        toast0 6y ago
        > There is a qualitative difference between something bad happening to you and something bad happening to you because of something you did. Especially if you were pressured into doing it, and told it was safe to do only to find it caused something bad for your child is going to cause an immense amount of upset. I don't agree with the anti-vaxxers, but it seems like some people feel like they're being told what to do without their concerns being taken seriously, and so they just say no. In a lot of other situations, not going along with the group decision just because it's the group decision is praised, but in this situation it's demonized. The biggest publicized bad outcome of vaccines was determined to be rubbish, and the claimed harmful ingredents weren't harmful in that form and were illiminated; but vaccinating is not without risks and side effects, and it's reasonable to consider the risks vs the risk of the disease. Also, it's worth noting that long term vaccinne effect studies are usually about 1 year, which doesn't seem super long term, if you're concerned about tail risks. Many of the vaccines be delayed, too at increased risk of the disease of course, but with perhaps easier to manage side effects.
        vvanders 6y ago
        The problem with that though is it leads to situations like today in the US where mask wearing becomes political. It's very much a framing of I could have a small chance of something bad happen vs my community will greatly benefit if we work together.
        fzeroracer 6y ago
        I wish people would take the cases of people like Richard Rose seriously and as a warning sign for when you flaunt the virus. Because the coronavirus is not political and does not care about how you feel about masks; it'll try to kill you nonetheless. Unfortunately people will likely just shrug and go 'never gonna happen to me' until it does.
        sandworm101 6y ago
        >> and the claimed harmful ingredents weren't harmful in that form and were illiminated That sort of thing is part of the problem. A change made to appease such people is seen, by them, as confirmation of their beliefs. We are taught to "respect" the opinions of others but we cannot allow that respect to legitimize dangerous beliefs or behaviors. Doing so creates controversy where there shouldn't be, which in turn perpetuates the incorrect beliefs. There is something to be said for not giving ground, for calling out the idiots as idiots.
      - jimktrains2 6y ago
        Even disregarding what we can call "safe", a 3-in-a-million chance vs a 5,000-in-a-million chance is a significant gap. I think I read somewhere that of the fairly wide-reaching trail of the Salk vaccine, 11 people died, and those were all traced back to a contaminated/not-correctly-processed batch from a lab in California, and that didn't temper the public's enthusiasm for the trials one bit.
  - User23 6y ago
    Calling people vile is terrible persuasion. If you actually care about vaccination rates, you should come at it from a more empathetic perspective.
    - a1369209993 6y ago
      I don't think they're trying to persuade; I think they're complaining. I'd call politicians or slave traffickers vile as well, despite that I don't expect them to be at all discouraged by it.
- vikramkr 6y ago
  Covid is likely going to end up killing more americans in the first couple years than polio did in the decade of its peak (granted - a different demographic that means total years of life lost is likely less). There's also the general environment of in the early and kid 20th century, the idea that there are widespread deadly infectious diseases with no known treatment or prevention was just common. We're far less willing to accept a reality like that now after decades of success taming infectious disease. It's thanks to the advances made to fight the prior pandemics we faced that COVID seems not so bad/winnable. The conversation would be different if we didnt have an inkling of hope on the horizon, but we already have two drugs that seem to have limited efficacy, we see how well social distancing works, and are likely to have a vaccine within a few years. The fear and all is as much a function of where society is as what the disease is.
  - klenwell 6y ago
    I agree it's important not to underestimate Covid. It's occurred to me that one of the things that makes it so insidious and effective is that it is easy to confuse with more benign common illnesses like flu or cold. If it had the obvious crippling effect of polio or the more grotesque symptoms of Ebola or the kind of disease Camus describes in the plague, I suspect people would be less cavalier about it, which could have changed behavior and limited its spread here in America. Regarding Candy Land, I always loved the board art. Especially the original one pictured in the article and the version I played in 70/80's. If I wander by Candy Land in a store, I'll always pause to check out the art. I didn't like the later versions I saw. Too busy and saccharine.
    - ljf 6y ago
      I understand that gradually the thinking is moving to it being more of a whole body issue than just a lung issue - and the NICE guidelines have just been updated I to refer to the longer term impacts - though so far they don't seem the same as polio, or as common. https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20200712/First-extensive-review-of-COVID-19s-effects-on-all-affected-organs-outside-the-lungs.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20200712/First-extensi... My wife had covid, and now nearly 4 months later is still ill. 3 people recently on her online group have been able to get EKGs (not ecg) and all have shown scarring of the heart. What this means for them remains to be seen, as does if this is at all common - this could be chance or we could see more people with longer term issues coming out of this. Gut feel, I'd guess that we might see as many serious long term effects as we see deaths - but there is a long way to go before we can prove or disprove that - I really hope I am wrong.
- jimktrains2 6y ago
  I found it interesting when I learned that people were volunteering their children head over foot to trial the vaccine. That really hit home how scary this must have been, especially since it was people's kids, not themselves, being inoculated. Sure, Salk had trialed it on his own children before going public, but still, how much fear would need to loom over us for millions of people to volunteer their own children for a vaccine trial? I never thought I'd see another situation where the public would be so willing to volunteer for medical experiments, but we're pretty close now. > honestly makes the coronavirus look like child’s play. What's interesting is that the polio virus was "child's play", literally. Part of why I think so much fear loomed over it was how devastating it could be to children and how often children would come down with it. Right now child cases of covid19 are pretty low, and it's affecting mainly adults.
082349872349872 6y ago
I wonder if Candy Land might have had anything to do with Dick's Can-D? (he's said Perky Pat was directly inspired by his kids' Barbies) https://books.google.ch/books?id=jdBEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=perky+pat+philip+k+dick+barbie&source=bl&ots=kXbiVjU2ug&sig=ACfU3U0WOXzXz5WKD91i9QSvaPj71deBgg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjm9LT8g8jqAhXai1wKHXe3BhQQ6AEwBXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=perky%20pat%20philip%20k%20dick%20barbie&f=false https://books.google.ch/books?id=jdBEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA122&lpg=P...
sideshowcesil 6y ago
It was invented for polio wards and brought about diabetes.
gregmac 6y ago
I'm not sure if there's a name for this type of game, but it's purely luck based (pick a card, move to that spot), and.. I kind of hate it. Unfortunately my 5 year old doesn't. I found a variation that makes it tolerable though: pick two cards each turn, then choose one. Adds the tiniest about of strategy, and makes it not 100% luck. Hopefully useful to anyone else whose kid was gifted this game.
- joe-collins 6y ago
  Mark Rosewater, head designer for Magic: The Gathering, argues that specifically because of that total lack of agency, Candy Land doesn't even meet the definition of a game. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/what-game-2018-06-04 https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/w...
  - schoen 6y ago
    It's interesting to me that this piece doesn't explicitly mention Wittgenstein's discussion of the difficulty in defining a game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance since there might be no particular thing that all things that we call games have in common with each other. It's also interesting that in Rosewater's sense, many casino games and other gambling games aren't games because you also can't meaningfully affect their outcome. (I don't think it's at all unreasonable to say that these aren't fun in the same way or for the same reason as games that give you agency...)
    - gregmac 6y ago
      > many casino games and other gambling games aren't games because you also can't meaningfully affect their outcome I've never really thought about it, but it is definitely why I hate slot machines, in particular. The only exception to that is the first time I was in Vegas with my wife, when I was there for a conference and she tagged along to gamble. On our last (5th?) day there, she was incredulous that I hadn't gambled at all and finally I jokingly said "ok fine, here, I'll throw away a quarter if it'll make you happy!" and put it in the nearest slot machine. I won $50.
tylerjwilk00 6y ago
Candy Landy is more deterministic algorithm than a board game. Young children are mostly oblivious to this though.
pharrington 6y ago
Not too long ago some friends of mine asked me to babysit their kids (3 & 5 years old) by playing Candyland for a few minutes. The kids impromptu made up various rules about skipping turns, going in reverse, teleporting, yadda yadda, based on the board artwork around the Candyland track. It was basically playing Calvinball[1] with the Candyland board as a backdrop. I suspect that most children, after playing it once and realizing it contains 0% game, just go ahead and say to themselves, "no problem here," and fueled by the fabulous aesthetics, fantasize their own personal Candyland game in their own heads. [1]https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Calvinball https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Calvinball
- pantaloony 6y ago
  It’s good for teaching very young kids how games run. Turn-taking, rule-following. Not knowing what the next card will be holds their interest long enough to get them used to those things, at least.
  - Waterluvian 6y ago
    To both your points. One of the proudest moments of fatherhood, “dad that’s a dumb rule. Can we change it?” Chutes and ladders. My three year old asking why he had to fall down the chute again since he already did. New rule: chutes are one time only. My son then ran into a problem: remembering which chutes have been exhausted. I let him put stickers on them. Next time we play he will run into a new problem: all the stickers.
    - javadocmd 6y ago
      You invented "Chutes and Ladders: Legacy".
      - Waterluvian 6y ago
        Hilarious and genius. I’m going to pursue this angle with him.
  - 6y ago
dwighttk 6y ago
Is life Candy Land, or more like Life?
katzgrau 6y ago
Yes, pure luck, but that's kind of the fun of it. One minute you're cruising to a win and the next minute you pull the "Plumpy" card and you're back near the start of the board while everyone laughs their ass off. Such is life sometimes
- dehrmann 6y ago
  Some of my degenerate gambler friends will shuffle a deck, cut it, and the high card wins. At least it cuts to the chase.
mpettitt 6y ago
It seems to be a very uniquely American game - being from the UK, I've never seen a copy in person. From what I can tell, I'm not missing much - I think my kids would hate it, since they're happily playing Ticket to Ride and Splendor already. It does make me wonder if there are equivalent "ubiquitous" games in other countries, that are essentially unknown outside of that country - can't think of one for the UK, although I suppose you could find regions where Merrills was universally known and played.
- lilyball 6y ago
  If your kids are playing games like Ticket to Ride then I suspect they’re significantly older than the target audience for Candy Land. Candy Land is intended for kids 3+.
- taejo 6y ago
  I believe Afrikan tähti/Star of Africa is ubiquitous in Finland, but AFAICT it's almost unknown outside of the Nordic coutnries.
russfink 6y ago
I reference Candyland when explaining finite state machines to non-technical adults: state plus card determines new state; card by itself? Nope.
JKCalhoun 6y ago
> What makes it so appealing? The answer may have something to do with the game’s history Or maybe, you know, it's about candy.

80 points by EndXA 6y ago

Reading that article really puts the fear of Polio during this period into perspective, and honestly makes the coronavirus look like child’s play.

vanderZwan 6y ago
It also puts into perspective why the antivaxxer movement is so vile, regardless of what the individual people in it might have as their motivations.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  But it also sheds light on the motivation of the anti vax movement. The original polio vaccine program was dangerous... just less dangerous than the disease. As it was irradiated a tipping point was reached and the old vaccine protocol was stopped. The stories during that tipping point are the source of much antivax disinformation.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    > The original polio vaccine program was dangerous... just less dangerous than the disease. A great deal less: "Oral polio vaccines cause about three cases of vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis per million doses given.[2] This compares with 5,000 cases per million who are paralysed following a polio infection." I think "three in a million" is well below what most people would consider "safe" in most circumstances.
    - cgriswald 6y ago
      The numbers make it clear what the correct decision is, but I think you’re wrong about what people consider “safe”. People don’t think and feel about safety rationally. There is a qualitative difference between something bad happening to you and something bad happening to you because of something you did.
      - toast0 6y ago
        > There is a qualitative difference between something bad happening to you and something bad happening to you because of something you did. Especially if you were pressured into doing it, and told it was safe to do only to find it caused something bad for your child is going to cause an immense amount of upset. I don't agree with the anti-vaxxers, but it seems like some people feel like they're being told what to do without their concerns being taken seriously, and so they just say no. In a lot of other situations, not going along with the group decision just because it's the group decision is praised, but in this situation it's demonized. The biggest publicized bad outcome of vaccines was determined to be rubbish, and the claimed harmful ingredents weren't harmful in that form and were illiminated; but vaccinating is not without risks and side effects, and it's reasonable to consider the risks vs the risk of the disease. Also, it's worth noting that long term vaccinne effect studies are usually about 1 year, which doesn't seem super long term, if you're concerned about tail risks. Many of the vaccines be delayed, too at increased risk of the disease of course, but with perhaps easier to manage side effects.
        vvanders 6y ago
        The problem with that though is it leads to situations like today in the US where mask wearing becomes political. It's very much a framing of I could have a small chance of something bad happen vs my community will greatly benefit if we work together.
        fzeroracer 6y ago
        I wish people would take the cases of people like Richard Rose seriously and as a warning sign for when you flaunt the virus. Because the coronavirus is not political and does not care about how you feel about masks; it'll try to kill you nonetheless. Unfortunately people will likely just shrug and go 'never gonna happen to me' until it does.
        sandworm101 6y ago
        >> and the claimed harmful ingredents weren't harmful in that form and were illiminated That sort of thing is part of the problem. A change made to appease such people is seen, by them, as confirmation of their beliefs. We are taught to "respect" the opinions of others but we cannot allow that respect to legitimize dangerous beliefs or behaviors. Doing so creates controversy where there shouldn't be, which in turn perpetuates the incorrect beliefs. There is something to be said for not giving ground, for calling out the idiots as idiots.
    - jimktrains2 6y ago
      Even disregarding what we can call "safe", a 3-in-a-million chance vs a 5,000-in-a-million chance is a significant gap. I think I read somewhere that of the fairly wide-reaching trail of the Salk vaccine, 11 people died, and those were all traced back to a contaminated/not-correctly-processed batch from a lab in California, and that didn't temper the public's enthusiasm for the trials one bit.
- User23 6y ago
  Calling people vile is terrible persuasion. If you actually care about vaccination rates, you should come at it from a more empathetic perspective.
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    I don't think they're trying to persuade; I think they're complaining. I'd call politicians or slave traffickers vile as well, despite that I don't expect them to be at all discouraged by it.
vikramkr 6y ago
Covid is likely going to end up killing more americans in the first couple years than polio did in the decade of its peak (granted - a different demographic that means total years of life lost is likely less). There's also the general environment of in the early and kid 20th century, the idea that there are widespread deadly infectious diseases with no known treatment or prevention was just common. We're far less willing to accept a reality like that now after decades of success taming infectious disease. It's thanks to the advances made to fight the prior pandemics we faced that COVID seems not so bad/winnable. The conversation would be different if we didnt have an inkling of hope on the horizon, but we already have two drugs that seem to have limited efficacy, we see how well social distancing works, and are likely to have a vaccine within a few years. The fear and all is as much a function of where society is as what the disease is.
- klenwell 6y ago
  I agree it's important not to underestimate Covid. It's occurred to me that one of the things that makes it so insidious and effective is that it is easy to confuse with more benign common illnesses like flu or cold. If it had the obvious crippling effect of polio or the more grotesque symptoms of Ebola or the kind of disease Camus describes in the plague, I suspect people would be less cavalier about it, which could have changed behavior and limited its spread here in America. Regarding Candy Land, I always loved the board art. Especially the original one pictured in the article and the version I played in 70/80's. If I wander by Candy Land in a store, I'll always pause to check out the art. I didn't like the later versions I saw. Too busy and saccharine.
  - ljf 6y ago
    I understand that gradually the thinking is moving to it being more of a whole body issue than just a lung issue - and the NICE guidelines have just been updated I to refer to the longer term impacts - though so far they don't seem the same as polio, or as common. https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20200712/First-extensive-review-of-COVID-19s-effects-on-all-affected-organs-outside-the-lungs.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20200712/First-extensi... My wife had covid, and now nearly 4 months later is still ill. 3 people recently on her online group have been able to get EKGs (not ecg) and all have shown scarring of the heart. What this means for them remains to be seen, as does if this is at all common - this could be chance or we could see more people with longer term issues coming out of this. Gut feel, I'd guess that we might see as many serious long term effects as we see deaths - but there is a long way to go before we can prove or disprove that - I really hope I am wrong.
jimktrains2 6y ago
I found it interesting when I learned that people were volunteering their children head over foot to trial the vaccine. That really hit home how scary this must have been, especially since it was people's kids, not themselves, being inoculated. Sure, Salk had trialed it on his own children before going public, but still, how much fear would need to loom over us for millions of people to volunteer their own children for a vaccine trial? I never thought I'd see another situation where the public would be so willing to volunteer for medical experiments, but we're pretty close now. > honestly makes the coronavirus look like child’s play. What's interesting is that the polio virus was "child's play", literally. Part of why I think so much fear loomed over it was how devastating it could be to children and how often children would come down with it. Right now child cases of covid19 are pretty low, and it's affecting mainly adults.

082349872349872 6y ago

I wonder if Candy Land might have had anything to do with Dick's Can-D? (he's said Perky Pat was directly inspired by his kids' Barbies) https://books.google.ch/books?id=jdBEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=perky+pat+philip+k+dick+barbie&source=bl&ots=kXbiVjU2ug&sig=ACfU3U0WOXzXz5WKD91i9QSvaPj71deBgg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjm9LT8g8jqAhXai1wKHXe3BhQQ6AEwBXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=perky%20pat%20philip%20k%20dick%20barbie&f=false https://books.google.ch/books?id=jdBEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA122&lpg=P...

sideshowcesil 6y ago

It was invented for polio wards and brought about diabetes.

gregmac 6y ago

I'm not sure if there's a name for this type of game, but it's purely luck based (pick a card, move to that spot), and.. I kind of hate it. Unfortunately my 5 year old doesn't. I found a variation that makes it tolerable though: pick two cards each turn, then choose one. Adds the tiniest about of strategy, and makes it not 100% luck. Hopefully useful to anyone else whose kid was gifted this game.

joe-collins 6y ago
Mark Rosewater, head designer for Magic: The Gathering, argues that specifically because of that total lack of agency, Candy Land doesn't even meet the definition of a game. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/what-game-2018-06-04 https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/w...
- schoen 6y ago
  It's interesting to me that this piece doesn't explicitly mention Wittgenstein's discussion of the difficulty in defining a game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance since there might be no particular thing that all things that we call games have in common with each other. It's also interesting that in Rosewater's sense, many casino games and other gambling games aren't games because you also can't meaningfully affect their outcome. (I don't think it's at all unreasonable to say that these aren't fun in the same way or for the same reason as games that give you agency...)
  - gregmac 6y ago
    > many casino games and other gambling games aren't games because you also can't meaningfully affect their outcome I've never really thought about it, but it is definitely why I hate slot machines, in particular. The only exception to that is the first time I was in Vegas with my wife, when I was there for a conference and she tagged along to gamble. On our last (5th?) day there, she was incredulous that I hadn't gambled at all and finally I jokingly said "ok fine, here, I'll throw away a quarter if it'll make you happy!" and put it in the nearest slot machine. I won $50.

tylerjwilk00 6y ago

Candy Landy is more deterministic algorithm than a board game. Young children are mostly oblivious to this though.

pharrington 6y ago

Not too long ago some friends of mine asked me to babysit their kids (3 & 5 years old) by playing Candyland for a few minutes. The kids impromptu made up various rules about skipping turns, going in reverse, teleporting, yadda yadda, based on the board artwork around the Candyland track. It was basically playing Calvinball[1] with the Candyland board as a backdrop. I suspect that most children, after playing it once and realizing it contains 0% game, just go ahead and say to themselves, "no problem here," and fueled by the fabulous aesthetics, fantasize their own personal Candyland game in their own heads. [1]https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Calvinball https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Calvinball

pantaloony 6y ago
It’s good for teaching very young kids how games run. Turn-taking, rule-following. Not knowing what the next card will be holds their interest long enough to get them used to those things, at least.
- Waterluvian 6y ago
  To both your points. One of the proudest moments of fatherhood, “dad that’s a dumb rule. Can we change it?” Chutes and ladders. My three year old asking why he had to fall down the chute again since he already did. New rule: chutes are one time only. My son then ran into a problem: remembering which chutes have been exhausted. I let him put stickers on them. Next time we play he will run into a new problem: all the stickers.
  - javadocmd 6y ago
    You invented "Chutes and Ladders: Legacy".
    - Waterluvian 6y ago
      Hilarious and genius. I’m going to pursue this angle with him.
- 6y ago

dwighttk 6y ago

Is life Candy Land, or more like Life?

katzgrau 6y ago

Yes, pure luck, but that's kind of the fun of it. One minute you're cruising to a win and the next minute you pull the "Plumpy" card and you're back near the start of the board while everyone laughs their ass off. Such is life sometimes

dehrmann 6y ago
Some of my degenerate gambler friends will shuffle a deck, cut it, and the high card wins. At least it cuts to the chase.

mpettitt 6y ago

It seems to be a very uniquely American game - being from the UK, I've never seen a copy in person. From what I can tell, I'm not missing much - I think my kids would hate it, since they're happily playing Ticket to Ride and Splendor already. It does make me wonder if there are equivalent "ubiquitous" games in other countries, that are essentially unknown outside of that country - can't think of one for the UK, although I suppose you could find regions where Merrills was universally known and played.

lilyball 6y ago
If your kids are playing games like Ticket to Ride then I suspect they’re significantly older than the target audience for Candy Land. Candy Land is intended for kids 3+.
taejo 6y ago
I believe Afrikan tähti/Star of Africa is ubiquitous in Finland, but AFAICT it's almost unknown outside of the Nordic coutnries.

russfink 6y ago

I reference Candyland when explaining finite state machines to non-technical adults: state plus card determines new state; card by itself? Nope.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

> What makes it so appealing? The answer may have something to do with the game’s history Or maybe, you know, it's about candy.