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I often wonder if these types of games are sapping away the intellectual potential of humanity. They're explicitly geared to lure in the kind of obsessive tinke

I often wonder if these types of games are sapping away the intellectual potential of humanity. They're explicitly geared to lure in the kind of obsessive tinkerer types who've historically driven scientific and engineering progress. Only now, there's little to no payoff for the rest of humanity if they spend thousands of hours consumed by one of these games. What's Newton's modern equivalent doing right now? Probably perfecting a build order in Stellaris.

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
An interesting argument for it is a novel point of view! Thus please allow me to also dare an equally novel, opposite point of view: On the other hand, what does the non-tinkerer majority of humanity do to deserve the tinkerers inventing things for them instead of spending their time upon personal happiness? ;) Is it the usage of inventions to exploit, rob and kill each other which makes humanity worthy of getting more science? Certainly not :) To be more specific: I've seen the Internet before the tinkerers developed sufficient usability so the "normies" could use it. What it has become now that they're here is an abomination. HN is like a nuclear shelter, except outside its not radioactive but a giant, never-ending shitstorm. So I often wonder: Should I really try to make my software accessible to the average person? So that they can go there and use it to propagate racism and other garbage? Or rather keep it difficult to use and play Factorio or whatever instead? Tough decision to make for sure.
mywittyname 6y ago
> Only now, there's little to no payoff for the rest of humanity if they spend thousands of hours consumed by one of these games. Most people like this have jobs that they dedicate 30-60 hours a week to building things. Presumably, that's what Newton would also be doing today: working in the day and finding time to build sundials in Valheim at night. Of course, it's possible he'd end up being a Twitch streamer or something.
Trasmatta 6y ago
The alternative hypothesis is that many great minds have been introduced to the world of programming and engineering by games like Factorio, Minecraft, and Kerbal. Maybe people who would have never explored those fields otherwise. I also don't buy into the idea that if these games didn't exist, those types of people would instead be naturally spending all their time tinkering on things that would drive scientific and engineering progress.
arc-in-space 6y ago
I'd think that far more productive time of brilliant people is lost in wasteful business data shovelling jobs.
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elihu 6y ago
The payoff for humanity right now is that it gives people something to do while they're bored and socially isolated. My favorite unrealistic and whimsical solution to the pandemic is for the government to buy everyone a copy of Factorio (maybe a laptop too if they don't have one) and have vaccine eligibility order determined by how fast you launch a rocket. The entire country has a momentary national obsession with non-deadlocking rail systems, and in a couple weeks the pandemic is over because no one has left their house in that time. I do think Factorio is a good tool for understanding and appreciating supply chains and logistics. It's amazing to me that there are real-world factories producing real-world complex products like cars, and the whole process is far more complex than some optimized rocket control module production setup in Factorio. It's something most people just don't interact with, except as a consumer of the final product or maybe they have a job contributing to some tiny part of the entire production system.
kalado 6y ago
Hmm, didn't I read that exact same question on reddit earlier.

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago

An interesting argument for it is a novel point of view! Thus please allow me to also dare an equally novel, opposite point of view: On the other hand, what does the non-tinkerer majority of humanity do to deserve the tinkerers inventing things for them instead of spending their time upon personal happiness? ;) Is it the usage of inventions to exploit, rob and kill each other which makes humanity worthy of getting more science? Certainly not :) To be more specific: I've seen the Internet before the tinkerers developed sufficient usability so the "normies" could use it. What it has become now that they're here is an abomination. HN is like a nuclear shelter, except outside its not radioactive but a giant, never-ending shitstorm. So I often wonder: Should I really try to make my software accessible to the average person? So that they can go there and use it to propagate racism and other garbage? Or rather keep it difficult to use and play Factorio or whatever instead? Tough decision to make for sure.

mywittyname 6y ago

> Only now, there's little to no payoff for the rest of humanity if they spend thousands of hours consumed by one of these games. Most people like this have jobs that they dedicate 30-60 hours a week to building things. Presumably, that's what Newton would also be doing today: working in the day and finding time to build sundials in Valheim at night. Of course, it's possible he'd end up being a Twitch streamer or something.

Trasmatta 6y ago

The alternative hypothesis is that many great minds have been introduced to the world of programming and engineering by games like Factorio, Minecraft, and Kerbal. Maybe people who would have never explored those fields otherwise. I also don't buy into the idea that if these games didn't exist, those types of people would instead be naturally spending all their time tinkering on things that would drive scientific and engineering progress.

arc-in-space 6y ago

I'd think that far more productive time of brilliant people is lost in wasteful business data shovelling jobs.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

elihu 6y ago

The payoff for humanity right now is that it gives people something to do while they're bored and socially isolated. My favorite unrealistic and whimsical solution to the pandemic is for the government to buy everyone a copy of Factorio (maybe a laptop too if they don't have one) and have vaccine eligibility order determined by how fast you launch a rocket. The entire country has a momentary national obsession with non-deadlocking rail systems, and in a couple weeks the pandemic is over because no one has left their house in that time. I do think Factorio is a good tool for understanding and appreciating supply chains and logistics. It's amazing to me that there are real-world factories producing real-world complex products like cars, and the whole process is far more complex than some optimized rocket control module production setup in Factorio. It's something most people just don't interact with, except as a consumer of the final product or maybe they have a job contributing to some tiny part of the entire production system.

kalado 6y ago

Hmm, didn't I read that exact same question on reddit earlier.