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> I used to be of the opinion that the computer game Factorio was a colossal waste of talent, burning many billions of dollars of GDP every year.... But since

> I used to be of the opinion that the computer game Factorio was a colossal waste of talent, burning many billions of dollars of GDP every year.... But since trying it out a bit more I’m starting to suspect that Factorio is the rare computer game to actually increase GDP. Hell of an opener that just makes me immediately dislike this guys entire worldview. Kinda also backed up by the fact that he doesn't mention the very unsubtle commentary of you basically strip mining an alien planet clean mutating the wild life into a homicidal frenzy in desperate attempt to stop you from killing their home with pollution.

serverholic 5y ago
Some people legitimately think the purpose of life is productivity. I see quite a few on twitter and I can't help but stare and study them like some alien lifeform.
- brnt 5y ago
  They make for excellent employees. Promotion of this and similar values almost seem like they were designed for capitalists to exploit.
  - serverholic 5y ago
    For sure. I'd legitimately love to get inside their heads and see what makes them tick because it's a completely foreign mindset for me. I saw some recently on twitter who were discussing how they run their relationships like a corporate business... They have standups, 1on1's, scheduled relationship sync up meetings, etc. As if doing this bullshit during their day jobs wasn't enough.
    - pm90 5y ago
      “Don’t trust stuff you read on the internet”. I would be careful about this stuff as a lot of people are in the “productivity coach” market.
      - serverholic 5y ago
        Are you warning me so I don't get sucked into that mindset? If so then you've seriously misunderstood my comments. I despise productivity hacker, grindset culture.
- liaukovv 5y ago
  Purpose of life is reproduction Reproduction is easier in engineered environment
  - serverholic 5y ago
    Are you saying you're one of those people? If so could you tell me why you're ok with trivializing your life like that? Are you religious?
    - kqr 5y ago
      You might be using the word "purpose" in different senses. The one you're responding to likely means that "the selection bias inherent in our perspective on the world selects for traits that enhance reproduction".
- imtringued 5y ago
  I've played a game called Prosperous universe and witnessed the end of capitalism. Think about it. A game where the enjoyment is derived from economic activity and it's growth. At some point you reach the end of the tech tree. There are no new frontiers to discover. There is no need for further productivity. The game is prone to making itself redundant. If there was no base limit and bots were accepted the entire game could be played by a single player thereby eliminating the need for all other players. When you consider this inherent contradiction you really start wondering what the point of capitalism is. You reach the end and stop playing. Why haven't we stopped "playing" the same way I stopped playing? There is an existential crisis at the core of capitalism. Productivity can only exist for the sake of leisure.
avereveard 5y ago
Start a game, do absolutely nothing. Witness aliens killing you nonetheless. Aliens aren't the poor good natives, and it's so easily disproven I don't understand how it ever become to be a thing.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Drop into your local forest, do absolutely nothing. Eventually witness a wild animal kill you. Does that justify ecocide?
  - avereveard 5y ago
    Have you played the game? Biters are an infestation, if you do nothing they'll eat up the remaining available surface and destroy the local biomass. The engineer has at least a choice, and it's goal isn't infinite consumption. Sure locally a bear can get me in a forest, but I don't need ecocide to survive a bear, and neither the engineer has to to survive biters.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      I did play the game, way too much actually. The biters don't actually destroy the biomass. Canonically, in the game, they've been there forever : https://wiki.factorio.com/Enemies https://wiki.factorio.com/Enemies , so their expansion is only triggered by the arrival of the engineer. They also consume pollution, making them symbiotic with the local biomass.
- kweingar 5y ago
  In most of these colonization/industrialization games, the entire point is the thrill of taming a wild land and producing grand feats of engineering out of nothing. The survivalist framing, with mindlessly hostile natives, is just a narrative convenience to brush aside the ethical implications of invasion.
  - hyperhopper 5y ago
    I don't think a video game necessarily needs to brush aside ethics: it's a game, you're allowed to be unethical.
valyagolev 5y ago
Huizinga, the early theorist of games in culture, once remarked about contact bridge: "The incredible amount of productive social energy spent on this game could indeed be spent better, but in fact most likely would be wasted on something way worse"
kortilla 5y ago
> he doesn't mention the very unsubtle commentary of you basically strip mining an alien planet clean mutating the wild life into a homicidal frenzy in desperate attempt to stop you from killing their home with pollution. People who get hung up on this are pretty shallow though. It’s such a tiring trope of “oh no, look at how bad colonialism is”. There is a lot of good stuff to discuss about the game beyond the sophomoric analogies with the native aliens. When people are discussing things like call of duty, battlefield, etc it would be equally as idiotic to discuss “the unsubtle commentary of the horrors of war”.
- pm90 5y ago
  The game allows one to disable the wildlife, no mods required, so it’s possible to focus solely on game without dealing with it at all. However. I do think it’s a pretty amazing mechanic that the game designers put in the game, and is a great tool to shine light on the darkest aspect of the human race: our unbelievable capacity to subdue and destroy. Factorio isn’t just about being dropped in a war zone and shooting the bad guys. It’s about scaling up destruction to a planetary scale. Often unintentionally (pollution) but also intentionally (nukes). These are all very rich and interesting things to speculate on, none of it is “shallow”.
  - hyperhopper 5y ago
    What do you mean "speculate"? Seems pretty straightforward: you're polluting and killing the native life. And? Do that in real life = bad. Do that in a game = ok. I think we all know that.
    - lukeschlather 5y ago
      This post is titled "The Factorio Mindset" and the author spends a lot of time talking about why it's something positive that should be cultivated. I'm not so sure we do all know that.
      - handoflixue 5y ago
samwisedum 5y ago
Exactly, the first paragraphs read almost like satire. I found the necessity to have a devastating impact on the planet's ecosystem fascinating. Even trying a "clean run" where you minimize pollution and number of killed aliens, you can't avoid the alien native's natural expansion. It's probably impossible to win without a lot killing. That said, I don't think the game has bad intentions. It highlights the zero sum nature of resources and negatives of expansion at all costs.

serverholic 5y ago

Some people legitimately think the purpose of life is productivity. I see quite a few on twitter and I can't help but stare and study them like some alien lifeform.

brnt 5y ago
They make for excellent employees. Promotion of this and similar values almost seem like they were designed for capitalists to exploit.
- serverholic 5y ago
  For sure. I'd legitimately love to get inside their heads and see what makes them tick because it's a completely foreign mindset for me. I saw some recently on twitter who were discussing how they run their relationships like a corporate business... They have standups, 1on1's, scheduled relationship sync up meetings, etc. As if doing this bullshit during their day jobs wasn't enough.
  - pm90 5y ago
    “Don’t trust stuff you read on the internet”. I would be careful about this stuff as a lot of people are in the “productivity coach” market.
    - serverholic 5y ago
      Are you warning me so I don't get sucked into that mindset? If so then you've seriously misunderstood my comments. I despise productivity hacker, grindset culture.
liaukovv 5y ago
Purpose of life is reproduction Reproduction is easier in engineered environment
- serverholic 5y ago
  Are you saying you're one of those people? If so could you tell me why you're ok with trivializing your life like that? Are you religious?
  - kqr 5y ago
    You might be using the word "purpose" in different senses. The one you're responding to likely means that "the selection bias inherent in our perspective on the world selects for traits that enhance reproduction".
imtringued 5y ago
I've played a game called Prosperous universe and witnessed the end of capitalism. Think about it. A game where the enjoyment is derived from economic activity and it's growth. At some point you reach the end of the tech tree. There are no new frontiers to discover. There is no need for further productivity. The game is prone to making itself redundant. If there was no base limit and bots were accepted the entire game could be played by a single player thereby eliminating the need for all other players. When you consider this inherent contradiction you really start wondering what the point of capitalism is. You reach the end and stop playing. Why haven't we stopped "playing" the same way I stopped playing? There is an existential crisis at the core of capitalism. Productivity can only exist for the sake of leisure.

avereveard 5y ago

Start a game, do absolutely nothing. Witness aliens killing you nonetheless. Aliens aren't the poor good natives, and it's so easily disproven I don't understand how it ever become to be a thing.

sudosysgen 5y ago
Drop into your local forest, do absolutely nothing. Eventually witness a wild animal kill you. Does that justify ecocide?
- avereveard 5y ago
  Have you played the game? Biters are an infestation, if you do nothing they'll eat up the remaining available surface and destroy the local biomass. The engineer has at least a choice, and it's goal isn't infinite consumption. Sure locally a bear can get me in a forest, but I don't need ecocide to survive a bear, and neither the engineer has to to survive biters.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    I did play the game, way too much actually. The biters don't actually destroy the biomass. Canonically, in the game, they've been there forever : https://wiki.factorio.com/Enemies https://wiki.factorio.com/Enemies , so their expansion is only triggered by the arrival of the engineer. They also consume pollution, making them symbiotic with the local biomass.
kweingar 5y ago
In most of these colonization/industrialization games, the entire point is the thrill of taming a wild land and producing grand feats of engineering out of nothing. The survivalist framing, with mindlessly hostile natives, is just a narrative convenience to brush aside the ethical implications of invasion.
- hyperhopper 5y ago
  I don't think a video game necessarily needs to brush aside ethics: it's a game, you're allowed to be unethical.

valyagolev 5y ago

Huizinga, the early theorist of games in culture, once remarked about contact bridge: "The incredible amount of productive social energy spent on this game could indeed be spent better, but in fact most likely would be wasted on something way worse"

kortilla 5y ago

> he doesn't mention the very unsubtle commentary of you basically strip mining an alien planet clean mutating the wild life into a homicidal frenzy in desperate attempt to stop you from killing their home with pollution. People who get hung up on this are pretty shallow though. It’s such a tiring trope of “oh no, look at how bad colonialism is”. There is a lot of good stuff to discuss about the game beyond the sophomoric analogies with the native aliens. When people are discussing things like call of duty, battlefield, etc it would be equally as idiotic to discuss “the unsubtle commentary of the horrors of war”.

pm90 5y ago
The game allows one to disable the wildlife, no mods required, so it’s possible to focus solely on game without dealing with it at all. However. I do think it’s a pretty amazing mechanic that the game designers put in the game, and is a great tool to shine light on the darkest aspect of the human race: our unbelievable capacity to subdue and destroy. Factorio isn’t just about being dropped in a war zone and shooting the bad guys. It’s about scaling up destruction to a planetary scale. Often unintentionally (pollution) but also intentionally (nukes). These are all very rich and interesting things to speculate on, none of it is “shallow”.
- hyperhopper 5y ago
  What do you mean "speculate"? Seems pretty straightforward: you're polluting and killing the native life. And? Do that in real life = bad. Do that in a game = ok. I think we all know that.
  - lukeschlather 5y ago
    This post is titled "The Factorio Mindset" and the author spends a lot of time talking about why it's something positive that should be cultivated. I'm not so sure we do all know that.
    - handoflixue 5y ago

samwisedum 5y ago

Exactly, the first paragraphs read almost like satire. I found the necessity to have a devastating impact on the planet's ecosystem fascinating. Even trying a "clean run" where you minimize pollution and number of killed aliens, you can't avoid the alien native's natural expansion. It's probably impossible to win without a lot killing. That said, I don't think the game has bad intentions. It highlights the zero sum nature of resources and negatives of expansion at all costs.