17 ms·

What game are you playing?

353 points by Curiositry 4y ago

egypturnash 4y ago
Right now by looking at HN, I’m playing the “look into the world of people who are playing the be good at computers and sacrifice everything on the altar of making lots of money game and be glad I chose a different game”.
rektide 4y ago
One of nerd's worst problems is that the games they play really deeply matter, that their pursuits can be fantastically stunningly valuable extrinsic & intrinsic pursuits. But there's so few people playing the good games, that commit to engaging the world as naked frankly & genuinely. This post preaches recognizing others game. But few people will ever have the capacity to genuinely recignize your game. Nerds: your power asymmetry will be horribly high, and you are just going to have to learn to live with it, with obvious & visible games forever trumping your deep game. Bruce Sterling had, in a reboot talk[1], an archetype he called high tech gothic. Advanced, wired to the nines, committed & dedicated, defended in position, but trapped alone in your castle too, with unwashed barbarian hordes ravaging the lands all about. Too real, over a decade ago & the world's just gotten worse & vastly more out of touch with it's real self/tech (eg Bill Gates & Obama being vocal frontmen for ignorant state-based authoritarianist information-control). There's no signs anything will ever get better, except your belief, your caring, your trying. I am so so so mixed here. This post is such a valuable lesson, such a needed recognition of the rest of the world, of seeing other's potential. And we need to see & believe, see the different games, appreciate each other. But nerds in particular get shit for respect (or such distant respect). Right now we land some big salaries (but Facebook has stopped hiring, winds change). But our game almost always comes last. Everyone else employs us, tells us what product we're building, tells us not to do a thing directly in front of us/simple because the priority is such and such. No one can play our game. Our game always comes last. High tech gothic. Welcome to earth. Good luck. Fight the good fight. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27443836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27443836
- rubychill 4y ago
  Is it power asymmetry or is it that nerd games are over-valued by those who play them? That was my takeaway from this article, that it's easy to see investment in hard skills as innately better than soft skills.
  - iratewizard 4y ago
    Most likely the latter. I've seen a lot of people get fixated on games that are deeply flawed or straight up unfun. Yet, they find the game very appealing.
    - MonaroVXR 4y ago
      What games? I'm genuinely interested.
  - rektide 4y ago
    It depends but most nerds I see arent playing power games at all, they're playing coop. Im not in SV & maybe that has something to do with why I cant recognize the shade you are throwing, dont see nearly the ego difficulties you claim. I spoke about power imbalance, but I saw it less about as having & wielding power, & really about understanding & due respect, about escaping our High Tech Gothic & living among the earth. Yes there is a power balance. But being able to simply be recognized, seen, having anyone else out there who can rate, understand your game, much less critique or review: some games are overt, visible noticeable, but the world has only superficial stupid indicators to gauge nerds on. They literally dont have the capacity to understand the nerds game. That's high tech gothic, thats what nerds have to adapt to & thrive within.
    - switchbak 4y ago
      "They literally dont have the capacity to understand the nerds game". That's some primo tech elitism right there. I agree with the parent, that it's an interesting tale about waking up to the fact that others have been optimizing for other goals in life, and in many cases those make a ton of sense, perhaps even moreso than his science game. Your take on this however, seems to be some kind of idea that no one else can gauge or judge the depths of your contributions, etc. In fact I'm not completely sure what you're saying, but it appears to be almost the opposite of the original article. I've had my time of thinking what I do is especially valuable and unique. Then I grew up and realized we all (well, many of us) contribute to this world in our own way. A little humility goes a long way.
es7 4y ago
Science and technology and other nerdy pursuits can be really valuable, and certainly don’t require you to be judgmental of others. The problem, as I’ve seen it is that people who are bad at some of the other ‘games’ that make a meaningful life lean too heavily on science and technology as a coping mechanism. That coping mechanism could be many things: nerdy pursuits, alcohol, video games, etc. Whatever your pursuit, if you’re being judgmental of most other people, then you’re probably missing something big and should take some time to reflect on what that is for you.
- routerl 4y ago
  > Whatever your pursuit, if you’re being judgmental of most other people, then you’re probably missing something big Sure, but this may very well be intentional and good; an entire community can become pathological, and it then makes sense (and is good) for principled people to trust their judgement, even if it makes them an outcast. Liberal-minded people often had this reaction to the mid-century rise of fascism, to the point of turning that into art. I'm specifically thinking of Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionescu, but there are many other examples.
  - hans1729 4y ago
    >it then makes sense (and is good) for principled people to trust their judgement, even if it makes them an outcast. I don't get this. Being judgemental always seemed immature to me. Being curious and trying to understand why individuals or groups do seemingly irrational things: yes. Being judgemental (or "principled" (is this synonymous?)): no. To me, that was always a sign of someone who hasn't made sense of themselves yet. At what point have you made so much sense of anything that you can make a defining principle out of it? That just robs one of agency, reminding of religion and stubbornness. I get that being fixated on some idiom is helpful in avoiding mental drift and maintaining focus, but that seems like the end of the road in terms of advantages. At the same time, that fixation limits your ability to go beyond the things you felt you understood years ago, whenever the principle was cemented into your cortex. Is it a desire for deeper stability? For ground truth? Because if I look at what people actually are, no matter how intelligent they may be in some domain, what I see is not able to come up with general idioms. Not even close, actually. What I see is brains trying to make sense out of noise with extreme simplifications, rather fitting the data to their model than the other way around. I never got the advantage of saying "well now MY model fits this pattern, PERIOD!".
imwillofficial 4y ago
I’m playing StarCraft 1 over again. So great.
- Humdeee 4y ago
  The sc:bw scene in early to mid 2000s was absolutely awesome. I only hope I can find that sense of community and competition in something during my retirement years in a few decades.
  - glouwbug 4y ago
    Age of Empires 2 had a wonderful revival in 2020 and has a huge European following where the top streamers have some 300k subscribers on YouTube. The plays are on par with BW in its prime. Only difference is the first half of an Age game is slow - it focuses on the macro, and then later the micro
- dasz 4y ago
  These for me are the socialising and interrelationship games. Its part of playing the tribe game. Fwiw: We're playing starcraft as well on weekends. Lan party style. Interludes of doom and quake. Warcraft 2 as well. Cracktorio is always running. Still working out how we'll play bolo.
  - imwillofficial 4y ago
    Bring me in fam, I’ll zergling rush ya’ll
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  To steal someone else's comment... The game I'm playing is "read articles that HN users found interesting, and then see what other HN users had to say about that topic". I guess I can conclude that imwillofficial is playing is some other game. They're probably very good at it, or at least having fun.
Tr3nton 4y ago
Vague headline that leads to a navel-gazing self-congratulatory blogpost. The Y Combinator equivalent of clickbait, meant to reassure the headline reader that they're intelligent and important. Kudos!
- DantesKite 4y ago
  I didn’t read it that way at all. It felt like a thoughtful and circumspect article about the way we see others. Are you sure you’re playing the right game?
User23 4y ago
Conspicuous in its absence is the getting laid game. Or, put more healthily, the finding a spouse and starting a family game. That is of course the most consequential game most human beings have ever played or will ever play.
- all2 4y ago
  I believe it's just called "game", or "having game".
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  "Will ever" is quite the prediction. I think technology is going to completely disrupt this within the next 100-200 years. Sure players will have sex for fun, but the child birth process, genetic trait selection etc. will be on a whole new level. Your choice: will you use Meta-genetics or Google Birth?
all2 4y ago
> [...] and Edgar is the worst football player he has ever seen. [...] After Brad leaves the stadium, Edgar hits a home run, winning the game. The irony. Or the sarcasm. This is comedy gold on so many levels.
- onionisafruit 4y ago
  I think it was intentional, but I’m not entirely sure. Either way I loved it.
  - ggambetta 4y ago
    Pretty sure it is intentional - the spectator was judging the player on his performance on a game other than he was actually playing, which is the theme of the article. That's how I read it, at least.
    - darkerside 4y ago
      Definitely the point. Brad plays football and doesn't realize he is watching baseball.
- joeberon 4y ago
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Can you explain it? Is it something that's entirely dependent on understanding US-only cultural references?
  - dqpb 4y ago
    Brad and Edgar are both athletes. Brad plays football and Edgar plays baseball. Brad is watching Edgar play baseball. Edgar’s behavior indicates to Brad that Edgar is not a talented athlete. However, Brads frame of reference is football, which is not the game Edgar is playing. In the frame of reference of baseball, it turns out that Edgar is a good athlete.
metadat 4y ago
Shattered Pixel Dungeon. It's good for a procgen crawler. https://shatteredpixel.com/ https://shatteredpixel.com/ Free for Android, and desktop. iOS is five bucks. Beware: It's addictive.
- glouwbug 4y ago
  You’re being downvoted because you’re coming off as if you’re marketing. It’s okay though. Pixel dungeon is a lot of fun and well written to boot; the source is online
  - dasz 4y ago
    Which is kinda weird on HN. Plenty of startups on here and plenty of startup people. At the same time I can see why blatant adverts on here would get old fast. They aren't usually interesting comments if they're ad copy.
    - metadat 4y ago
      Fwiw, I gain nothing from sharing it.
  - metadat 4y ago
    Thanks for the insight. Downvotes aren't a problem, they don't bother me. In fact, they are a useful and welcome signal. SPD is what I've been playing casually for the past few months. It's sort of like Diablo II, on your phone. Without save/restore points, if you die it's over for that character. If you get a vampiric weapon, cherish it :). They're rare.
    - throwaway576 4y ago
  - capableweb 4y ago
    I think the downvotes are there because their post is wildly off-topic, the submission post is not "Ask HN: What video games are you playing" but about playing a totally different game: life.
photochemsyn 4y ago
Hmmm... reminds me of this movie scene: WOPR: Shall we play a game? David: ...Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War. WOPR: Wouldn't you prefer a good game of chess? David: Later. Let's play Global Thermonuclear War. WOPR: Fine.
antiverse 4y ago
OP - since you posted this, I will address you directly. You posted this with intent to do what, exactly? "Start a discussion?" And I'm looking at this fragment in particular: > For the past five years, I have been playing catch up in the games that the people around me were playing while I was playing the science game. The people I grew up around, especially the women who were least impressed with the science game, turn out not to be stupid at all, and to be far ahead of me in more enduring games, such as the understanding others game, the fathoming reality game, and the being a good person game. I’m the skinny little runt who’s just glad to get to play. I don't know if you're trying to score points with the babes with this kneeling attitude, but Science (with a capital S) and the Arts (with a capital A) are both, individually, going to endure far more, for far longer, than you give either of them credit for. Secondly, I don't know if you thought that women were stupid prior to having this epiphany that there's more than one way to live a life, and you're coming clean about some latent sexism or whatever you're going through, but if so, you might as well spell it out for us so we can drop the pretense with the starry-eyed rebirth blog post.
- noitpmeder 4y ago
  I think the author's purpose could be as simple as "don't be as quick as I was to judge other people". Did you post this with intent to sound aggressive?
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    This. There are different kinds of intelligence. Your intelligence in one area can blind you to the intelligence others have in different areas.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mym1990 4y ago
I really am trying to quit League of Legends but it sucks me back in every time.
DrBoring 4y ago
Interesting little article. To me, it speaks like the author is a bit remorseful for spending so much time on academic pursuits, and not building important social skills. I can recall in my youth making the assumption that someone was entirely stupid because they didn't share my breadth of knowledge. Like the author, I never considered that they spent their time in pursuit of other knowledge. I'm not sure where that inclination originated. It seems like a modeled behavior, but I can't think from where I learned it. Or perhaps it's just human nature, and the behavior we need to taught is to appreciate how vastly different everyone is from yourself. P.S. It's funny to see the replies to this post where the people thought the topic was "Ask HN: What video game are you playing right now?"
- DrBoring 4y ago
  P.P.S. Minecraft with my daughter. It's the first survival play-through for both of us.
  - onionisafruit 4y ago
    I did that with my oldest daughter about 10 years ago. It was a great bonding experience. Neither of us are really gamers, but we have that experience in common.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    For me it’s finally getting to see my pup do both competitive and cooperative fetch/keep away with another pup in the same play. (All the more pertinent discussion is more valuable overall, but I wanted to honor wholesome family play too)
- theWreckluse 4y ago
  I believe that he is remorseful, but for judging the world as being beneath him and not being able to see the beauty of others' games in some sense.
  - balaji1 4y ago
    how much of his judging was actually coming from within? And how much was because the society (school system mostly) around him telling academics/science was the right thing to be doing, and since he was good at those, he was somehow better and allowed to judge others... I don't even know if the society around him had the best intentions for him as an individual. Else he would have been taught better.
coderintherye 4y ago
If you find this interesting, then you would probably enjoy reading "Finite and Infinite Games" https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/1476731713 https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/...
chucksmash 4y ago
Good thought. My immediate response is "yeah, I really didn't get the games other people were playing in junior high," which is the time frame the article evokes for me. I feel like the gotcha is you have to realize - at least sometimes - that there are still games you don't get. It's easy to feel like, "at ${year - 1} I was such an idiot, glad that's over now." You'd be surprised how many years in a row you can feel that way before the meta realization sinks in. Understanding other people is like learning to play "Have You Got It Yet?"[1]: > When Pink Floyd gathered in January 1968 for one of their first rehearsals as a quintet, Barrett shared a new composition he called “Have You Got It Yet?” The song sounded straightforward, but the band became confused as they tried to join in and learn the number. The melody and structure seemed to shift on each run-through, with Barrett gleefully singing a chorus of “Have you got it yet? Have you got it yet?” at them. > Eventually they realized that Barrett was changing the arrangement each time, deliberately making the song impossible to learn. “We didn’t get it for quite a long time,” says Gilmour in Rob Chapman’s book A Very Irregular Head. “I remember the moment and the song well. It was really just a 12-bar, but the responses were always in the wrong places according to Syd. [1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/syd-barrett-10-things-you-didnt-know-about-pink-floyds-crazy-diamond-225236/ https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/syd-barrett-10-things-y...
- draw_down 4y ago
  Indeed, as well as learning to accept that there are some games you'll just never be good at. Personally, I've never been good at playing the political game at work so I don't attempt to. There are times when I can tell it's being played, but maybe not even who exactly is playing, let alone what their strategy is or what a strategy might look like. It seems difficult and not fun at all though, so I'm ok with this inability.
  - corndoge 4y ago
    not that the sentiment isn't legitimate but i wonder if your ostensible acceptance of inability is deep down a feeling of superiority for refusing to engage wrapped in mild self deprecation and faux gracious acceptance of a personal shortcoming, the acknowledgement of which is itself mildly performative - a wrapper perhaps palatable to this audience due to familiarity but distasteful to most others
booboofixer 4y ago
There was a comment on HN about a year ago by somebody that grew up in India, and being Pakistani i relate to it a lot as well. Specifically, it mentioned that these 'games' and people choosing one or two games out of a great number of games available out there seems like a uniquely North American thing (as far as we can tell from our own limited exposure to other societies). So while you folks had the jock, the nerd, the artist etc. , we had schools, teachers and parents that taught us we should strive to excel at everything, i.e. play every game and try to play it well. Its a little disappointing to be put into a bucket by North American folks because they assume everyone is good at just one or two games. Not trying to be disrespectful, but i personally also think a little less of people that take so long to come to the realization that the author did in the article. A little ironic, if you think about it.
- koonsolo 4y ago
  I'm from EU, and I agree with you that this is a North American thing.
  - chrisco255 4y ago
    When you say North America, does that include Mexico and Cuba and Canada? Or are we talking the USA here?
    - koonsolo 4y ago
      USA. No idea that Canada has this same mentality. Good thing I didn't use "America" ;).
      - arcosdev 4y ago
        Very alive and well in Canada. Canadian and US culture have many similarities.
  - t-3 4y ago
    I'm from the US, and it's a hollywood thing.
trh0awayman 4y ago
This just reminds me of The Last Psychiatrist's description of narcissism - everyone fulfills a "role" in a "game", the result of being unable to truly love others and unable to fully comprehend a self outside of ones own.
patrck 4y ago
Recognizing the games that others are playing is useful, however refining your own games seems the much better play. What are your personal win conditions? What are the odds and your confidence in those odds that those will remain stable for the rest of your life? Are any inconsistent with the other conditions? Are all your win conditions attainable? Can you create a simple-to-follow path that leads to those win conditions and avoids going near loss conditiions? Will that path clash with any other people's win conditions paths? Makes me respect game worlds designed so people can play however they wish.
- darkerside 4y ago
  If you understand the other games out there, you may find you are playing the wrong one. Hard to decide that if you don't know all the games.
  - patrck 4y ago
    True. Was angling for that with the "that those will remain stable". It seems easier to personally define what one thinks winning is, and then evaluate (and modify if possible) the games we come across.
    - darkerside 4y ago
      I've found that constraints breed creativity. In my experience, choosing from existing choices, and modifying them to fit, is way easier than imagining the perfect thing in a vacuum. Although potentially less powerful and transformative.
      - patrck 4y ago
        Definitely. Nobody likes forklift upgrades in PROD. Unless it's a complete wreck and one's much better off moving to a different country or the like. Even smaller, more incremental experiments can be difficult to imagine. eg. beyond a multitool, smartphone, and computer, what additional things have high value? The multitool has high unexpected utility in that I would have predicted near zero and I now use it all the time. So it's likely that I am blind to other possible improvements.
davidkuennen 4y ago
I play 1-2 games of Teamfight Tactics or League of Legends per day. I love the limited time for each game. It's perfect for relaxation. You just play a game which takes around 20-30 minutes and after that you can decide to play another one or quit for the day.
- ahahahahah 4y ago
  Great! That has nothing to do with the article, though.
- sunshinerag 4y ago
  Err. Did you read the article?
- jholman 4y ago
  The game I'm playing is "read articles that HN users found interesting, and then see what other HN users had to say about that topic". I guess I can conclude that davidkuennen is playing is some other game. They're probably very good at it, or at least having fun.
  - davidkuennen 4y ago
    Busted. I will use this as a lesson to improve. :-)
    - throwaway576 4y ago
  - xnorswap 4y ago
    Yes, you're playing a losing game. Others read headlines, form their opinions and decide what they want to say, then come to the comments to say it. Usually they scan the comments to check they're on topic, then give their pre-formed opinion. Sometimes they'll instead share that they had a different idea about a different topic if the comments reveal they were mistaken about the topic. Occasionally they'll find another comment to reply to instead so they can further discuss their pre-formed opinions. Almost never they'll actually read the article more than a quick scan. Actually reading a whole article first before commenting is playing a losing game. You'll lose out to those who simply scan an article far enough to find a hook they can respond to. By the time you actually read, digest and respond to an article, the community will have largely moved on. The scan-until-hook crowd will appear more informed than the post-without-reading-a-word" crowd while maintaining much of the speed advantage of the non-readers. Simply giving pre-formed opinions and only if the commentary signal is strong enough then actually opening the article is a better strategy from a game theory perspective. It's a shame and there are times I feel compelled to fight back against it, but that doesn't always go well either. As you say, they're just playing a different game. Some may say I should take heed from the article and look for the perspective that makes that okay, but I prefer informed opinions rather than everyone's favourite pet arguments endlessly rehashed.
everdrive 4y ago
I've often observed that people mistake "intelligence" for - "knowing the things that I know" - "coming to the same conclusions as me" You can see the "knowing the things that I know" most often in professional settings. "If this guy were smart, he'd know how to do XYZ." Knowledge and intelligence are not the same, but I encounter this bias on a very regular basis. You can see the "coming to the same conclusions as me" most often in the moral and political sphere. Clearly if someone were intelligent, they would draw the "right" conclusion, as I have. Real intelligence is the capacity for complexity, pattern recognition, and speed of cognition; none of these guarantee either of the two above conditions.
- miguelmurca 4y ago
  The converse fallacy is also, I believe, true. "This person knows how to do XYZ, therefore they're smart" (in a more general sense; good at "other games", as it were), is something that took me time to understand to be false. And I think your last paragraph reflects this fallacy: > Real intelligence is the capacity for complexity, pattern recognition, and speed of cognition; none of these guarantee either of the two above conditions. These are criteria I would give to be good at mathematics, not necessarily a kind person, or cultured person, or good team member. Of course, I may be hair-splitting at what you mean by "smart" (and I'm sorry for that), but I think this is the angle the article is also taking.
  - tremon 4y ago
    You also need the same capacity for complexity, pattern recognition, and speed of cognition to be a good salesman, diplomat, or journalist: reading body language, picking up subtle cues and immediately changing your course of action during a conversation requires that same real intelligence. So to me, it's not so much hair-splitting as having a narrow focus of what those capacities can be used for.
  - everdrive 4y ago
    >Of course, I may be hair-splitting at what you mean by "smart" (and I'm sorry for that), but I think this is the angle the article is also taking. That is not what I meant to convey, but there's also no need to be sorry. This is a pretty nuanced topic, and I only offered a few sentences. I would agree with you: it is very easy for people to misjudge the intelligence of others, especially when that intelligence falls in other "realms." (eg: mathematics vs. managerial skill, etc.) To that extent, I am simply agreeing with the article, and adding my own observations.
uwagar 4y ago
slow cycling.
mlatu 4y ago
Playing real life games like "who's first to get a BMW" sucks ass. Sure, you play it hard and you win, and then? You have a shitty car that will eventually break down. I cannot see the point in owning a car other than owning a means of transportation. Owning loads of wealth in general?: Yay claps you did well, now share with the rest of class you stingy pos. Accumulating stuff on your person in any way can make you become a jerk. Don't play games, live life. There are to many players already and the only true winning condition is to have everyone win.
- JackMorgan 4y ago
  A few of my friends seem to conspicuously avoid the trappings of material wealth, but constantly work to retire early on a modest budget. They'll play old games on old PCs, watch Netflix, hang out, volunteer, work (but not too hard), and eat cheap food. They've acquired (or are saving for) millions in investments. They would argue that they should put on their own mask before helping those next to them. I don't think of them as selfish, and I'm not sure it's fair to think that way. Maybe stingy, but buying freedom from the wage treadmill to be able to raise a family isn't selfish, they would argue it's an essential freedom many are denied. If everyone could win that would be amazing, but short of political change what would you suggest I tell them to do? Live frugally and give away all they have? Would actually make any difference at all? For every one of these friends I know of a hundred others who blow every extra dollar on stupid luxuries that are gone instantly. The savers wouldn't be able to raise the standard of living of even a tiny fraction of the spenders.
  - mlatu 4y ago
    :shrugs: why should i tell you what to tell your friends? they are your friends, you know their triggers better than I do. tldr: i dislike the game-playing mentality and advocate more cooperation. i just see all the idiots running to the ticket booth and treading on the flower beds to not just watch "the game" but to "participate" in it, even though nobody but themself really cares about the outcome of their own personal little game. (so why get tickets if you dont watch the game? why not just do your thing for your own sake?). i especially despise the get-rich folk while people on the other side of the planet have to get by and live off of the trash sent there by "better off civilizations". of course every single one of us has only that much leverage in the global game of personal survival, but the idea that we have to win the survival game by our own doing, without the help of others, is global poison. It is easy to win any game when you were born into the winning team, midgame. you cannot play the get rich game only locally, it should come with a sticker on the box: "this game requires a herd of exploited (not included)"; and you wont be able to play for long if the exploited have equal rights and proximity to you
unixhero 4y ago
Well Command and Conquer Remastered, of course!
notorandit 4y ago
moria
daedlanth 4y ago
I am playing real life DND with an old witch right now.
engineer_22 4y ago
The realization that there is more than one game, yes that's a good one. Then it's time to understand the differences between games and describe them. So this post reminds me of a famous book by James P Carse does just that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games
kalimanzaro 4y ago
Dont know if its just me, but I observed that, in general, that the people who were into the Math (or even theoretical CS) game as kids feel less regret when they grow up, compared to those who were into the STEM minus M game. Maybe they realized at the getgo the math game was a game? Or maybe adult world cost-over-benefits are less harsh for mathgamers haha. Disclosure: I was/am in the science game and I dont feel like I missed out, not even socially, heck, not even at dating.
kalimanzaro 4y ago
Not particularly OT but not really offtopic either.. have you noticed that mathematicians( and logicians, and quite less so but still programmers) can be mentally very ill and and still become famous for their work? Not so much for other scientists..
- leowbattle 4y ago
  One example of a programmer who was very mentally ill is Terry Davis, known for creating TempleOS.
jslakro 4y ago
Strong facts here. Awesome article, thx
thenerdhead 4y ago
I like to think that nobody really knows what they are doing. Sure there's intentions to play and "win" at certain games. This is especially true when you start talking to top performers of respective games. While you might perceive someone "winning" at a particular game, they may have little clue as to what they are even doing in the first place, but their grit and luck in doing it has paid off in the long run. While the author may be playing "catch up", this same perception may be true from other perspectives. That the author had "won" at the science game and all others may be playing catch up. What's even more interesting to me is talking to people you went to high school with and seeing their perspective of what "game" you won at.
- scruple 4y ago
  > I like to think that nobody really knows what they are doing. I disagree. I've been in calls with some executive level folks in the last few months, and the table stakes are very high for these people, and they exercise a lot of control, where they were absolutely treating conversations as a game of chess to be won. The problem for a low-rank engineer like myself (and sure, I'm a tech lead but that's roughly equivalent to mid-level management, not even a Director role where I work) is that we don't even know the rules to the game, we don't know what the winning strategies and tactics are, we don't even really know what winning looks like until well after someone won.
hypertexthero 4y ago
Microsoft Flight Simulator, cleaning apartment, DCS, feeding cats and cleaning litter box and spending time giving them attention, IL-2 Sturmovik, walking in the forest nearby, Elden Ring, cooking a large enough lunch so leftovers will last for a few more meals, Noita, personal website gardening, Zelda BoTW, photographing out on the streets, that Open Golf game that was on the front page the other day, playing guitar, No Man’s Sky, calling friends and family, Arma coop with friends, drawing and setting type, Project Zomboid, one day at a time, Balsa Model Flight Simulator, thinking about kindness towards others no matter what, Elite: Dangerous, reading a book now and again, trying to make the most of limited time on dust speck floating about space and and to remember that happiness is momentary. Keep talking. When in doubt, move.
nbulka 4y ago
Diablo 2
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> It can seem like the game I’m playing is The Game. I just lost the game.
ostenning 4y ago
Chess.com absolutely addicted
givemeethekeys 4y ago
Just life. I'm working pretty long hours these days. I make time to go on walks. I'd love to go for a surf but am unable to put aside more than an hour.

353 points by Curiositry 4y ago

Right now by looking at HN, I’m playing the “look into the world of people who are playing the be good at computers and sacrifice everything on the altar of making lots of money game and be glad I chose a different game”.

rektide 4y ago

One of nerd's worst problems is that the games they play really deeply matter, that their pursuits can be fantastically stunningly valuable extrinsic & intrinsic pursuits. But there's so few people playing the good games, that commit to engaging the world as naked frankly & genuinely. This post preaches recognizing others game. But few people will ever have the capacity to genuinely recignize your game. Nerds: your power asymmetry will be horribly high, and you are just going to have to learn to live with it, with obvious & visible games forever trumping your deep game. Bruce Sterling had, in a reboot talk[1], an archetype he called high tech gothic. Advanced, wired to the nines, committed & dedicated, defended in position, but trapped alone in your castle too, with unwashed barbarian hordes ravaging the lands all about. Too real, over a decade ago & the world's just gotten worse & vastly more out of touch with it's real self/tech (eg Bill Gates & Obama being vocal frontmen for ignorant state-based authoritarianist information-control). There's no signs anything will ever get better, except your belief, your caring, your trying. I am so so so mixed here. This post is such a valuable lesson, such a needed recognition of the rest of the world, of seeing other's potential. And we need to see & believe, see the different games, appreciate each other. But nerds in particular get shit for respect (or such distant respect). Right now we land some big salaries (but Facebook has stopped hiring, winds change). But our game almost always comes last. Everyone else employs us, tells us what product we're building, tells us not to do a thing directly in front of us/simple because the priority is such and such. No one can play our game. Our game always comes last. High tech gothic. Welcome to earth. Good luck. Fight the good fight. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27443836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27443836

rubychill 4y ago
Is it power asymmetry or is it that nerd games are over-valued by those who play them? That was my takeaway from this article, that it's easy to see investment in hard skills as innately better than soft skills.
- iratewizard 4y ago
  Most likely the latter. I've seen a lot of people get fixated on games that are deeply flawed or straight up unfun. Yet, they find the game very appealing.
  - MonaroVXR 4y ago
    What games? I'm genuinely interested.
- rektide 4y ago
  It depends but most nerds I see arent playing power games at all, they're playing coop. Im not in SV & maybe that has something to do with why I cant recognize the shade you are throwing, dont see nearly the ego difficulties you claim. I spoke about power imbalance, but I saw it less about as having & wielding power, & really about understanding & due respect, about escaping our High Tech Gothic & living among the earth. Yes there is a power balance. But being able to simply be recognized, seen, having anyone else out there who can rate, understand your game, much less critique or review: some games are overt, visible noticeable, but the world has only superficial stupid indicators to gauge nerds on. They literally dont have the capacity to understand the nerds game. That's high tech gothic, thats what nerds have to adapt to & thrive within.
  - switchbak 4y ago
    "They literally dont have the capacity to understand the nerds game". That's some primo tech elitism right there. I agree with the parent, that it's an interesting tale about waking up to the fact that others have been optimizing for other goals in life, and in many cases those make a ton of sense, perhaps even moreso than his science game. Your take on this however, seems to be some kind of idea that no one else can gauge or judge the depths of your contributions, etc. In fact I'm not completely sure what you're saying, but it appears to be almost the opposite of the original article. I've had my time of thinking what I do is especially valuable and unique. Then I grew up and realized we all (well, many of us) contribute to this world in our own way. A little humility goes a long way.

es7 4y ago

Science and technology and other nerdy pursuits can be really valuable, and certainly don’t require you to be judgmental of others. The problem, as I’ve seen it is that people who are bad at some of the other ‘games’ that make a meaningful life lean too heavily on science and technology as a coping mechanism. That coping mechanism could be many things: nerdy pursuits, alcohol, video games, etc. Whatever your pursuit, if you’re being judgmental of most other people, then you’re probably missing something big and should take some time to reflect on what that is for you.

routerl 4y ago
> Whatever your pursuit, if you’re being judgmental of most other people, then you’re probably missing something big Sure, but this may very well be intentional and good; an entire community can become pathological, and it then makes sense (and is good) for principled people to trust their judgement, even if it makes them an outcast. Liberal-minded people often had this reaction to the mid-century rise of fascism, to the point of turning that into art. I'm specifically thinking of Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionescu, but there are many other examples.
- hans1729 4y ago
  >it then makes sense (and is good) for principled people to trust their judgement, even if it makes them an outcast. I don't get this. Being judgemental always seemed immature to me. Being curious and trying to understand why individuals or groups do seemingly irrational things: yes. Being judgemental (or "principled" (is this synonymous?)): no. To me, that was always a sign of someone who hasn't made sense of themselves yet. At what point have you made so much sense of anything that you can make a defining principle out of it? That just robs one of agency, reminding of religion and stubbornness. I get that being fixated on some idiom is helpful in avoiding mental drift and maintaining focus, but that seems like the end of the road in terms of advantages. At the same time, that fixation limits your ability to go beyond the things you felt you understood years ago, whenever the principle was cemented into your cortex. Is it a desire for deeper stability? For ground truth? Because if I look at what people actually are, no matter how intelligent they may be in some domain, what I see is not able to come up with general idioms. Not even close, actually. What I see is brains trying to make sense out of noise with extreme simplifications, rather fitting the data to their model than the other way around. I never got the advantage of saying "well now MY model fits this pattern, PERIOD!".

imwillofficial 4y ago

I’m playing StarCraft 1 over again. So great.

Humdeee 4y ago
The sc:bw scene in early to mid 2000s was absolutely awesome. I only hope I can find that sense of community and competition in something during my retirement years in a few decades.
- glouwbug 4y ago
  Age of Empires 2 had a wonderful revival in 2020 and has a huge European following where the top streamers have some 300k subscribers on YouTube. The plays are on par with BW in its prime. Only difference is the first half of an Age game is slow - it focuses on the macro, and then later the micro
dasz 4y ago
These for me are the socialising and interrelationship games. Its part of playing the tribe game. Fwiw: We're playing starcraft as well on weekends. Lan party style. Interludes of doom and quake. Warcraft 2 as well. Cracktorio is always running. Still working out how we'll play bolo.
- imwillofficial 4y ago
  Bring me in fam, I’ll zergling rush ya’ll
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
To steal someone else's comment... The game I'm playing is "read articles that HN users found interesting, and then see what other HN users had to say about that topic". I guess I can conclude that imwillofficial is playing is some other game. They're probably very good at it, or at least having fun.

Tr3nton 4y ago

Vague headline that leads to a navel-gazing self-congratulatory blogpost. The Y Combinator equivalent of clickbait, meant to reassure the headline reader that they're intelligent and important. Kudos!

DantesKite 4y ago
I didn’t read it that way at all. It felt like a thoughtful and circumspect article about the way we see others. Are you sure you’re playing the right game?

User23 4y ago

Conspicuous in its absence is the getting laid game. Or, put more healthily, the finding a spouse and starting a family game. That is of course the most consequential game most human beings have ever played or will ever play.

all2 4y ago
I believe it's just called "game", or "having game".
quickthrower2 4y ago
"Will ever" is quite the prediction. I think technology is going to completely disrupt this within the next 100-200 years. Sure players will have sex for fun, but the child birth process, genetic trait selection etc. will be on a whole new level. Your choice: will you use Meta-genetics or Google Birth?

all2 4y ago

> [...] and Edgar is the worst football player he has ever seen. [...] After Brad leaves the stadium, Edgar hits a home run, winning the game. The irony. Or the sarcasm. This is comedy gold on so many levels.

onionisafruit 4y ago
I think it was intentional, but I’m not entirely sure. Either way I loved it.
- ggambetta 4y ago
  Pretty sure it is intentional - the spectator was judging the player on his performance on a game other than he was actually playing, which is the theme of the article. That's how I read it, at least.
  - darkerside 4y ago
    Definitely the point. Brad plays football and doesn't realize he is watching baseball.
joeberon 4y ago
Gordonjcp 4y ago
Can you explain it? Is it something that's entirely dependent on understanding US-only cultural references?
- dqpb 4y ago
  Brad and Edgar are both athletes. Brad plays football and Edgar plays baseball. Brad is watching Edgar play baseball. Edgar’s behavior indicates to Brad that Edgar is not a talented athlete. However, Brads frame of reference is football, which is not the game Edgar is playing. In the frame of reference of baseball, it turns out that Edgar is a good athlete.

metadat 4y ago

Shattered Pixel Dungeon. It's good for a procgen crawler. https://shatteredpixel.com/ https://shatteredpixel.com/ Free for Android, and desktop. iOS is five bucks. Beware: It's addictive.

glouwbug 4y ago
You’re being downvoted because you’re coming off as if you’re marketing. It’s okay though. Pixel dungeon is a lot of fun and well written to boot; the source is online
- dasz 4y ago
  Which is kinda weird on HN. Plenty of startups on here and plenty of startup people. At the same time I can see why blatant adverts on here would get old fast. They aren't usually interesting comments if they're ad copy.
  - metadat 4y ago
    Fwiw, I gain nothing from sharing it.
- metadat 4y ago
  Thanks for the insight. Downvotes aren't a problem, they don't bother me. In fact, they are a useful and welcome signal. SPD is what I've been playing casually for the past few months. It's sort of like Diablo II, on your phone. Without save/restore points, if you die it's over for that character. If you get a vampiric weapon, cherish it :). They're rare.
  - throwaway576 4y ago
- capableweb 4y ago
  I think the downvotes are there because their post is wildly off-topic, the submission post is not "Ask HN: What video games are you playing" but about playing a totally different game: life.

photochemsyn 4y ago

Hmmm... reminds me of this movie scene: WOPR: Shall we play a game? David: ...Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War. WOPR: Wouldn't you prefer a good game of chess? David: Later. Let's play Global Thermonuclear War. WOPR: Fine.

antiverse 4y ago

OP - since you posted this, I will address you directly. You posted this with intent to do what, exactly? "Start a discussion?" And I'm looking at this fragment in particular: > For the past five years, I have been playing catch up in the games that the people around me were playing while I was playing the science game. The people I grew up around, especially the women who were least impressed with the science game, turn out not to be stupid at all, and to be far ahead of me in more enduring games, such as the understanding others game, the fathoming reality game, and the being a good person game. I’m the skinny little runt who’s just glad to get to play. I don't know if you're trying to score points with the babes with this kneeling attitude, but Science (with a capital S) and the Arts (with a capital A) are both, individually, going to endure far more, for far longer, than you give either of them credit for. Secondly, I don't know if you thought that women were stupid prior to having this epiphany that there's more than one way to live a life, and you're coming clean about some latent sexism or whatever you're going through, but if so, you might as well spell it out for us so we can drop the pretense with the starry-eyed rebirth blog post.

noitpmeder 4y ago
I think the author's purpose could be as simple as "don't be as quick as I was to judge other people". Did you post this with intent to sound aggressive?
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  This. There are different kinds of intelligence. Your intelligence in one area can blind you to the intelligence others have in different areas.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

mym1990 4y ago

I really am trying to quit League of Legends but it sucks me back in every time.

DrBoring 4y ago

Interesting little article. To me, it speaks like the author is a bit remorseful for spending so much time on academic pursuits, and not building important social skills. I can recall in my youth making the assumption that someone was entirely stupid because they didn't share my breadth of knowledge. Like the author, I never considered that they spent their time in pursuit of other knowledge. I'm not sure where that inclination originated. It seems like a modeled behavior, but I can't think from where I learned it. Or perhaps it's just human nature, and the behavior we need to taught is to appreciate how vastly different everyone is from yourself. P.S. It's funny to see the replies to this post where the people thought the topic was "Ask HN: What video game are you playing right now?"

DrBoring 4y ago
P.P.S. Minecraft with my daughter. It's the first survival play-through for both of us.
- onionisafruit 4y ago
  I did that with my oldest daughter about 10 years ago. It was a great bonding experience. Neither of us are really gamers, but we have that experience in common.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  For me it’s finally getting to see my pup do both competitive and cooperative fetch/keep away with another pup in the same play. (All the more pertinent discussion is more valuable overall, but I wanted to honor wholesome family play too)
theWreckluse 4y ago
I believe that he is remorseful, but for judging the world as being beneath him and not being able to see the beauty of others' games in some sense.
- balaji1 4y ago
  how much of his judging was actually coming from within? And how much was because the society (school system mostly) around him telling academics/science was the right thing to be doing, and since he was good at those, he was somehow better and allowed to judge others... I don't even know if the society around him had the best intentions for him as an individual. Else he would have been taught better.

coderintherye 4y ago

If you find this interesting, then you would probably enjoy reading "Finite and Infinite Games" https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/1476731713 https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/...

chucksmash 4y ago

Good thought. My immediate response is "yeah, I really didn't get the games other people were playing in junior high," which is the time frame the article evokes for me. I feel like the gotcha is you have to realize - at least sometimes - that there are still games you don't get. It's easy to feel like, "at ${year - 1} I was such an idiot, glad that's over now." You'd be surprised how many years in a row you can feel that way before the meta realization sinks in. Understanding other people is like learning to play "Have You Got It Yet?"[1]: > When Pink Floyd gathered in January 1968 for one of their first rehearsals as a quintet, Barrett shared a new composition he called “Have You Got It Yet?” The song sounded straightforward, but the band became confused as they tried to join in and learn the number. The melody and structure seemed to shift on each run-through, with Barrett gleefully singing a chorus of “Have you got it yet? Have you got it yet?” at them. > Eventually they realized that Barrett was changing the arrangement each time, deliberately making the song impossible to learn. “We didn’t get it for quite a long time,” says Gilmour in Rob Chapman’s book A Very Irregular Head. “I remember the moment and the song well. It was really just a 12-bar, but the responses were always in the wrong places according to Syd. [1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/syd-barrett-10-things-you-didnt-know-about-pink-floyds-crazy-diamond-225236/ https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/syd-barrett-10-things-y...

draw_down 4y ago
Indeed, as well as learning to accept that there are some games you'll just never be good at. Personally, I've never been good at playing the political game at work so I don't attempt to. There are times when I can tell it's being played, but maybe not even who exactly is playing, let alone what their strategy is or what a strategy might look like. It seems difficult and not fun at all though, so I'm ok with this inability.
- corndoge 4y ago
  not that the sentiment isn't legitimate but i wonder if your ostensible acceptance of inability is deep down a feeling of superiority for refusing to engage wrapped in mild self deprecation and faux gracious acceptance of a personal shortcoming, the acknowledgement of which is itself mildly performative - a wrapper perhaps palatable to this audience due to familiarity but distasteful to most others

booboofixer 4y ago

There was a comment on HN about a year ago by somebody that grew up in India, and being Pakistani i relate to it a lot as well. Specifically, it mentioned that these 'games' and people choosing one or two games out of a great number of games available out there seems like a uniquely North American thing (as far as we can tell from our own limited exposure to other societies). So while you folks had the jock, the nerd, the artist etc. , we had schools, teachers and parents that taught us we should strive to excel at everything, i.e. play every game and try to play it well. Its a little disappointing to be put into a bucket by North American folks because they assume everyone is good at just one or two games. Not trying to be disrespectful, but i personally also think a little less of people that take so long to come to the realization that the author did in the article. A little ironic, if you think about it.

koonsolo 4y ago
I'm from EU, and I agree with you that this is a North American thing.
- chrisco255 4y ago
  When you say North America, does that include Mexico and Cuba and Canada? Or are we talking the USA here?
  - koonsolo 4y ago
    USA. No idea that Canada has this same mentality. Good thing I didn't use "America" ;).
    - arcosdev 4y ago
      Very alive and well in Canada. Canadian and US culture have many similarities.
- t-3 4y ago
  I'm from the US, and it's a hollywood thing.

trh0awayman 4y ago

This just reminds me of The Last Psychiatrist's description of narcissism - everyone fulfills a "role" in a "game", the result of being unable to truly love others and unable to fully comprehend a self outside of ones own.

patrck 4y ago

Recognizing the games that others are playing is useful, however refining your own games seems the much better play. What are your personal win conditions? What are the odds and your confidence in those odds that those will remain stable for the rest of your life? Are any inconsistent with the other conditions? Are all your win conditions attainable? Can you create a simple-to-follow path that leads to those win conditions and avoids going near loss conditiions? Will that path clash with any other people's win conditions paths? Makes me respect game worlds designed so people can play however they wish.

darkerside 4y ago
If you understand the other games out there, you may find you are playing the wrong one. Hard to decide that if you don't know all the games.
- patrck 4y ago
  True. Was angling for that with the "that those will remain stable". It seems easier to personally define what one thinks winning is, and then evaluate (and modify if possible) the games we come across.
  - darkerside 4y ago
    I've found that constraints breed creativity. In my experience, choosing from existing choices, and modifying them to fit, is way easier than imagining the perfect thing in a vacuum. Although potentially less powerful and transformative.
    - patrck 4y ago
      Definitely. Nobody likes forklift upgrades in PROD. Unless it's a complete wreck and one's much better off moving to a different country or the like. Even smaller, more incremental experiments can be difficult to imagine. eg. beyond a multitool, smartphone, and computer, what additional things have high value? The multitool has high unexpected utility in that I would have predicted near zero and I now use it all the time. So it's likely that I am blind to other possible improvements.

davidkuennen 4y ago

I play 1-2 games of Teamfight Tactics or League of Legends per day. I love the limited time for each game. It's perfect for relaxation. You just play a game which takes around 20-30 minutes and after that you can decide to play another one or quit for the day.

ahahahahah 4y ago
Great! That has nothing to do with the article, though.
sunshinerag 4y ago
Err. Did you read the article?
jholman 4y ago
The game I'm playing is "read articles that HN users found interesting, and then see what other HN users had to say about that topic". I guess I can conclude that davidkuennen is playing is some other game. They're probably very good at it, or at least having fun.
- davidkuennen 4y ago
  Busted. I will use this as a lesson to improve. :-)
  - throwaway576 4y ago
- xnorswap 4y ago
  Yes, you're playing a losing game. Others read headlines, form their opinions and decide what they want to say, then come to the comments to say it. Usually they scan the comments to check they're on topic, then give their pre-formed opinion. Sometimes they'll instead share that they had a different idea about a different topic if the comments reveal they were mistaken about the topic. Occasionally they'll find another comment to reply to instead so they can further discuss their pre-formed opinions. Almost never they'll actually read the article more than a quick scan. Actually reading a whole article first before commenting is playing a losing game. You'll lose out to those who simply scan an article far enough to find a hook they can respond to. By the time you actually read, digest and respond to an article, the community will have largely moved on. The scan-until-hook crowd will appear more informed than the post-without-reading-a-word" crowd while maintaining much of the speed advantage of the non-readers. Simply giving pre-formed opinions and only if the commentary signal is strong enough then actually opening the article is a better strategy from a game theory perspective. It's a shame and there are times I feel compelled to fight back against it, but that doesn't always go well either. As you say, they're just playing a different game. Some may say I should take heed from the article and look for the perspective that makes that okay, but I prefer informed opinions rather than everyone's favourite pet arguments endlessly rehashed.

everdrive 4y ago

I've often observed that people mistake "intelligence" for - "knowing the things that I know" - "coming to the same conclusions as me" You can see the "knowing the things that I know" most often in professional settings. "If this guy were smart, he'd know how to do XYZ." Knowledge and intelligence are not the same, but I encounter this bias on a very regular basis. You can see the "coming to the same conclusions as me" most often in the moral and political sphere. Clearly if someone were intelligent, they would draw the "right" conclusion, as I have. Real intelligence is the capacity for complexity, pattern recognition, and speed of cognition; none of these guarantee either of the two above conditions.

miguelmurca 4y ago
The converse fallacy is also, I believe, true. "This person knows how to do XYZ, therefore they're smart" (in a more general sense; good at "other games", as it were), is something that took me time to understand to be false. And I think your last paragraph reflects this fallacy: > Real intelligence is the capacity for complexity, pattern recognition, and speed of cognition; none of these guarantee either of the two above conditions. These are criteria I would give to be good at mathematics, not necessarily a kind person, or cultured person, or good team member. Of course, I may be hair-splitting at what you mean by "smart" (and I'm sorry for that), but I think this is the angle the article is also taking.
- tremon 4y ago
  You also need the same capacity for complexity, pattern recognition, and speed of cognition to be a good salesman, diplomat, or journalist: reading body language, picking up subtle cues and immediately changing your course of action during a conversation requires that same real intelligence. So to me, it's not so much hair-splitting as having a narrow focus of what those capacities can be used for.
- everdrive 4y ago
  >Of course, I may be hair-splitting at what you mean by "smart" (and I'm sorry for that), but I think this is the angle the article is also taking. That is not what I meant to convey, but there's also no need to be sorry. This is a pretty nuanced topic, and I only offered a few sentences. I would agree with you: it is very easy for people to misjudge the intelligence of others, especially when that intelligence falls in other "realms." (eg: mathematics vs. managerial skill, etc.) To that extent, I am simply agreeing with the article, and adding my own observations.

uwagar 4y ago

slow cycling.

mlatu 4y ago

Playing real life games like "who's first to get a BMW" sucks ass. Sure, you play it hard and you win, and then? You have a shitty car that will eventually break down. I cannot see the point in owning a car other than owning a means of transportation. Owning loads of wealth in general?: Yay claps you did well, now share with the rest of class you stingy pos. Accumulating stuff on your person in any way can make you become a jerk. Don't play games, live life. There are to many players already and the only true winning condition is to have everyone win.

JackMorgan 4y ago
A few of my friends seem to conspicuously avoid the trappings of material wealth, but constantly work to retire early on a modest budget. They'll play old games on old PCs, watch Netflix, hang out, volunteer, work (but not too hard), and eat cheap food. They've acquired (or are saving for) millions in investments. They would argue that they should put on their own mask before helping those next to them. I don't think of them as selfish, and I'm not sure it's fair to think that way. Maybe stingy, but buying freedom from the wage treadmill to be able to raise a family isn't selfish, they would argue it's an essential freedom many are denied. If everyone could win that would be amazing, but short of political change what would you suggest I tell them to do? Live frugally and give away all they have? Would actually make any difference at all? For every one of these friends I know of a hundred others who blow every extra dollar on stupid luxuries that are gone instantly. The savers wouldn't be able to raise the standard of living of even a tiny fraction of the spenders.
- mlatu 4y ago
  :shrugs: why should i tell you what to tell your friends? they are your friends, you know their triggers better than I do. tldr: i dislike the game-playing mentality and advocate more cooperation. i just see all the idiots running to the ticket booth and treading on the flower beds to not just watch "the game" but to "participate" in it, even though nobody but themself really cares about the outcome of their own personal little game. (so why get tickets if you dont watch the game? why not just do your thing for your own sake?). i especially despise the get-rich folk while people on the other side of the planet have to get by and live off of the trash sent there by "better off civilizations". of course every single one of us has only that much leverage in the global game of personal survival, but the idea that we have to win the survival game by our own doing, without the help of others, is global poison. It is easy to win any game when you were born into the winning team, midgame. you cannot play the get rich game only locally, it should come with a sticker on the box: "this game requires a herd of exploited (not included)"; and you wont be able to play for long if the exploited have equal rights and proximity to you

unixhero 4y ago

Well Command and Conquer Remastered, of course!

notorandit 4y ago

moria

daedlanth 4y ago

I am playing real life DND with an old witch right now.

engineer_22 4y ago

The realization that there is more than one game, yes that's a good one. Then it's time to understand the differences between games and describe them. So this post reminds me of a famous book by James P Carse does just that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games

kalimanzaro 4y ago

Dont know if its just me, but I observed that, in general, that the people who were into the Math (or even theoretical CS) game as kids feel less regret when they grow up, compared to those who were into the STEM minus M game. Maybe they realized at the getgo the math game was a game? Or maybe adult world cost-over-benefits are less harsh for mathgamers haha. Disclosure: I was/am in the science game and I dont feel like I missed out, not even socially, heck, not even at dating.

kalimanzaro 4y ago

Not particularly OT but not really offtopic either.. have you noticed that mathematicians( and logicians, and quite less so but still programmers) can be mentally very ill and and still become famous for their work? Not so much for other scientists..

leowbattle 4y ago
One example of a programmer who was very mentally ill is Terry Davis, known for creating TempleOS.

jslakro 4y ago

Strong facts here. Awesome article, thx

thenerdhead 4y ago

I like to think that nobody really knows what they are doing. Sure there's intentions to play and "win" at certain games. This is especially true when you start talking to top performers of respective games. While you might perceive someone "winning" at a particular game, they may have little clue as to what they are even doing in the first place, but their grit and luck in doing it has paid off in the long run. While the author may be playing "catch up", this same perception may be true from other perspectives. That the author had "won" at the science game and all others may be playing catch up. What's even more interesting to me is talking to people you went to high school with and seeing their perspective of what "game" you won at.

scruple 4y ago
> I like to think that nobody really knows what they are doing. I disagree. I've been in calls with some executive level folks in the last few months, and the table stakes are very high for these people, and they exercise a lot of control, where they were absolutely treating conversations as a game of chess to be won. The problem for a low-rank engineer like myself (and sure, I'm a tech lead but that's roughly equivalent to mid-level management, not even a Director role where I work) is that we don't even know the rules to the game, we don't know what the winning strategies and tactics are, we don't even really know what winning looks like until well after someone won.

hypertexthero 4y ago

Microsoft Flight Simulator, cleaning apartment, DCS, feeding cats and cleaning litter box and spending time giving them attention, IL-2 Sturmovik, walking in the forest nearby, Elden Ring, cooking a large enough lunch so leftovers will last for a few more meals, Noita, personal website gardening, Zelda BoTW, photographing out on the streets, that Open Golf game that was on the front page the other day, playing guitar, No Man’s Sky, calling friends and family, Arma coop with friends, drawing and setting type, Project Zomboid, one day at a time, Balsa Model Flight Simulator, thinking about kindness towards others no matter what, Elite: Dangerous, reading a book now and again, trying to make the most of limited time on dust speck floating about space and and to remember that happiness is momentary. Keep talking. When in doubt, move.

nbulka 4y ago

Diablo 2

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

> It can seem like the game I’m playing is The Game. I just lost the game.

ostenning 4y ago

Chess.com absolutely addicted

givemeethekeys 4y ago

Just life. I'm working pretty long hours these days. I make time to go on walks. I'd love to go for a surf but am unable to put aside more than an hour.