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Except that you're talking about a game hyper-optimized to be addictive, and while I can't speak for your specific case, in general having an addiction usually

Except that you're talking about a game hyper-optimized to be addictive, and while I can't speak for your specific case, in general having an addiction usually involves said addiction being a coping mechanism to fill some kind of hole in someone's life, or avoiding the pain of some unresolved trauma. Which is not at all the same thing as being proof of humans inherently being lazy and needing self-help gurus to fix that.

istinetz 4y ago
>Except that you're talking about a game hyper-optimized to be addictive When I stopped playing dota, civ took it's place, then reddit, then tiktok, etc. I've resorted to hard blocking a long list of apps and websites. I've seen other people on hackernews having the exact same problem and stumbling upon the exact same stack of solutions. My point is, it's not the one game, it's the entire internet. >said addiction being a coping mechanism to fill some kind of hole in someone's life I've been to several therapists, which have proven useless. I don't think there is a hole in my life, besides the fact that I'm wasting my entire life on stupid shit because I procrastinate.
- hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  If you told a king from 500 years past that in the future there is a magical "other" world inside a crystal crafted by the finest of mages where conquest, diplomacy, and economics can be practiced to perfection without risking no lives nor resources but that of time, and that this endeavor is both stupid and a complete waste of time, he'd think you're not only mad, but foolish to squander such an opportunity to learn how to govern a kingdom, and by extension, yourself. Your mistake is not one of playing games, but of thinking there's nothing to be learned from doing so. Sid Meier's Civilization is not some slot machination to drain you of everything. It is the design of one of our era's greatest minds, in the pursuit of understanding the systems underlying our Earthly existence, and the democratization of that research to the fingertips of all. For someone who enjoys balancing the needs of a kingdom, you've yet to learn to balance the needs of your own body.
  - istinetz 4y ago
    I know and agree that there are lessons to be learned from civ and dota. I never said it was a complete waste of time, but it is an addiction that takes over your life. Tiktok, reddit, binging netflix, in contrast are probably directly harmful.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - throw10920 4y ago
    > conquest, diplomacy, and economics can be practiced to perfection This is a ridiculous analogy. The vast majority of video games have so little application to the real world as to be effectively useless. This is relevant in the particular case of Dota 2, which, while an incredibly interesting game, has virtually no relevance to the real world. "Virtually" because if I say "no relevance" then pedants will quickly point out that you can learn some basic economics by looking at the skin marketplace, or something. Yeah, sure, and you can learn more about human anatomy by having sex. The ratios of learning for those things compared to doing dedicated learning (textbooks, classes, internet research, practice) are at least in the ratio of 100 to 1, if not more, for all but the tiny minority of games explicitly designed to have a significantly amount of learning potential (e.g. Kerbal Space Program). Using your own analogy, if you told said king that using this crystal took you 100 to 1000 times longer to learn about things than the magical libraries that we also have available to us, which also only cost your own personal time, and then advocated for their use, he'd definitely think that you were crazy - and you would be. > It is the design of one of our era's greatest minds, in the pursuit of understanding the systems underlying our Earthly existence, and the democratization of that research to the fingertips of all. Sid Meyer is not "one of our era's greatest minds" even in the particularly narrow field of video game development. > For someone who enjoys balancing the needs of a kingdom, you've yet to learn to balance the needs of your own body. There is no "balancing the needs of a kingdom" going on. The Civilization games are optimized for entertainment first, and if educational value is optimized for at all, it's definitely not in the top 5. If you take someone who has put thousands of hours of Civilization into any position of authority (and no other relevant training), they'll a pathetic, miserable mess, and not able to keep up with someone who's read a just few dozen hours' worth of well-chosen history, economics, and military strategy books. If you could learn to rule merely by playing Civ, then American anime enthusiasts would be able to learn Japanese merely by watching anime, which virtually never happens, and it's pretty well known that it's not a feasible learning strategy.
- hoseja 4y ago
  I suspect we never had a chance or guidance to experience the fabled depths of human experience.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- vanderZwan 4y ago
  > When I stopped playing dota, civ took it's place, then reddit, then tiktok, etc These are all still examples of things hyper-optimized to have addictive feedback loops. > My point is, it's not the one game, it's the entire internet. Fair point, but the author is most strongly disagreeing with the "human nature" claim of laziness, and everything you've described so far strikes me as an external influence coopting human instinct. Kind of like how cheesecake and other hyperprocessed foods coopt our instinct to really like eating fat and sugar, which from an evolutionary standpoint was a very good instinct actually for the sake of survival until extremely recently. Should morbidly obese people lose weight for the sake of their own health? Yes. Should we shame them for being obese when healthy food is hard to come by and extremely bad food is cheap and easy to find? No. I understand how that might feel like arguing semantics when the end-result is still that you feel like it's hard to get control over your life and addictions, but the difference between blaming oneself and seeing that this is an external influence that one shouldn't hate oneself for is a very significant one.
- banannaise 4y ago
  > When I stopped playing dota, civ took it's place, then reddit, then tiktok, etc. All of which are also hyper-optimized to be addictive. Perhaps part of the problem is that you live in a world surrounded by things that are hyper-optimized to feed your addiction rather than bring you joy?
  - throw10920 4y ago
    On what grounds do you base your assertion that Civ is hyper-optimized to be addictive?
    - vanderZwan 4y ago
      Not the person you asked, but I would guess the fact that "oh shit I forgot to sleep it's six o'clock in the morning" is a universal funny-because-it's-true joke made about all Civ games since forever? "One more turn syndrome"? Honestly, on what grounds would you deny that Civ games are addictive given this common knowledge?
      - throw10920 4y ago
        This is absurd. Neither of your memes provide a shred of evidence that Civ is optimized to be addictive, which is literally the point that I was contesting in my comment. > Honestly, on what grounds would you deny that Civ games are addictive given this common knowledge? This also clearly indicates that you didn't read my comment before replying. I was exclusively referring to the claim that Civ games were optimized to be addictive - not that they "were addictive". You know what other things are addictive, despite having no intentional design put towards that end? Scrolling Hacker News, the New page on Reddit (yes, I know that Reddit has a surfacing algorithm, and it's irrelevant to the New page), many other video games that don't have free-to-play models or any other optimization, reading comics, and many other things. The fact that something is addictive for some set of the population does not imply that it was designed that way.
      - int_19h 4y ago
        "One more turn syndrome" was a thing for turn-based strategy games since basically forever; it's definitely not just Civ. I remember a semi-legendary story of a couple of teens living for 3 days on bread and kefir and no sleep because they couldn't stop playing X-COM (the original one, back in 1990s). Thing is, good games are by definition interesting. If they are more interesting than anything else you can do at that moment, that's sufficient.
throw10920 4y ago
Can you please link to evidence that Dota 2 has been "hyper-optimized to be addictive"? Because I've never seen any indication that that's what Value is doing to it, and that is highly inconsistent with my personal experience playing the game and interacting with its community.
- vanderZwan 4y ago
  I suppose it's all relative. Sure, it's not slot machine or [any recent lootbox game] levels of vile tricks, but come one, it's free-to-play. Of course it's trying to keep people hooked. I also know multiple people who had to cope with Dota addictions ruining their relationships and lives (although I do happen to know quite a few game devs, being a programmer living in Malmö, so that's a skewed demographic of gamer-oriented people). At the very least there is a vulnerable segment of society that should avoid these types of games.
  - throw10920 4y ago
    > I suppose it's all relative. No, it's not relative. "This game has been optimized for the explicit purpose of "engagement"/addiction"" is a statement that can be factually known to be true or false. > but come one, it's free-to-play. Of course it's trying to keep people hooked. That's an appeal to emotion without a logical argument behind it. The logical argument is that the survival of free-to-play games depends on the microtransaction revenue being higher than the cost to run the game. You know what directly contributes to the cost of running the game? People using the servers. Unlike social media platforms that monetize through time spent = ad impressions, free-to-play games do not want to maximize the amount of time spent playing the game, they want to maximize the amount of cosmetics that people buy, which is very different, and is not obviously connected with playtime in any research I'm aware of. > I also know multiple people who had to cope with Dota addictions ruining their relationships and lives ...which happened to me! But, as someone who is struggling with an HN addicition: something can be addicting without being purposefully designed to be that way - addictive traits do not imply that something was designed to be addictive.

istinetz 4y ago

>Except that you're talking about a game hyper-optimized to be addictive When I stopped playing dota, civ took it's place, then reddit, then tiktok, etc. I've resorted to hard blocking a long list of apps and websites. I've seen other people on hackernews having the exact same problem and stumbling upon the exact same stack of solutions. My point is, it's not the one game, it's the entire internet. >said addiction being a coping mechanism to fill some kind of hole in someone's life I've been to several therapists, which have proven useless. I don't think there is a hole in my life, besides the fact that I'm wasting my entire life on stupid shit because I procrastinate.

hypertele-Xii 4y ago
If you told a king from 500 years past that in the future there is a magical "other" world inside a crystal crafted by the finest of mages where conquest, diplomacy, and economics can be practiced to perfection without risking no lives nor resources but that of time, and that this endeavor is both stupid and a complete waste of time, he'd think you're not only mad, but foolish to squander such an opportunity to learn how to govern a kingdom, and by extension, yourself. Your mistake is not one of playing games, but of thinking there's nothing to be learned from doing so. Sid Meier's Civilization is not some slot machination to drain you of everything. It is the design of one of our era's greatest minds, in the pursuit of understanding the systems underlying our Earthly existence, and the democratization of that research to the fingertips of all. For someone who enjoys balancing the needs of a kingdom, you've yet to learn to balance the needs of your own body.
- istinetz 4y ago
  I know and agree that there are lessons to be learned from civ and dota. I never said it was a complete waste of time, but it is an addiction that takes over your life. Tiktok, reddit, binging netflix, in contrast are probably directly harmful.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- throw10920 4y ago
  > conquest, diplomacy, and economics can be practiced to perfection This is a ridiculous analogy. The vast majority of video games have so little application to the real world as to be effectively useless. This is relevant in the particular case of Dota 2, which, while an incredibly interesting game, has virtually no relevance to the real world. "Virtually" because if I say "no relevance" then pedants will quickly point out that you can learn some basic economics by looking at the skin marketplace, or something. Yeah, sure, and you can learn more about human anatomy by having sex. The ratios of learning for those things compared to doing dedicated learning (textbooks, classes, internet research, practice) are at least in the ratio of 100 to 1, if not more, for all but the tiny minority of games explicitly designed to have a significantly amount of learning potential (e.g. Kerbal Space Program). Using your own analogy, if you told said king that using this crystal took you 100 to 1000 times longer to learn about things than the magical libraries that we also have available to us, which also only cost your own personal time, and then advocated for their use, he'd definitely think that you were crazy - and you would be. > It is the design of one of our era's greatest minds, in the pursuit of understanding the systems underlying our Earthly existence, and the democratization of that research to the fingertips of all. Sid Meyer is not "one of our era's greatest minds" even in the particularly narrow field of video game development. > For someone who enjoys balancing the needs of a kingdom, you've yet to learn to balance the needs of your own body. There is no "balancing the needs of a kingdom" going on. The Civilization games are optimized for entertainment first, and if educational value is optimized for at all, it's definitely not in the top 5. If you take someone who has put thousands of hours of Civilization into any position of authority (and no other relevant training), they'll a pathetic, miserable mess, and not able to keep up with someone who's read a just few dozen hours' worth of well-chosen history, economics, and military strategy books. If you could learn to rule merely by playing Civ, then American anime enthusiasts would be able to learn Japanese merely by watching anime, which virtually never happens, and it's pretty well known that it's not a feasible learning strategy.
hoseja 4y ago
I suspect we never had a chance or guidance to experience the fabled depths of human experience.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
vanderZwan 4y ago
> When I stopped playing dota, civ took it's place, then reddit, then tiktok, etc These are all still examples of things hyper-optimized to have addictive feedback loops. > My point is, it's not the one game, it's the entire internet. Fair point, but the author is most strongly disagreeing with the "human nature" claim of laziness, and everything you've described so far strikes me as an external influence coopting human instinct. Kind of like how cheesecake and other hyperprocessed foods coopt our instinct to really like eating fat and sugar, which from an evolutionary standpoint was a very good instinct actually for the sake of survival until extremely recently. Should morbidly obese people lose weight for the sake of their own health? Yes. Should we shame them for being obese when healthy food is hard to come by and extremely bad food is cheap and easy to find? No. I understand how that might feel like arguing semantics when the end-result is still that you feel like it's hard to get control over your life and addictions, but the difference between blaming oneself and seeing that this is an external influence that one shouldn't hate oneself for is a very significant one.
banannaise 4y ago
> When I stopped playing dota, civ took it's place, then reddit, then tiktok, etc. All of which are also hyper-optimized to be addictive. Perhaps part of the problem is that you live in a world surrounded by things that are hyper-optimized to feed your addiction rather than bring you joy?
- throw10920 4y ago
  On what grounds do you base your assertion that Civ is hyper-optimized to be addictive?
  - vanderZwan 4y ago
    Not the person you asked, but I would guess the fact that "oh shit I forgot to sleep it's six o'clock in the morning" is a universal funny-because-it's-true joke made about all Civ games since forever? "One more turn syndrome"? Honestly, on what grounds would you deny that Civ games are addictive given this common knowledge?
    - throw10920 4y ago
      This is absurd. Neither of your memes provide a shred of evidence that Civ is optimized to be addictive, which is literally the point that I was contesting in my comment. > Honestly, on what grounds would you deny that Civ games are addictive given this common knowledge? This also clearly indicates that you didn't read my comment before replying. I was exclusively referring to the claim that Civ games were optimized to be addictive - not that they "were addictive". You know what other things are addictive, despite having no intentional design put towards that end? Scrolling Hacker News, the New page on Reddit (yes, I know that Reddit has a surfacing algorithm, and it's irrelevant to the New page), many other video games that don't have free-to-play models or any other optimization, reading comics, and many other things. The fact that something is addictive for some set of the population does not imply that it was designed that way.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      "One more turn syndrome" was a thing for turn-based strategy games since basically forever; it's definitely not just Civ. I remember a semi-legendary story of a couple of teens living for 3 days on bread and kefir and no sleep because they couldn't stop playing X-COM (the original one, back in 1990s). Thing is, good games are by definition interesting. If they are more interesting than anything else you can do at that moment, that's sufficient.

throw10920 4y ago

Can you please link to evidence that Dota 2 has been "hyper-optimized to be addictive"? Because I've never seen any indication that that's what Value is doing to it, and that is highly inconsistent with my personal experience playing the game and interacting with its community.

vanderZwan 4y ago
I suppose it's all relative. Sure, it's not slot machine or [any recent lootbox game] levels of vile tricks, but come one, it's free-to-play. Of course it's trying to keep people hooked. I also know multiple people who had to cope with Dota addictions ruining their relationships and lives (although I do happen to know quite a few game devs, being a programmer living in Malmö, so that's a skewed demographic of gamer-oriented people). At the very least there is a vulnerable segment of society that should avoid these types of games.
- throw10920 4y ago
  > I suppose it's all relative. No, it's not relative. "This game has been optimized for the explicit purpose of "engagement"/addiction"" is a statement that can be factually known to be true or false. > but come one, it's free-to-play. Of course it's trying to keep people hooked. That's an appeal to emotion without a logical argument behind it. The logical argument is that the survival of free-to-play games depends on the microtransaction revenue being higher than the cost to run the game. You know what directly contributes to the cost of running the game? People using the servers. Unlike social media platforms that monetize through time spent = ad impressions, free-to-play games do not want to maximize the amount of time spent playing the game, they want to maximize the amount of cosmetics that people buy, which is very different, and is not obviously connected with playtime in any research I'm aware of. > I also know multiple people who had to cope with Dota addictions ruining their relationships and lives ...which happened to me! But, as someone who is struggling with an HN addicition: something can be addicting without being purposefully designed to be that way - addictive traits do not imply that something was designed to be addictive.