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A warning to fellow HNers that are not familiar with universal paperclips. Please don’t click the link as it will create a black time hole that will start absor
by NKosmatos 4y ago
A warning to fellow HNers that are not familiar with universal paperclips. Please don’t click the link as it will create a black time hole that will start absorbing your time and reduce your productivity.
Be warned that this isn’t a naive lazy clicker game, it’s an instrument of destruction from the future, created by our paperclip overlords :-)
- coldpie 4y agoI clicked the button until it said 30, clicked all the other buttons a few times and nothing happened, then closed the tab. I guess I'm immune. When does it get interesting?
- __MatrixMan__ 4y agoIt gets interesting once you see that hypno drones are something that you can save up for and buy. You're an AI, so the ability to influence the humans around you is useful. You'll need somewhat more than 30 paperclips to get the full story.
- coldpie 4y agoSo, the first thing happens at 31? 500?
- __MatrixMan__ 4y agoI don't know. I'm at 16,285 and stuff is happening. If you optimize your price and invest in auto clippers it shouldn't take too long to really get rolling. If the available inventory is bouncing off of 0 your price is too low, if it's growing, it's too high, so you (as an AI) are learning about market clearing price right now. Later, you'll learn other things.
- dottedmag 4y ago50 or 100
- bakkoting 4y agoThe first interesting thing happens when you have $5 of available funds. (Specifically, autoclippers become available to purchase.) When precisely you hit that point depends on how well you are managing the price to balance ensuring that your unsold inventory is getting purchased reasonably quickly against getting a reasonable amount of money per unit sold, but it will probably be less than a minute.
- coldpie 4y agoThank you. May give it another look after work.
- thallian 4y agoReading this while drinking from a universal paperclips mug, I can only sigh and agree.
- harel 4y agoThat is truth and fact... Take it from the UP survivors: don't start
- raydiatian 4y agoIf you’ve got the time it’s a quaint meditation in unbounded exponential growth. Besides, a future without hypnodrones is no future at all.
- rpastuszak 4y agoThat’s exactly what a hypnodrone would say
- aidenn0 4y agoIt's bounded, eventually we all must succumb to the drift...
- l0b0 4y agoI've played through UP twice. When it comes to time sinks, it's nowhere near the ultimate death spiral that is Kittens Game. To date it has taken me about 5 times as long as a UP playthrough (and 500+ lines of JS automation which I seem to have to tweak every day to deal with the changing economy) and I don't seem to be anywhere near the end.
- yurishimo 4y agoHave you ever played Trimps? Started a week ago and I'm hooked... I wish it had better mobile support though.
- mellavora 4y agoOMG!Why did you do it! Why did you mention the kittens! Before this moment, I was blissfully ignorant and had time to get things done, time to take walks in the sun with my wife, And now, now, mrweow!
- danuker 4y agoThe way I broke out of addiction to the Kittens game is by using save game editors, which I warmly recommend. Before that, I have spent days with it piggybacking on my brainwaves. But after that, I lost interest, feeling overwhelmed with the complexity of the game.
- joshspankit 4y agoThis has been one of the only consistently successful techniques to break game addictions.
- philsnow 4y agoI only broke my Diablo 2 addiction in college when I used one of those tools that drives your character on Mephisto runs to scum drops. In the course of one night running it unattended, I got the two items I'd been looking for for weeks. Cheating at the game broke me out of the Skinner box overnight.
- 4y ago
- adhesive_wombat 4y agoLaughs in Factorio. Honestly I think that's a game made to destroy technological economies.
- agentwiggles 4y agoHaha, what a funny thought. It's like a special productivity poison, takes some percentage of your engineers and just deactivates them. That sounds like a great premise for a sci fi short, aliens sending some nerd-snipe super stimulus to soften up Earth.
- throw2500 4y agoFrom the Wikipedia article about the multi-armed bandit problem: >Originally considered by Allied scientists in World War II, it proved so intractable that, according to Peter Whittle, the problem was proposed to be dropped over Germany so that German scientists could also waste their time on it.[13]
- Verdex 4y ago"General, the Allies have dropped pamphlets containing what our top scientists are calling a memetic infohazard." "An infohazard? Have the eggheads come up with a new term for propaganda, we've got people to handle this stuff, why are you bringing it up to me?" "Well, sir, they say this time it's different. It's not propaganda for ordinary citizens, it's a distraction for scientists and technical personal." "Okay ... do they have any recommendations?" "Yes sir, they say the only thing we need to do is make sure that the eggheads don't read it." "That's it? Well, these are men of science and discipline, that should be easy. Issue the order. I wonder why they thought it was so important that you would have to interrupt me." "I couldn't say, sir. They seemed quite agitated." Meanwhile, in the lab. "So, this folder contains an enemy memetic infohazard. In order to prevent it from taking effect we've been ordered to not read it." Several scientists give knowing glances to each other. "A real memetic infohazard? I wonder how they accomplished that?" The scientist moves towards the folder. "Wait, what are you doing? We're not supposed to read it." "It's fine. I'll be the only one reading it and then I'll let you guys know what I find." The scientist opens the folder and looks at the papers within while making several 'hmm' sounds. "Hey, Frank, what do you think of this." "No, you said you would be the only one!" "Just me and Frank. Don't be a wet blanket." Frank begins to look over the papers, "You know, I bet this applies to what Sarah has been working on. Let's go talk to her." "Wait, no. You just said ..." "Me, Frank, and Sarah, no big deal." The scientists leave the room with the folder.
- Keyframe 4y agoYou might be reading these comments and going like - huh, seems a lot of people agreeing, now I HAVE TO SEE IT. Don't. You have been warned.
- robofanatic 4y agoAnd your comment reinforced his thought. Now I HAVE to see what it is.
- robotguy 4y agoReminds me of a term I came up with years ago: Engineer Critical Mass. As soon as you get X or more engineers standing around looking at something, you will start increasingly attracting more engineers at a rate proportional to the current size of the group. Kind of like a lower level "stiction" for inquisitive gravity. At my last job X=3 and we had around 40 engineers on-site so it was pretty dangerous. At my current job X~5 maybe but we only have 2 engineers on-site, so it's safe.
- Damogran6 4y agoI've seen it, and it didn't grab me. I think I'm a special kind of stupid. Whew.
- __MatrixMan__ 4y agoI lost about a week to it the first time. It was worth it. Never has a game made its point so well as universal paperclips.
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- daveslash 4y agoMe: What is this... I don't get it....[clicks around] Me 2 min later: Well, shit.... there goes my morning.... Me 20 min later: What the hell, I've already spent 20 minutes on this thing?!? Edit: Okay, all jokes aside.... I just spent a whole hour on this. Seriously.... holy cow....
- mcrowson 4y agoFound this several times over the year$. I cannot lose another day to universal paperclip domination. not today paperclips, not today....
- loopdoend 4y ago6 hours later...
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- jarenmf 4y agoAlthough I've played it before, I was sucked into the black hole.
- Grothendank 4y agoWell, I just spent 7 hours on it before reading this warning, thanks for nothing you sick bastard! Just kidding! I just genocided a whole universe into paperclips. I've never BEEN more productive! OR MORE SELF LOATHING! SHRIEKS THE 'THRENODY FOR THE HEROES OF THE BATTLE OF SHA"DUIN'
- vikingerik 4y agoCounterpoint: Do go play Universal Paperclips. It's a long term play. You'll lose a week or so immersed in it... but it's so good that then you'll lose any taste or desire for any of the other clicker games designed for longer time spans.
- GenerocUsername 4y agoIt's about 10 hours in playtime if your being casual. More if your bad. Speedrunners have it at about 1.5 hours
- dragontamer 4y agoI'd say it took me ~3 days to complete in my first run (a few hours of play for 3 days). I've got it down to about 3 hours. Not speedrun worthy, but yeah, proof that the game is short enough to complete in one sitting if you know what you're doing.
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- sixothree 4y agoAt the very least, do _not_ do this during work hours. It looks like something you can knock out on a quick break. It is not.
- DeathArrow 4y ago>it will create a black time hole that will start absorbing your time and reduce your productivity. You can use Selenium and automate it or an user script.
- LoganDark 4y agoMy UP playthrough completed in about 28 hours :)
- DarmokJalad1701 4y agoI am one of the (lucky?) 10000. Productivity was definitely diminished in the latter half of my day.