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I don't agree with the positive feedback loop being THE thing about games. It's the fact that games offer a sense of progress that life does not. The skinner b

I don't agree with the positive feedback loop being THE thing about games. It's the fact that games offer a sense of progress that life does not. The skinner box implies animalistic pleasure associations that we just want to keep hitting. The progress wanting is simply desiring structure and context to your effort. They're similar but not the same.

smackeyacky 2y ago
I don't think life has no sense of progress. I've been fiddling with motor vehicles on and off over my lifetime (mid fifties now) and progressed from simple tune ups to now re-building engines. It took a long time to get the "feel" of what's right and one outright failure. But I can see the progress I've made over that relatively long space of time in that I understand much better what I'm doing and why, what is OK and what needs replacing. This progression has always been confined to the vehicles I could afford (and sometimes by necessity for that reason) but it's still there. If it was a video game the progression would be marked by the prestige of the vehicle but it isn't a game. I can see progress in my work. I'm a much better programmer now then when I was 20. I write a lot less code, it's more readable and structured in a way that makes sense rather than just works. I guess these things are elaborate Skinner boxes in themselves, but there is no reason you can't find progression and meaning at a meta level even though you have a boring job and can't afford to play with Ferraris. It's just that you have to find it for yourself. Nobody is going to be able to do that for you and it takes a conscious effort rather than just expecting it to happen.
- spywaregorilla 2y ago
  That's fair. I should have said "little" sense of progress. Practice and mastery is certainly a thing you can observe progress on. But the things people are gamifying tend not to be those things.
  - smackeyacky 2y ago
    I didn't mean my comment to come across as a criticism (my apologies), just an observation. I would agree that gamification seems to have confined itself to immediate and facile activities.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  > Nobody is going to be able to [find progression and meaning] for you and it takes a conscious effort rather than just expecting it to happen. I believe you've just given the tl;dr for Existentialism.
  - smackeyacky 2y ago
    Ha ha - imagine that the secret of true happiness is something like noticing you got better at something you enjoy. It can't be that simple, right?
    - pixl97 2y ago
      >Comparison is the thief of joy With the existence of that statement, and the truth it seems to hold, I don't think it's just about getting better but also not above overly comparing yourself to others. Of course this is why I think a lot of engagement based social media sucks because it's just a bunch of people saying how perfect their life is so they feel good.
    - 082349872349872 2y ago
      > noticing you got better at something you enjoy Everypony needs to get (and develop) their cutie mark?
- taway789aaa6 2y ago
  I feel similarly with gardening. Try growing a food forest -- it expands your mind's time horizon to try picturing your six inch tall hazelnut seedling as a 20 foot tall tree. Each year is a new feeling of progress as everything starts to bear fruit!
  - smackeyacky 2y ago
    I love this idea but I hate gardening. It just seems like such a grind to keep the weeds down and whatnot. I do forget that planting things is like an investment in your own satisfaction.
    - pixl97 2y ago
      > to keep the weeds down Heh, you need to level up your mulching skills. Especially in growing non-vegetable plants your choice of species and spacing can quite often self manage the weeds. Watching someone really good at growing is the same as watching a really good programmer to me. Little choices they make early on handle error conditions months later with little effort.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  > If it was a video game the progression would be marked by the prestige of the vehicle but it isn't a game. ca. 300 BC, Aristippus (returning from a dinner party at the palace) passes a student of Diogenes eating lentils: — You know, if you'd just learn to say what the King wants to hear, you wouldn't have to eat lentils. — How about: if you'd just learn to eat lentils, you wouldn't have to say what the King wants to hear? Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8SVYDvMVzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8SVYDvMVzY EDIT: unfortunately (unlike the Alexander/Diogenes story) there's insufficient overlap for Aristippus/Diogenes to be plausible; added "a student of".
Rury 2y ago
I think it's really about some of our biological processes which helps keep us alive. I mean, our brains are hardwired to try and keep us alive. Seeking out old information you already know is not beneficial to improving your survival. New, particularly beneficial information can be. Thus, in order to help us survive, our brains evolved a reward system to motivate us to seek new information... to learn essentially. In other words, our brains motivate us to learn, as learning helps us to survive. Thus, novelty = fun and repetition = boring. But the brain is obviously imperfect. Games and many addicting things in modern life, can hijack and play on this particular process (even harmful things).
- spywaregorilla 2y ago
  No, that's what I disagree with. The hedonic treadmill and all that crap is real. But it's not why we find games rewarding. Structured progress and achievement is a higher level construct. Gameification is largely about taking a long, possibly unending task, and trying to reframe it in a way that has structured goals. It's about mental organization. Not rewarding blips to please the monkey brain. The information bit seems irrelevant to this imo.

smackeyacky 2y ago

I don't think life has no sense of progress. I've been fiddling with motor vehicles on and off over my lifetime (mid fifties now) and progressed from simple tune ups to now re-building engines. It took a long time to get the "feel" of what's right and one outright failure. But I can see the progress I've made over that relatively long space of time in that I understand much better what I'm doing and why, what is OK and what needs replacing. This progression has always been confined to the vehicles I could afford (and sometimes by necessity for that reason) but it's still there. If it was a video game the progression would be marked by the prestige of the vehicle but it isn't a game. I can see progress in my work. I'm a much better programmer now then when I was 20. I write a lot less code, it's more readable and structured in a way that makes sense rather than just works. I guess these things are elaborate Skinner boxes in themselves, but there is no reason you can't find progression and meaning at a meta level even though you have a boring job and can't afford to play with Ferraris. It's just that you have to find it for yourself. Nobody is going to be able to do that for you and it takes a conscious effort rather than just expecting it to happen.

spywaregorilla 2y ago
That's fair. I should have said "little" sense of progress. Practice and mastery is certainly a thing you can observe progress on. But the things people are gamifying tend not to be those things.
- smackeyacky 2y ago
  I didn't mean my comment to come across as a criticism (my apologies), just an observation. I would agree that gamification seems to have confined itself to immediate and facile activities.
082349872349872 2y ago
> Nobody is going to be able to [find progression and meaning] for you and it takes a conscious effort rather than just expecting it to happen. I believe you've just given the tl;dr for Existentialism.
- smackeyacky 2y ago
  Ha ha - imagine that the secret of true happiness is something like noticing you got better at something you enjoy. It can't be that simple, right?
  - pixl97 2y ago
    >Comparison is the thief of joy With the existence of that statement, and the truth it seems to hold, I don't think it's just about getting better but also not above overly comparing yourself to others. Of course this is why I think a lot of engagement based social media sucks because it's just a bunch of people saying how perfect their life is so they feel good.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    > noticing you got better at something you enjoy Everypony needs to get (and develop) their cutie mark?
taway789aaa6 2y ago
I feel similarly with gardening. Try growing a food forest -- it expands your mind's time horizon to try picturing your six inch tall hazelnut seedling as a 20 foot tall tree. Each year is a new feeling of progress as everything starts to bear fruit!
- smackeyacky 2y ago
  I love this idea but I hate gardening. It just seems like such a grind to keep the weeds down and whatnot. I do forget that planting things is like an investment in your own satisfaction.
  - pixl97 2y ago
    > to keep the weeds down Heh, you need to level up your mulching skills. Especially in growing non-vegetable plants your choice of species and spacing can quite often self manage the weeds. Watching someone really good at growing is the same as watching a really good programmer to me. Little choices they make early on handle error conditions months later with little effort.
082349872349872 2y ago
> If it was a video game the progression would be marked by the prestige of the vehicle but it isn't a game. ca. 300 BC, Aristippus (returning from a dinner party at the palace) passes a student of Diogenes eating lentils: — You know, if you'd just learn to say what the King wants to hear, you wouldn't have to eat lentils. — How about: if you'd just learn to eat lentils, you wouldn't have to say what the King wants to hear? Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8SVYDvMVzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8SVYDvMVzY EDIT: unfortunately (unlike the Alexander/Diogenes story) there's insufficient overlap for Aristippus/Diogenes to be plausible; added "a student of".

Rury 2y ago

I think it's really about some of our biological processes which helps keep us alive. I mean, our brains are hardwired to try and keep us alive. Seeking out old information you already know is not beneficial to improving your survival. New, particularly beneficial information can be. Thus, in order to help us survive, our brains evolved a reward system to motivate us to seek new information... to learn essentially. In other words, our brains motivate us to learn, as learning helps us to survive. Thus, novelty = fun and repetition = boring. But the brain is obviously imperfect. Games and many addicting things in modern life, can hijack and play on this particular process (even harmful things).

spywaregorilla 2y ago
No, that's what I disagree with. The hedonic treadmill and all that crap is real. But it's not why we find games rewarding. Structured progress and achievement is a higher level construct. Gameification is largely about taking a long, possibly unending task, and trying to reframe it in a way that has structured goals. It's about mental organization. Not rewarding blips to please the monkey brain. The information bit seems irrelevant to this imo.