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I see this clearly at kids birthday parties whenever there is a piñata. Adults hate them. All they see is the goal and the incredibly inefficient path the kids

I see this clearly at kids birthday parties whenever there is a piñata. Adults hate them. All they see is the goal and the incredibly inefficient path the kids are taking towards it. But the kids love it, they don’t care when they miss, they are just enjoying hitting something with a stick. And every miss heightens the excitement for the eventual lolly scramble.

galaxyLogic 23d ago
The British rock-band Traffic said it in their "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" : "... we were children once, playing with toys". I wonder if it's true that people don't remember. People maybe remember but don't want to talk about it. It is such a cognitive dissonance.
- sublinear 23d ago
  Everyone remembers, but ADHD is overrepresented in the high-level positions of leadership.
  - baliex 23d ago
    I can’t tell if you’re implying that those with ADHD are more likely or less likely to think and act in a childlike way. Or whether doing so or not is what causes the over representation in high level positions. Could you please elaborate? My understanding is that ADHD would make you more likely to behave in childlike ways as an adult, but not that that would necessarily lead to holding leadership positions. I’m genuinely very interested in your thoughts.
    - sublinear 23d ago
      I'm not going to argue splitting hairs about what ADHD is. Many of the most famous CEOs and startup founders have properly diagnosed ADHD and have been very vocal about it. This is also often true of any business owner you've met in real life. I didn't think this statement would get any pushback since not too long ago the front page of HN was touting this as a "superpower". The high-functioning expression of impulsivity is impatience with processes and insistence on maximum efficiency. I guess lately this is seen as negative because of the zeitgeist around AI? Tao is talking about this impatience. > Prematurely putting such games to an end by immediately providing the nominal goal --- for instance, providing these children with a brief lecture on infinity and the unbounded nature of the natural numbers --- defeats the entire "purpose" of such curiosity-driven play It's not that they don't remember playing as children, but that they resent the time spent on it as "wasteful". They do mean well by trying to squash play time, but yes of course that's harmful and naive.
  - setopt 23d ago
    Do you have a source for that? My experience has been that people with ADHD are rather underrepresented, the ones who are overrepresented are rather hyper-extroverts that sometimes present similarly, but that do not have the same impulse control challenges (impossible to focus on boring tasks, hyperfocus on fun tasks) as someone with true ADHD.
- ErroneousBosh 23d ago
  Runrig's song "Fichead Bliadhna", too, but that's more kind of a protest song: Ruith sa mhonadh, ruith nam beann ’S mar sin dhan sgoil aig deireadh samhraidh Nar clann aig còig bliadhna dh’aois ’S gun facal Beurla nar ceann translated: Freedom of the moor, freedom of the hills (Ruith is literally "running" though) And off to school at summer's end As children of five years old And not a word of English in our heads Particularly resonant with me as my 6-year-old cycles off to school for the second month of Primary 2. Quite a wrench to have to deal with sitting still and listening to the teacher when it's 20° outside and sunny and there are bikes and toy cars and mud and sticks. At least some twenty years later by the late 70s when I was that age they actually were teaching Gaelic in schools again instead of literally beating it out of people, and now my son is in a Gaelic-medium class in school making it one of the three languages he speaks.
  - nephihaha 23d ago
    Run of the moors, run of the hills And like that to school at summer's end Us being children of five years of age Without a word of English in our heads That's my literal translation anyway. I was talking to an American yesterday who couldn't understand the concept of the Highlands yesterday. His whole idea was of a place presented magically but with little more than funny accents in it. I tried to get over to him all the history of suppression, eviction, lack of economic development etc... but the big one is cultural. If the Highlands lose their culture (and they already have largely) then they are indistinguishable from anywhere else.
    - ErroneousBosh 22d ago
      I mean make him read Hallaig by Somhairle MacGill-eain. And, ideally, go and visit a cleared township. https://maps.app.goo.gl/nc8uhBogrBCjgjYs9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/nc8uhBogrBCjgjYs9 I used to walk out there most weekends when I was at school. Until about 175 years ago, those were homes. Families lived there. The white dots you see are sheep, which is of course why families don't live there now. Good Gaelic, incidentally, where did you speak it?
CalRobert 23d ago
What?!?!? Piñatas are awesome! And as people who emigrated from California it’s usually a fun novelty for the local Dutchies to see (though I see them in local stores now too!)
cbolton 23d ago
It never occurred to me to consider efficiency in piñata, but I dislike them because it's making a game out of violence.
- Computer0 23d ago
  As a child I did not see it as violent
  - locknitpicker 23d ago
    > As a child I did not see it as violent That's the problem. Hitting a tied up animal until it breaks is clearly a violent affair, similar how hanging puppets in nooses or putting a doll in a guillotine. I'm sure that there are kids growing up in places where bullfights are common thinking that torturing and killing a bull in a party-like atmosphere is fine.
    - tyre 23d ago
      One of the incredible powers of childlike imagination is the ability to differentiate between hitting a piñata and hitting an actual animal.
      - locknitpicker 23d ago
        > One of the incredible powers of childlike imagination is the ability to differentiate between hitting a piñata and hitting an actual animal. People get arrested for hanging dolls on trees with nooses around their necks. Some are prosecuted as hate crimes. Do you think this is an issue from a lack of childlike imagination?
    - applfanboysbgon 23d ago
      Do you see Pokemon as encouraging a culture of accepting dogfighting/cockfighting rings?
      - 23d ago
tyrabound 23d ago
Genuinely, what kind of miserable people are you around when even at a children’s birthday there is this kind of obsessive fixation going on? You really may want to think about if you are around people who are genuinely good for you and your children. I’m not surprised though, over the years I have noticed a notable shift towards the controlling and narcissistic spectrums of parents. I’m not totally sure why that is, but it seems to be definitely happening and it’s also rather clear to me that it’s a rather “American” toxic nature, probably due to the sick and perverse obsession with besting, outdoing, greedily wanting and needing more and shinier things than “the Joneses”, the obsession with celebrity and fame and money. It all contributes to the diseased state of society and “culture”, if you can call obsession with corporate outputs that. But anyways, just let kids have their moment of fun, people, their identity and soul will be crushed by the “American” indoctrination and propaganda machine soon enough and they will become like the drone adults. Let them be human for at least a couple years of their lives.
- graemep 23d ago
  I think you are right about it being miserable people. People who have forgotten how to have fun and just enjoy life. I think its linked to the hustle culture, and the need to constantly do something (even if its just doomscrolling). There is also a tendency to treat children as a strange species rather than as human beings. I think that is older but its become worse as people come up with more and more parenting approaches, write books and make videos about it, etc. Its sadly not just an American problem. At the very least an Anglophone problem.
Al-Khwarizmi 23d ago
I get piñatas, but there is an extreme version of this that I find just too much. Not sure in other places, but in Spain there is a kind of fair stall where children use a plastic fishing rod with a magnet or hook to catch some plastic ducks with the corresponding magnet or hook. The ducks have some points and give you rewards, but the payoff is terrible - maybe you spend €10 and you get a gift that you could buy for €2 at the neighborhood shops. And the fun part with the fishing lasts like 20 seconds, no more, and it's individual, there isn't even a competition or anything, no time limit, etc. Just catch three ducks and see how many points they give you. My 7-year-old son (who by the way loves math) always wants to go there. I can't help but explain that the payoff is horrendous from any point of view, and he understands and doesn't argue against it, but he still insists. Sometimes I convince him by offering alternatives, but sometimes I have to cave because he seems to like it so much. But man, spending euros on that stings, I have the feeling that the people who run the stall must be laughing at all the suckers who fall into the trap.
- shifto 23d ago
  My kids love something like this we see every year at the traveling fair. It's the same idea but with rubber duckies floating around and having to catch them with a small pole with a hook attached. It's €20 for 2 kids to have 2 minutes of fun and the payoff is a €1 Aliexpress/Temu pollution generator disguised as a toy. They play with it for a day before it ends up in the trash. The first few years I hated this for exactly the reasons you mention, but now I'm just happy they are happy. I think I have a few more years left before they don't want to go rubber ducky fishing with their dad no more and I doubt by then €20 gets me 2 minutes of joy with them.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 23d ago
    In fact it's the same thing. I said fish by mistake (probably because my mind made an association with the fishing rod and what it's usually used for) but they're ducks. I have edited the comment now.
  - throw0101a 23d ago
    > It's €20 for 2 kids to have 2 minutes of fun […] They play with it for a day […] Seems to me it's €20 for a day (8h? 16h?) of fun. That's not bad value: how much does a movie ticket cost for 2-3 hours?
deleted 23d ago
[deleted]
wizardforhire 23d ago
Adults have piñatas… theyre called starups
throw0101a 23d ago
> And every miss heightens the excitement for the eventual lolly scramble. People under-appreciate (or have forgotten) that a lot of happiness is is related to anticipating as opposed to getting. I think if more people focused on the journey or the process (or the (present) moment), versus the goal, there'd be more joy/happiness around.
- steveBK123 23d ago
  > People under-appreciate (or have forgotten) that a lot of happiness is is related to anticipating as opposed to getting Shoppers & hobbyists who spend too much time browsing gear are well aware of this though generally don't like to admit it to themselves... There was (I believe) a Korean app for people to fake shop so they get all the dopamine of the hunt without the cost of actually buying anything.
  - ethbr1 23d ago
    HeisenShop sounds like a great app idea for shopaholics -- automatically don't buy / cancel random or exceeding-monthly-budget items without telling the user.
  - hydrogen7800 23d ago
    I began and ended many hobbies in the novelty phase by endlessly reading about them, shopping, comparing features, etc. that I eventually became bored with them before spending a dollar. I got (almost) the whole novelty phase for free.
    - steveBK123 23d ago
      I've also found new hobbies sometimes allow cheaper gadget purchases / higher enjoyment-per-dollar than buying more junk for longtime hobbies. The logical mechanism for me was - a hobby I've done 30 years I have probably upgraded through various classes of equipment such that anything left to buy is expensive. For a new hobby I am back to buying little $100 gizmos again. Doesn't work for some hobbies that have a higher cost of entry.
  - 22d ago
groestl 23d ago
I hate them because I seem to be the only adult that sees the kid kicking out another kid's teeth, or hurting them elsewhere.
aaron695 23d ago
[dead]
timoth3y 23d ago
> they are just enjoying hitting something with a stick This is truly one of life's under-appreciated little pleasures!
BigTTYGothGF 23d ago
Because of circumstances I was involved in running several birthday parties for children these past few years. All of them had pinatas. In my experience: > Adults hate them This is absolutely not the case.

galaxyLogic 23d ago

The British rock-band Traffic said it in their "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" : "... we were children once, playing with toys". I wonder if it's true that people don't remember. People maybe remember but don't want to talk about it. It is such a cognitive dissonance.

sublinear 23d ago
Everyone remembers, but ADHD is overrepresented in the high-level positions of leadership.
- baliex 23d ago
  I can’t tell if you’re implying that those with ADHD are more likely or less likely to think and act in a childlike way. Or whether doing so or not is what causes the over representation in high level positions. Could you please elaborate? My understanding is that ADHD would make you more likely to behave in childlike ways as an adult, but not that that would necessarily lead to holding leadership positions. I’m genuinely very interested in your thoughts.
  - sublinear 23d ago
    I'm not going to argue splitting hairs about what ADHD is. Many of the most famous CEOs and startup founders have properly diagnosed ADHD and have been very vocal about it. This is also often true of any business owner you've met in real life. I didn't think this statement would get any pushback since not too long ago the front page of HN was touting this as a "superpower". The high-functioning expression of impulsivity is impatience with processes and insistence on maximum efficiency. I guess lately this is seen as negative because of the zeitgeist around AI? Tao is talking about this impatience. > Prematurely putting such games to an end by immediately providing the nominal goal --- for instance, providing these children with a brief lecture on infinity and the unbounded nature of the natural numbers --- defeats the entire "purpose" of such curiosity-driven play It's not that they don't remember playing as children, but that they resent the time spent on it as "wasteful". They do mean well by trying to squash play time, but yes of course that's harmful and naive.
- setopt 23d ago
  Do you have a source for that? My experience has been that people with ADHD are rather underrepresented, the ones who are overrepresented are rather hyper-extroverts that sometimes present similarly, but that do not have the same impulse control challenges (impossible to focus on boring tasks, hyperfocus on fun tasks) as someone with true ADHD.
ErroneousBosh 23d ago
Runrig's song "Fichead Bliadhna", too, but that's more kind of a protest song: Ruith sa mhonadh, ruith nam beann ’S mar sin dhan sgoil aig deireadh samhraidh Nar clann aig còig bliadhna dh’aois ’S gun facal Beurla nar ceann translated: Freedom of the moor, freedom of the hills (Ruith is literally "running" though) And off to school at summer's end As children of five years old And not a word of English in our heads Particularly resonant with me as my 6-year-old cycles off to school for the second month of Primary 2. Quite a wrench to have to deal with sitting still and listening to the teacher when it's 20° outside and sunny and there are bikes and toy cars and mud and sticks. At least some twenty years later by the late 70s when I was that age they actually were teaching Gaelic in schools again instead of literally beating it out of people, and now my son is in a Gaelic-medium class in school making it one of the three languages he speaks.
- nephihaha 23d ago
  Run of the moors, run of the hills And like that to school at summer's end Us being children of five years of age Without a word of English in our heads That's my literal translation anyway. I was talking to an American yesterday who couldn't understand the concept of the Highlands yesterday. His whole idea was of a place presented magically but with little more than funny accents in it. I tried to get over to him all the history of suppression, eviction, lack of economic development etc... but the big one is cultural. If the Highlands lose their culture (and they already have largely) then they are indistinguishable from anywhere else.
  - ErroneousBosh 22d ago
    I mean make him read Hallaig by Somhairle MacGill-eain. And, ideally, go and visit a cleared township. https://maps.app.goo.gl/nc8uhBogrBCjgjYs9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/nc8uhBogrBCjgjYs9 I used to walk out there most weekends when I was at school. Until about 175 years ago, those were homes. Families lived there. The white dots you see are sheep, which is of course why families don't live there now. Good Gaelic, incidentally, where did you speak it?

CalRobert 23d ago

What?!?!? Piñatas are awesome! And as people who emigrated from California it’s usually a fun novelty for the local Dutchies to see (though I see them in local stores now too!)

cbolton 23d ago

It never occurred to me to consider efficiency in piñata, but I dislike them because it's making a game out of violence.

Computer0 23d ago
As a child I did not see it as violent
- locknitpicker 23d ago
  > As a child I did not see it as violent That's the problem. Hitting a tied up animal until it breaks is clearly a violent affair, similar how hanging puppets in nooses or putting a doll in a guillotine. I'm sure that there are kids growing up in places where bullfights are common thinking that torturing and killing a bull in a party-like atmosphere is fine.
  - tyre 23d ago
    One of the incredible powers of childlike imagination is the ability to differentiate between hitting a piñata and hitting an actual animal.
    - locknitpicker 23d ago
      > One of the incredible powers of childlike imagination is the ability to differentiate between hitting a piñata and hitting an actual animal. People get arrested for hanging dolls on trees with nooses around their necks. Some are prosecuted as hate crimes. Do you think this is an issue from a lack of childlike imagination?
  - applfanboysbgon 23d ago
    Do you see Pokemon as encouraging a culture of accepting dogfighting/cockfighting rings?
    - 23d ago

tyrabound 23d ago

Genuinely, what kind of miserable people are you around when even at a children’s birthday there is this kind of obsessive fixation going on? You really may want to think about if you are around people who are genuinely good for you and your children. I’m not surprised though, over the years I have noticed a notable shift towards the controlling and narcissistic spectrums of parents. I’m not totally sure why that is, but it seems to be definitely happening and it’s also rather clear to me that it’s a rather “American” toxic nature, probably due to the sick and perverse obsession with besting, outdoing, greedily wanting and needing more and shinier things than “the Joneses”, the obsession with celebrity and fame and money. It all contributes to the diseased state of society and “culture”, if you can call obsession with corporate outputs that. But anyways, just let kids have their moment of fun, people, their identity and soul will be crushed by the “American” indoctrination and propaganda machine soon enough and they will become like the drone adults. Let them be human for at least a couple years of their lives.

graemep 23d ago
I think you are right about it being miserable people. People who have forgotten how to have fun and just enjoy life. I think its linked to the hustle culture, and the need to constantly do something (even if its just doomscrolling). There is also a tendency to treat children as a strange species rather than as human beings. I think that is older but its become worse as people come up with more and more parenting approaches, write books and make videos about it, etc. Its sadly not just an American problem. At the very least an Anglophone problem.

Al-Khwarizmi 23d ago

I get piñatas, but there is an extreme version of this that I find just too much. Not sure in other places, but in Spain there is a kind of fair stall where children use a plastic fishing rod with a magnet or hook to catch some plastic ducks with the corresponding magnet or hook. The ducks have some points and give you rewards, but the payoff is terrible - maybe you spend €10 and you get a gift that you could buy for €2 at the neighborhood shops. And the fun part with the fishing lasts like 20 seconds, no more, and it's individual, there isn't even a competition or anything, no time limit, etc. Just catch three ducks and see how many points they give you. My 7-year-old son (who by the way loves math) always wants to go there. I can't help but explain that the payoff is horrendous from any point of view, and he understands and doesn't argue against it, but he still insists. Sometimes I convince him by offering alternatives, but sometimes I have to cave because he seems to like it so much. But man, spending euros on that stings, I have the feeling that the people who run the stall must be laughing at all the suckers who fall into the trap.

shifto 23d ago
My kids love something like this we see every year at the traveling fair. It's the same idea but with rubber duckies floating around and having to catch them with a small pole with a hook attached. It's €20 for 2 kids to have 2 minutes of fun and the payoff is a €1 Aliexpress/Temu pollution generator disguised as a toy. They play with it for a day before it ends up in the trash. The first few years I hated this for exactly the reasons you mention, but now I'm just happy they are happy. I think I have a few more years left before they don't want to go rubber ducky fishing with their dad no more and I doubt by then €20 gets me 2 minutes of joy with them.
- Al-Khwarizmi 23d ago
  In fact it's the same thing. I said fish by mistake (probably because my mind made an association with the fishing rod and what it's usually used for) but they're ducks. I have edited the comment now.
- throw0101a 23d ago
  > It's €20 for 2 kids to have 2 minutes of fun […] They play with it for a day […] Seems to me it's €20 for a day (8h? 16h?) of fun. That's not bad value: how much does a movie ticket cost for 2-3 hours?

deleted 23d ago

[deleted]

wizardforhire 23d ago

Adults have piñatas… theyre called starups

throw0101a 23d ago

> And every miss heightens the excitement for the eventual lolly scramble. People under-appreciate (or have forgotten) that a lot of happiness is is related to anticipating as opposed to getting. I think if more people focused on the journey or the process (or the (present) moment), versus the goal, there'd be more joy/happiness around.

steveBK123 23d ago
> People under-appreciate (or have forgotten) that a lot of happiness is is related to anticipating as opposed to getting Shoppers & hobbyists who spend too much time browsing gear are well aware of this though generally don't like to admit it to themselves... There was (I believe) a Korean app for people to fake shop so they get all the dopamine of the hunt without the cost of actually buying anything.
- ethbr1 23d ago
  HeisenShop sounds like a great app idea for shopaholics -- automatically don't buy / cancel random or exceeding-monthly-budget items without telling the user.
- hydrogen7800 23d ago
  I began and ended many hobbies in the novelty phase by endlessly reading about them, shopping, comparing features, etc. that I eventually became bored with them before spending a dollar. I got (almost) the whole novelty phase for free.
  - steveBK123 23d ago
    I've also found new hobbies sometimes allow cheaper gadget purchases / higher enjoyment-per-dollar than buying more junk for longtime hobbies. The logical mechanism for me was - a hobby I've done 30 years I have probably upgraded through various classes of equipment such that anything left to buy is expensive. For a new hobby I am back to buying little $100 gizmos again. Doesn't work for some hobbies that have a higher cost of entry.
- 22d ago

groestl 23d ago

I hate them because I seem to be the only adult that sees the kid kicking out another kid's teeth, or hurting them elsewhere.

aaron695 23d ago

[dead]

timoth3y 23d ago

> they are just enjoying hitting something with a stick This is truly one of life's under-appreciated little pleasures!

BigTTYGothGF 23d ago

Because of circumstances I was involved in running several birthday parties for children these past few years. All of them had pinatas. In my experience: > Adults hate them This is absolutely not the case.