Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure • Hacker News Board

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#41

Post by piker » Wed, May 23, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #12

Andrex wrote: post #9

This is a good read, but I question this line: > Video games, at their best, offer everyone an equal chance to overcome the same challenges on an equal playing field. “Pac-Man,” after all, didn’t let you add extra quarters to purchase immunity from the ghosts. I mean, in a way they did. If you had more quarters to spare in Pac-Man, you'd be more likely to make it further than your cash-strapped compatriot. But then a…

You don't get to enter your initials into the machine based on how far you get. Only your score matters, and your score resets when you continue. You don't "beat" Pac-Man when you get to the kill screen, you beat Pac-Man when you get a perfect score.

...and how does one practice to "beat" Pac-Man with a perfect score?

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#42

Post by gowld » Wed, May 23, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

cirgue wrote: post #39

> passive consumption over leisure This is the money quote for me. We somehow managed to convince an entire generation of people who were skeptical of the passive consumption of television that 'Hey wait, this other form of manufactured entertainment is entirely different and not at all bad for you because we're the tech industry and we aren't the people in suits."

> We somehow managed to convince

We did? I though people just switched from TV to Internet because Internet is more fun or more faddy or just cheaper.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#43

Post by gaius » Wed, May 23, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #37

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From each according to his ability, Comrade. Soviet Communism is, indeed, terrible. But a UBI is basically the opposite of politburos and bread lines. And when the supply of unskilled labor exceeds the demand to such an extent that it no longer commands a living wage in a free market, what's your solution?

Has anyone run the numbers of how UBI would be financed? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to attack the idea. My impression is that people are more positive on UBI than they should be because they think it will enable a higher standard of living than it actually will. I would be more in favor of a jobs guarantee since I think people find working meaningful, but this isn't an area I've researched very much so I'm def…

Has anyone run the numbers of how UBI would be financed?

For the cost of the current welfare system in the UK we could give every man, woman and child £3000/year, approx. This assumes that the cost of administration is basically zero, so it would involve sacking all the employees of the DWP or whatever it’s called now. Well, they would be entitled to UBI too... it has to be “universal” and “basic” or the numbers don’t work

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#44

Post by gowld » Wed, May 23, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #12

Andrex wrote: post #9

This is a good read, but I question this line: > Video games, at their best, offer everyone an equal chance to overcome the same challenges on an equal playing field. “Pac-Man,” after all, didn’t let you add extra quarters to purchase immunity from the ghosts. I mean, in a way they did. If you had more quarters to spare in Pac-Man, you'd be more likely to make it further than your cash-strapped compatriot. But then a…

You don't get to enter your initials into the machine based on how far you get. Only your score matters, and your score resets when you continue. You don't "beat" Pac-Man when you get to the kill screen, you beat Pac-Man when you get a perfect score.

High score resets whenever the machine is unplugged.

Score isn't the only measure of success in Pac-man or other arcade games.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#45

Post by gowld » Wed, May 23, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #27

Andrex wrote: post #9

This is a good read, but I question this line: > Video games, at their best, offer everyone an equal chance to overcome the same challenges on an equal playing field. “Pac-Man,” after all, didn’t let you add extra quarters to purchase immunity from the ghosts. I mean, in a way they did. If you had more quarters to spare in Pac-Man, you'd be more likely to make it further than your cash-strapped compatriot. But then a…

NES-era games juiced the difficulty so you couldn't beat them on rental. Not quite the same but if I were going to pick a "golden age" of relatively not-exploitative gaming it might go from SNES-PS2 or so.

Isn't the golden age now, where difficulty is customizable?

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#46

Post by gowld » Wed, May 23, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

ballenf wrote: post #40

One of the solutions to the problem of pay-to-win is to eliminate all laws making it illegal to hack these games. This position seems very problematic and will rub a lot of people the wrong way, but we should have the freedom to hack the code running on our devices. If that breaks someone's business model, then maybe it's the business model that's broken. Most people don't have any ethical issues with hacking single-…

Or you could just not buy garbage games.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#47

Post by wolf550e » Wed, May 23, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #42

cirgue wrote: post #39

> passive consumption over leisure This is the money quote for me. We somehow managed to convince an entire generation of people who were skeptical of the passive consumption of television that 'Hey wait, this other form of manufactured entertainment is entirely different and not at all bad for you because we're the tech industry and we aren't the people in suits."

> We somehow managed to convince We did? I though people just switched from TV to Internet because Internet is more fun or more faddy or just cheaper.

Yeah, people switched from cable TV to on-demand niche content, but it's the same kind of passive entertainment.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#48

Post by cirgue » Wed, May 23, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #42

cirgue wrote: post #39

> passive consumption over leisure This is the money quote for me. We somehow managed to convince an entire generation of people who were skeptical of the passive consumption of television that 'Hey wait, this other form of manufactured entertainment is entirely different and not at all bad for you because we're the tech industry and we aren't the people in suits."

> We somehow managed to convince We did? I though people just switched from TV to Internet because Internet is more fun or more faddy or just cheaper.

Not at all a representative sample, but the majority of my friends and their families growing up watched very little television outside of the occasional sporting event. Those same people are now enthusiastic social media users.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#49

Post by emodendroket » Wed, May 23, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #45

emodendroket wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NES-era games juiced the difficulty so you couldn't beat them on rental. Not quite the same but if I were going to pick a "golden age" of relatively not-exploitative gaming it might go from SNES-PS2 or so.

Isn't the golden age now , where difficulty is customizable?

Well, no, because the axis we're looking at isn't difficulty. And customizable difficult is not a recent idea.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#50

Post by zrobotics » Wed, May 23, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #28

The argument essentially seems to be this: Some people are making substantial amounts of money from activities that we traditionally associate with leisure, in the example given, videogames. This devalues gaming as a leisure activity for the rest of society. This is a bad thing. This is an indicator of a broader trend of the monetization of all forms of leisure. This is bad. Consequently we should find ways to redist…

Furthermore, the author ever addresses other forms of leisure where people are paid to participate, such as sports. Does the NBA devalue the pickup game played solely for bragging rights?

The other problem I have with this argument is the fallacy that leisure activities were not class based in the past. Polo would seem to be a fairly obvious example, very few people can afford the horses required.