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What game are you playing?

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Re: What game are you playing?

#11

Post by rektide »

scubbo wrote: post #6
rektide wrote: post #2

One of nerd's worst problems is that the games they play really deeply matter, that their pursuits can be fantastically stunningly valuable extrinsic & intrinsic pursuits. But there's so few people playing the good games, that commit to engaging the world as naked frankly & genuinely. This post preaches recognizing others game. But few people will ever have the capacity to genuinely recignize your game. Nerds: your p…

> nerds in particular get shit for respect I have no idea what world you're living in, but it's not mine.

From an organizational level, we're 98% regarded as human resources for management's usage.

From a personal level, few people have the capability to appreciate what we care about. They can measure us with yard sticks & jira points & dollars-of-valued-delivered, but none of these outsiders can adopt our value system & see us as we see ourselves, none can rate us by what matters to us & how we go about & care about our lots.

This post is about opening one's view & recognizing other peoples game. Im contending nerds find few who can rate their game, see what they're really playing at, what real success is & what matters to them. Who else out there has hard really hard to understand games, has a value-system alien to others? That is the defining question to me.

Often we see mis-allocated respect too. Nerds given undeserved respect, sourced in shallow understanding, undermining our trust in the world's sensibility & discernment. The "cowboy coders" and 10x discourse revolves around these outsider/alien/unsensing values being used to determine respect & rank, causing endless offense & distrust & alienation to nerds, confirming to us we are alone in chasing our good game.

The respect you consider is shallow & exterior & the respect we want & that matters to us is often trapped & esoteric. Real success - often yes of the business - often derives from what others cannot see.

Re: What game are you playing?

#12

Post by Tr3nton »

Vague headline that leads to a navel-gazing self-congratulatory blogpost. The Y Combinator equivalent of clickbait, meant to reassure the headline reader that they're intelligent and important. Kudos!

Re: What game are you playing?

#13

Post by User23 »

Conspicuous in its absence is the getting laid game.

Or, put more healthily, the finding a spouse and starting a family game.

That is of course the most consequential game most human beings have ever played or will ever play.

Re: What game are you playing?

#14

Post by all2 »

> [...] and Edgar is the worst football player he has ever seen. [...] After Brad leaves the stadium, Edgar hits a home run, winning the game.

The irony. Or the sarcasm. This is comedy gold on so many levels.

Re: What game are you playing?

#15

Post by all2 »

User23 wrote: post #13

Conspicuous in its absence is the getting laid game. Or, put more healthily, the finding a spouse and starting a family game. That is of course the most consequential game most human beings have ever played or will ever play.

I believe it's just called "game", or "having game".

Re: What game are you playing?

#16

Post by routerl »

es7 wrote: post #5

Science and technology and other nerdy pursuits can be really valuable, and certainly don’t require you to be judgmental of others. The problem, as I’ve seen it is that people who are bad at some of the other ‘games’ that make a meaningful life lean too heavily on science and technology as a coping mechanism. That coping mechanism could be many things: nerdy pursuits, alcohol, video games, etc. Whatever your pursuit,…

> Whatever your pursuit, if you’re being judgmental of most other people, then you’re probably missing something big

Sure, but this may very well be intentional and good; an entire community can become pathological, and it then makes sense (and is good) for principled people to trust their judgement, even if it makes them an outcast.

Liberal-minded people often had this reaction to the mid-century rise of fascism, to the point of turning that into art. I'm specifically thinking of Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionescu, but there are many other examples.

Re: What game are you playing?

#18

Post by photochemsyn »

Hmmm... reminds me of this movie scene:

WOPR: Shall we play a game?

David: ...Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War.

WOPR: Wouldn't you prefer a good game of chess?

David: Later. Let's play Global Thermonuclear War.

WOPR: Fine.

Re: What game are you playing?

#19

Post by antiverse »

OP - since you posted this, I will address you directly.

You posted this with intent to do what, exactly? "Start a discussion?" And I'm looking at this fragment in particular:

> For the past five years, I have been playing catch up in the games that the people around me were playing while I was playing the science game. The people I grew up around, especially the women who were least impressed with the science game, turn out not to be stupid at all, and to be far ahead of me in more enduring games, such as the understanding others game, the fathoming reality game, and the being a good person game. I’m the skinny little runt who’s just glad to get to play.

I don't know if you're trying to score points with the babes with this kneeling attitude, but Science (with a capital S) and the Arts (with a capital A) are both, individually, going to endure far more, for far longer, than you give either of them credit for.

Secondly, I don't know if you thought that women were stupid prior to having this epiphany that there's more than one way to live a life, and you're coming clean about some latent sexism or whatever you're going through, but if so, you might as well spell it out for us so we can drop the pretense with the starry-eyed rebirth blog post.

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