What game are you playing? • Hacker News Board

Re: What game are you playing?

#51

Post by onionisafruit » Thu, May 05, 2022, 5:01 AM UTC

DrBoring wrote: post #27

DrBoring wrote: post #25

Interesting little article. To me, it speaks like the author is a bit remorseful for spending so much time on academic pursuits, and not building important social skills. I can recall in my youth making the assumption that someone was entirely stupid because they didn't share my breadth of knowledge. Like the author, I never considered that they spent their time in pursuit of other knowledge. I'm not sure where that…

P.P.S. Minecraft with my daughter. It's the first survival play-through for both of us.

I did that with my oldest daughter about 10 years ago. It was a great bonding experience. Neither of us are really gamers, but we have that experience in common.

Re: What game are you playing?

#52

Post by onionisafruit » Thu, May 05, 2022, 5:02 AM UTC

all2 wrote: post #14

> [...] 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.

I think it was intentional, but I’m not entirely sure. Either way I loved it.

Re: What game are you playing?

#53

Post by trh0awayman » Thu, May 05, 2022, 5:06 AM UTC

This just reminds me of The Last Psychiatrist's description of narcissism - everyone fulfills a "role" in a "game", the result of being unable to truly love others and unable to fully comprehend a self outside of ones own.

Re: What game are you playing?

#54

Post by koonsolo » Thu, May 05, 2022, 5:13 AM UTC

flappyeagle wrote: post #9

scubbo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He's right about this - nerds get a lot of money these days, but no respect.

Some of the world most famous people are nerds. The richest people in the world are nerds. Elon is 100% a nerd, and he can basically get any Hollywood star he wants.

I'm a nerd, and I consider myself pretty successful in life. I totally agree with the other poster that your view on the world is very different.

Re: What game are you playing?

#55

Post by AlchemistCamp » Thu, May 05, 2022, 5:13 AM UTC

rubychill wrote: post #3

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…

Is it power asymmetry or is it that nerd games are over-valued by those who play them? That was my takeaway from this article, that it's easy to see investment in hard skills as innately better than soft skills.

I used to ponder this question at tower records since I had a few extremely nerdy friends in high school. In the decades since, history has been a continual story of nerds steamrolling less nerdy incumbents.

Re: What game are you playing?

#56

Post by patrck » Thu, May 05, 2022, 5:16 AM UTC

Recognizing the games that others are playing is useful, however refining your own games seems the much better play.

What are your personal win conditions? What are the odds and your confidence in those odds that those will remain stable for the rest of your life? Are any inconsistent with the other conditions?

Are all your win conditions attainable? Can you create a simple-to-follow path that leads to those win conditions and avoids going near loss conditiions? Will that path clash with any other people's win conditions paths?

Makes me respect game worlds designed so people can play however they wish.

Re: What game are you playing?

#57

Post by koonsolo » Thu, May 05, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

arvinsim wrote: post #30

scubbo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's easy for nerds to get respect from other nerds. But I agree with him that nerds get little respect from non-nerds.

You are saying that women don't respect successful men? Because in my world, nerds are successful.

Re: What game are you playing?

#58

Post by koonsolo » Thu, May 05, 2022, 5:22 AM UTC

booboofixer wrote: post #49

There was a comment on HN about a year ago by somebody that grew up in India, and being Pakistani i relate to it a lot as well. Specifically, it mentioned that these 'games' and people choosing one or two games out of a great number of games available out there seems like a uniquely North American thing (as far as we can tell from our own limited exposure to other societies). So while you folks had the jock, the nerd…

I'm from EU, and I agree with you that this is a North American thing.

Re: What game are you playing?

#59

Post by oreally » Thu, May 05, 2022, 5:27 AM UTC

DrBoring wrote: post #25

Interesting little article. To me, it speaks like the author is a bit remorseful for spending so much time on academic pursuits, and not building important social skills. I can recall in my youth making the assumption that someone was entirely stupid because they didn't share my breadth of knowledge. Like the author, I never considered that they spent their time in pursuit of other knowledge. I'm not sure where that…

It's ego. The simple awareness of a metric and where you are on it vs where the other guy is gives raise to comparisons, and ultimately feeds your ego. And that ego gets in the way of what could be better relationships.

Re: What game are you playing?

#60

Post by hans1729 » Thu, May 05, 2022, 5:32 AM UTC

routerl wrote: post #16

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…

>it then makes sense (and is good) for principled people to trust their judgement, even if it makes them an outcast.

I don't get this. Being judgemental always seemed immature to me. Being curious and trying to understand why individuals or groups do seemingly irrational things: yes. Being judgemental (or "principled" (is this synonymous?)): no. To me, that was always a sign of someone who hasn't made sense of themselves yet. At what point have you made so much sense of anything that you can make a defining principle out of it? That just robs one of agency, reminding of religion and stubbornness.

I get that being fixated on some idiom is helpful in avoiding mental drift and maintaining focus, but that seems like the end of the road in terms of advantages. At the same time, that fixation limits your ability to go beyond the things you felt you understood years ago, whenever the principle was cemented into your cortex.

Is it a desire for deeper stability? For ground truth? Because if I look at what people actually are, no matter how intelligent they may be in some domain, what I see is not able to come up with general idioms. Not even close, actually. What I see is brains trying to make sense out of noise with extreme simplifications, rather fitting the data to their model than the other way around. I never got the advantage of saying "well now MY model fits this pattern, PERIOD!".