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What game are you playing?

autodidacts.io

141–150 of 197 posts

Re: What game are you playing?

#141
post #138
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not "biasing myself toward" a point of view; you are putting words in my mouth. If you can't consider someone's point of view without agreeing with it, then I do see the miscommunication. I can, and I also think it's necessary and important. I am interested in solving the long-term problem of preventing the next genocide. You are interested in solving the short-term problem of alleviating the current one. They a…

The thread starts with question: "Have you experienced a moment when most of your nation supports an unjust invasion, and many openly and proudly dream of genocide?" As a response to "judgement is inherently immature". That latter also seem to think that "principled is same as judgement". Both of these refer to ongoing situation. > I am interested in solving the long-term problem of preventing the next genocide. How…

Well we obviously haven't yet solved the problem of preventing genocides, because we didn't prevent the current one. But we don't necessarily need new data, maybe we just need new interpretations to the data or new policies based on the interpretations, in fact I don't know how you got to that suggestion at all.

Other than that, I don't wish to defend what another poster (hans1729) said upthread as interpreted by you. My claim is simply that you should not stop trying to understand people just because you see their actions as "evil", because understanding them and how they got that way is a step on the path to having fewer people like that in future.

Re: What game are you playing?

#142

I've often observed that people mistake "intelligence" for - "knowing the things that I know" - "coming to the same conclusions as me" You can see the "knowing the things that I know" most often in professional settings. "If this guy were smart, he'd know how to do XYZ." Knowledge and intelligence are not the same, but I encounter this bias on a very regular basis. You can see the "coming to the same conclusions as m…

The converse fallacy is also, I believe, true. "This person knows how to do XYZ, therefore they're smart" (in a more general sense; good at "other games", as it were), is something that took me time to understand to be false. And I think your last paragraph reflects this fallacy: > Real intelligence is the capacity for complexity, pattern recognition, and speed of cognition; none of these guarantee either of the two…

You also need the same capacity for complexity, pattern recognition, and speed of cognition to be a good salesman, diplomat, or journalist: reading body language, picking up subtle cues and immediately changing your course of action during a conversation requires that same real intelligence.

So to me, it's not so much hair-splitting as having a narrow focus of what those capacities can be used for.

Re: What game are you playing?

#144
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game I'm playing is "read articles that HN users found interesting, and then see what other HN users had to say about that topic". I guess I can conclude that davidkuennen is playing is some other game. They're probably very good at it, or at least having fun.

Yes, you're playing a losing game. Others read headlines, form their opinions and decide what they want to say, then come to the comments to say it. Usually they scan the comments to check they're on topic, then give their pre-formed opinion. Sometimes they'll instead share that they had a different idea about a different topic if the comments reveal they were mistaken about the topic. Occasionally they'll find anoth…

you forgot to account for stories behind a paywall. some will read it, most others wont

example: the facebook retirement plan story:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31271885

Re: What game are you playing?

#145
post #56

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 cond…

If you understand the other games out there, you may find you are playing the wrong one. Hard to decide that if you don't know all the games.

True. Was angling for that with the "that those will remain stable".

It seems easier to personally define what one thinks winning is, and then evaluate (and modify if possible) the games we come across.

Re: What game are you playing?

#146

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…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures Talks about this as a cultural thing. I think people in the west are still surprised that nerds might weightlift or jocks might be really smart.

Except jokes on them because fitness correlates with IQ.

Re: What game are you playing?

#147
Dont know if its just me, but I observed that, in general, that the people who were into the Math (or even theoretical CS) game as kids feel less regret when they grow up, compared to those who were into the STEM minus M game. Maybe they realized at the getgo the math game was a game? Or maybe adult world cost-over-benefits are less harsh for mathgamers haha.

Disclosure: I was/am in the science game and I dont feel like I missed out, not even socially, heck, not even at dating.

Re: What game are you playing?

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures Talks about this as a cultural thing. I think people in the west are still surprised that nerds might weightlift or jocks might be really smart.

> I think people in the west are still surprised that nerds might weightlift or jocks might be really smart. I'd say that this is even more specifically a US thing. Perhaps it's just exaggerated on TV, but while there is a little bit of this attitude in the UK, I don't anything like the binary split there is portrayed in the US.

Even further, in my experience this view varies quite wildly depending on where you're at in the states, both geographically and economically. I grew up in a very small, rural public school. Since it was such a small school (my graduating class was On the other hand, my partner attended a school 15 minutes away that was more than 5x the size and had a much different culture, much so more inline with stereotyping to fit the "norms".

Re: What game are you playing?

#149
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.

Can you explain it? Is it something that's entirely dependent on understanding US-only cultural references?

Re: What game are you playing?

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You really believe Elon could get “any Hollywood star he wants?” He is rich and famous, but considered a weirdo at best.
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