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Why everything is becoming a game

gurwinder.blog

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Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#31

Post by smackeyacky »

taway789aaa6 wrote: post #28
smackeyacky wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think life has no sense of progress. I've been fiddling with motor vehicles on and off over my lifetime (mid fifties now) and progressed from simple tune ups to now re-building engines. It took a long time to get the "feel" of what's right and one outright failure. But I can see the progress I've made over that relatively long space of time in that I understand much better what I'm doing and why, what is OK a…

I feel similarly with gardening. Try growing a food forest -- it expands your mind's time horizon to try picturing your six inch tall hazelnut seedling as a 20 foot tall tree. Each year is a new feeling of progress as everything starts to bear fruit!

I love this idea but I hate gardening. It just seems like such a grind to keep the weeds down and whatnot. I do forget that planting things is like an investment in your own satisfaction.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#32

Post by nonsensikal »

khrbrt wrote: post #20

> Most of the feedback loops in employment — from salary payments to annual performance appraisals — were torturously long. So Coonradt proposed shortening them by introducing daily targets, points systems, and leaderboards. These conditioned reinforcers would transform work from a series of monthly slogs into daily status games, in which employees competed to fulfil the company’s goals. My first thought was that wor…

I don't think clear metrics to optimize would be bad. I mostly find work to be entirely opaque in what it wants from me.

The only time I know clearly is when the deadline looms. But the majority of the time everyone around is me cosplaying productivity.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#33

Post by bm3719 »

api wrote: post #23
j_bum wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I stopped at the Kaczynski worship. I don’t understand why people are so fascinated with talking about the ideals of insane serial killers. There are plenty of other highly intelligent individuals with the same ideologies to discuss. Why glorify a murderer?

I read Kaczynski long ago and saw a huge hole immediately. So surrogate activities replace the authentic struggle for survival. I can get that. But why is the struggle for survival better? Isn’t it just another game? Kaczynski like many other romantics rails against the system, but isn’t nature just another system? It’s an older one that we didn’t design, but didn’t we learn in the end that the matrix was inside an e…

It's been many years since I last read it, but I seem to recall Kaczynski defined surrogate activities as those beyond what one would feel substantively deprived should they be without. He gives the example of pursuit of social fulfillment like romantic affection to be not a surrogate activity, since we're programmed to feel deprived without any at all, but being a sex addict to be one.

If you combine this with his notion of the power process, surrogate activities ultimately unsatisfying in the context of that. Modern man lacks the ability to fulfill the power process, and surrogate activities is the result. Kaczynski draws arrows from the fact that that man lacks autonomy and fulfillment of the power process, to surrogate activities, then to various societal problems (of which he enumerates many).

So, the point isn't that surrogate activities is the terrible end state to be avoided at all costs, it's what results when they're load-bearing at a societal level.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#34

Post by _boffin_ »

adrianhon wrote: post #4

Interesting piece! I’m co-creator of Zombies, Run! so I’m glad to see it mentioned here - we designed it to be in the best interests of players, which is why it doesn’t feature streaks or leaderboards or other ways to manipulate you into overexercising or playing more than you want to. That said, I’m more sanguine about gamification than the author. There are indeed many games to choose from, but the ones that are mo…

Question: what / how were the were the discussions on to not include leaderboards, streaks, etc? What what was the primary motivation behind the game? From your comment, it seems play to play rather play to win?

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#35

Post by zdragnar »

khrbrt wrote: post #20

> Most of the feedback loops in employment — from salary payments to annual performance appraisals — were torturously long. So Coonradt proposed shortening them by introducing daily targets, points systems, and leaderboards. These conditioned reinforcers would transform work from a series of monthly slogs into daily status games, in which employees competed to fulfil the company’s goals. My first thought was that wor…

It really depends on the nature of your work. Creative work that goes in stages would be frustrating, since your day to day is never the same.

On the other hand, if your work is a bit more repetitive, it can be a nice way to actually see your contribution change.

On the other other hand, there's the obvious drawback of competition undermining coordination and cooperation among team members, making the experience more toxic, or sacrificing quality for quantity.

Short feedback cycles are good. An employee shouldn't wait 3 or 12 months to find out that they aren't doing something right- it's bad for them and for the company. It isn't a silver bullet, though, and there are better ways to get there.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#37

Post by slowmovintarget »

khrbrt wrote: post #20

> Most of the feedback loops in employment — from salary payments to annual performance appraisals — were torturously long. So Coonradt proposed shortening them by introducing daily targets, points systems, and leaderboards. These conditioned reinforcers would transform work from a series of monthly slogs into daily status games, in which employees competed to fulfil the company’s goals. My first thought was that wor…

I like Rich Hickey's description of Scrum: "We've learned the secret to tricking developers into constantly running races... You just fire the starting pistol over and over, right?"

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#38

Post by jayd16 »

khrbrt wrote: post #20

> Most of the feedback loops in employment — from salary payments to annual performance appraisals — were torturously long. So Coonradt proposed shortening them by introducing daily targets, points systems, and leaderboards. These conditioned reinforcers would transform work from a series of monthly slogs into daily status games, in which employees competed to fulfil the company’s goals. My first thought was that wor…

Does anyone actually run things like that? Where the goal of work is to earn arbitrary points?

Sure there are story 'points' for describing complexity in an int and daily check-ins but I thought counting tickets was up there with lines of code produced?

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#39

Post by Guthur »

jayd16 wrote: post #38
khrbrt wrote: post #20

> Most of the feedback loops in employment — from salary payments to annual performance appraisals — were torturously long. So Coonradt proposed shortening them by introducing daily targets, points systems, and leaderboards. These conditioned reinforcers would transform work from a series of monthly slogs into daily status games, in which employees competed to fulfil the company’s goals. My first thought was that wor…

Does anyone actually run things like that? Where the goal of work is to earn arbitrary points? Sure there are story 'points' for describing complexity in an int and daily check-ins but I thought counting tickets was up there with lines of code produced?

It might be up there but it's all that an overly analytical and literal population can get their heads around. They literally can't think of any other way of making decisions. If they don't stick numbers on things they become essentially blind to it.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#40

Post by justanotherjoe »

this article is all over the place. At one point it even starts admonishing actual video games, with the usual granny complaints.

The article sounds like alex jones style of piecing things superficially together. The worship of ted kaczynski is also bothering, since his views are so banal and not even accurate. (technology is making human a creature of society? not really. We always was. Ask jesus what happens when you go against the grain).

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