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Nine things I learned in ninety years

edwardpackard.com

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Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#51

Post by koakuma-chan »

pprotas wrote: post #45
koakuma-chan wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know right? I don't know what all other people replying to you are doing. I just play Cyberpunk, I finished it yesterday. I guess I'll play the new Dying Light next. Some people play golf. I don't know what other "happiness" there can be, though I am interested if anyone has anything to share that I don't know.

> I don't know what other "happiness" there can be Bro I can name like 20 games that are better than Cyberpunk if you want, your bar is really low if this is your standard of happiness

> Bro I can name like 20 games that are better than Cyberpunk if you want

Sure, go ahead. But I already played a lot of games, and I'm picky.

> your bar is really low if this is your standard of happiness

Cyberpunk is not that bad, I mean, it's definitely better than most AAA games that come out nowadays.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#52

Post by wgbowley »

Thank you, Kevin, for sharing this, and thank you for your insights, Edward. As a young man without a father anymore, it's always a pleasure learning about people's life experiences to help me be my best self without years of trial and error

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#53

Post by summis »

ropable wrote: post #36

> what an outsized role is played by luck This speaks to me. So much of our life circumstances are beyond our control (parents, genetics, geography, society, wider economy, etc.) It's humbling, how much of our success or failure is influenced by pure chance.

Overall I agree with this comment. A determinist would take this position even further and argue that there is nothing left that we could be in control of - it is causes and effects and maybe some randomness all the way down. Even those things we think are our free choices.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#54

Post by shubhamjain »

In my late 20s, I felt disillusioned with this kind of wisdom. Found it too simplistic and not enough to cope with the fact that existence is absurd. I am 32 now, and I can't help think that simplicity is all that there is: curate a happy state of mind, meaningful relationships, active lifestyle, and maybe some audacious goal to keep yourself busy. Thinking that there's some higher state of mind (via spirituality, for eg) is delusion at best.

I feel everything follows the Midwit meme progression [1]: at first you use crude, obvious methods because you don’t know better. Later, complexity is alluring, you drown yourself in optimisations and finding the bestest tools and methods. In the end you come back to the same conclusion: simplicity was the most reliable tool the whole time.

[1]: https://medium.com/@obandoandrew8/bell-curve-meme-avoiding-t...

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#55

Post by qmr »

la_bruin wrote: post #5
reenorap wrote: post #3

I still have my first edition Cave of Time. I don't think it's a first printing though but still, when they came out it was simply awesome. I got the first 6 books in a pack for my birthday, I shared them later on with my children and they loved them too when they were young.

I bought my son "The Whole Enchilada", the pack of 100+ Edward Packard authored CYOA books. (No RA Montgomery titles) He liked the Encyclopedia Brown books & Two Minute Mystery books I bought him so I thought he'd like the CYOA books as well since I cherished them as a kid but alas, he never got into them like I did. I'm hoping he likes Infocom text adventures better when I introduce those to him later.

First time (only time?) a game made me cry, Floyd's death.

13-15 or so, Up way too late, hiding under my blanket to muffle the noise from the folding Stowaway keyboard, playing on a glowing green 160x160 LCD display on a Palm VIIx running a Z machine interpreter.

Apparently the author still gets emails now and then to this day about how Floyd’s death affected players. He used to have a personal site but I can’t find it now. A lot of players have written about this moment.

I think the other one I beat was Bureaucracy, by Douglas Adams. Got somewhat deep in Beyond Zork and HHGTTG, but don’t think I completed them.

I remember my father getting excited when he saw those Infocom compilations on Walmart store shelves.

I’ve also considered introducing those to my son. He’s 5 now. Lately having him play Mario RPG, Zelda, and Final Fantasy to practice reading.

—-

“Perhaps the most amazing thing about the creation of Floyd was how easy it was. The entire code and text for the character, if printed out, would perhaps run to ten pages. What’s amazing is not that I was able to create a computer game character that touched people so deeply, but how infrequently the same thing has been accomplished in the intervening two decades.”

Steve Meretzky

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#56

Post by mytailorisrich »

ropable wrote: post #36

> what an outsized role is played by luck This speaks to me. So much of our life circumstances are beyond our control (parents, genetics, geography, society, wider economy, etc.) It's humbling, how much of our success or failure is influenced by pure chance.

Yes but as the saying goes you also create your own luck with the way you act in order to get around more opportunities and then to seize them.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#57

Post by darkwater »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #50
ropable wrote: post #36

> what an outsized role is played by luck This speaks to me. So much of our life circumstances are beyond our control (parents, genetics, geography, society, wider economy, etc.) It's humbling, how much of our success or failure is influenced by pure chance.

An even more outsized role is played by a virtuous life. It may not make you a billionaire, but if you finish high school, get a full-time job once you finish school, get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life. We are doing a disservice to our fellow man by not telling them this truth.

> get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life.

Based on what, exactly? I think you have cause and effect inverted.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#58

Post by hdgvhicv »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #50
ropable wrote: post #36

> what an outsized role is played by luck This speaks to me. So much of our life circumstances are beyond our control (parents, genetics, geography, society, wider economy, etc.) It's humbling, how much of our success or failure is influenced by pure chance.

An even more outsized role is played by a virtuous life. It may not make you a billionaire, but if you finish high school, get a full-time job once you finish school, get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life. We are doing a disservice to our fellow man by not telling them this truth.

You’re far more likely to have been born in rural China, India or Africa than in the west.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#59

Post by shark1 »

> "...happiness to become one’s default state of mind."

I have read psychologists saying that "happiness as default state" is a social construct myth of modern times. You cannot be happy all the time, the fact of being unhappy sometimes is what drives you self-reflect and to chase meaning to your life. To feel pleasure you need to feel some pain.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#60

Post by fpsvogel »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #50
ropable wrote: post #36

> what an outsized role is played by luck This speaks to me. So much of our life circumstances are beyond our control (parents, genetics, geography, society, wider economy, etc.) It's humbling, how much of our success or failure is influenced by pure chance.

An even more outsized role is played by a virtuous life. It may not make you a billionaire, but if you finish high school, get a full-time job once you finish school, get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life. We are doing a disservice to our fellow man by not telling them this truth.

To take one of your examples, high school graduation rates vary from ~25% to ~98% in U.S. school districts. It's not because some districts have a lot more virtuous young people, but because some districts are poor and others are wealthy, among other factors. Even if one of those factors is virtuous parents, kids can't choose their parents.

I'm not denying our moral agency, but it is often constrained by environment. Some people are lucky enough that virtuous choices are easier for them.

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