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Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on why life is 'a game'

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Re: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on why life is 'a game'

#41

Post by gexla »

johnchristopher wrote: post #23
gexla wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure many of us did some sort of business when we were kids. Trading anything with your friends (cards, etc) is a business, especially if those trades make the value of your collection go up or down. Buying these items new (cards in a pack) could sort of be an investment scheme. If you held onto anything worth money from your childhood, you could call that a buy and hold scheme. Creating in-game value by trading,…

> I'm sure many of us did some sort of business when we were kids. > Trading anything with your friends (cards, etc) is a business, especially if those trades make the value of your collection go up or down. Buying these items new (cards in a pack) could sort of be an investment scheme. > If you held onto anything worth money from your childhood, you could call that a buy and hold scheme. > Creating in-game value by…

What word is that? Business?

Keep in mind that we are referring to children (under the age of 18.) These sorts of transactions are often the first steps into the realization that you can grow value (which could be physical or virtual items) through transactions with others (this could be smart trading or selling something you created.) These first steps could be powerful lessons which may shape their future.

If I sell a baseball card and I make a profit, then that profit would likely be recorded on a Schedule C (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Business.

http://www.irs.gov/uac/Schedule-C-(Form-1040),-Profit-or-Los...

Just by selling that card, you are a sole proprietorship.

If you get creative, you can think of many different ways in which children participate in business activity.

ETA: Okay, I get it. My examples aren't of people starting companies. A kid selling baseball cards might be a business, but not a company (company is a group, more than one.) I wonder if that's what he actually meant though. Can a minor even hire employees?

Re: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on why life is 'a game'

#43

Post by sokoloff »

Karunamon wrote: post #7
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #3

tar(1) flags as a blackboard prop, that's nice. I wouldn't consider them that complicated to warrant being a background image of such a nature, though.

That XKCD comic about tar(1) is more accurate than I'd like it to be.. I know off the top of my memory 'xvf' and 'cvzf' but that's about it.

Convenience: https://xkcd.com/1168/

Re: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on why life is 'a game'

#44

Post by hnmodturds »

fezz wrote: post #20
prawn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goes hand-in-hand with his other quote: "I have made so many massive mistakes of ego, I can't tell you."

I stopped reading it because it was very clear that his ego is still giant. And it's not surprising that the Steam circus has some of the same ego issues.

and yet they were interviewing him, and not you. his ego accomplished shit, and yours?

Re: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on why life is 'a game'

#45

Post by lordfoom »

>"I want Jobs and [Bill] Gates and [Mark] Zuckerberg and all of these guys to thank me for blazing some of [those trails], because it was much easier once there were several notable successes from [people] in their twenties," he says.

>But with that success came hubris.

No kidding.

Re: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on why life is 'a game'

#46

Post by lemming »

How many companies have you started by the time you're 18? If the answer's zero, I wouldn't invest in you.

After his breakout success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr Bushnell made several missteps that eventually led to some entrepreneurial failures and financial ruin.

That's fine, I wouldn't invest in you, either.

Re: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on why life is 'a game'

#47

Post by applecore »

jen729w wrote: post #6

>"How many companies have you started by the time you're 18? If the answer's zero, I wouldn't invest in you," he says of their entrepreneurial verve. Jesus christ, really? That sounds like a hideous childhood to me. Is this what we're becoming, a race of people obsessed with capital and business and work? Go play in the dirt and ride your bike, kid. Work when you're old.

“Today’s ideal social form is not the commune or the movement or even the individual creator as such; it’s the small business.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-entrepr...

Re: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on why life is 'a game'

#48

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #35
eru wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investing in monomaniacs can be much more successful than investing in normal well adjusted people.

Which is a problem with incentives around investing, not with normal, "well-adjusted" people. It should be pretty clear now that the market strives to remove all human values not relevant to increasing abstract profit numbers. We are literally losing our humanity over this. And the best thing? If we continue, it may well end up that an automated economy will become a closed loop, running by itself without the need fo…

Hasn't this already happened with HFTs?

Some terrifyingly large proportion of the money markets runs on pure code already - which is terrifying because we're not even a democracy now, but some kind of bizarre automated profit-seeking cybernetic metacreature.

Re: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on why life is 'a game'

#49

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #48
TeMPOraL wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a problem with incentives around investing, not with normal, "well-adjusted" people. It should be pretty clear now that the market strives to remove all human values not relevant to increasing abstract profit numbers. We are literally losing our humanity over this. And the best thing? If we continue, it may well end up that an automated economy will become a closed loop, running by itself without the need fo…

Hasn't this already happened with HFTs? Some terrifyingly large proportion of the money markets runs on pure code already - which is terrifying because we're not even a democracy now, but some kind of bizarre automated profit-seeking cybernetic metacreature.

Capitalism systematically makes humans into cogs in a machine. Now it replaces the cogs it considers defective (flesh) with ones which cannot fail it (silicon).

Re: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on why life is 'a game'

#50

Post by keyboardwarrior »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #36
johnchristopher wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure many of us did some sort of business when we were kids. > Trading anything with your friends (cards, etc) is a business, especially if those trades make the value of your collection go up or down. Buying these items new (cards in a pack) could sort of be an investment scheme. > If you held onto anything worth money from your childhood, you could call that a buy and hold scheme. > Creating in-game value by…

Well, this is a basic skill of a programmer, or even an engineer in general. It's not about fitting a very warped vision, it's about applying different models to the same situation. As long as you keep in mind that you're just applying models, you'll be fine. If you forget about it, you'll end up becoming a politician.

feel free to replace model with dogma, when talking about politicians
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