needs a save game feature
Life is a game, this is your strategy guide
151–160 of 179 posts
Re: Life is a game, this is your strategy guide
#152I am curious. Are video games such an influential component of American twenty something year olds that every fucking thing has to be couched in terms of gaming lingo? I see this shit on Reddit all the time and it baffles me.
I think you're off-base. Rather, the conceptualization of game theory is so all-encompassing of the dynamics of agents interacting in a resource-rich environment, that it can't help but make an informative metaphor for 'life'.
On a completely different note, a lot of us grew up without fathers, or many adults paying attention to us. When I entered the world as a young adult, all I knew about making moves and talking to people was what I learned playing RPGs. And I wish I was kidding.
Re: Life is a game, this is your strategy guide
#153Every time I see an article like this I just want to grab the readers and shout "Read a philosophy book!" to them[1]. Literally every point in every article on how to live a happy life was being made by the likes of Seneca and Aristotle thousands of years ago, and there are good reasons why those writers are still the foundation for philosophy today - they were right. [1] I would recommend something like "Philosophy…
Sigh. Hacker News top comment. It's not "wow this is great!" or "nice work, great illustrations, I'll show this to my students!" It's "I'm so irritated that I already knew what you just told me and I learned it from a better source that I want to assault you!! Why don't you read the same things I read!!?"
Dont know bout you but im lapping up all the wonderful references to books & authors. -cheers
There is biking aphorism that comes to mind, if you stare at that stump you WILL hit it.
Re: Life is a game, this is your strategy guide
#154Every time I see an article like this I just want to grab the readers and shout "Read a philosophy book!" to them[1]. Literally every point in every article on how to live a happy life was being made by the likes of Seneca and Aristotle thousands of years ago, and there are good reasons why those writers are still the foundation for philosophy today - they were right. [1] I would recommend something like "Philosophy…
And there's a major logical error in it: > At the start of the game, you had no control over who you were or your environment. By the end of the game that becomes true again. This implies that you have some sort of control between the start and the end - which is completely untrue, because: What genes you get from your parents and in what environment you are put will determine everything that will happen in your head…
If we can never be judged then you cannot judge those who support our current system of inequality of rights and wealth - they are just acting according to their two variables.
Re: Life is a game, this is your strategy guide
#155Every time I see an article like this I just want to grab the readers and shout "Read a philosophy book!" to them[1]. Literally every point in every article on how to live a happy life was being made by the likes of Seneca and Aristotle thousands of years ago, and there are good reasons why those writers are still the foundation for philosophy today - they were right. [1] I would recommend something like "Philosophy…
William Irvine's book - http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic-ebook/dp... is a great summary of Seneca and Aristotle's stoic perspectives. It's not a long book and gives a nice overview of the highlights of stoicism.
Seneca's essays aren't terribly long, either.
http://www.amazon.com/Stoic-Philosophy-Seneca-Essays-Letters...
Re: Life is a game, this is your strategy guide
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a guess: Women, on the average, are older than men. So women, on the average, have fewer teeth.
Sounds logical. But, and I'm not sure if it's correlated with gender, my mother and her mother both have several baby teeth with permanent teeth above them still, so there are cases like that screwing with the data.
On a related note, Google Image search for "baby skull teeth" is quite interesting.
Re: Life is a game, this is your strategy guide
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're getting unfairly voted down rather than responded to. A reasonable disagreement is pointing out you're assuming zero randomness in the universe (which includes in your head, and everyone elses head, I'm not a mind-body dualist) so no development of unique new ideas, or having unique new experiences or perceptions, both of which feed on each other to generate new echos of randomness long after something interes…
> you're assuming zero randomness in the universe No, actually not. The current state of research in quantum physics makes it look like there is randomness. But the thing about randomness is: Nobody has any control over it. So again, life (and the universe) may not be fully deterministic, but we have no absolute responsibility for whatever happens (only a relative one, relative to our culture, that is). > Also it ass…
> But the thing about randomness is: Nobody has any control over it.
Again, you're stating things as facts that there's no reason to believe are actually true. There are models in which quantum randomness does allow for free will, and no one knows whether they're right.
Re: Life is a game, this is your strategy guide
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Causality doesn't imply you have no control at all in your life.
Yes it does, it means every "frame" (yay video games terms) of your life, including the complete state of your mind, is a cause of the previous "frame". Every decision is a product of your experience and state of mind, that are the product of you previous decisions, that are the product of your previous experience.. something, something!
This completely ignores that you have choice.
You can go get another beer, as would be expected given you had three previously and chose to come to a bar, or you can choose to go home and sleep, or get in your car and drive, or swear off drinking forever.
The fact that options are present to you because of your previous choices (causality) is irrelevant to the fact that you still have full control over what option you select (free will).
Re: Life is a game, this is your strategy guide
#159Every time I see an article like this I just want to grab the readers and shout "Read a philosophy book!" to them[1]. Literally every point in every article on how to live a happy life was being made by the likes of Seneca and Aristotle thousands of years ago, and there are good reasons why those writers are still the foundation for philosophy today - they were right. [1] I would recommend something like "Philosophy…
And there's a major logical error in it: > At the start of the game, you had no control over who you were or your environment. By the end of the game that becomes true again. This implies that you have some sort of control between the start and the end - which is completely untrue, because: What genes you get from your parents and in what environment you are put will determine everything that will happen in your head…
This is Determinism, which is a very old idea (not to say it's wrong - just that this is a philosophical debate that rages on). There are lots of interesting works written on it versus Free Will.
My main issue with it is it seems to discount random events - and at a quantum level, it seems like there are genuinely random events, like radioactive decay. So it's not really accurate to say there are only two variables, there are really countless ones, and even small changes (like a few atoms splitting here and there) could lead to something like cancer in a friend or relative, having a serious impact on one's life. Still isn't an argument for the existence of free will though.
Re: Life is a game, this is your strategy guide
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Suggestion: ignore whiners like this who petition for 'manhole covers' to be renamed 'personhole covers'.
Or you know... just name them to something generic like "sewer access point covers"
Not all "access point covers" go to sewers. Some go to communication conduits. Sewerist.