The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City • Hacker News Board

Re: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City

#31

Post by asdflkj » Mon, May 17, 2010, 8:35 AM UTC

eli_s wrote: post #8

Groxx wrote: post #2

Interesting article, if a little heavy in possible-subtext, and I loved the video from the very first time I saw it. Favorite quote by the creator: As for The Sims, I enjoyed that too, although sims usually turn insane and die horribly under my hands after a few minutes. Dx xD

my favorite quote: 'If anyone’s wondering, I am not autistic, or a savant, nor suffer from OCD, or suffer from any other form of clinical mental disease or illness for that matter.' hehe sounds a bit defensive to me ;)

I thought that was a bit of dry humor.

Re: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City

#32

Post by pook » Mon, May 17, 2010, 8:37 AM UTC

jp_sc wrote: post #28

maxwin wrote: post #26

He is not a "totalitarian Buddhist". The fact the he borrowed the concept of Buddhist Wheel of life doesn't make him "totalitarian". The topic is misleading,inconsiderate, ignorant and offensive.

"No one considers challenging the system by physical means since a hyper-efficient police state keeps them in line"

I think it is important to realize that he's saying this in the context of a game.

Unless you claim that everyone who has ever revelled in magmaflooding a colony of dwarves is literally a racist/totalitarian/sadist...

Re: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City

#33

Post by nano81 » Mon, May 17, 2010, 8:40 AM UTC

vollmond wrote: post #19

nostromo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He basically found a way to build a more populous city (presumably) than anyone else, ever. He also found a pattern that seems to keep the city crime-free and educated with full employment and no apparent pollution. This would take quite an investment of time without using any cheats. Obviously the video is pure melodrama though.

Well, no. He has a perfectly stable, high-population city, but it has none of those things except crime-free status "There are a lot of other problems in the city hidden under the illusion of order and greatness: Suffocating air pollution, high unemployment, no fire stations, schools, or hospitals, a regimented lifestyle - this is the price that these sims pay for living in the city with the highest population. It’s…

I don't know how the game works so this may not even be part of it, but it's incredible if such a high density population was able to keep growing for 50,000 years without being constantly devastated by disease and epidemics, despite not having any hospitals.

Re: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City

#34

Post by RiderOfGiraffes » Mon, May 17, 2010, 10:17 AM UTC

Can someone please invent a game where people like this can play obsessively, and yet the results are useful?

Can we invent a game, say, where (even if the participants don't realise it) what they produce is a hyper-dense, hyper-efficient CPU? Or RAM? Or parallel architecture?

Re: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City

#35

Post by eru » Mon, May 17, 2010, 10:30 AM UTC

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #34

Can someone please invent a game where people like this can play obsessively, and yet the results are useful? Can we invent a game, say, where (even if the participants don't realise it) what they produce is a hyper-dense, hyper-efficient CPU? Or RAM? Or parallel architecture?

TED had a talk about such (or rather, much simpler) games. E.g. how they are used to catalogue images.

There's also a game where you fold proteins.

Re: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City

#36

Post by eru » Mon, May 17, 2010, 10:32 AM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #22

aharrison wrote: post #13

I am truly in awe. It routinely amazes me the lengths to which many people go to in their chosen domain. Some people choose physics, or medicine. Some people choose Rubiks cubes, train sets, or Sim City. I find it hard in my day to day life to decide I will work on something for three years to truly and utterly dominate it. Especially something such as Sim City. I would say that I wish this gentleman had worked on cu…

"Of course, this guy is an architecture major, so maybe we will see that same level of skill, dedication, and attention to detail come out in the real world." God help us.

Why? He seems very good at finding solutions under lots of constraints. I don't think he would copy his tactics literally to the real world.

Re: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City

#37

Post by sliverstorm » Mon, May 17, 2010, 10:37 AM UTC

I'm confused. Why are macros cheating? A 'hack' that simply saves you time sitting at the keyboard doesn't seem like a cheat, it seems like a wise life-choice. Unless there is a time/skill factor to Sim City. Is there?

Re: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City

#38

Post by lionhearted » Mon, May 17, 2010, 11:19 AM UTC

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #34

Can someone please invent a game where people like this can play obsessively, and yet the results are useful? Can we invent a game, say, where (even if the participants don't realise it) what they produce is a hyper-dense, hyper-efficient CPU? Or RAM? Or parallel architecture?

> Can someone please invent a game where people like this can play obsessively, and yet the results are useful?

In terms of making productive output? Maybe not. But there's plenty of games that'll give you a deeper appreciation of how to think and will help you develop your character. Civilization IV will teach you a lot about how the path of technology generally went, historical buildings and achievements, and is good for thinking about constraints and balancing. Darklands (a DOS game from 1992, can be downloaded for free and run on te emulator Dosbox) is a very hard, very enjoyable game that gives a pretty good idea of the superstitions and beliefs of medieval Germany. It's really, really hard too, you're likely to killed a lot and have to learn how to play.

I thought Planescape: Torment was incredibly well written, as well written as most books, and makes you think on some interesting philosophical questions. Very original sort of game.

I play Conquer Club online a little bit, which is a Risk clone. Lots of math and strategy. Also you get some knowledge of geography playing on the different maps.

I try to make my consumption a little productive when possible - reading books, watching movies, and playing games that teach me things in addition to being enjoyable. So I'm not sure if you could make a game that caused people to produce explicitly, but there are a fair few that you'll teach you things of more or less value.

Re: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City

#39

Post by RiderOfGiraffes » Mon, May 17, 2010, 11:34 AM UTC

lionhearted wrote: post #38

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #34

Can someone please invent a game where people like this can play obsessively, and yet the results are useful? Can we invent a game, say, where (even if the participants don't realise it) what they produce is a hyper-dense, hyper-efficient CPU? Or RAM? Or parallel architecture?

> Can someone please invent a game where people like this can play obsessively, and yet the results are useful? In terms of making productive output? Maybe not. But there's plenty of games that'll give you a deeper appreciation of how to think and will help you develop your character. Civilization IV will teach you a lot about how the path of technology generally went, historical buildings and achievements, and is go…

Yes, there are games that genuinely benefit the player. I'd like to see more of them, too. They take a lot of work, and it's hard to make them have very wide appeal, so the benefit to society is genuine, but small.

The idea I'd like to see gain traction is for someone, or several someones, to write a game that may only get a small audience, but to get a truly hardcore audience, and to have the results of the game-play to be the benefit.

To quote Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear: How hard can it be?

Re: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City

#40

Post by nazgulnarsil » Mon, May 17, 2010, 12:12 PM UTC

lionhearted wrote: post #38

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #34

Can someone please invent a game where people like this can play obsessively, and yet the results are useful? Can we invent a game, say, where (even if the participants don't realise it) what they produce is a hyper-dense, hyper-efficient CPU? Or RAM? Or parallel architecture?

> Can someone please invent a game where people like this can play obsessively, and yet the results are useful? In terms of making productive output? Maybe not. But there's plenty of games that'll give you a deeper appreciation of how to think and will help you develop your character. Civilization IV will teach you a lot about how the path of technology generally went, historical buildings and achievements, and is go…

pet peeve: civilization games have almost nothing to do with even the standard historical interpretation of how technology developed and affected society.