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Why everything is becoming a game

gurwinder.blog

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Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#71

Post by pixl97 »

smackeyacky wrote: post #15
082349872349872 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody is going to be able to [find progression and meaning] for you and it takes a conscious effort rather than just expecting it to happen. I believe you've just given the tl;dr for Existentialism.

Ha ha - imagine that the secret of true happiness is something like noticing you got better at something you enjoy. It can't be that simple, right?

>Comparison is the thief of joy

With the existence of that statement, and the truth it seems to hold, I don't think it's just about getting better but also not above overly comparing yourself to others. Of course this is why I think a lot of engagement based social media sucks because it's just a bunch of people saying how perfect their life is so they feel good.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#72

Post by pixelrevision »

SunlitCat wrote: post #42
throwaway918274 wrote: post #36

Our CEO was musing about gamifying our scheduling software to get more "engagement" - aka. people accepting more open shifts, aka. working more overtime. It was so disgusting to me I nearly quit over the suggestion.

Just wait, next you have to buy your daily work tasks as a dlc, being at work itself is f2p tho. :)

You can earn cash shop points by doing a lot of grinding.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#73

Post by api »

bm3719 wrote: post #33
api wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

But the power process is just a game, or perhaps more accurately a built in biological addiction to games that caused us to pass on our genes in the past. Why is it truly metaphysically better than, say, racking up Reddit karma?

What I really think is that most humans have never had meaning. They’ve just been too busy surviving to stop and think about it. When societies get rich enough to afford time to think and universal literacy to discuss then we start noticing that life is “meaningless” and discussing the metaphysical emptiness that was always there below the surface.

Huxley’s brave new world is accurate but is neither brave nor new.

You always get a faction that thinks the absence of such discourse in the past meant we had meaning back then. They’re wrong.

Going back in time to when we were still deeply embedded in the “power process” or whatever you call it is no different from drowning yourself in TikTok or MMORPGs. It’s just another way to stop thinking about big deep questions that in fact have never been solved.

We do not truly know what we are, where we came from, if we truly have any “purpose” beyond just catalyzing the dissipation of energy, whether consciousness ends at death or has some eternal component, etc. We can have various religious and spiritual faiths but these do not come with proof. The honest ones tell you that up front.

Becoming too busy to care, whether in the old traditional way or some new way, does not change this.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#74

Post by Nextgrid »

virtuscience wrote: post #16
mdbauman wrote: post #5

It seems weird to me that the article lists several gamified apps without mentioning advertising. It seems obvious to me that gamified apps like Duolingo are incentivesed to keep eyeballs glued to screens mostly because advertisers pay per view, and strange not to mention this as a reason why we see so much of it in this space. Maybe the author thought it was too obvious to mention.

Advertising makes up only 9% of Duolingo's revenue and is also usually a small part of the revenue of most mobile games. Mobile games rely on "whales" (people who pay a lot , like a casino) and Duolingo makes almost all of its revenue on subscriptions. Both require sticky retention but advertisers don't drive the business model or executive decisions at these companies.

Absolute percentage of revenue (or for that matter, profit) is irrelevant. If employees are able to justify their salary/promotion by increasing a metric such as ad impressions or "engagement", you're gonna see more advertising, even if it affects long-term profitability or even kills the product.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#75

Post by chihuahua »

cod3rboy wrote: post #54

> This strange quirk of human behavior can even cost lives. In South Korea, a young couple became so addicted to raising a virtual baby that they let their real baby starve to death. The parents prioritized what they could quantify — levelling up their virtual baby — over that which they couldn’t — the life of their real one. This is so sad. Such incident indeed confirms technology is pursuing people into forgetting…

Truly shocking; that sounds like a plot line that Black Mirror rejected because it sounded too implausible.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#77

Post by 082349872349872 »

smackeyacky wrote: post #15
082349872349872 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody is going to be able to [find progression and meaning] for you and it takes a conscious effort rather than just expecting it to happen. I believe you've just given the tl;dr for Existentialism.

Ha ha - imagine that the secret of true happiness is something like noticing you got better at something you enjoy. It can't be that simple, right?

> noticing you got better at something you enjoy

Everypony needs to get (and develop) their cutie mark?

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#78

Post by fincycaden »

j_bum wrote: post #22
api wrote: post #3

I felt like the stuff about Kaczynski, while interesting, was a diversion. The meat is the beginning and the end: Skinner, how conditioning led to gamification which led to the addiction economy, and then strategies for turning the tables and take charge by choosing what games to play and how to play them. An evolved and condensed version of the closing with practical examples and practice exercises should be taught…

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?

The fact that he is a murderer is completely irrelevant to the discussion, nor was he insane. A genius mathematician, actually

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#79

Post by fincycaden »

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…

"But why is the struggle for survival better? Isn’t it just another game?" The reason why the struggle for survival is better is because that is what we are psychologically predisposed to be fulfilled by. Millions of years of evolution have created reward pathways and we get deep fulfillment from these goals, and community. Not all games are the same when it comes to how it affects us psychologically.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#80

Post by fincycaden »

api wrote: post #73
bm3719 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

But the power process is just a game, or perhaps more accurately a built in biological addiction to games that caused us to pass on our genes in the past. Why is it truly metaphysically better than, say, racking up Reddit karma? What I really think is that most humans have never had meaning. They’ve just been too busy surviving to stop and think about it. When societies get rich enough to afford time to think and uni…

"But the power process is just a game, or perhaps more accurately a built in biological addiction to games that caused us to pass on our genes in the past. Why is it truly metaphysically better than, say, racking up Reddit karma?" Because it gives us psychological fulfilment. We are conditioned through millions of years of evolution to find it psychologically fulfilling. That's the point. His argument is that living a life that may be less physically secure, but psychologically fulfilling is a better life to live. That's why it's better.
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