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Comment by aphextron | Hacker News Reader

>It is no accident that the young and the old are generally more satisfied with life than those in middle age.

I was sitting in my car looking at a stop sign the other day, and all of the sudden it started shaking uncontrollably. Immediately I knew it must be a child shaking it, as there was simply no other possibility. No other person would just stand there and shake a street sign for no purpose beyond its' own sake. There is no benefit, no reward, no ultimate reasoning beyond 'I want to shake this street sign". As I looked down, I was right, and the kid was grinning like crazy.

We lose the ability to think like that as adults. It's not even that we have the thought and then consciously decide against it; we're incapable of even conceiving it. To just 'play' in life. And I think it's the most important aspect of our humanity. It is the very genesis of all our innovative and creative ideas, yet we treat it as something to be expelled in the process of "growing up".

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Shaking a red sign that says "STOP" seems infinitely more satisfying than shaking any other kind of sign.

I get a perverse pleasure out of setting my GPS destination far in the opposite direction of where I'm actually driving, so it constantly tries to talk me into turning around every exit, just so I can enjoy the simple pleasure of not doing what it tells me to do.

My son and I went 2 days home from Pittsburg, with the gps trying to get us to turn around and return to the waffle house just outside town. We enjoyed imagining behind its polite exterior, it colorfully swearing at us inside for systematically ignoring it.

Ha, literal rage against a machine! I find it interesting that you enjoy injecting artificial anxiety into your life. In contrast, I try to continuously minimize minor daily annoyances.

Just the opposite if we read the comment again. Its enjoyable, not anxiety-inducing.

I got that it's enjoyable for OP - but it would bug the hell out of me. I found this difference surprising.

Try working for TomTom for a few years. Then you'll have a different perspective about those accursed "personal navigation devices".

They didn't appreciate my proposal to develop the TomTomagotchi: a PND with a simulated personality that begs you to drive it all around town to various points of interest it desires to visit in order to satisfy its cravings and improve its mood. I'm sure there's a revenue model getting drive through Burger Kings and car washes to pay for product placements.

Here are a couple of short hidden camera one minute movies about frustrated robots we made at the Stupid Fun Club.

Stupid Fun Club's "Servitude" One Minute Movie about Robot Servitude, written by Will Wright. Robot brain and personality simulation programmed by Don Hopkins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXsUetUzXlg

Stupid Fun Club's "Empathy" One Minute Movie about Robot Empathy, written by Will Wright. Robot brain and personality simulation programmed by Don Hopkins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXrbqXPnHvE

And if you thought recalcitrant robots were hard to control:

Pet Rock Remote Control

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG0FAKkaisg

(If you want your pet rock to be obedient, you just have to carefully choose which commands you tell it to do.)

I've spent a good amount of time thinking about why this change would occur. My current favorite hypothesis is that a playful mode/attitude emerges naturally when you find your circumstances to be 'okay'.

The playful mode seems to be characterized partly by open-ended exploration, and partly by lack of any definition of a 'correct result'.

When we lose the habit of entering the playful mode, it's in favor of another mode which carries out optimization processes on some desired goal state; you lose the 'absence of correct result definition' because there is a definitely some particular result you're looking for; likewise your exploration tends to be highly constrained and goal-directed.

A lot of distillation of Eastern ideas (primarily Buddhist and Taoist ideas) surrounding meditation focus on this distinction between 'modes'. The practice of meditation itself can help to let go of the driven/goal-oriented mind state, but a perhaps bigger part is taking earnest personal account of which things you really need in order to be content. The more things you're able to say you can do without, the fewer reasons you have to stay in the driven, non-playful mind state. (This is not to say you can't have goals: it's just a different way of dealing with them. The recommendation is to not set them up in such a way that things are not 'okay' until they are met.)

Isn't it simply that children have far less preconceptions of the world, as they haven't had time to form them, and that unstructured play is part of how children satisfy the in-built drive for novelty and understanding?

They need to play to make sense of the world. To a child, the most mundane things are genuinely fascinating and novel, as they haven't experienced them much yet.

Psychedelics are one way to reach this state of mind as an adult. They unravel our preconceptions a noticeable amount, transforming the mundane into something novel and fascinating yet again.

I think this perspective, with some effort, can be fostered as an adult as well. Of course, it's a balancing act.

The sound of one hand clapping is that of an argument which none of us can disagree with

I brought a similar situation up to a friend of mine a couple weeks ago from a different perspective. The condensed exchange goes like this: when you were a kid did you ever go knock on a kids door that you didn't know, nervously wait for them to answer and then when they finally arrived ask them if they want to play? I have yet to meet an adult who didn't do this as a kid and my friend dutifully replied "hell yeah!" The conclusion of the conversation was that that attitude was rad and that we should put ourselves in that situation or at least aware of the option as much as possible. With obvious caveats because we're both in our thirties, however taking that attitude as much as possible has both enriched our lives for the better in the ensuing weeks. The topic came up because I was reminiscing about my transition to adulthood and wondering what's changed in the two decades since and remembered that I had based my entire career on that attitude. I was a little disappointed in myself for having lost my way. I'm very greatful for the recollection because playing is really fun!

I think I still play, but it's a different kind of play. I don't think to shake a sign because it's not fun. I know exactly what happens if I do that--there's nothing novel. My play now involves deeper experiences, such as picking up new hobbies or trying to learn new subjects. This might be boring to a child, but only because they haven't built up the experience to appreciate it yet.

For me, I just think most play loses it's interest because the novelty is gone. I know or can guess pretty well what will happen, so I'd rather read a novel or article that tells me something new. Or make something. Or bring something back to order. It's not all bad. And when I want to play, I do. Why else would I chase my chickens around the yard with a remote control buggy?

There is no benefit, no reward, no ultimate reasoning beyond 'I want to shake this street sign". As I looked down, I was right, and the kid was grinning like crazy.

Actually, there was benefit and reward for the kid shaking the sign.

The kid is trying out some things, learning about the world. Answering questions about the world such as: How strong and stable is this sign? Can I shake it like a tree branch? What sound will the shaking make? How strong am I? Am I strong enough to move this sign, even a little?

You likely have a good estimate of your own strength, and the how well the sign is installed, so you don't feel much need to shake it and learn its and your own limits.

I still do similar things. I tend to tap / rap with my knuckles things like steel stair railings. Some of them can make interesting and long-lasting notes, while with others the best you can get is a dull "thud".

What better introduction can there be to the physics of simple harmonic motion and resonance than shaking signs and lamp poles?

Swings?

Or simply that the kid found the sound it made when shaken amusing for some reason.

I would love to do more stuff like that, but frequently refrain, as I know that as a grown man much of it would alarm people. It’s my least favourite part of being an adult. I likewise can no longer wander through people’s property.

(I still do things like that when they aren’t potentially alarming)

So start being an asshole, it's a lot of fun I promise you. Just fuck with people in a good way.

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> We lose the ability to think like that

It's worth noting with near 100% certainty that aggressively shaking a stop sign is illegal in probably all jurisdictions. Especially if it looks like it is shaking uncontrollably. Now I'm not getting mad at the kid, but there is a very good reason your adult brain doesn't automatically think about shaking that sign (and then commanding your body to go do it).

The kid, if faced with a police officer after the event, will of course get off free. They didn't really do any damage. But adults know that shaking that sign so hard could cause real, expensive damage, and that aggressively attacking public safety infrastructure is a bad idea.

It's a good thing that your brain knows about the sign. The kid is learning about the sign for the first time maybe, but you know about it. You know what it is and the value of a human life that it might save if it is not ripped down and requiring repairs.

It's almost as if fun, spontaneous things are illegal. You would have to shake that sign pretty damn hard to do damage.

> You would have to shake that sign pretty damn hard to do damage.

You don't know that. There are at least thousands, perhaps millions, of stop signs across America that are not securely placed into the ground. Sidewalks are cracking, some stop signs are old and getting older in the elements, etc.

If everyone in the US went out and shook a stop sign hard, we've be faced with millions of dollars in repairs and a very dangerous interim period without full stop sign coverage.

I'm obviously taking the extreme angle here. But America is laced with heavy regulation in the safety of its infrastructure to avoid simple failures like falling stop signs. Obviously there's no great effort to tear down all the top signs that would require a law against it - but I guarantee you that these signs are protected against vandalism and for good reason.

Different point of view than mine, but well thought out none the less. Shouldn't be down voted.

Shaking a stop sign isn't vandalism.

Sure it is, if you weaken the sign and make it lean, or even worse, fall. Adults brains are wired to not take those risks, even if they are unlikely, because they are dangerous and bad.

The kid has weaker arms, doesn't know the importance of the sign, and is vastly less likely to do damage. That's why we generally let them do it if they want to. But if 10 million adults all started doing it, you can bet there would be arrests.

It's not a bad thing that adults are less likely to go to town shaking stop signs uncontrollably. That would be risky and it's a-okay our brains know that.

There's a difference between shaking a sign and breaking a sign. The wind shakes them all the time. If someone was ever arrested for shaking a sign, I would seriously question (even more so) whether our society's good intentions paved our road to hell.

Yes, I know - you're missing the point I'm making. Adults brains are less likely to go shake the sign, as it might break and that would have major consequences. The kid doesn't know this, and it's also less likely for major issues to arise, so the situation is different and we generally don't get upset at kids for shaking the sign.

The OP said that the sign in their story was shaking "uncontrollably". That word means something here - it means the sign was really shaking. Adults don't normally do that because it carries a real, physical risk both in damaging the property but also harming another person. It's not just innocent play for an adult to go shaking stop signs on the street - it's downright dangerous.

My point is that it is a good thing that adults don't go around shaking signs. We shouldn't be concerned about not being kids anymore just because we have the maturity to know about risk and health. It's not a bad thing that we know it's not acceptable to go around shaking signs uncontrollably.

>the sign in their story was shaking "uncontrollably"

Well, as uncontrollably as a kid could shake it.

>We shouldn't be concerned about not being kids anymore just because we have the maturity to know about risk and health. It's not a bad thing that we know it's not acceptable to go around shaking signs uncontrollably.

I think someone worried about the dangers and health risks of shaking a sign might be a little anxious. I don't shake signs because it would be boring, but this conversation has reinvigorated my interest in shaking stop signs! Next time I go for a walk and walk by a stop sign, my brain will make me shake it, and I will smile.

Thanks!

I would say that we "lose" that playful ability for reason. As we age and have more responsibilities, time spent doing things that have "no benefit, no reward, no ultimate reasoning" means time not spent fulfilling other responsibilities.

One may argue that playfulness fosters creativity that eventually helps us fulfill other responsibilities better (e.g. create a more innovative startup, be a more playful parent). This is the classic trade off between exploration and exploitation. We tend to explore early on, then exploit the gained knowledge later.

> We lose the ability to think like that as adults. ... To just 'play' in life

I still think that way, sometimes, it's just I don't like drawing attention to myself. But other times, I just say "screw it". On Saturday I was the only adult joining their kids on the indoor waterslide. And it was a great slide and I loved it.

"To just 'play' in life."

I don't think we're incapable of conceiving it, I think this is very much cultural.

While we should avoid "playfulness" that comes at the expense of the greater good, like kicking a garbage over, or other kind of destructive play. I think its possible for adults to "play", but we'd need to change our culture to allow it.

I'd say a big part of playfulness is about engaging with others in a trustful and open manner. Something I feel our culture makes quite difficult. Going dancing for example is a good form of playfulness, yet is culturally a source of anxiety for most of the western world. To play with other adults makes most of us anxious, how messed up is that!?!

Similarly, to learn and explore as an adult is a source of anxiety, because our culture does not allow adults to be novice at something without judging or ridiculing. As an adult, you feel ashamed to start learning something new from scratch, that's why most people who learn things from scratch as adults do it with activities where they can learn it in secret, by themselves.

Lastly, time is a problem. We've given up our play time as adults, our culture is designed this way. We don't value time to play, we value making more money. People want to be rich, not play more.

I think this is all just cultural, as from where I'm from, these norms are not as strong as where I live now. Where I'm from I know of many more adults who's idea of a perfect life is to just live in a modest house, singing, dancing, playing music, chatting over dinner with good friends and family. To have time for your hobbies, and to just be able to relax and appreciate the passing of time.

My preservation of that childlike joy is why I have $500 of ball pit balls and why I often make a one liner to an empty room in response to an unfortunate event, then look at a non existent camera in order to break the fourth wall. It's pointless fun, but myself and the cosmos appreciate it.

"All grown ups were children once, though few of them remember it!" --- The Little Prince

Something I want my kids to never forget as they grow up - don't stop being a kid.

Na just try doing it again. Your system of reasoning will object and huff and puff, but the child in you will send a smile to your face immediately

Agreed. Playing is at the heart of creativity. Only by playfully rearranging ideas can we construct new ideas.

Interesting thought. I'm 32 and I still have these playful thoughts. What's more interesting is that when I act some people look at me in a weird way since it is not expected of me. Not like I give a damn though. I know better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny_in_humans#Brain

> We lose the ability to think like that as adults

Exploration vs exploitation

Funny, my first thought was earthquake. Past experience obviously clouds initial judgements...

>We lose the ability to think like that as adults. It's not even that we have the thought and then consciously decide against it; we're incapable of even conceiving it.

i wholeheartedly disagree - you simply fall out of the habit of it. when i was in college i had a lot of sleepless nights and i wandered around campus "pulling on doorknobs". yes sometimes i got into places that i shouldn't have been but that's besides the point: i got back into the habit of touching things and experimenting. this was almost a decade ago now and i still pull on doorknobs, kick sign posts, peak through construction site barriers (nyc is perfect for this because every construction site fence has portholes). really of course the problem is obvious: people that don't think it's cute/funny/interesting are really put off by it (social pressure). young kids have less of that mediating their experience of their world (that's the key)

I don't avoid those things because of social pressure.

I don't try random doorknobs because I wouldn't want people intruding on my space if I happened to leave a door unlocked by accident -- the fact that kids (and some adults apparently) don't think through such things is not some sort of admirable trait.

I don't shake sign posts for fun because I've had to fix enough things in my life that I know how actions like that can weaken or destroy an object that most people consider very durable (or indestructible) and therefore would amount to vandalism for the sake of "fun".

it's funny sometimes i read things or see things online and i can't begin to relate to the subject that wrote/created/said those things.

this is going to seem roundabout but bear with me.

here is a video of tourists lamenting the drowning of a zebra foal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAHysptvEfo

i can't fathom the subjecthood of the person wishing someone would interfere (this is a savannah in subsaharan africa presumably - there is no such thing as fair - it's a completely unintelligible notion). now it sounds like a young girl doing the lamenting so it makes sense that i can't relate.

now you internet person

>the fact that kids (and some adults apparently) don't think through such things is not some sort of admirable trait.

i can't fathom your subject that you so miss the point that it is exactly this childhood naivete that the op is commenting on. of course children don't think through such things - they're children! they have no sense of property or privacy (nor should they!). this is exactly what op is saying he misses.

besides that the sentence as written is essentially the negation of op's and so adds nothing. it doesn't suggest why it's important that no one intrude on your space, it doesn't explain why it's important for people to have private spaces, it doesn't explore anything. it's literally a no to a yes.

>I don't shake sign posts for fun because I've had to fix enough things in my life that I know how actions like that can weaken or destroy an object that most people consider very durable (or indestructible) and therefore would amount to vandalism for the sake of "fun".

you can choose to ascribe malice or mischief to everything that's the slightest destructive, you are free to do so, but you should at least for a moment consider whether conservation isn't the ultimate goal of life.

I didn't criticize kids for their naivete. I was pointing out that I don't think that sort of naivete is something to aspire to. If a kid breaks something because they didn't think through the foreseeable consequences, I don't necessarily attribute that to malice. But I hold adults to a different standard and I don't consider avoiding destruction of public or private property to be an issue of "conservation" but one of respect for my neighbors.

I'm all for people trying to recapture the wonder and excitement of their youth. Maybe it was just two unfortunate examples that struck me as things that adults should not be aspiring to do...

https://youtu.be/6xCCoull3I4?t=98

Im not so sure that "thinking through" is so pure in value as you think it to be. Many grown ups have quite a lot of biases factor into there thinking through- where situations basically hash to a solution and the "thinking" through is avoided at all.

Kids do not have that, they can develop novel approaches and they really have to think- they dont even have work to escape from the difficult questions. So this is where the future comes from. Beeing childish and able to fail is a bon.

If you think kids don't have a lot of biases factoring into such decisions or don't hash situation into solutions, you don't interact closely with kids. They have different, more simplistic, set of biases, but biases nevertheless and they tend to be very strong.

Kids very often just repeat whatever worked last time in very superficially similar situation and the smaller they are, they less likely they are to actually think through those situations. It seems like inventing something novel only if you don't know the kid and don't know what situation the kid is repeating.

reciprocity is also social pressure. nobody said that social pressure is bad.

I think this is caused more by being aware of consequences.

In VR games, I have found that childlike feeling again. I wander around trying to touch everything, if there is anything I can pick up, I will likely do childish things with, including seeing how far I can throw it or what I can hit with it. I often do some mini-roleplays by performing actions that aren’t strictly required by the game and serve no real purpose. And sometimes I just try to break shit sticking my head and body into places it didn’t belong.

And then you have social games like VRChat that feels like you’re playing amongst a bunch of rowdy immature children, sometimes because the people actually are a bunch of children!

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