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Comment by jupiter90000 | Hacker News Reader

Judgments about wasted time are incredibly subjective and prone to errors, not to mention unclear in relation to what might be the ultimate nature of a human's existence and life. I know some people that love woodworking for example, to me it's a waste of time. I've enjoyed hiking and going in a canoe somewhere, to someone else that'd be a waste of time they could be building a startup. That in turn could be a waste of time for someone who finds spending time with family more important. Anyway, not saying I haven't called things a waste of time, just when I'm honest about it it's really just what I think, not the universal truth.

"That 100th canoe stroke was such a waste, he could have been {0}ing." - Person who judges what other people want to do

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When I was a teenager I used to play chess competitively and when I mention this to people, they look at me all impressed. When I mention that I now play Dota competitively, I get an "oh I hear that game is really addictive" or "I'm not a video game person". And since I've played both for quite some time now I can promise you that playing any interesting game is not a passive experience and is in fact pretty brain melting if you get into it.

"I don't like games" to me now sounds a lot like when people say "I don't like music" or "I don't like books". You may not like specific genres but not liking an entire medium is often just a sign of miseducation.

I would challenge the most dedicated of programmers to build an efficient factory in Factorio or an adventure buff to see what it feels like to beat a monster like in Sekiro or Dark Souls. The Witness, Baba is you, Crusader Kings 2 etc.

Please play any of those games and tell me that gaming is a passive activity.

I doubt few would argue that gaming is a passive activity. What they seem to argue is that any gaming experience specifically designed for entertainment is ultimately worthless.

There’s games all around us if you look. I like to play the “I broke my kernel and my entire system is fucked and now I gotta repair it” game or the “write a driver for some obscure hardware” game or even “demonstrate a vulnerability exploit on a live system” game, all which lead to greater value creation and self fulfillment superior to defeating some imaginary creature.

> all which lead to greater value creation and self fulfillment superior to defeating some imaginary creature

That is 100% subjective.

For instance, I can easily argue that breaking kernels and writing drivers for obscure hardware does not add any real value for society as a whole.

However, playing and socializing with people does create value for society, specially in this day and age where people is evermore alone, if only in reduction of antidepressants ;)

>the "demonstrate a vulnerability exploit on a live system" game creates greater value than a video game

Right, but there are instances where you can train for that live demonstration, like CTFs in self-contained environments like virtual machines.

Seems pretty similar in scope to a video game to me. I think you're more accurately complaining about games that provide little value beyond the skinner box. What about stuff like Shenzhen I/O, Factorio, etc? You could even make strong case for RTS games teaching transferable skills.

They train different skills; for example, I wasn't a very well coordinated kid, and I attribute my driving skills to years of FPS gaming, which trained me to operate controls while paying full attention to my environment. Writing drivers doesn't help with that.

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