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Comment by Nition | Hacker News Reader

I'll recommend GameHut[1], a channel run by Jon Burton[2] who worked on a lot of classic titles himself. The clickbaity titles and thumbnails are a little unfortunate, but there's a lot of interesting content on how things were programmed, with all the details broken down. e.g. 'Mickey Mania's "Impossible" 3D Chase'[3].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfVFSjHQ57zyxajhhRc7i0g/vid...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Burton

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt-AxAqlrOo

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Retro Game Mechanics Explained is also very good. The creator is anonymous AFAIK but the quality is top-notch.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwRqWnW5ZkVaP_lZF7caZ-g

Of course, nothing wrong with remaining anonymous or pseudonymous online. It comes down to many factors what an individual may feel comfortable revealing to a public audience. I do like to get to know YouTubers when possible just because a lot of them end up being pretty interesting, but it's not necessary.

> The clickbaity titles and thumbnails are a little unfortunate

They bring views which helps him make more videos.

One day enough people will see through clickbait titles that they won't work anymore. At least I hope so. It may be happening already, I don't know.

If that happens, it will be yet another example of optimization for the short term at the expense of the long term, and people still will fail to understand why that tradeoff is bad. Sure it's great for current-day you, but future you will pay, somehow.

How will the future "you" be paying? Not really clear what you mean. I don't see the short vs long tradeoff.

It will skew your evaluation of the importance amd veracity of information, so that future you will either not notice important things that aren't clickbaity enough, or if you resist clickbait, might not see important things that are too clickbaity.

But that's me as a viewer. For a channel I'm not seeing the long-term downside. If clickbait goes very out of style, they can just follow the trends, no?

There are many people who do not understand that optimization for the short term is paid for in the long term. Far too many. I don't understand how people do not understand that, and I recognize that, apparently, most people do not.

All decisions have (or are) trade-offs. Cause & effect. Since a cause cannot have an effect in the past, all causes have effects in the future, be it one nanosecond in the future or one thousand years in the future. That is to say, all decisions have consequences, and those consequences are always in the future.

If you optimize for the short term, you are, by definition, not optimizing for the long term. So, short term optimization necessitates long term de-optimization.

Examples:

Spend money now and have none for retirement (short term benefit), or save money now, and have it during retirement (long term benefit)?

Pollute the air now, earning maximum profit at the expense of air cleanliness in the future, or pay a lot of money today to find cleaner ways to operate, and have clean air in the future?

Fully invest in clickbait headlines today, earning ad impressions today, and risk clickbait fatigue later, or find a longer term strategy to retain readers in the long-term?

I can't readily think of an example decision that optimizes for short term gain that does not also optimize for long term loss.

My problem with this is that the short term is indeed very short, and the long term is very long. Short term optimization has long term consequences, and I would prefer short term consequences over long term consequences.

1. Without marketing hacks, like clickbait, there would be no business to optimise in the first place. Good luck optimising your non-viewed channel. You understand long term is only relevant if you survive the short term.

2. In the long term, you are dead. Optimise that.

>Since a cause cannot have an effect in the past, all causes have effects in the future, be it one nanosecond in the future or one thousand years in the future.

Off-topic, but you might enjoy reading about the delayed-choice quantum eraser experiment [1].

According to Wikipedia: "While delayed-choice experiments have confirmed the seeming ability of measurements made on photons in the present to alter events occurring in the past, this requires a non-standard view of quantum mechanics.", but it's still a mind-bending result.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_erase...

> If you optimize for the short term, you are, by definition, not optimizing for the long term. So, short term optimization necessitates long term de-optimization.

I don't think " short term optimization necessitates long term de-optimization" follows. They can be both optimal.

> Spend money now and have none for retirement (short term benefit), or save money now, and have it during retirement (long term benefit)?

Spend money now on something that increases your chances to get more money (easy example education?) and benefit now and at retirement.

I've noticed that a lot of the links containing click bait titles actually list the hidden content in the URL. It's not all the time, bit frequent. Especially ones along of "You'll never believe what <celeb> did" and then the URL has the name and "married" or something. I never click on a clickbait URL without waiting for the full URL to expand on hovering.

“Clickbait” is all a spectrum though. The things we think are click bait today could completely pale in comparison to what we think is click bait tomorrow. And that spectrum really varies based on the audience.

PT Barnum has a quote for you...

LMGTFY... “Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public.” ― P.T. Barnum

Unless this is a joke, I thought the famous PT Barnum-attributed quote was “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

My politically correct spin on that: "There's a customer born every minute."

http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/09/no-one-ever-went-brok...

TL;DR: Not Barnum. Paraphrased from H.L. Mencken.

I suspect these things change mostly in generational waves. Children have a tendency to see things exactly for what they are.

As long as most endeavors are relatively short-lived, chasing near-term gains for long-term losses is the smart bet.

Yes, but they give me a sense that the videos will be similarly over-dramatic and dumbed down, and usually I skip past recommended videos that have them. In this case the actual content is well worth watching.

The 'unfortunate' part to me is that's it's good content presenting itself like bad content.

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