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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

What is real?

I can create a business that does things only in computers and use the funds to buy other things only in computers, how is that different than a game?

Games are life with an easy mode, and many things which are "not real" are just as fulfilling as things that are "real".

Accumulating wealth is mostly just a game anyway once you have the basics covered, and when you start thinking about it too hard everything is equally unreal in that nothing has any worth outside your own arbitrary values.

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If you don't have enough resources to eat or keep warm, that will feel pretty real, right? Loads of people don't have enough to get by.

If the system is working properly, you should mostly be able to accumulate wealth only if you provide value to everyone else. That's the theory anyway.

There's this meme I see on HN sometimes that every use of time is equally worthwhile, and that any value judgments are arbitrary.

Highly skilled communities should value work that creates some value, above noodling around in games.

I've played lots of games. But I know they aren't real, beyond helping me relax, or maybe learn skills that transfer out. I agree with the OP that we shouldn't spend all our effort in games. I'm similarly skeptical of things like the fashion industry, super professional sport etc too but that's just me :)

> If the system is working properly, you should mostly be able to accumulate wealth only if you provide value to everyone else. That's the theory anyway.

That is nothing but modern ideology and wishful thinking. The reality is, there is a global competition for resources and providing value to others is only useful when it benefits yourself. Those who claim to have a societal model where everyone can happily accumulate wealth while benefiting others and hurting nobody, know exactly what they are doing.

> I'm similarly skeptical of things like the fashion industry

There's a good example of perceived value vs. objective value. Ask some fashionista why they wouldn't wear the same outfit every day.

> Those who claim to have a societal model where everyone can happily accumulate wealth while benefiting others and hurting nobody, know exactly what they are doing.

I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that activity in the real world economy is generally more beneficial to others than activity in a video game.

The world economic system, flawed as it is, is taking at least some KPIs in a direction I think is unarguably good: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN

> > Those who claim to have a societal model where everyone can happily accumulate wealth while benefiting others and hurting nobody, know exactly what they are doing.

> I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that activity in the real world economy is generally more beneficial to others than activity in a video game.

> The world economic system, flawed as it is, is taking at least some KPIs in a direction I think is unarguably good: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN

Isn't the world of Warcraft economy larger than the GDP of some countries? Where is the line between "real world economy" and virtual economies that impact "real world" economies?

I don’t think I understand the point behind this post. Can you specify the exact boundaries with games that make them beneficial versus not? You admit that you’ve played lots of games, and find small amounts of benefits.

Why is your experience exactly the amount that’s beneficial, but the article’s subject is beyond okay?

Could it be that you have found and excavated the amount of value in gaming that works for you personally, and that amount may differ for others?

I was intending to agree with the first comment here, and to disagree with the comment I replied to, rather than taking issue with the original article.

'Highly skilled communities should value work that creates some value, above noodling around in games.'

I'd argue that 90% of our "real" economic activities are basically just red queen games as well.

What are "red queen games"?

Probably "running faster to stay in place" basically. The phrase is a reference to the Red Queen's race in Alice In Wonderland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis

Ok, so you want communities to value work that creates value.

Besides, say, actively participating in the production of basic food and shelter, what is valuable work?

A follow-up, how would you defend the value system I'm asking for as non-arbitrary?

It's simple, valuable work is work that people are willing to pay for with currency that can be used for food/shelter/whatever.

It seems arbitrary, but if some billionaire pays you a million dollars to bite her toe off, that's still immensely more valuable than the 10 years spent in the article because a million dollars worth of obligations were just released to someone who will (on average) spend them.

Money is just a note of a generic obligation (aka debt) from the rest of society in that currency.

I don't have the answer, but it's certainly not simple. I'm not willing to pay you anything for participating in this HN discussion. That doesn't make your contributions worthless. Some people pay millions for a useless piece of canvas with some blobs on it, but this crazy minecraft construction or that webcomic that I'm enjoying for free is supposed to be worthless? No way.

The need for food and shelter only requires a small percentage of our collective time these days. The much larger part of our economic activity is not grounded in that need, though it may be convenient to make other people think that working 40 hours a week is just barely enough to earn the right to exist.

The value in HN comments is high. Just because they don't show ads doesn't mean they aren't able to capture that value either.

HN is not free in the purest sense. Companies/ideas/agendas are presented to you. It a way it's a platform and platforms are usually free and offer at least some network effect value.

> It's simple, valuable work is work that people are willing to pay for with currency that can be used for food/shelter/whatever.

So, "valuable work" is just work with financial benefits? If I save 100 poor people's lives it's worth less than if I drive a millionaire around for $10?

A narrow way to look at it.

Loyality gained from those 100 poor people could allow trust between you that allows you to gain additional value (100 poor people trained becomes a powerful army). While the 10 dollars you gained while driving around someone you missed 100 dollar opportunities.

We're talking about different kinds of value.

This is a fair point; its not easy to objectively define value.

But I'd say to a first approximation, economic effort defined towards the pursuit of maximising arbitrary stats in a video game, is less likely to be valuable work.

That's really all I'm saying. Just because its hard to define objectively, shouldn't mean its a free-for-all, and that we accept that all activity is equally useful (or un-useful.)

We can and should use our judgement here.

> Besides, say, actively participating in the production of basic food and shelter, what is valuable work?

Not a perfect signal, but if someone will pay you to do it, your work is probably valuable to them.

This gets distorted by wealth inequality and probably half a dozen other factors, which is why it's not perfect.

Not everything that's valuable fits neatly into a market context, of course. Exercise and hiking are valuable to me, but no one will pay me to do them. Games might similarly be an opportunity to develop in some way (many games are engaging because they involve some kind of skill) and provide recreation and maybe weave some social fabric. But they're often limited and have diminishing returns compared to some other opportunities...

> they're often limited and have diminishing returns

Right. I think therefore the thing is, to be conscious about the purpose of those games, ask questions about what kind of value they bring to their players and the society at large.

Are they opium for the masses?

> > they're often limited and have diminishing returns

> Right. I think therefore the thing is, to be conscious about the purpose of those games, ask questions about what kind of value they bring to their players and the society at large.

> Are they opium for the masses?

Is it wrong to want to devote time to being idle/non-productive? Must we spend every waking moment perfecting our every aspect? Are we afforded no moments of respite beyond sleep?

> what is valuable work?

People have mentioned food and shelter but also there is much value in KNOWLEDGE and science because that helps us ensure food and shelter. Say astronomy, maybe one day it will give us shelter (in terms of knowing what to do) from an asteroid hitting the earth.

My question for myself is, why should I play these games when the real life is like a game too but one which is much more challenging, much more important and much more valuable, from which we can learn much more, if we take our aim to be learning.

>If the system is working properly, you should mostly be able to accumulate wealth only if you provide value to everyone else

This is somewhat devil's advocate-ey, but what's to stop someone living off social benefits and accruing EVE online wealth? (Low ohysical standard of living/prestige, high virtual prestige)

Modern MMO's aren't good enough to replace the real world- yet. When they are, some subset of the population will pop on their VR machines, plug in the feeding tubes, and that's it. Unless you want to get rid of social benefits/make social benefits actually dependent on trying to get a job, you can't really stop people doing this.

I played Eve many years ago, was in one of the hardcore mercenary guilds/corporations.

At one point a really good player was going to quit the game. He wasn’t able to pay his real life bills, planned to get a second job just to survive and keep a roof over his head.

Turned out that another member (director) was loaded in real life, and he really didn’t want the other guy to quit, he had him send all his real life bills and paid them for him.

If you think about it, he really paid him a real life salary to have him work in a virtual world. And who doesn’t want to work as a pirate space mercenary for a living? :p

> he had him send all his real life bills and paid them for him

This is awesome and horrible at the same time.

How is it different than paying for any kind of entertainment? (Except maybe the dependency on a single person).

Maybe it had been a wake up call for that guy to turn his life around and somebody just paid his way back into the game. Or maybe his life was independently miserable and the game was the only positive thing. Who knows.

Yes seems like the guy realized he had an addiction problem, addicted to the game. Like if he was dependent on drugs and realized he needed to quit. Then by chance one of the people he was taking drugs with was a millionaire who thought the guy was a fun person to take drugs with and started financing his habit. At the same time the rich guy bought some loyalty and gratitude which might be good for him later in the game.

What happened? Is the rich guy still paying the bills of this poor chap?

I’ve no idea, they were both still playing in ~2006 when I quit, more than a year after he started helping him out financially.

No. It’s only awesome!

But MMOs aren't mainstream any more. It's been a decade since multiplayer match-based games took over. That future might have seemed possible in the mid-2000s with WoW taking over people's lives. Today there's really no trend to suggest full time living in a virtual existence. We're already there part time through social media, but it seems like that's about as far as it goes.

I think it's a massive economic barrier. How much does it cost to have an online experience of socialization or eating with equivalent quality to an offline one? People still take vacations, pack up their bags, and fly on planes to meet others and eat food. When will a virtual meeting and a virtual burger every be as good and cheaper?

> I think it's a massive economic barrier. How much does it cost to have an online experience of socialization or eating with equivalent quality to an offline one? People still take vacations, pack up their bags, and fly on planes to meet others and eat food. When will a virtual meeting and a virtual burger every be as good and cheaper?

How many people can now "walk" the streets of Venice who could never afford to travel there, but their friend has a VR and they got to experience it. It doesn't have to be better or cheaper to be opening doors for people today.

> When will a virtual meeting and a virtual burger every be as good and cheaper?

The same goes for museums that were an early use case of possible applications for virtual reality. In practice very few people are interested in virtual reproductions of even the greatest treasures of mankind that draw millions of people yearly to see them in real life.

I think it's the flying cars of our generation. Even when we achieve the tech the biggest question will be "why would we use that?" A nice bit of futurism but nothing more.

I'm not so sure about that. A big problem currently is people commuting to and from work causing traffic congestion time lost in traffic jams and traffic accidents. A true virtual office might be the solution to traffic jams.

Naval Action, the EVE of the Age of Sail is actually relatively new and having a small but dedicated community.

We will see more in the future. There are many potential eras/scenarios.

I just hate those VR Burgers. It's like they have no taste at all.

I played Eve for awhile and was in one of the bigger alliances, and knew people who did just that. It seemed to give them purpose and I really can't blame them. However I'm unsure if living off of social benefits was a product of the game itself or some other factors that are 'legitimate'.

> seemed to give them purpose //

And that seems good, but it's actually a problem. One finds purpose in the in-game reality which gives one motivation to withdraw -- the game gives the feeling of progress and success, the feeling that's supposed to help us motivate ourselves to survive and contribute to our tribe. But the success is really just changing numbers in a database.

I say this as someone who games most days.

Exactly. I think this boils down to the problem that games do not create actual value or if they do it is zero-sum, away from somebody else.

If what we do in the game could somehow benefit people who are outside the game THAT would mean it provides "real" value.

If the value it provides is only entertainment for other players then I would say it only provides VIRTUAL value :-)

Even the virtually richest mmo players would be hardup making minimum wage in developed economy terms.

Right I think that is the core of the problem. The skills you acquire in the game do not transfer to valuable skills in the real economy. Well, maybe Flight-Simulator. That is a "good" game.

The fundamental definition of wealth is time.

Wealthy people can purpose far more of their time.

Accumulating capital works like you say, bit we have work to do otherwise.

Improving basic wealth is possible, and does not impact capital much. Some, but not to a degree many, if not most will be concerned about.

It should be OK for ordinary people to be a bit wealthy. Arts, research, even just play are all rewarding, important.

For a reasonable amount of our time, yes. People can and should do what they want. It is not necessary we tighten this all up to some totalitarian optimum.

This is false. Homeless people without jobs have just as much time as billionaires without jobs. Guess which ones are considered wealthy.

There is a difference, and that is being able to purpose time.

The homeless person is driven by basic needs and wants. The billionaire is not.

A person of modest means, who works very little to meet them has significant wealth.

Off grid type people, who are successful in their investments get the return of time, as another example.

Maybe wealth is the time that's left after you provide yourself with sustained health by buying food, shelter, energy and medicine you need?

Two separate definitions:

* Wealth is the measure of ability to buy people's time and scarce resources

* Wealth is the measure of the ability to do things for their own purpose

I would argue the first one is capital.

> I can create a business that does things only in computers and use the funds to buy other things only in computers, how is that different than a game?

Real businesses ultimately provides a service for real people. It's bringing value to people this world, while a game is just literally some bits shifting in a computer.

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