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Comment by brnt | Hacker News Reader

I guess I must have bever lost the child in me. I've been a fan of open world games, just so I can roam the world. I sometimes dont even play the storyline at all. I still don't like that Steam added 'achievements' that I can't turn off, I'll be in charge of what constitutes a goal thank you very much :)

Another poster had an interesting observation about academia vs corporate work. I'm 33 and still in academia, and I now realize a large part of that is the freedom it provides. I've see salary as a score on someone else's scoreboard, and very uninteresting for that reason. OK, I'm old enough to have experienced a person needs income for practical reasons, but I'm not going to work for it ;)

I'm allergic to competition, scores, rewards, prestige, I guess that makes me child-like?

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>I'm 33 and still in academia, I'm allergic to competition, scores, rewards, prestige

I had been under the impression that academia was mostly very competitive to be able to get career (tenure track) positions. Are you not aiming for that, is it less competitive in your field, or am I missing something else?

Indeed, I moved into a supportive role (software dev, what else) for that reason. Tenure is worse than corporate.

I've described academia (to my friends who work in software) as a company where the most coveted promotion will land you a job in marketing.

It does indeed come with a lot of freedom, but the relatively flat structure means that there's usually no one above the group's PI to promote their research. As a result PIs spend a lot of time writing grant proposals.

Yes academia is very competitive, even after you get tenure you still need to write grants all the time to be able to do your research.

I play games the same way, and I am also not easy to motivate with extrinsic motivators like money or deadlines.

If I'm doing the same thing for too long it becomes an almost impenetrable blocker in my mind, it's like if I try to do the task again there is a mental block that doesn't allow me to imagine it. I have been working on the tools to push through this but I decided it's ultimately a problem with my lifestyle. I was never going to be happy working 9-5 on the same types of work all year.

I started working for myself once I realized this, and do considerably fewer hours, of course also making less money. I'm happier by far and getting more done than I did before in the time I do work, and getting more "life" done as well. I'm lucky enough to be able to do that and still make a living.

Growing old is required. Growing up is optional.

    I've got no strings so I have fun
    I'm not tied up to anyone
    They've got strings, but you can see
    There are no strings on me

Viewed as meta-game, school can be viewed as the child's exercise in learning where society attaches the strings, and how to acquire and retain slack in them. Where better to learn Bureaucracy-fu than in a bureaucracy?

A video about strings (both literal and metaphorical): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_CZTi8L29c

Compare a 1940 vision of catfishing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAykOz1gWi4

Steel yourself for revelations about academia - unsure what stage you’re at but I’d guess PhD or post doc at most from the comment. Talk to people above you that you absolutely trust about the realities of academia.

Hehe, well aware of those. After my (first) postdoc I managed to get hired in a supportive role (in a whole new field, pretty exciting). If I hadn't managed that, I definitely would not be in academia anymore.

When I first started played Age of Empires 2, I would play against AI and just continue the map for 10s of hours, slowly expanding my influence, but never killing the enemy outright. I would just reshape the map according to my will.

I think a lot of modern games are designed to be like this. Building farms or worlds for fun (I haven't played any of them).

I played Age2 in exactly the same way!

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