Disappointed Optimists | Hacker News Reader

Disappointed Optimists

cwodtke.com

73 pointsadrianhoward9 comments

Clear-eyed description of the reality of corporate life. Designers feel this pain, as does anyone (like sw devs) who has a sense of “I could make this better” but isn’t given the support to do it.

Really enjoyed a good write up piece. It feels really good to read when is not written by AI. To me that journey from solo combat to diplomacy was part of the growing process. At the end I’ve taken the build from scratch path anyway.

i am sorry but this gave me a pessimist vibe...what was the message here exactly?

I thought the strategies of soft resistance section had some good tips on how to handle working at a big corp, and it's somewhat positive about leaving a company who's mission you don't like to found your own or find one that you dislike less.

Ultimately the message seems to be about trying to do what you can to not feel too guilty and keep surviving.

It's anthropologically interesting to see what it is like to be a designer. Similar to how on this site we largely can see how it is to be an engineer this gives us a view into a companion role. They each have their own unique quirks if you're willing to generalize

That corporate systems are broken and it takes constant, unappreciated effort to make anything of worth because people who see and highlight real issues are labeled as "pessimists" and even includes specific steps to live in this toxic environment.

> A cursed problem, in his definition, is an unsolvable design problem rooted in a conflict between two promises that can’t coexist. You made both promises, on purpose, and they contradict each other, and no amount of clever tuning gets you out. You can only cut through it and give something up.

> His example is a free-for-all fighting game. You promised players a test of combat skill, and you promised them a game worth winning. But the way you win a free-for-all is politics — alliances, betrayal, ganging up on the best player — so the two promises eat each other. You can’t fix it with a patch. You can only decide which promise to sacrifice.

Is anyone else confused about this? I'm not sure exactly how these promises contradict. Is the idea that politics makes a game less "worth winning"?

If you win via politics ("hey, gang up with me on X") then it's not a "test of combat skill" alone anymore. it has to move away from combat skill to also being a test of politics.

Many souls games define the opposite of this the traditional model is that an invader can attack aided by the enemies which is more dynamic but less of a pure test of skill. To get around this players made fight clubs where they let people invade them in a neutral area with no enemies, the players agree to do an honorable duel which goes against the nature of the mechanic but emphasizes skill of the individual.

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