Life is a game, this is your strategy guide | Hacker News Reader

Life is a game, this is your strategy guide

oliveremberton.com

359 pointsoliveremberton172 comments

This is a charming article. But it's somewhat sad to read. Because it operates on the nearly universal assumption that life is a game, or a battle, or a scavenger hunt—and the way to win is to maintain a high 'state' and get lots of 'achievements'. The reason this gaming terminology is so appealing to us is that it overlays nicely on the way we already think about life: you're constantly making some grade or another; you're constantly doing better or worse than your peers. A generation ago business was the most appropriate metaphor. But whether our obsession is with who's giving us a raw deal and who we're getting over on, or where we have advantages and where we have disadvantages (what am I at +1 for?), the basic sensibility doesn't change.

The perspective here is consistently egoistic. It's not even mentioned. It's just assumed that the way one goes through life is as an individual, with one's own interests solely at heart, and one's own state the only thing to be managed. You win by maximizing your own state, by grabbing as many achievements as you can before you die. And even if you're not a dick about it, your concerns are very much limited to your states, health level, and the contents of your inventory.

This is no way to go through life! It leads to suffering and a small view of things. I'm really interested to see, actually, what this community makes of that insight. It will dawn on people eventually—or at least its negative will: that everything we've been putting so much damned energy into isn't making us happy. But this community is so relentlessly introspective, communicative, articulate, well-equipped, and outright successful. And we have so many blogs like this one: so many people actively, sincerely, unabashedly interested in the science of happiness and fulfillment. So the potential there is pretty big. The potential for massive burnout and dissolution or massive reorientation.

Sorry, I couldn't find the alternative in your approach. Please reformulate for me what approach to life do you actually suggest. I'm really interested to see another point of view. My last years were mainly spent from switching to just living life to the style mentioned in the article and just everything feels so much better since. I am happy to go to work in the morning. I am happy to write my thesis. I am sometimes even happy to be critized by other people. And my social life also increased drastically since, containing more meaningful relationships to other people on all levels. And heck, I'm even doing sport because I know it ups my motivation, health and happiness.

I was used to being one of the least positive people about life prospects, now at least in my circles I am one of the most positive people and others are actually spending time with me just to grab some of the positive energy.

If you have a life style to offer that makes me and the people around me even more happy I would be really happy to learn more about it!

Sure. The one liner is: spend as much of your free time and energy focusing on giving and helping others rather than enriching yourself.

Find ways to delight in the well-being and success of others—all others, everybody you know, everybody in the world. And when you feel that you aren't getting your fair share, that you'll miss out—take a long, long pause, really feel into that emotion, and see if self-centered thinking ends up getting you more of what makes you happy or not.

Mind: this is incredibly difficult. It's nobody's fault if they can't or don't do this. Almost every single meme and conditioned habit that's in you and the culture you live in works against this pattern.

That approach seems compatible with the article's main points. For example, if you drain your energy by not taking care of yourself, you'll likely end up sitting around watching TV instead of helping people.

I agree that it's compatible, and further that taking care of yourself is crucial to being able to effectively help others. The author might agree too, but in that case it's rather peculiar that everything in the article has an egoistic bent to it. Even if it wasn't the author's intention, I think it's worth pointing out that any mention of altruistic behavior is conspicuously absent from the article.

I see a big problem in perspectives like this, and most importantly, the culture they develop in.

I see a parallel with what Joel Spolsky said about operating systems. Windows and Linux are very much defined by the cultures surrounding them, which are radically different. And although I can't say that one is ahem "better", a certain one has many pitfalls, tendencies, and so on.

The article is clearly the product of an apex dominance culture, which is widespread in certain countries (ahem, one in particular).

The core problem with living such culture is that detaches people from the context they live in, which, very easily, deviates into moral corruption.

Think about patent trolls. A patent troll is simply a (a group of) person that specialized into a field, puts above all his own success... and makes it. P.T. are very successful people, generally speaking, and they do it within the law. This is very much a product of obsession with success, and detachment from empathizing with the people you're going to predate.

Think about the finance world - making millions from periods of crysis (there was an article recently on HN). It not an illegal act per se, it's just morally repulsive if somebody makes millions out while people loses jobs, houses, and savings. Yet again, obsession with success and detachment from the others.

There is also the (negative) flipside. What's going to happen when one discovers he's not Steve Jobs? Or hmmm, what's going to happen when one could become the next Steve Jobs... at the expense of other people? At the expense of your best friend[s]? What's better - "greatness" or family?

Another side effect of this narrow perspective is detachment from human nature, from the "self". This can be more practical than one thinks.

If one entire life is spent killing oneself to pursue success... what's going to happen after? Is it really a "comfortable pants +10"? What about burning out and regretting living such a narrow life? Again, there was an article on HN, about Carl Barks, which has been certainly successful. End of the game: burned out to the extreme.

Speaking of which, one certainly doesn't want to waste time with time wasters (bouncing ball on the knee), right? Unfortunaly, many experiences which are, practically, a waste of time, are those who make people interesting, and they are part of the creative, intellectual, emotional development.

How do one know that bouncing a ball on the knee doesn't lead to something more interesting? I think the world would be much less interesting if people in the past wouldn't have bounced balls on their knees.

Making music... a skill? Are you serious?

Of course, let's also take holidays off the charts, as they don't develop any skills. It's pretty much consequential losing interest in other countries (once one accept he's has very little chance to explore them), and not being able to point out the countries that one's government is bombing.

I find really hard to stop.

Obviously I'm not saying that any product of such culture is a monster, but culture is part of the development of the people.

Since you have posed a question in a personal way, I'd tell you that there is a difference, and it's subtle.

Let's say that what I have in mind could be summarized by the Good Will Hunting bar scene:

- [...] I will have a degree, and you'll be serving my kids fries at a drive-through on our way to a skiing trip - Maybe, but at least I won't be unoriginal

:-)

Be the change you want to see, and all that — right?

The metaphor in the article does not preclude non-egoistic play, it just suggests a another set of skills in the game: Diplomacy, Activism, Community Organization, Macroeconomics, History. Good-aligned players get Charity and Education skills. Evil-aligned players get Politics and Manipulation. Perhaps players have an additional statistic tracking Influence, and some will care more about it than others. Some statistics improve in groups.

It depends on the rules of the game.

Maybe the rules of life are competitive: you can only increase your score at someone else's expense. The score is either 0-1 or 1-0. (Maybe you're both starving but only have enough food to sustain one person.)

Or maybe they're cooperative: you can both achieve a >= score if you combine resources/knowledge/what-have-you. The score is 3-3 for cooperating or 1-1 for playing independently. (Take insurance, for example.)

In reality, the game is a complex mixture of these two extremes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei

Every time I see an article like this I just want to grab the readers and shout "Read a philosophy book!" to them[1].

Literally every point in every article on how to live a happy life was being made by the likes of Seneca and Aristotle thousands of years ago, and there are good reasons why those writers are still the foundation for philosophy today - they were right.

[1] I would recommend something like "Philosophy For Life (And Other Dangerous Situations)" by Jules Evans or "Consolations of Philosophy" by Alain De Botton as a starting point.

Basicaly those readers try not to waste time on reading old creazy guys from ancient past. It is easier to get pieces here and there on random internet sites.

I would sum this article with such quote:

"It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing." On the shortness of life - Seneca

tldr

Agreed, and I'd like to add that there's a reason why a few thousand years after Aristotle (and the rest) we still don't know a good recipe for a happy/whatever life.

On the contrary, we know so many recipes, and some have proven much better than others, while some have become obsolete. Its like asking for "the" (singular) recipe for cooking food.

What the philosophers are good at, is helping the reader come up with a logical method for making value judgments about those recipes. Its (mostly) not "here's a great piece of source code" its mostly more like "and this is why OO design is better (or not)".

I like the social contract, Marxism, Schopenhauer's writings, what we've learned in psychiatry, and so on...

I would rather read a short article with pictures then read a 300+ page book. Both of them are subjective views anyway, it's not an exact science.

Something can be subjective and stupid.

Yes, but the contents of the article can be discussed here today. Because it's short.

There is the Philosophy in the Mathematics. It is a real branch like geometry or anything else. Socrate and others are simple to read.

It's actually as objective as you get, if there is such a thing as "rational".

Rationality is the main principle of "exact" science too, and is a good tool to work within what we know.

Unfortunately, it's also a limitation, and maybe what's preventing us from transcending our bonds[1].

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/

I view it as a sanity check that's preventing us from transcending from reality into imagination, which might or might not have anything to do with how world works.

This article isn't interesting because of philosophy or because it says something important about life. Nice thing is the way it shows life and computer game in parallel. So it has nothing in common with reading philosophy book. (unless you mean after reading philosophy book one won't waste his time on stupid things like this)

But Seneca and Aristotle never wrote SEO-optimized 7 item listicles or produced YouTube linkbait.

"This crazy Greek drank Hemlock. What happened next will blow your mind."

Oh crap. Imagine BuzzFeed but for ancient philosophers and classic literature. Awesome.

There is a philosophical take on tabloid articles (based on The Daily Mail, a UK tabloid): http://www.philosophersmail.com/

I would throw up.

You won't BELIEVE what this vagrant philosopher said to the king of Macedon!

King of Macedon: "What can I do for you, o wise hobo?" Philosopher: "Well, you could move over. You block my sun".

"Philosophy Students Hate Him - One Weird Trick To A Lifetime Of Happiness"

Seneca and Aristotle were building off information already passed on to them so its probably older than that.

Aristotle (and Seneca but especially Aristotle) meticulously mentioned their sources. They had tons of original and unprecedented thoughts besides those anyway.

And there's a major logical error in it:

> At the start of the game, you had no control over who you were or your environment. By the end of the game that becomes true again.

This implies that you have some sort of control between the start and the end - which is completely untrue, because:

What genes you get from your parents and in what environment you are put will determine everything that will happen in your head. And everything that happens in your life, has its inception in your head (over which you could never have the slightest control).

This is also the reason why whe should all have the same rights (and wealth), independently of the fact of how well we were (and therefor now are) "equipped": There is no such thing as a "free will".

Everything in your life is nothing but a function of 2 variables:

1) Your inherited genes

2) Your inherited initial location

It means we can never be judged by anyone.

EDIT: The above is not based on any beliefs (as in "religious" beliefs), it's pure logic. (So, when I wrote "is completely untrue", I meant "is completely illogic".)

EDIT II: Sorry, I can't recommend any literature for this. It's all based on my own thinking.

But actually, you don't need any book, because I can't call this a "worldview", I can only call it: "100% pure logic". (Meaning: no cultural/religious/otherwise arbitrary beliefs allowed.)

So, if you can think logically and are willing to do some mental work, you - and everybody else who does it - will automatically get there. That's kind of the beauty of logic - it's the only thing/law in the universe that seems to be an absolute/unquestionable truth, everything else being invented by somebody.

> This implies that you have some sort of control between the start and the end - which is completely untrue.

You're just saying you believing in destiny.

I believe the inverse. And we will never know the truth so please don't start with a "which is completely untrue" when it's just an opinion.

Causality (in which most people believe, even though they never abstracted it far enough to realize the implications)

Causality doesn't imply you have no control at all in your life.

Yes it does, it means every "frame" (yay video games terms) of your life, including the complete state of your mind, is a cause of the previous "frame".

Every decision is a product of your experience and state of mind, that are the product of you previous decisions, that are the product of your previous experience.. something, something!

Yes, but to speak in video games term, you can still move the arrow of your character. Of course your decision are the product of your previous experience + a lot of other factors. But I believe there is a random factor, when we make a decision, we do choose one over the other.

We'll never know anyway, but I feel like there would be nothing, no universe, no life, no space etc... if there was not this "random" thing.

Randomness isn't exactly how most people would define control either.

Nevertheless, I agree with your critique of determinism. Think outside the "system". Nobody knows why stuff exists or why it behaves the way it does, it's all just observation and ideas.

This completely ignores that you have choice.

You can go get another beer, as would be expected given you had three previously and chose to come to a bar, or you can choose to go home and sleep, or get in your car and drive, or swear off drinking forever.

The fact that options are present to you because of your previous choices (causality) is irrelevant to the fact that you still have full control over what option you select (free will).

You're getting unfairly voted down rather than responded to.

A reasonable disagreement is pointing out you're assuming zero randomness in the universe (which includes in your head, and everyone elses head, I'm not a mind-body dualist) so no development of unique new ideas, or having unique new experiences or perceptions, both of which feed on each other to generate new echos of randomness long after something interesting happens. Also it assumes no social interaction with others however distantly linked to "interesting random people" even if the individual and their direct contacts are in fact really boring (aka effect of arts in general).

That is a much more productive form of disagreement than hitting the down button.

(Edited to add I think you're getting downvoted because of a cultural-linguistic meme or bug that whenever someone in the USA spins a story with "can't or don't judge" that usually means its a known and obvious statement of fact that they did something they and everyone else knows is wrong, and they have no better spin option. Last (modern) refuge of a scoundrel. Thus the downvotes)

Are there truly random events at the sub-atomic level? Or could it be simply that we don't understand yet what's happening but everything is deterministic? If it's the former, then there is no destiny, it is not determined.

The effect of these tiny random events would propagate upwards and perhaps cause an apple to fall from a tree. A sub-atomic particle vibrating randomly in a certain way could fire a neuron, giving you a new thought.

Even if life isn't determined, can you really say there is free will? You can't control the way that sub-atomic particles will behave, you may have the illusion of control in your head but at the end of the day it would come down to physics and randomness.

Personally, I don't find this opinion a healthy one, so I tend not to dwell on it much.

I like the idea of seeing life as deterministic or not. It's definitely a matter of "belief" when you put it that way. Although my scientific mind tells me nothing would exist if true random didn't exist. Thus the universe is not deterministic. But that's a question we'll never be able to answer anyway.

This is why I downvoted the parents by the way. I feel like there is no safe discussion when it starts with strong opinions ("which is completely untrue"). There is no right or wrong here so better be open minded.

> you're assuming zero randomness in the universe

No, actually not. The current state of research in quantum physics makes it look like there is randomness. But the thing about randomness is: Nobody has any control over it. So again, life (and the universe) may not be fully deterministic, but we have no absolute responsibility for whatever happens (only a relative one, relative to our culture, that is).

> Also it assumes no social interaction with others

No, of course we have social interactions, which influence us. But they are themselves a function of 1) our genes (i.e. whom we approach or not) and 2) our initial location (with all its properties).

> But the thing about randomness is: Nobody has any control over it.

Again, you're stating things as facts that there's no reason to believe are actually true. There are models in which quantum randomness does allow for free will, and no one knows whether they're right.

There are models in which one controls random events?

The multiverse theory, in case you're unfamiliar, says that each time there are different ways a quantum event could go, the universe splits into multiple universes, one in which it went each way. There is an extension to this in which free will is manifested by your consciousness following a given universe in each split.

This has the strange consequence that only you have free will, as perceived by your own consciousness. I don't think this makes any less sense than anything else related to quantum physics, but it is definitely weird.

Well, I'm at the opposite scale of thinking.

I think that inherited genes and location only plays a smaller part - but it depends on the person. For a normal western person my personal belief is that it is less than 10%.

I am a strong believer in free will and it's what makes us so different than animals. Animals have insticts and very little free will.

The thing is that if you believe in free will you have more free will as you will change your way of thinking. At least I believe that.

Back in 2007 I wrote an essay "Life As a Game of Chess": http://www.jimwestergren.com/life-as-a-game-of-chess/

>> but it depends on the person

And what makes the person? A Person is an amalgamation of inherited genes and collated personal experiences. Most of the personal experiences are a direct result of your location.

I think it is very important for us to go easy on someone who has gone astray or in our opinion is not living a life the way we think it is ought to be lived.

A Person who is a firm believer in free will would not judge anyone or for that matter force his/her view on anyone else.

> I am a strong believer in free will and it's what makes us so different than animals. Animals have instincts and very little free will.

Let me give you a friendly advice. Belief in free will has a purpose on it's own, just like belief in God. But if you choose to believe, stay away from attempts to explain it scientifically. You will only waste everyone's time and energy. Just assume free will as a fact and move on.

And keep animals out of it. They have as much free will as you.

As if science wasn't a belief system as well. As long as the source of your ideas is observation (as in all sciences) you have nothing but belief.

The advantage of science isn't that it can proof stuff (which it can't) but that it is open for change instead of being dogmatic.

Actually, the advantage of science is that it can predict the future in an accurate fashion.

Ergo: I know x will happen because when all the variables are the same in the past, x has always happened.

The accuracy of the prediction is what changes in science, which is why it is a better system to use for predicting future events than other dogma based systems.

Ergo: Recently discovered factor y can be changed as a variable, and this accounts for x sometimes not happening the same way. We must account for this as a variable too.

I've been looking for a book or other source that makes a case for this worldview in a straightforward, logical way that is as simple as possible (but no simpler).

Can you recommend one?

haven't read it, but i believe Sam Harris has written a book that attempts to do that

You are still making a value judgement.

That is, why shouldn't people with genes more suited to the environment they live in enjoy more success?

To answer that question, you have to assign some values to things, which is not a strictly logical process.

If we can never be judged then you cannot judge those who support our current system of inequality of rights and wealth - they are just acting according to their two variables.

Wrong. When I say "you cannot judge", I mean "moral" judgment. Which is not to be confused with "sanctions" (like a criminal must sometimes be separated from society to protect the latter, via a prison sentence).

This is Determinism, which is a very old idea (not to say it's wrong - just that this is a philosophical debate that rages on). There are lots of interesting works written on it versus Free Will.

My main issue with it is it seems to discount random events - and at a quantum level, it seems like there are genuinely random events, like radioactive decay. So it's not really accurate to say there are only two variables, there are really countless ones, and even small changes (like a few atoms splitting here and there) could lead to something like cancer in a friend or relative, having a serious impact on one's life. Still isn't an argument for the existence of free will though.

In the end most of those books have a huge build-up, but if you truly understand them, you can sum them up in one sentence. "If you got hurt you will hurt others". "Everything you do is egoistical". "Everything is choice". "There is no choice".

But then again, you don't need books for that. If you have the luxury (or curse) of being rational, you're 10 (5 maybe) and you're already having fatalist/whateverist thoughts. Then the next day you think about it, and realize it doesn't change anything in your life, and you move on. Then 10 years later you finally get to study the concept (or read it on a blog) and, well, it still doesn't solve or introduce any problem in your reality.

People who think/act irrationally aren't sensitive and don't find revelation when they read or hear about those principles, only confirmation where they can. There are things that happen in life that can shake you up and change you, but from a piece of text you'll only assimilate what's aligned with your views, IMHO.

Aristotle thought that women had fewer teeth than men.

That may be true. We'd need to find out how many teeth each gender has on average.

Here's a guess: Women, on the average, are older than men. So women, on the average, have fewer teeth.

Sounds logical. But, and I'm not sure if it's correlated with gender, my mother and her mother both have several baby teeth with permanent teeth above them still, so there are cases like that screwing with the data.

On a related note, Google Image search for "baby skull teeth" is quite interesting.

Fewer teeth in their mouths .. don't go there if you're squeamish.

And Newton believed in alchemy. Doesn't mean we should disregard his entire body of work.

One of the philosophy scholars you mention, Alain De Botton, wrote an entertaining and insightful book called How Proust Will Change Your Life (or something along those lines).

His goal was to make notoriously dense writings accessible to everyday people who are interested in literature.

I think this piece about life as a video game has a similar goal. Just as I would rather learn about Proust through Alain De Botton, I would rather learn about philosophy through the contemporary vehicle of video games.

Just to add, Alain De Botton also has several documentaries exploring philosophical ideas at a layman's level.

Sigh. Hacker News top comment. It's not "wow this is great!" or "nice work, great illustrations, I'll show this to my students!"

It's "I'm so irritated that I already knew what you just told me and I learned it from a better source that I want to assault you!! Why don't you read the same things I read!!?"

Dont know bout you but im lapping up all the wonderful references to books & authors. -cheers

There is biking aphorism that comes to mind, if you stare at that stump you WILL hit it.

It's true and not just in biking:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation

William Irvine's book - http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic-ebook/dp...

is a great summary of Seneca and Aristotle's stoic perspectives. It's not a long book and gives a nice overview of the highlights of stoicism.

Seneca's essays aren't terribly long, either.

http://www.amazon.com/Stoic-Philosophy-Seneca-Essays-Letters...

I immediately thought of just 'Finite and Infinite Games' just from the title of this post.

“There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite; the other infinite.”

Life game.

Graphics: 9/10 Pretty good, shadows and lighting effects portrayed quite well. Some really strange pixelation going on though. It's on a very small scale, but still noticeable with the right instruments and upsetting to the general public.

Sound: 6/10 Fantastic variety. Only works well for the first 2/3rds of the game or so, then becomes quite buggy.

Story: 2/10 It's not obvious if there is really a story going on here. Most players experience relatively little classical narrative, and that which does exist seems quite randomly or recklessly placed, possibly completely contrived from otherwise non-storylike events.

Multiplayer: 5/10 A wide variety of things to do with others, but many of them are considered quite boring or uninteresting. The gameplay mechanics sometimes seem to encourage active hostility or selfishness between players, which seems clearly suboptimal.

More like multiplayer 10/10. The boringness of the people that you spend time with is directly correlated to your own.

Small things that should be mentioned about this game, so far i have played;

- Multiplayer is the only option you can select.

- There is no pause button.

- Your character is truly random selected so expect anything.

- There is only one map which is way too big, I haven't had time to go most of the places yet but not complaining.

- You only have one chance to survive the game, no 'save the state' option.

It is a unique game with unique rules. I like it!

> Your character is truly random selected so expect anything.

Actually no, it's more like PRNG. Which stands for Predictably Random Natural Genetic.

Lack of save state is really bad though. Also humans are hard to grasp. Really poor UI.

I think you're right that life's character selection is a random number generator that is in some ways predictable. But I think PRNG usually stands for Pseudo Random Number Generator, which in this context seems different. Almost as if you waited long enough, the same people would start appearing again...

I see what you're getting at, but I disagree; you can't really chose your parents can you. So from your point of view, however you end up when you're born, is actually completely random and out of your control.

No but that's not the point. If you know seed of PRNG you can based on predecessors find next element. Also it's a joke :)

What about: You'll never win.

What about: You'll always win.

How about: you can't lose.

How about: you win just by playing.

The only winning move is not to play

I really don't know how to say this without sounding like a complete bozo, but I really think that this is a very, very sad perspective on life.

It tries to quantify every aspect of life (or rather: disregards any aspect that can't be quantified) and therefore leads to a view of the world that is completely mechanic.

What's worse are it's dogmatic undertones. It kind of suggests that these are general rules that apply to everyone. And if you don't want to be a loser you have to play by those rules.

Games have winners and losers. Who is to become a winner or a loser is decided by some arbitrary rules that are predefined and can't be changed. Is that the kind of mental mindset that you want to equip yourself with? That you will be either a winner or a loser, by the standards of other people? Please, we already have a high chance of getting burnout in our profession. You don't have to forcefully increase it.

So as a little comic relief, here is a quote form the article:

> When your willpower is low, you are only able to do things you really want to.

By contrast, here is a quote from Bob Dylan that I happen like:

> A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

So if you want to be a success by the standards of Dylan, you know what to do ;)

It's because it is a sad depiction of life and totally misguided for the purposes of making a catchy post. He took the games analogy to far the way of mechanical games that emphasize the hamster wheel approach to life.

That's not to say game play doesn't provide a very good analogy. Life makes much more sense when you relate to it like a variety of games each with their own rules. When you know the rules, everything becomes more clear. What you do with it is still up to you, but it's better than being in the dark.

Having a more playful approach to life and finding the fun in the most trivial of activities is rewarding. But unlike what the author emphasizes the in-the-moment experiences matter more than the milestones one reaches for the sake of reaching milestones.

This is a fun little post. I did have a nitpick with the points about willpower, though. There's evidence that's it's limited if you believe willpower is limited, and nonlimited if you believe willpower is nonlimited (http://www.stanford.edu/~gwalton/home/Publications_files/Job...). (And in other ego depletion literature, loss of willpower may just be reflecting lower glucose levels.)

> All players die after about 29,000 days, or 80 years. If your stats and skills are good, you might last a little longer. There is no cheat code to extend this.

Wouldn't that be a great hack, to extend this number indefinitely, and share the exploit with everyone else? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_Foundation et al. are working on it...)

Great is not really the word I would use. Awful fits better.

The first 15 years or so of life are just tutorial missions, which suck. There’s no way to skip these.

Umm... right. Seriously? That's all the advice this guy has on the first 15 years of life?

Reading the rest, it doesn't look like he has much of use to say about anything else either.

Did you seriously expect to learn a meaning of life from a blog post? Or you were expecting an advice how to live better, faster, happier life?

It's just a blog post that attempts to be fun. As much as can be expected is few nods and smiles while reading it, and a few seconds pause to think about it at the end. And that's it, it's not like author pretends he's Seneca or Aristotle or semeone else.

"Did you seriously expect to learn a meaning of life from a blog post? Or you were expecting an advice how to live better, faster, happier life?"

Sure. There's plenty of blogs like that, aside from fluffblogs. Almost no one will agree with any given collection but here's one anyway. Mrmoneymustache for personal finance and any generic paleo blog for food, health, and fitness (robb wolf used to be the center of that world, seems he's being out-SEO-ed by competitors now). How much money will improve your life is debatable nonetheless you've got the zerohedge and thehousingbubbleblog. I tend not to agree with them, but thousands (millions?) of religious bloggers at least think they're improving lives, even if I think they're generally doing the opposite. If you allow podcasts (close enough to blogs, read a blog post out loud) there are uncountable educational lecture podcasts (I have listened to about a dozen history related ones, why are history podcasts so popular?) and the survival podcast (which is almost surely not what you think it is, its sort of a how to prosper being a very small scale homesteader, basically this is how to be a non startup non tech non govt handout entrepreneur)

There's probably a difficult and complicated challenge for a startup to categorize blogs as either deep or fluff. In the spirit of PG, everyone thinking its too hard means its a great startup idea.

Author here. Originally I had a lot of blather in that section, but given:

1. It's a long post 2. Most of my readers are presumably >15 yrs old 3. I honestly think most people up to age 15 have limited control over their lives

I decided to trim it down. Obviously I am not literally saying that a 14-and-11-months year old has no influence over their destiny but a 15 year old does. But superfluous precision is the enemy of effective writing; you end up with a legal document.

I would say "pay attention to the tutorial missions. The main game assumes you completed all the tutorials well."

That's because you're playing it on creative mode though. Starts you out as a white dude born in the USA and also turns off the mobs. Things get a lot more interesting in Survival mode where you could be born in a slum in and you start seeing mobs like "Birth Complications" right out the spawn zone.

Very cool and fun. However, I think we need to stop talking about this 80 years nonsense. My grandad is 83 and ran a marathon last year. He still works everyday, and talks about where his company will be 15 years from now. I have 6 great aunts alive in their 90s or older (I just attended one of my great aunts' 100th birthday parties over the holidays).

The point is that the human body if treated well in the ideal conditions is meant to live 120 years or so. Over time, litte damages we do to it like not get enough sleep, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, eat trans fat, take drugs, stress at work add up to years off.

No one is perfect, and just about everyone will end up taking a decade or two off this max even if their goal is not to. But living to 100 while still enjoying life should be everyone's goal. Remember that having a 100 year life span gives you 25% more life than 80. That's a really big difference and enhances your perspective greatly. I don't feel that life is over at 35, in fact it's pretty much just getting started.

And this is all not counting any technological advances that may enable us to drastically increase our lifespans. I hope Mr. De Gray and Kurzweil are correct. But even if they aren't, you should shoot for at least 100.

I would like to share my opinion on living life.

What is the main goal? Some may think that it's getting better at something to get a raise and more money. First there is a school, then there is the 1st job, the you try to get a better one and you are trying and trying and trying to get higher. In my opinion, that's not the main point and it's just a side-effect of the life.

Article suggests that 1st 15 years of life is a training or a tutorial, but I disagree. They are as much as important as any other time period. Person should do what makes he or she happy. If it's playing video-games or spending time with friends at a bar, it's okay. Of course, it won't affect your skills on getting a better job (so more money), but if it makes you a happier person, do it! Life is all about being happy and doing what you love to do.

There is no magic-prize at the end of the life, only memories. What will be the point of having much money and good CV in you will sacrifice your happiness on it.

In my opinion, this video[1] nicely shows what I'm talking about.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4

While I mostly agree with you, one could also argue that there is a meaning to life and that is not to be happy but is to instead do all that one can do to further human survival (or whatever we end up turning into). One person providing some obscure service eventually bubbles up to the guys colonizing other worlds.

There is a default meaning to our life, and it's merely survival. I believe there is a balance between giving into ones emotions and not; doing many great and small things which accumulate into mattering in the grand scheme of it all, determining ones worth.

You're lying on your death bed and you ask yourself; how meaningful were my actions to this universe?

One could argue that survival is the meaning of life, just as one could argue that eating cake is the meaning of life. Just because we have a massive instinctual desire to survive doesn't necessarily mean that it is the default meaning of life.

Is this supposed to be a joke or there are people who really do think that they have figured out the simple rules of how to lead a good life?

Maybe I'm just becoming old, but I already hate this kind of arrogance.

It's not obvious the article is supposed to be "fun?"

Man, I don't want to get old.

Seriously, THIS is the advice that you'd give to, for example, your son? Views like that (both the content and the form that was used to present it) are a great example for why lots of people see the techies as detached simpletons.

What, you don't think that your main life decision was whether to be comfortable, well-off, or mega-rich?

It's not that hard - orienting your life around becoming rich is clearly a trap and, as for the remaining two options, it's better to make more money than less as long as the job doesn't suck too badly.

Defining your life around money goals is probably a bad idea period. If you can, do what you love.

I'd say - set yourself a comfortable base by selling your time and talents (ex. by working as a programmer) and then, if you have enough spare time, do what you love. Going 100% after passion is as dangerous as going 100% after money.

I am curious. Are video games such an influential component of American twenty something year olds that every fucking thing has to be couched in terms of gaming lingo? I see this shit on Reddit all the time and it baffles me.

Agreed. Maybe I'm not part of that culture or fully understand it, but as I get older into my late-20s, this type of stuff puts me off more and more.

Maybe it's a difference of generation problem. I'm 25 and I found that article really refreshing.

I think you're off-base. Rather, the conceptualization of game theory is so all-encompassing of the dynamics of agents interacting in a resource-rich environment, that it can't help but make an informative metaphor for 'life'.

On a completely different note, a lot of us grew up without fathers, or many adults paying attention to us. When I entered the world as a young adult, all I knew about making moves and talking to people was what I learned playing RPGs. And I wish I was kidding.

> It’s almost impossible to get rich working for someone else.

A very minor nitpick, but this has been proven false so many times. If "rich" means $1M+ during the mid-life period (I think this qualifies as rich if you are willing to live outside of major cities), plenty of people have accumulated that level of wealth by working for others. Go work for a big tech company, save/invest all your bonuses (of which there will be many), and save/invest a good portion of your salary, and you could potentially be a millionaire in only 10 years (for a programmer with just a bachelor's degree, that could translate to early to mid 30s).

If "rich" means $10M+, then that is indeed quite a bit harder to do (unless we're talking about age 65+, in which case the above person will easily achieve it). It can still be done by joining the right pre-IPO company, working on Wall Street as a trader (admittedly, a very demanding career--but not "impossible"), achieving partnership at a major law firm, or working your way up the corporate ladder (Satya was making $8M/year before being promoted to CEO).

Also...

* We all have to play in hardcore mode - death is permanent, no saves or restarts.

* Difficulty level is chosen for you at birth, and you can't change it during the game.

Ok, this has been done on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/outside

OK... ok - I get all this. But how do I build for Tanky DPS?

Addendum: Article also forgets to mention the University stage, otherwise known as LFG.

This got a whole stack of upvotes, reached #1 on HN... But most of the comments here are super negative. That's weird, why would that be?

Interesting point. I quite enjoyed it, but didn't take it as seriously as everyone else in this thread. I mean, it's relating life to an 16-bit computer game, what would one expect?

I expect perhaps there may be a few more like me, upvoting the article because they enjoyed it, but then leaving it at that. There's not much to discuss when you realise the true purpose of the article.

Negative comments seem to come from people who took it a bit too seriously, in which case it becomes easier to generate discussion points.

because the most vocal people are always a minority.

I'm not saying the article is good, but it's enjoyable and the comparison to life with a video game is fun to read. What most of the comments here fail to see.

Things that are popular are incendiary to those who don't like them.

If an obscure artist makes some music you don't like, nobody cares. But if that artist sells a million records, you'll see an online explosion of rage.

It seems we're wired to react when our tastes don't match those of the groups we hang around in.

Right out of the site guidelines, "would find interesting". Not "dropping out of my religion to make him my new guru"

Also a long list of things I like is boring and not worth talking about, and probably about the same list for most of us. For example I liked his graphics arts style/technique and the story pacing cannot be improved, and I suspect I'm not alone in those opinions. This guy certainly knows what he's doing WRT those topics. Wasn't that boring to read? I'm sure he would feel better if every post was "dude, love your font choice" fawning, but if he wants blind unconditional love, he should buy a dog, not get submitted to HN.

Somehow nobody has brought up ties to the classic Hasbro "Game of Life" which is the very first thing I thought of when I saw the article. Now that is an observation of something weird happening. I can't be the only HN reader to have played the hasbro game and gotten a mild nostalgia kick...

My theory is that many of us (probably including myself :)) doesn't have much clue on the rules of the game. Imagine playing chess (something many of us are very good at!) and being unable to think one move ahead. The ability to visualize what will happen in the next move is not in your brain. No matter how much practice you put in or how many games you play, you still get beaten even by children because you make horrible blunders like placing your queen unprotected next to a pawn. Sounds frustrating doesn't it? Now imagine someone writes a short chess tutorial basically amounting to "Just practice and think logically!" It would rub you the wrong way, wouldn't it?

Lack of downvote button for stories.

BTW, the negative commentors need to work on building up their "humor" skill XP.

Life is not a game. And that's because, unlike any game, life has no rules. By following this strategy guide, there's absolutely no guarantee you will succeed (btw, what exactly is it to succeed in life?).

People might get a sense of comfort in thinking that life has a recipe, that it has some sort of inherent quest you must conquer. But there's isn't. Religion, technology, culture and art are our way to deal with that.

Life is open for you to make whatever you want of it. And this is the beauty of it all. Do you want to make it a game? Go ahead, lay some rules, build a strategy, get your achievements. But I think there's more to life than following rules and managing your resources. I wouldn't be surprised if the rules changed without warning or if my resources were suddenly depleted without apparent reason. Because life doesn't care about the rationalizations you came up with.

Life is a unique experience that, fortunately, cannot be framed within a metaphor. There are many ways to live (life as a game, life as a movie, life as a story, life as a poem, life as a checklist, life as a tough math problem) and all of them are right. So maybe we shouldn't bother too much about living the right way and instead just enjoy the ride.

This is a fantastic article - I wish I had known this guide when I was young. I liked it so much, I sent a link to my teenage son. However, if you would not mind, could this be edited so my teeanage daughter would also enjoy it? Unless, of course, she wants to be a "ladies magnet" - I support her life choices. But if we want more women entrepreneurs, we should encourage them to follow a path like this without the possible sexism.

While I think that you're heart is in the right place, an expectation that personal advice be written in a gender-neutral environment is excessive. Oliver is a man (I presume) writing a guide based on his experience.

As soon as I saw the picture of the sample players, and the "ladies magnet" bit I thought of..

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...

Hidden handicaps can hinder some level progression (like jobs, social acceptance) may really frustrate some players. No mention of the luckless that spawn in unfortunate terrain/hostile environments.

Compared to similar players I feel like I need to level grind more than those that spent the same amount of time on it. And that's how I discovered the game is not balanced, which is sometimes rather depressing.

*your

Thanks. I did agonise over that part at the time I wrote it. I couldn't think of a more inclusive alternative, and chose something a little comedic on purpose ('ladies man') in the hope it wouldn't be taken too seriously.

Open to suggestions.

Suggestion: ignore whiners like this who petition for 'manhole covers' to be renamed 'personhole covers'.

Or you know... just name them to something generic like "sewer access point covers"

Not all "access point covers" go to sewers. Some go to communication conduits. Sewerist.

Sorry, you're on the frontpage, it's going to be taken too seriously.

I don't think anyone is actually going to catch the joke that generally speaking, entrepreneurs and ladies magnets are not actually "something bigger" at all.

I thought it was a great article, but I think it would be better if the image of the 'random character's at the start showed racial variation - saying that your character is totally random and then having a picture of 6 white people was a bit incongruent to me. Otherwise excellent.

I thought it was fun. But the protagonist in every screen shot appears to be a straight white male.

Depending on how you're counting, that's about 15% of the world population.

Why not make it interactive, and let the user choose who they are? Or add more variation to the images? Or talk about getting on with people who "aren't like me"?

Good fun piece though.

When did HN become a repository for sub-par Tony Robbins pap?

Sadly, it's part of the toxic startup/marketing/web design/etc half of hn that's really quite terrible.

AKA a colorful and witty guide to being a self-assured and self-validated narsissist

I find this very interesting. Most of us who have crossed the 25 year mark, would already have read/seen something like this.

But this is an awesome way to teach some valuable lessons to kids. The analogy of life to a game is something that is clear, simple and pretty intuitive for a growing kid. Since most of the kids these days have played some games or other.

It seems like the author was influenced by Scott Adams, he talks about a lot of this stuff in his book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big". If this article intrigued you, I recommend the book. It's a very down to earth and practical look at how to be successful.

-Select- your character! Reminded me of a wonderful Louis CK sketch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

Of course you can't end up a person of color. Oh heavens no, anything but that!

Enjoyed all of this aside from the "finding a partner" section. Finding a partner is trivial, keeping that partner is the hard part. Unless you want to keep finding new partners all the time (some do).

Finding the right partner isn't trivial.

Maybe it's blasphemy for me to say this, but in my life it's been a lot harder to start a relationship than to keep one. Relationship books say that you have to work just as hard to keep one but that's nonsense. I don't need to buy my spouse flowers constantly or go on dates every weekend. (But surprise flowers are always a good idea.)

Well they're sort of right, but those material things aren't actually "working on the relationship", IMO. I've always taken it as "working in being the best person you can be" -- seems to have worked for the past few years for me so far :)

It's the same in my experience. It was very difficult for me to start a relationship, and much easier to keep it.

Starting one still looks rather random to me, you roll the dice until finally someone that you like likes you too, and that's most of what there's to it. Your attitude or effort can give you some small modifiers or penalties to the dice roll, but that's about it. It might sound childish but honestly, if I have to start a new relationship at some point, I'll be as lost in a sea of pure chaos as I was the last time.

On the other hand, keeping a relationship is pretty rational. Love the other person, care about her, don't be a dick, be emphatic, try to make her life as good as possible, and if you are not unusually unlucky you'll normally succeed.

Maybe it's also that as people that for one reason or other have a very hard time looking for relationships, we tend to value them more and make more effort to keep them than those who have it easier to get into one.

This is awesome. What I'd really like to have is an improved HUD for this game that permanently displays the internal states of Health, Energy and Willpower. Google Glass + some biosensors maybe.

So Oliver had 86 karma before posting this. Assuming this marks the start of his intent to post all his 2014 articles, I shall enjoy observing how rapidly this number blossoms...

Thanks! I've not really posted much on HN before, although I've had a few of my posts turn up in here by themselves, and I thought it would be worth trying myself.

crosses fingers

I think some crossing [of fingers] might be in order. HN has a weird hatred of Quora, so if anyone ever finds out how internet-famous you are there, there could be trouble!

Sorry – "crossing"?

crossing of fingers. I probably could have worded that better...

"The default life in post-industrial western cities is a game, this is your strategy guide." - FTFY

Not all the people in the world live such mechanical, predictable lives.

Awesome guide! I agree with most points. Just a minor point is that rule number one of money is actually never use your own. The rule in the book should be more like the rule number one of managing resources of all kinds, as was also explained to skill. Put your skill into things that grow your skill. Put your time into things that get your more time. And sometimes it also means put your engergy to grow your skills, etc.

Setting goals and pursuing them - very well

Trying out different strategies to be more effective in reaching your goals - perfectly ok

Convinging yourself that you have complete control over what's happening to you and becoming too serious about the game - big mistake..

You should always allow a good doze of doubt and be open to the unknown, because ultimately .. we have no clue what a fuck we're doing here...

Nice. Can also add-

Cheat codes: There are no cheat codes.

Or if you want to be controversial-

Cheat codes: - Find a rich partner - Win a lottery - Get born in a rich family (random)

I thought reading books was a cheat code?

A lot of people try to figure out things by themselves, and some things have to be understood by oneself. But a lot of things can also be understood in books, or by listenning to the experiences of others that have failed where you are trying to suceed hundred of years before you.

Reading skill-building books is like grinding orcs for two hours to get to the next level. (Reading fun books is another mini-game. Every now and then, you can find a book or 2 that is both fun and skill-building, which is more fun than any game I've ever encountered).

On the way to the gym you got into a car crash. After a difficult recovery you now have chronic pain and memory loss problems. Max Happiness is reduced from 10 to 5. All relationship counters reduced by half due to mood changes and inability to relate. These effects are permanent. Continue with life? -Sure- -Quit-

Welcome to a world with no mozart, no Jesus, no Buddha, no Poe, no Pele, no Einstein .....

All those "BE PRODUCTIVE" subliminal messages are somehow damaging my willpower.

Supporting (and implementing) the idea of life as a game, you can check: http://habitrpg.com

Today's SMBC is relevant:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3259#comic

I like how it simplifies everything to something we can all understand. And in the end, yes you should get more sleep.

It would have been nice to have some other races... as starting points/included in the strategy guide at all.

Really? Look through the history books and see how people who made their mark followed this formula?

There is a suspicion that we can have persistent game items/artifacts between sessions.

I'm disappointed by the total lack of evolutionary perspective in this article.

"death gotta be easy cuz life is hard" - 50 Cent

Brilliant. The sandbox example rox.

genius. great article.

How many of you clicked on the 'PRESS START' and then started to wonder if it's actually a key and realized you have no idea what you are doing like life itself.

Only 19,345 days remaining in your life (assuming there's no way to extend life beyond 80 in my life time and still be solid) how depressing is that? The only thing that now makes sense is go full out Skyrim, raids and pillaging, indulging in hedonism and a senseless pursuit of scarce material goods.

On another note, this site seems like a personal therapist. When I read one article I just feel calm and excited depending on the article. It's a freaking goldmine of life hacks.

"How many of you clicked on the 'PRESS START' and then started to wonder if it's actually a key and realized you have no idea what you are doing like life itself."

I clicked, but just because I wanted to make sure I don't miss an easter egg or something.

So which drawer is the Ultima Weapon in?

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