I have always understood that “eat your cake and have it” is the correct form of the aphorism, even if the illogical “have your cake and eat it” is more common colloquially.
I cannot help but suspect that the actual story of Kaczynski’s identification has been obscured. Perhaps his brother had other ‘clues’ but this made for a story convenient to all.
My wife and I are Christians. We see Thru all this shit with a 3000 year old philosophy of mind that openly and happily eschews the material world effectively! It’s not about US, it’s about others always. I often tell people when describing what it’s like be a “Christian” I tell them its like playing 3 dimensional chess with God. Of course, he makes the first move! Thank you lord
Please explain what the hell you mean. Except for conceding the first move, you believe you’re playing by the same rules and on the same scale as the Creator?
If you consider cargo-cults, then, to an outsider, the rituals of any religion can easily look like ‘pecking the button’.
In general, we like habits/habitual behaviour since it simplifies risks and choices. Those habits are then reinforced through games/rituals (that we call education among other things) with points and rewards for playing the game well. So everyone plays, even if you think you don’t. And sometimes it feels like everyone is ‘pecking a button’ about something. Stopping pecking can be really hard.
I’m glad to see that your comment has shot back up to the top, despite the new UnHerd practice of wiping the comment votes clean at seemingly random intervals. Let’s have a few more articles that combine thoughtfulness with knowledge, without becoming doom-sermons or lamentations.
LOL – very good. The article is also very good. Though I’ve wasted my time on many things/games/sites like this, Duolingo didn’t work so well. Their rewards got in the way and drove me nuts – only the “Freeze” and the day count worked, but then only because I competed with the Wife. Finally when I only got to use about 4 of the phrases on my trip, I gave up on Duolingo too.
Good to know how you are manipulated however, coz it then means you can screw their ‘algorithm’ when you see the pattern.
Meanwhile I’m waiting for the sun to appear so I can laze about in it. Thanks to that damn 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai eruption, all that water it shoved into the stratosphere now appears to be coming down in my back yard. So the sun doesn’t appear. Once it does, I’ll return to dozing in the garden. Retirement may not bring wealth, but I do have time to spare, at present, and no games addictive enough.
Paul Ten
29 days ago
In a sense there is nothing new in this. Focus on quantification and short-term reward isn’t the same as gamification, nor are immediate paybacks necessarily a distraction. They have been a feature of corporate life for decades, through things like sales quotas and production targets, with associated commission payments and piecework rates. The trick is to engineer the incentive structure to align with the overall goals of the organisation. This is easier in commerce because the goals are themselves quantifiable (profit and loss) so, if the hierarchy of incentives doesn’t support them they are (or should be) easier to fix.
But I agree this doesn’t play well in many other walks of life. Perhaps the most egregious example of capture by short-term metrics was the COVID pandemic, when our entire society was damaged because of an obsession with positive test case numbers on a day-by-day basis.
Adam Bartlett
29 days ago
Great to start the weekend with such inspired writing. I’ll venture to add that maybe the next level up from chosing the best game is chosing the most helpful metaphor. Often game but sometimes war, dance or Love. And sometimes being in nature, worship or certain types of companionship best experienced without metaphor at all.
AC Harper
29 days ago
Cue for some philosopher type to write that ‘not playing a game is still playing a game’.
A more nuanced answer (perhaps alluded to in the broad rules in the article) is to ‘game’ appropriately. But people generally take nuance and broad rules and make iron rules out of them. There’s nothing as rigid as a ‘rule of thumb’. It’s what humans generally do.
Andy Glover
29 days ago
Great article. I downloaded the zombie running app this morning and tried it out – love it, it’s a fun way to keep your mind occupied when running. I’ll check out the other ones later (I already have Duolungo where I have a long term goal in my mind which I’m sure keeps me using it daily).
AJ Mac
29 days ago
Excellent. An intriguing exploration of the games we play and get played by. Whether the games in our lives kill, elevate, or just amuse and distract, Mr. Bhogal rightly insists on our crucial measure of agency, as bounded by death, taxes, and other limitations as that agency may be.
Though no joke or waste of time, in one sense the paths of Gautama Siddhartha and Jesus of Nazareth are a kind of game, or all-in wager of the ego-self on the faithful prospect of an expanding, enduring reward.
Skinner and Kaczynski were engaged in a sort of gamesmanship or gamification too, but they attempted to take hope, joy, and human dignity off the board. Neither were any fun and they both got played, as do those who take such self-anointed authorities too seriously.
Christopher Hickey
29 days ago
Duolingo referenced as a positive example of gamified learning is ironic since I recently noticed my foreign language learning had stagnated by using it. To be fair, there are ways to narrow its focus by making one’s profile private, but in its default state it leverages all of the worst features of gamification and pollutes learning with its pushy, competitive design that rewards quantity over quality.
I have to agree, and thanks for stating that with a clarity I didn’t have on my own. Having just gone back there after a pause of more than a year, the shallow aspects are too apparent. Rather predictably (in hindsight anyway) I’ve found it to be quite useless for “boning up” my rudimentary Latin.
Has anyone here tried Rosetta Stone for Latin? Alternately: Any textbook recommendations for the would-be Classical autodidact?
Lancashire Lad
29 days ago
A fascinating article, not least because i was unaware of the motivation of Kaczynski. I became aware of Skinner’s theories as a student, and ultimately found them reductive.
I’m now, in my later years, painting and exhibiting. This is a prime example of what the author accurately describes within his five ‘solutions’ to ending the reliance on gaming. He’s wrong about one thing: computer-generated art will never be better than human-created art.
I suspect the reason the author thinks it can be better is due to misunderstanding art. It’s absolutely not about reproducing a comely scene, portrait, still life or even an abstract piece. It’s about creating something which enhances us all, through a distillation of life, experience, joy, pain, failure and achievement.
Machines without senses filtered through a heart and brain i.e. a living body, can’t hope to get anywhere near that moment when you step in front of a great painting or sculpture for the first time, and experience a profound sense of recognition; of humanity, of worth, of hope and of a future.
I agree with you, but some of cruder taste may already think AI has generated some equal or superior output. Your background–a part of which you’ve sketched elsewhere–and passionate engagement with making art give you a more discerning, perhaps more humane eye than most. So please continue to speak up–not that I see much risk of you becoming a silent observer.
Well put. Art, as sport, will probably not ever truly succumb to AI, as it hasn’t done albeit technology having been available, applicable and competitive for decades. People are interested in people’s craft and achievements.
UnHerd Reader
29 days ago
What a fascinating read. I must look at Skinner again
Christopher Chantrill
28 days ago
So. the writer says that there is something in life beyond status games and short-termism. I had no idea.
laurence scaduto
28 days ago
Very good essay.
“They” have been treating us like silly children for a long time now, with games and nudges and fear-mongering, too. It’s awfully annoying but also kind of comical, since “they” tend to be a lot thicker than most kids I know.
One just needs to keep the bullsh*t detector well oiled and fully charged. Always remember the story about Huck Finn conning his friends into doing his work (whitewashing that fence) for him. I think they paid him for the priviledge.
Covid was a prime example (followed by monkey pox!), but climate change is even better. Just last week the UN said, for the tenth year in a row, that we only have two years left to change our sinful ways. A couple of months ago the favorite tale was all about how the Gulf Stream was about to dry up. I can’t wait to hear what’s next!
Peter Principle
28 days ago
The author says “the evidence is everywhere: religion is dying out“. But then his five recommendations for what we should choose all actually point to religion! Here are the five.
“First: choose long-term goals over short-term ones.”
The salvation of your soul on judgement day is as long-term as goals get.
“Second: choose hard games over easy ones.”
Being a true Chistian is as hard as it gets.
“Third: choose positive-sum games over zero-sum or negative-sum ones. Games evolved to confer status, and status is zero-sum.”
In Christianity, pride is a deadly sin. And that goes for people practicing it for status.
“Fourth: choose atelic games over telic ones. Atelic games are those you play because you enjoy them. Telic games are those you play only to obtain a reward.”
Going through the motions of being a Christian because you think that will get you the ultimate reward means you won’t get the reward.
“Finally, the fifth rule is to choose immeasurable rewards over measurable ones.”
Christianity’s rewards are indeed immeasurable.
Incidentally, the author’s assertion that religion is dying out is not true of Christianity. The increase in Africa and the Far East more han compensates for the shrinkage in Europe and North America.
Mike MacCormack
28 days ago
So, Kaczynski was in fact the world famous Unabomber? How strange not to mention that.
Robert
28 days ago
“Your move.”
I think the only winning move is not to play.
Philip May
28 days ago
The “McNamara Fallacy” is chilling.
Matthew Jones
28 days ago
Man, this was such a bloody good article. Well done mate.
Ron Kean
28 days ago
Rarely have I read an article as profound as it relates to my life. Who wants to give me a thumb’s up? Who cares? I’ll never see Angry Birds 2 or X in the same light. Chasing or just spending precious time on that which I can easily do without wouldn’t have crossed my mind until now.
The moral is that we find what satisfies us and becomes a cause for growth without need for approval or score. I have a couple of avenues for that but to break habits and plot direction is the challenge and the next step. No need for anyone to wish me luck. It’s a choice for all of us to make for our own sake alone.
Samuel Ross
27 days ago
15 minutes a day can teach you a language. What can 15 minutes of social media do?
I see this on occasion while using Duolingo, which I’ve been doing for 15 minutes daily for the last year+. I’m now moderately conversationally fluent in Hebrew and am increasing my skill level in leaps and bounds to an ability.
What distinguishes a ‘skill’ from an ‘ability’? A skill is something you know. An ability is something you are. Deeply is it ingrained into your very core and cannot be lost while your core lasts.
Mark HumanMode
27 days ago
absolutely wonderful long read. Thank you for all your work. Fascinating, poignant…
Drew Gibson
27 days ago
Many thanks, Gurwinder. I’ve enjoyed trying to think more deeply about sport for many years so this was a most thought-provoking essay. I was particularly interested in the fourth rule about choosing atelic (or autotelic) games over telic ones. When we chose the latter, games (and sport) become work. This has destroyed sport for many children and teens by stripping most of the simple joy out of it. How can we get away from organised football teams/leagues for kids and get them back to simply kicking a ball around in a park? Answers on a postcard…
Mechan Barclay
26 days ago
I was planning on reading an easy article and almost fell out of my chair for the depth and clarity this article just gave. I just sent this to everyone with a working brain this link. Kudos to the Unherd team!!
Andrew Boughton
19 days ago
Fine piece with a whole world we barely guessed at. Thank you. What a fine journal is this.
I have always understood that “eat your cake and have it” is the correct form of the aphorism, even if the illogical “have your cake and eat it” is more common colloquially.
I cannot help but suspect that the actual story of Kaczynski’s identification has been obscured. Perhaps his brother had other ‘clues’ but this made for a story convenient to all.
Having listened to a lengthy interview with David Kaczynski, I believe his side of the story.
A worthwhile conversation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvY5IcQw2RU
Uptick. Now you have a vote to encourage more articles like this…
My wife and I are Christians. We see Thru all this shit with a 3000 year old philosophy of mind that openly and happily eschews the material world effectively! It’s not about US, it’s about others always. I often tell people when describing what it’s like be a “Christian” I tell them its like playing 3 dimensional chess with God. Of course, he makes the first move! Thank you lord
Please explain what the hell you mean. Except for conceding the first move, you believe you’re playing by the same rules and on the same scale as the Creator?
I am also a Christian but I don’t understand your answer!
If you consider cargo-cults, then, to an outsider, the rituals of any religion can easily look like ‘pecking the button’.
In general, we like habits/habitual behaviour since it simplifies risks and choices. Those habits are then reinforced through games/rituals (that we call education among other things) with points and rewards for playing the game well. So everyone plays, even if you think you don’t. And sometimes it feels like everyone is ‘pecking a button’ about something. Stopping pecking can be really hard.
I played the game and upvoted.
Great article.
I’m glad to see that your comment has shot back up to the top, despite the new UnHerd practice of wiping the comment votes clean at seemingly random intervals. Let’s have a few more articles that combine thoughtfulness with knowledge, without becoming doom-sermons or lamentations.
Agreed. Most interesting article I have read here for a while.
LOL – very good. The article is also very good. Though I’ve wasted my time on many things/games/sites like this, Duolingo didn’t work so well. Their rewards got in the way and drove me nuts – only the “Freeze” and the day count worked, but then only because I competed with the Wife. Finally when I only got to use about 4 of the phrases on my trip, I gave up on Duolingo too.
Good to know how you are manipulated however, coz it then means you can screw their ‘algorithm’ when you see the pattern.
Meanwhile I’m waiting for the sun to appear so I can laze about in it. Thanks to that damn 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai eruption, all that water it shoved into the stratosphere now appears to be coming down in my back yard. So the sun doesn’t appear. Once it does, I’ll return to dozing in the garden. Retirement may not bring wealth, but I do have time to spare, at present, and no games addictive enough.
In a sense there is nothing new in this. Focus on quantification and short-term reward isn’t the same as gamification, nor are immediate paybacks necessarily a distraction. They have been a feature of corporate life for decades, through things like sales quotas and production targets, with associated commission payments and piecework rates. The trick is to engineer the incentive structure to align with the overall goals of the organisation. This is easier in commerce because the goals are themselves quantifiable (profit and loss) so, if the hierarchy of incentives doesn’t support them they are (or should be) easier to fix.
But I agree this doesn’t play well in many other walks of life. Perhaps the most egregious example of capture by short-term metrics was the COVID pandemic, when our entire society was damaged because of an obsession with positive test case numbers on a day-by-day basis.
Great to start the weekend with such inspired writing. I’ll venture to add that maybe the next level up from chosing the best game is chosing the most helpful metaphor. Often game but sometimes war, dance or Love. And sometimes being in nature, worship or certain types of companionship best experienced without metaphor at all.
Cue for some philosopher type to write that ‘not playing a game is still playing a game’.
A more nuanced answer (perhaps alluded to in the broad rules in the article) is to ‘game’ appropriately. But people generally take nuance and broad rules and make iron rules out of them. There’s nothing as rigid as a ‘rule of thumb’. It’s what humans generally do.
Great article. I downloaded the zombie running app this morning and tried it out – love it, it’s a fun way to keep your mind occupied when running. I’ll check out the other ones later (I already have Duolungo where I have a long term goal in my mind which I’m sure keeps me using it daily).
Excellent. An intriguing exploration of the games we play and get played by. Whether the games in our lives kill, elevate, or just amuse and distract, Mr. Bhogal rightly insists on our crucial measure of agency, as bounded by death, taxes, and other limitations as that agency may be.
Though no joke or waste of time, in one sense the paths of Gautama Siddhartha and Jesus of Nazareth are a kind of game, or all-in wager of the ego-self on the faithful prospect of an expanding, enduring reward.
Skinner and Kaczynski were engaged in a sort of gamesmanship or gamification too, but they attempted to take hope, joy, and human dignity off the board. Neither were any fun and they both got played, as do those who take such self-anointed authorities too seriously.
Duolingo referenced as a positive example of gamified learning is ironic since I recently noticed my foreign language learning had stagnated by using it. To be fair, there are ways to narrow its focus by making one’s profile private, but in its default state it leverages all of the worst features of gamification and pollutes learning with its pushy, competitive design that rewards quantity over quality.
I have to agree, and thanks for stating that with a clarity I didn’t have on my own. Having just gone back there after a pause of more than a year, the shallow aspects are too apparent. Rather predictably (in hindsight anyway) I’ve found it to be quite useless for “boning up” my rudimentary Latin.
Has anyone here tried Rosetta Stone for Latin? Alternately: Any textbook recommendations for the would-be Classical autodidact?
A fascinating article, not least because i was unaware of the motivation of Kaczynski. I became aware of Skinner’s theories as a student, and ultimately found them reductive.
I’m now, in my later years, painting and exhibiting. This is a prime example of what the author accurately describes within his five ‘solutions’ to ending the reliance on gaming. He’s wrong about one thing: computer-generated art will never be better than human-created art.
I suspect the reason the author thinks it can be better is due to misunderstanding art. It’s absolutely not about reproducing a comely scene, portrait, still life or even an abstract piece. It’s about creating something which enhances us all, through a distillation of life, experience, joy, pain, failure and achievement.
Machines without senses filtered through a heart and brain i.e. a living body, can’t hope to get anywhere near that moment when you step in front of a great painting or sculpture for the first time, and experience a profound sense of recognition; of humanity, of worth, of hope and of a future.
I agree with you, but some of cruder taste may already think AI has generated some equal or superior output. Your background–a part of which you’ve sketched elsewhere–and passionate engagement with making art give you a more discerning, perhaps more humane eye than most. So please continue to speak up–not that I see much risk of you becoming a silent observer.
Well put. Art, as sport, will probably not ever truly succumb to AI, as it hasn’t done albeit technology having been available, applicable and competitive for decades. People are interested in people’s craft and achievements.
What a fascinating read. I must look at Skinner again
So. the writer says that there is something in life beyond status games and short-termism. I had no idea.
Very good essay.
“They” have been treating us like silly children for a long time now, with games and nudges and fear-mongering, too. It’s awfully annoying but also kind of comical, since “they” tend to be a lot thicker than most kids I know.
One just needs to keep the bullsh*t detector well oiled and fully charged. Always remember the story about Huck Finn conning his friends into doing his work (whitewashing that fence) for him. I think they paid him for the priviledge.
Covid was a prime example (followed by monkey pox!), but climate change is even better. Just last week the UN said, for the tenth year in a row, that we only have two years left to change our sinful ways. A couple of months ago the favorite tale was all about how the Gulf Stream was about to dry up. I can’t wait to hear what’s next!
The author says “the evidence is everywhere: religion is dying out“. But then his five recommendations for what we should choose all actually point to religion! Here are the five.
“First: choose long-term goals over short-term ones.”
The salvation of your soul on judgement day is as long-term as goals get.
“Second: choose hard games over easy ones.”
Being a true Chistian is as hard as it gets.
“Third: choose positive-sum games over zero-sum or negative-sum ones. Games evolved to confer status, and status is zero-sum.”
In Christianity, pride is a deadly sin. And that goes for people practicing it for status.
“Fourth: choose atelic games over telic ones. Atelic games are those you play because you enjoy them. Telic games are those you play only to obtain a reward.”
Going through the motions of being a Christian because you think that will get you the ultimate reward means you won’t get the reward.
“Finally, the fifth rule is to choose immeasurable rewards over measurable ones.”
Christianity’s rewards are indeed immeasurable.
Incidentally, the author’s assertion that religion is dying out is not true of Christianity. The increase in Africa and the Far East more han compensates for the shrinkage in Europe and North America.
So, Kaczynski was in fact the world famous Unabomber? How strange not to mention that.
“Your move.”
I think the only winning move is not to play.
The “McNamara Fallacy” is chilling.
Man, this was such a bloody good article. Well done mate.
Rarely have I read an article as profound as it relates to my life. Who wants to give me a thumb’s up? Who cares? I’ll never see Angry Birds 2 or X in the same light. Chasing or just spending precious time on that which I can easily do without wouldn’t have crossed my mind until now.
The moral is that we find what satisfies us and becomes a cause for growth without need for approval or score. I have a couple of avenues for that but to break habits and plot direction is the challenge and the next step. No need for anyone to wish me luck. It’s a choice for all of us to make for our own sake alone.
15 minutes a day can teach you a language. What can 15 minutes of social media do?
I see this on occasion while using Duolingo, which I’ve been doing for 15 minutes daily for the last year+. I’m now moderately conversationally fluent in Hebrew and am increasing my skill level in leaps and bounds to an ability.
What distinguishes a ‘skill’ from an ‘ability’? A skill is something you know. An ability is something you are. Deeply is it ingrained into your very core and cannot be lost while your core lasts.
absolutely wonderful long read. Thank you for all your work. Fascinating, poignant…
Many thanks, Gurwinder. I’ve enjoyed trying to think more deeply about sport for many years so this was a most thought-provoking essay. I was particularly interested in the fourth rule about choosing atelic (or autotelic) games over telic ones. When we chose the latter, games (and sport) become work. This has destroyed sport for many children and teens by stripping most of the simple joy out of it. How can we get away from organised football teams/leagues for kids and get them back to simply kicking a ball around in a park? Answers on a postcard…
I was planning on reading an easy article and almost fell out of my chair for the depth and clarity this article just gave. I just sent this to everyone with a working brain this link. Kudos to the Unherd team!!
Fine piece with a whole world we barely guessed at. Thank you. What a fine journal is this.