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Tic-Tac-Toe the Video Game
Just read this great article on Kotaku that really just says it all.
Those Who Play Video Game Tic-Tac-Toe Will Be Judged
What do you think of this Tic-Tac-Toe man? Do you judge him? Assuming you do judge him, how do you judge him? Do you think that the fact this man can afford an iPhone says something about our society?
All I will say is this. If you have a hard time understanding what I see when I look at people playing solved games, mindless games, grinding games, etc. look at the Tic-Tac-Toe man. That is what I see when I look at you. Unlike Totilo, I judge.
Measure is unceasing.
Those Who Play Video Game Tic-Tac-Toe Will Be Judged
What do you think of this Tic-Tac-Toe man? Do you judge him? Assuming you do judge him, how do you judge him? Do you think that the fact this man can afford an iPhone says something about our society?
All I will say is this. If you have a hard time understanding what I see when I look at people playing solved games, mindless games, grinding games, etc. look at the Tic-Tac-Toe man. That is what I see when I look at you. Unlike Totilo, I judge.
Measure is unceasing.
Comments
Anyway, for fun:
Have fun getting that our of your head.
EDIT: The thread name didn't say "the Video Game" when I posted this.
At least that's my assessment. If you make the argument that people must be challenged all the time, I dunno, that's debatable.
As Emily points out: mindless, solved, or plot heavy games are fulfilling a different utility - one which you fulfill in different ways or for whcih you do not have a need. This is like the difference between reading Proust and reading an Asterix comic. Both have worth for fulfilling different needs.
I relax my mind with mindless flash games that have little meaningless achievements. Dull and repetitive tasks have a meditative quality, and games like that are great meditation for someone who is very hand-oriented.
He was probably just desperate for entertainment, and the first thing he encountered was the Tic Tac Toe app. Sure, it was a very simple entertainment, but I'm sure he had a very base appetite. Some fresh-faced programmer happily got his tic tac toe application on the iPhone store, set the price for free (not expecting to get anything back from his coding), and someone was able to distract themselves for a commute with it. If you think there's something wrong with that, you might as well criticize someone who is idly humming while doing a menial task because they aren't outright singing.
That being said, I see no reason to vilify this man for this particular choice. We don't know the circumstances as to why he was playing the game or anything. We don't even know if the man had a book or some superior source of entertainment on his person. I find it arrogant of us to even assume he had a base appetite in terms of entertainment.
In my Physics lecture, we answer questions with these little remotes. Even when the bar graph pops up on the display before time is up and 99% of the class has answered correctly (for a half-point of extra credit, no less), a few people still hit wrong answers just to observe their vote change and allow themselves to be defeated. Our professor does talks around the country on the system, and he says even faculty members, people with PhDs in unfathomably complex areas of Physics, still switch to see themselves fail. He has no idea why; presumably no one does. Maybe the man was failing at tic-tac-toe for the same reason these PhDs gave incorrect answers to kinematics problems they learned to do with ease decades ago.
Scott Rubin : What? Some playing a solved game? THEY MUST BE STUPID. YET THEY CAN AFFORD AN IPHONE. RAAAAAAAGE.
This is obviously a facetious exaggeration to illustrate the point, not exactly what he wrote, obviously.
Why am I not surprised, Scott?
It doesn't change the fact that that has absolutely no bearing on their profession, nor the fact that even if someone knows that bit of game theory, they will never be able to say that they have used radical steroid and immune system therapies to bring someone back from the brink of death by liver failure before the transplant was even remotely feasible. Nor will it change the fact that such achievements still stand among the lesser of their accomplishments, and that they are vividly aware of the fact that their ability to save a human life depends nothing at all on knowing anything about the optimum play strategy for 3x3 go.
You are applying the necessity of game theory knowledge to situations where it is not at all necessary. It's like seeing a man staring blankly at the Gross–Pitaevskii equation and going, "Man, he better not be an immunologist!"