The Elster book is great. The phenomenon reminds me of undergraduates who ask what do I need to do to get a first class degree or early career colleagues who ask what do I need to do to get a Full Professorship by 40. The answer is never what they want to hear…
This reminds me of a book that narrated the rise of Silicon Valley. It’s called Accidental Empires and it’s by Robert X Cringely. The subtitle is “how the boys of Silicon Valley make their millions, battle foreign competition, and still can’t get a date.” Which kind of sums up your argument above, although not in the context of gaming.
You could make an argument though, that much like the old British aristocracy living on inherited wealth and looking down on the nouveau-riche industrialists who made their own wealth, that the liberal elites do not in fact 'deserve' their elevated status vs the tech elites - primarily because the system they've created is so hated by so many voters that they will vote for Trump, Reform, AfD etc.
I'm thinking a lot lately about the pick up artist lecture circuit, and whether that led to a bunch of dudes who thought they could take a class to learn to hypnotize any woman into having sex with them getting their money taken by a man with a faux hawk, inspired by a man with a soul patch calling himself Mystery wearing a funny hat.
And then when that didn't work, obviously the dudes had done everything right, and there was something deeply wrong with every woman.
Yes, very much so -- this is perhaps best recognised with happiness/life satisfaction (pursuing it directly is a poor way, for most people anyway, to boost it, it's THE quintessential by-product).
But also -- and I think this is where you might be missing something about the geek tragedy -- NOT QUITE.
A lot of the time we pursue clear, kind-of transactional goals. Or participate in competitions in which there exist, on a population level, ways to boost one's position, even if not WIN.
Reading a lot, hard work and participating in class might not GUARANTEE a First, but surely they will significantly improve chances of getting one.
Or, more socially, while this might not result in "love" or even a "successful relationship", if I put much effort and money in performing conventional femininity, my "talent pool" will increase. More men will find me attractive, and especially, more attractive men will find me attractive. There's ZERO other reason for performing femininity, apart from "making oneself more attractive to a larger pool of prospects". So attractiveness (but not love or successful relationships!) is not a by-product in this case. It's something you can -- algorithmically -- successfully improve.
I think the geek tragedy here is two pronged: first, not quite understanding which things are more like "hotness" (or "wealth") and which things are more like "respect" or "love". Secondly, getting the criteria even for the "transactional" goals wrong, as evidenced by the Olly Murs case -- incidentally I also prefer the "before" version, and it's both for purely visual (and imagined tactile, ewww!) reasons, and for "what it says about the person" reasons. I think much of this is about feeling kinda... existentially offended that the world does not share ones values. Almost a theory of mind thing? Geeks, I'm told, often struggle with those.
Worth staying for the punchline.
The Elster book is great. The phenomenon reminds me of undergraduates who ask what do I need to do to get a first class degree or early career colleagues who ask what do I need to do to get a Full Professorship by 40. The answer is never what they want to hear…
This reminds me of a book that narrated the rise of Silicon Valley. It’s called Accidental Empires and it’s by Robert X Cringely. The subtitle is “how the boys of Silicon Valley make their millions, battle foreign competition, and still can’t get a date.” Which kind of sums up your argument above, although not in the context of gaming.
You could make an argument though, that much like the old British aristocracy living on inherited wealth and looking down on the nouveau-riche industrialists who made their own wealth, that the liberal elites do not in fact 'deserve' their elevated status vs the tech elites - primarily because the system they've created is so hated by so many voters that they will vote for Trump, Reform, AfD etc.
There's a great song called 'Photoshop Handsome' by the British group Everything Everything on exactly this topic.
I'm thinking a lot lately about the pick up artist lecture circuit, and whether that led to a bunch of dudes who thought they could take a class to learn to hypnotize any woman into having sex with them getting their money taken by a man with a faux hawk, inspired by a man with a soul patch calling himself Mystery wearing a funny hat.
And then when that didn't work, obviously the dudes had done everything right, and there was something deeply wrong with every woman.
Yes, very much so -- this is perhaps best recognised with happiness/life satisfaction (pursuing it directly is a poor way, for most people anyway, to boost it, it's THE quintessential by-product).
But also -- and I think this is where you might be missing something about the geek tragedy -- NOT QUITE.
A lot of the time we pursue clear, kind-of transactional goals. Or participate in competitions in which there exist, on a population level, ways to boost one's position, even if not WIN.
Reading a lot, hard work and participating in class might not GUARANTEE a First, but surely they will significantly improve chances of getting one.
Or, more socially, while this might not result in "love" or even a "successful relationship", if I put much effort and money in performing conventional femininity, my "talent pool" will increase. More men will find me attractive, and especially, more attractive men will find me attractive. There's ZERO other reason for performing femininity, apart from "making oneself more attractive to a larger pool of prospects". So attractiveness (but not love or successful relationships!) is not a by-product in this case. It's something you can -- algorithmically -- successfully improve.
I think the geek tragedy here is two pronged: first, not quite understanding which things are more like "hotness" (or "wealth") and which things are more like "respect" or "love". Secondly, getting the criteria even for the "transactional" goals wrong, as evidenced by the Olly Murs case -- incidentally I also prefer the "before" version, and it's both for purely visual (and imagined tactile, ewww!) reasons, and for "what it says about the person" reasons. I think much of this is about feeling kinda... existentially offended that the world does not share ones values. Almost a theory of mind thing? Geeks, I'm told, often struggle with those.