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Comment by dkersten | Hacker News Reader

Well, there's a difference between doing something for fun that takes some resources, versus doing something for fun that takes a huge amount of resources. I don't know how many computers or how much energy was used by this effort, so won't pass judgment on whether it was worthwhile or a waste, just that I can understand the sentiment.

Also, great grandparent, at least by my reading, didn't comment negatively on Minecraft itself, so nobody is questioning the value of Minecraft, just the effort of finding the seed for the world where this image was taken.

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> just the effort of finding the seed for the world where this image was taken

"Pointless" projects flood HN; my favourite from today obviously being the Typescript in-type SQL database. You posted your fair share of them in fact, I especially love this one from your history, COBOL on COGS: http://www.coboloncogs.org/INDEX.HTM

They're pointless in a very cold, medical sense but they're obviously works that foster interest. That make people think. That spark new ideas, and who knows what will come out of that.

Science and math regularly explores "pointless paths" just for the hell of it. From those pointless paths often rise critical, high-impact inventions.

The same applies to software engineering. Sometimes, there is a direct line to "usefulness" (such as via creating software that may end up being directly used, or via inspiring other tools used for high-impact applications). But sometimes it's more nuanced, such as by inspiring thousands of people to pick up programming and learn new skills. One of those people might be your next John Carmack. Maybe ten.

If this sort of stuff wasn't useful, we wouldn't have a concept of having fun at all. We wouldn't need it; hell we wouldn't even need to forbid it because nobody would want to have it. We'd have industrial-scale baby-breeders plopping out toddlers in factories, with robot arms stuffing them in a suit and forcing them to learn every waking hour until they're good enough to grease the gears of that very factory.

Its not about whether its pointless, but rather whether the resources spent on it (energy expenditure of the distributed BOINC nodes used) is worthwhile. Few people argue that "pointless" projects, done for fun, aren't worthwhile. The question, if I read the original comment correctly, is that this is wasteful of resources/energy, when it could be better spent elsewhere (covid research was mentioned) or saved (to not contribute to climate change?).

I don't know how much was actually used though, I didn't see it mentioned, so maybe its not enough to worry about. I'm perfectly cool with wasting a little energy for fun, we do it all the time after all.

> If this sort of stuff wasn't useful, we wouldn't have a concept of having fun at all.

I dunno, burning stuff can be fun, does that mean that its always good (for the environment or just the stuff being burnt)?

I'm not actually against this project at all, but I do wonder what resources were spent on it.

Think of all the resources you expanded in your life purely on entertainment.

Think of all the times you worked out to burn fat and calories amassed by not eating exactly what you needed.

Think of all the fuel you expanded on leisure, via planes, cruises, roadtrips, etc.

Think of all the recreational industries you supported throughout your life, by spending your viable, limited time listening, watching, reading and even buying their work.

Like I said, if leisure wasn't important and useful, we just wouldn't have it. It's such a ridiculously massive industry, I don't think you realize you are surrounded by it; it takes up the majority of your and everyone else's lives.

You can make these things more efficient, but arguing their existence is dangerous territory. And I certainly will die on a hill to defend how critical projects like this one are to introduce bright minds to the field.

> ... but rather whether the resources spent on it (energy expenditure of the distributed BOINC nodes used) is worthwhile

Is 8k gaming worthwhile ? How about 4k ? 1k ? text-mode gaming ? gaming in general ? Shouldn't we all better ourselves being productive to society rather than play mindless games ?

> Well, there's a difference between doing something for fun that takes some resources, versus doing something for fun that takes a huge amount of resources

Do you realize the whole gaming industry revolves around NOTHING but consuming HUGE amount of resources (including hardware development) for nothing but "fun". Do you really need 8k gaming, or maybe even "nethack" consume too much energy for you ? Btw, I'm not even getting started about the "entertainment" industry...

I didn't imply the poster questioned Minecraft, but this effort didn't come out of nothing. It came out of a community which exists in the ecosphere. The actual computation part was the least amount of time spent on this. The bulk was trying to narrow this seemingly 2^64 seeds down to a bruteforcable amount while learning something. There is a whole community around "seedfinding" now, which has done amazing work around reverse-engineering and pseudo-random number generation. Sure the sentiment of putting resources to anything of no immediate value is questionable, but I imagine so is modern day theoretical physics and mathematics :)

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