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Comment by _dain_ | Hacker News Reader

A friend of mine had a critique of videogames that has stuck with me. He called them "antiknowledge". Your brain's learning faculties are repurposed into "learning" something that isn't actually a thing. You get really good at some artificial skinner box treadmill system ... and then they change the meta and you have to keep up with the new stats and strategies and so on. Yet after sinking in hundreds of hours, you don't come out the other end with any tangible real-life skill, that would be useful outside of the game.

That's what Python packaging feels like. At least videogames are fun.

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Not all of them! Many of those skinnerbox type games actually have a pretty mediocre or outright unfun game loop - it's the skins, battle passes and "rewards" which keep people playing.

A lot of videogames have you learning antiknowledge, but at the same time very useful meta skills. Build orders in Starcraft won't help you in your office job, but a habit of working out complicated tradeoffs, feeling out your opponent and having a feel of un-intuitive consequences will.

> you don't come out the other end with any tangible real-life skill, that would be useful outside of the game.

Replace "the game" with "the small sphere of specialisation" and this applies to learning a great many things which don't generalise, many of which don't make you money either.

Your friend doesn't have a critique of video games, he has just discovered relaxation and/or hobbies.

Girls' supposedly innate disadvantage over boys in spatial skills disappears after they play video games.

What does that have to do with anything?

An example of video games imparting valuable real-world skills, the opposite of "antiknowledge".

There is other research suggesting video games have learning benefits:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/53740172

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-11-16-groundbreaking-new-stud...

I do not think your example does a favor to describing anti-knowledge. I do think anti-knowledge exists in IT and its a problem. One of which is the label and annotation cult.

Really good description of dota2 in particular. In some ways, League has become more "pure" in my mind (especially comparing to w3 dota)

Completely wrong. Every skill, no matter how useless, generalizes.

Competitive team games are the best examples. Playing them well requires internalizing the concepts of probability, teamwork, mindset, efficiency, dealing with failure, etc.

Those skills come quite in handy because life is a game. It's especially obvious when looking at human-created systems like capitalism and jobs.

(self-correction)

"Completely wrong" is too harsh. What I said only holds true when a player puts in the effort to get good at a game. Mindlessly playing Cookie Clicker while commuting will not yield many benefits.

That's nonsense. The same could be said of most hobbies. The motivation isn't learning real life skills, it's entertainment.

It can be. But isn't it a question of balance?

If you play some useless¹ game for the majority of your days, you can have multiple reasons for this. Maybe it keeps you occupied and thinking of the problems in your life? But after a certain degree it certainly does not "entertain" you anymore: You are doing it because doing anything else that you can think of feels worse. And a few years after not a lot will be left of it, unless you played with your friends or there was something in it for you beyond just pushing the time forward.

If I am playing my instrument for hours, I have at least improved at expressing my feelings with my instrument while having a generally good and relaxing time. And after years of doing it I can do it well enough to play on concerts without feeling afraid.

I know to many people who are so afraid of their own thoughts, they will obsessively "entertain" themselves dueinf all wake hours, and the majority of the time they are not enjoying it. This is bad. We only have one life. You don't get a price for having some the most, but at least do something that is meaningful.

¹ a game that you yourself don't even love that much

I'm +infinity on "antiknowledge", but I like your "entertainment" point.

To harmonize these ideas, I argue to the kids that the "entertainment" choices are like spice on the food. We want enough to enjoy the flavor in question, but not so much that the usage becomes expensive or overpowers the dish.

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