Comment by skizm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skizm | Hacker News Reader

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No way. Going to the gym is one of the nerdiest things you can do if you approach it the right way. I mean it is basically the real life equivalent of grinding levels in an rpg:

You choose a class (endurance, strength, or something in between). You have items and skills which you have to skill up individually (barbells, dumb bells, gymnastics equipment, running, cycling, etc.). The same dilemma exists for leveling up: skill points added to one category are skill points you can't add to another category. Thus if you split your time between strength and endurance you will never achieve as much as someone who exclusively trains one of the two.

The skill curve is even similar to that of a well designed RPG: in the beginning you make a lot of gains quickly but eventually you slow to a halt and it takes months to even gain a few skill points in one item/skill.

The gym in real life is like hardcore mode: If you don't play for a while, your skills degrade as a penalty. However, the skill lost as a penalty is easier to reattain then skill you never had.

There are even boss fights and co-op mode if you decide to compete.

There are too many parallels to list them all here, but I think you get the idea.

Going to the gym in itself is still not a 'nerdy' activity. All you did was describe going to a gym in a very nerdy way by comparing it to an RPG - you could most likely apply this practice to just about any activity one could do.

edit: I do disagree with that statement of the poster to whom you replied, you can still be a pretty big nerd and go to a gym.

> Going to the gym in itself is still not a 'nerdy' activity.

Neither is moving pieces on a chess board until you start to obsess over it, read about it in your free time, track your progress as a player, and constantly try and improved yourself as a chess player. No activity is really "intrinsically nerdy" (whatever that means), that's why I said "if you approach it the right way".

Still, society generally views playing chess as being nerdy, no matter how involved you are with it. They don't make these distinctions you're making. Whether or not they're accurate in their description is another discussion entirely, but I think we can all understand this in the context of the conversation.

You seem to be mixing up [1] geeks and nerds. What you describe is geeky rather than nerdy.

What would be a nerdy approach to gym/fitness? Perhaps doing 10 years of research into what's the most efficient way of maintaining fitness and publishing a paper. Or perhaps building your own gym -- on the orbit, and commuting by a rocket of your own design.

[1] http://slackprop.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/on-geek-versus-ner...

The article says nerds are achievement oriented. That is textbook RPG player. All they care about is the next level, getting a sub 4 minute mile, the 100kg snatch, etc. Going to the gym is entirely achievement oriented.

Side note: I think we're arguing semantics. If you draw a venn diagram of nerds and geek there would be so much overlap it is hardly practical to differentiate except in the rare instance when an activity falls into one category and not the other (which I don't think is the case here).

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