I wonder how he got all those users in the first place. http://www.torn.com/ is poorly designed and doesn't elaborate on what the game is.
It is ability to gain a community rather than design that matters for this type of web-service.
It's a handful of PHP scripts with little to actually "do" - at least at the intro level - training is merely clicking on some JavaScript buttons.
What difference for the player does it make what technology was used for scripting and buttons? An average guy from these 40k users might not even know such words as JavaScript/PHP/Flash.
<em>It is ability to gain a community rather than design that matters for this type of web-service.</em>
Yeah, I get that, but the front page is just a signup form. If I set up a page like that, it wouldn't magically get signups. There must be some marketing involved someplace.
I hope you are not serious. People are not only in touch with each other through the internet. There are lots of different ways for people to hear about a game (friends, school, work, etc.)
Torn makes a lot of money because it is an interesting online game. It is interesting because you can build your character and watch how it performs over time, not because it is about crime. Very similar to other online multiplayer games, e.g. Legends of Zork.
As far as I know, there isn't any statistically valid data in favor of the concept "letting people try it out in another reality decreases crime rate" or the opposite. I tend to think trying it out virtually does decrease crime rate. It has the same effect as an experience of a vaccine injection, where one gets an infection in low dose, which helps them gain immunity to it.
True. However, for every simulation game it seems that there are at least two or three first person shooters.
And the big ones like Grand Theft Auto are very popular. Back in 2007 they had already sold 50 million units, making over a billion in revenue. And that was two years ago. With a cursory check I couldn't find recent sales stats.
Btw World of Goo is a great game and really shows that fun doesn't have to be violent. ;)
Seven of the top ten best-selling PC games are violent (the exceptions are Myst and Sims 1 and 2).
Four of the top ten best-selling console games are non-violent, five have the cartoonish violence of Pokemon and Super Mario Brothers and Mario Kart, and one is the definitely violent Grand Theft Auto.
One could also argue (without data saying either way) the opposite: that repeated exposure to this sort of thing just serves to desensitise and feel less guilt.
Note: I don't actually think that there's a causal link between violent media and crime: it takes an already marred individual to go out and commit atrocities, which the media are happy to scapegoat. 99.999% of people playing or watching violent games or movies would never even dream of replicating scenarios in real life.
One could also argue that repeated exposure to this sort of thing increases one's likelihood of becoming a professional juggler.
Without actual data, all we have to run on are intuitions, probably-broken metaphors, and guesswork. I don't generally trust any of those to result in a rational decision.
It could very well be that people who are already marred enjoy violent games more and that contributes to the supposed connection between violent games and violence in real life.
Financial market affects today's economy a lot. There's a great demand for assumptions and forecast involved in financial services. However the reliability of today's forecast and analysis methods leaves a lot to be desired. This situation is the cause of the current crisis.
Although capitalism is crash-prone to some extent it is the most reliable system mankind has ever come up with. It is arguably because it's idea of individual success reflects the nature of the animal the system is supposed to work on.
Sure, what I mean is that the pursue for individual success is a key feature of Homo sapiens species. Traditional capitalism declares it as its main trait. The fact that participants of a capitalist system are encouraged to act according to their natural behavioral patterns makes capitalism the most stable system ever known.
Capitalism is one of the few social constructs that encourages negative traits. Who is to say that selfishness is better than altruism? Altruism seems to be a human trait as well -- we do act altruistically on occassion. Is it impossible to build a financial system based on altruism? We tend to think quite highly of those who give of themselves more than take. Why don't we build a financial system that rewards those who think of others? Is such a system impossible?
Society rests on and perhaps morality itself is based on the repression of innate desires. Males have a desire to procreate, but rape is forbidden. We have a desire to promote the success of those with our genes, but discrimination is forbidden. I would say our society is better off because we shun, outlaw, and degrade the exercise of traits we would like to see less of in those who share our society with us.
Humans are at a crossroads here. We have the knowledge, the vision, and the power to evolve ourselves into the species we choose to be. Why, if there is an alternative, would we choose to create a system that rewards those for behaving in a manner that we don't like, in a manner that we would like to see less of?
Imagine saying, "You're so greedy!" Now imagine saying, "You're so giving!" It's a totally different feeling. Imagine a society that promotes the giving over promoting the greedy.
Capitalism creates an environment where both positive and negative traits can be materialized. Everyone agrees that altruism is better than selfishness in moral sense. However one must be quite civilized and have high quality of life and standard of living to exercise altruism. Those whose individual demands are not met simply cannot afford altruism. A financial system aimed at rewarding those who think of others (surprise!) exists right now. Those who have extra money, time or other resources can invest them in those who are in need through loans, grants and scholarships. I'm sure any innovative ideas in this area would be accepted by the HN community and society in general. This proves that the current society/economy is open for a change toward a more altruism-encouraging system.
Western society and morality is based on the relative tolerance to innate human desires and wishes in contrast to other cultures. That's why it has created a financial system that made the countries that chose it developed.
"Males have a desire to procreate, but rape is forbidden. We have a desire to promote the success of those with our genes, but discrimination is forbidden."
Morality restricts certain ways in which a human can fulfill their needs. However rape is not the only way to procreate and discrimination has very little to do with promoting the success of one's genes. Today's social and financial system is successful among other factors because it provides equal and legitimate ways to have sex or multiply for everyone.
We are at crossroads, we have opportunity to choose the way financial system would look like in the future and that's why it is especially important to understand why the current financial system is successful. It is, despite difficulties, which, for example led only to a 2% drop in US GDP growth rate in 2008 compared to 2005. The GDP is still increasing! You can have look at http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=353&co... (US GDP statistics) to see how stable economy is. These disturbances are annoying, but their impact on lifestyle is minor.
"Imagine saying, "You're so greedy!" Now imagine saying, "You're so giving!" It's a totally different feeling. Imagine a society that promotes the giving over promoting the greedy."
What does this have to do with the initial argument? Could you please point out where I disagreed with this?
> However one must be quite civilized and have high quality of life and standard of living to exercise altruism.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of people that have nothing that still devote time/money into helping others before themselves.
I hate to reference the Bible, but there was a parable in there about a woman donating 2 cents to the poor verses wealthy men donating piles of money (I think this was 'bags of silver pieces or something like that). She gave more than they did if you consider the percentage of their total assets/worth that was donated.
I wouldn't rely on poor people's altruism as on a valuable contribution to others. Even if giving those 2 cents was an important decision for the woman considering her poorness, the piles given out by a richer man were much more valuable. It is absolute value of a contribution that matters for a receiver of good here.
That may be, but the original statement said that one needed to be 'rich' to exercise altruism, and despite the downmodding of my previous comment that point still stands.
Who is to say that selfishness is better than altruism? Altruism seems to be a human trait as well -- we do act altruistically on occassion.
It's not clear to me whether that's a bug or a feature. Most cases in which altruism would be possible in the ancestral environment are cases in which acting "altruistically" actually benefits the actor in the long run. We're now in a world where it's less clear that those actions will benefit the actor (or actor's genes), on balance. Altruism does result in arguably worse outcomes in many cases (food aid to Africa, liberating Iraq, etc) in the modern world.
Is it impossible to build a financial system based on altruism?
Well, it doesn't seem stable. A financial system based on self-interest is stable when there are a few people with altruistic motives in the system. A financial system based on altruism would rapidly fail in the presence of a few self-interested people in the system.
> We have a desire to promote the success of those with our genes, but discrimination is forbidden.
How so? Am I not allowed to be a white male that exclusively dates white females? Is there affirmative action for dating/mating now?
Discrimination is forbidden in ways that have nothing to do with genes and evolution. Do you really think that the KKK was all about 'promoting better genes?' In modern times, they may have convinced themselves of this but it is bunk science. Neo-Nazies, skinheads, KKK members, all of them discriminate against others, not because they want to 'get rid of others to promote their genes.'
And you say 'those with our genes,' but that normally means one's offspring. Even within the same 'tribes,' preference is given to one's offspring above all else.
This has more to do with human nature to want to join a community and exclude others, which is closer to our warring nature than anything to do with procreation.
Altruism require giving away resource with no expectation of benefit. So in short, it is sucide of the individual if practiced to extreme.
A more substainable form is voluntary exchanges in which individuals exchange good and services for their percevied benefit. That's cooperation based on "stratching your back, you stratch my back".
Also note that individuals are what composed of groups. They are the smallest building block of society. Focus on them, and you benefit the group. The ideal situtation is that you would never need to sacrifice an individual for the whole group.
Modeling a system theoretically capable of evolution is a great idea. However, I think EvoGrid would be better off modeling a system with some simple interactions rather than the real world biochemistry. The real world biochemistry is very redundant and the chances are higher that a simpler system would produce evolving life on the same computer power.
I agree wholeheartedly. However, there's a problem. To date, the only known physical system that has produced life is the one we are made of. To extend on that, we definitely have more knowledge now than before about the basic chemical interactions that make up many of the component molecules we're all built from. Despite this, we still haven't pieced together a bottom to top knowledge base of how you get from amino acids to dna/rna to functional, if simple, self-replicating systems.
In the last couple of years, advancements have been made in getting DNA and RNA to replicate independently in a test tube. Similarly, and more important, there have been at least a couple of experiments where completely synthetic RNA molecules (meaning manufactured and using amino acids not found in living creatures) have shown limited self-replication in test tube environments.
Other research efforts have been studying how certain collections of lipid (fat) molecules can form porous membranes, allowing some molecules to enter while blocking others. This is what our cell membranes do.
From the other direction, projects are in progress that are attempting to knock out all the un-necessary genes in a simple bacteria to create the simplest cell possible. Craig Venter is pretty far ahead on this. http://www.ted.com/talks/craig_venter_is_on_the_verge_of_cre...
As part of that project(I think) they have created a fully synthetic genome. The next part is to put it into an artificial cell and get it replicating.
So we have approaches from both the top and bottom that are seeking to meet in the middle.
I think the EvoGrid, if they are actually trying to simulate real biochemistry, is a very valid approach to help solve this problem. We're probably very close to understanding how to go from basic biochemistry all the way up. An artificial simulation that incorporates known physical properties might offer some additional insights on how this works.
My belief is that once we have a rough draft of a theory on how it all fits together that can be experimentally repeated, it will provide a firm starting point for figuring out the mathematics behind why it works. Think of it as being similar to the Standard Model of physics, but for life. Once we know one set of rules that works, then it opens up the way for experimenters to setup massive simulations with all different kinds of parameters to explore the full range of possibilities for life.
One very interesting extension of this idea is that once we know for sure how carbon-based life arises from the proverbial molecular soup, it lets us start experimenting with other elements. We can examine if its possible for life to arise in previously dismissed areas of the universe. We could determine how likely it is for silicon-based biochemistry to work. It also gives us the opportunity to engineer life using elements that really can never get together in the regular old universe due to natual laws.
I like your point that it's necessary to figure out the math of replication first and then apply the knowledge in design of alternative computer-based replicators.
In addition to the approaches from top and bottom there is one more (bottom-bottom) approach: turn an existing cellular automation like Conway's Game of Life into an evolving computer-based replicator. As far as I know, all existing examples of cellular automation can only produce replicating systems. They are not evolving because they don't have selection. The moment one of these systems is tweaked so that it would also have a possibility to mutate and endure natural (artificial would be a better word here) selection, there will be evolving life in a computer.
The flaw of Gerald Skinner's approach is that he makes an assumption that there is some kind of absolute abstract quality of a soccer team, whereas the quality of a soccer team is defined by their results in a tournament.
This is interesting analysis. However I think the most important factors of success of a start-up are 1) what service to provide; 2) team to run the business. Friendly funding environment is a plus, but it is not a sine qua non for a young company.
The point of the analysis is to answer the question "if you're a team that has identified a promising market and looking to build a product, where should you be?"
That's a meaningless question because it ignores important factors that often swamp the generic data.
For example, the product and market matters. If you're starting a fossil-fuels related company, you're probably better off in Wyoming than on Sand Hill Road.
I think it is only possible to say whether one's work is great in a while after it has been done. It's a good idea to take up something that you really like and dive into it because the fact that you like the subject raises the odds of your success. It is quite useless to look for an area where the average chances are high unless you are interested in the subject matter.
In terms of the Mark's hypothesis that "our greatest life’s works will be inspired from both within and desired externally" I would definitely emphasize the "inspired from within" part.
Great comments chimariko. I hope much of the HackerNews feedback gets back (by disqus) under the original post. Even within great disagreements there's a helluva lot of value added.
I like the approach described in this article, which is, in fact, "Take some time to look around and then choose." Choose too soon -- you don't have a relevant criterion. Wait too long -- you might have already missed the best units.
I wonder if there is an insight into the actual model behind the resulting change_mode_number = total/euler_number formula?
It is ability to gain a community rather than design that matters for this type of web-service.
It's a handful of PHP scripts with little to actually "do" - at least at the intro level - training is merely clicking on some JavaScript buttons.
What difference for the player does it make what technology was used for scripting and buttons? An average guy from these 40k users might not even know such words as JavaScript/PHP/Flash.