Tag: class

Posted on

Gamify Yourself (This Isn’t About the Coronavirus!)

gamify yourself

 

While preparing to work from home (like half of America) I took some time out to think about gamification, and the ways little internet-based games get people to rethink their identities. When people find that part of their self-worth comes from the rewards the social media gives them just for being "themselves," their identities become gamified. Yes, you can gamify yourself.

This is important. With the right kinds of rewards, spaced at the right timing, people can become at least a little bit addicted to anything. And when those rewards are for being you, you can become addicted to your own identity.

It's not just that you like your identity. You can become addicted to it. Ten years ago, if someone had pointed out that out, it would have seemed like a plot from an Octavia Butler novel. But having lived with the most interactive parts of the internet for a decade now, this fact has become sadly intuitive.

The thing is, this was going on before the internet, too.

As far back as the Gilded Age you could gamify yourself.

So I wrote an article about it.  You can read about what extreme wealth can do to the people who have it.

You can also find out a little bit about my dating life.

I also explore a new concept, the dope, which is like an old concept, the util. I find it pretty interesting.

Posted on

I’ve got a new bathroom

At least, parts of it are new. And it’s much, much better than the one I had before.

That got me thinking about a classic happiness problem: Why do we like the things we like?

Thinkers like the philosopher and social critic Theodor Adorno argue it’s because we associate nice things with being “classy” in a very literal sense – because the things we own tell us who we are, and that comes with a social class label.

For several hundred years, people have been pursuing the American dream – and conspicuous consumption has been a part of that. Why? One argument explains it by saying that consumption tells other people – and ourselves as well – what we’re worth.

The modern minimalism movement rebels against that: you don’t need good things to convince yourself that you’re a good person. (Or, rather, if you do then you’ve got bigger problems to deal with than storing your shoe collection.) In this, they’re following after Adorno – but there’s a difference.

People in the 21st century still succumb to the desire to keep up with the Jonses, but it’s easier to get yourself out of that head-space because there are more points of view you can look at our culture from, if you’re willing to seek them out.

I’ve got this new bathroom, and I’m trying to figure out what, from Adorno’s point of view, it’s saying about me.

And I’m not sure that it matters. I explore this question in greater depth in an essay I’ll post soon.

Owning nice things can feel good in a lot of different ways. Are some ways better than others? Let me know what you think.