> There are a lot of human systems that look like the Everything Game, but what makes the Everything Game unique is that it’s mainly implemented in networked software and it happens at scale. Without all three of those things — the network, the software, and the scale — it’s not the Everything Game.
Sorry, I don't get this distinction between human systems and the supposed Everything Game. Is it the human network is less connected? Is it that human brain is less stringent and more arbitrary than software? Is it the scale of human bureaucracy is smaller than the internet? I'd answer no to all three questions, maybe conditional yes to the second one.
> I suspect that when everything is mediated through networked software at scale, then everything becomes about signal manipulation and attempts to discover structure for the purpose of arbitraging your way into the top of the power law distribution.
Again, I don't see when has the human society been any different. School be like that, job seeking be like that, entrepreneurship be like that, politics be like that. Maybe that's because I am too young to have witnessed a better time before, in which case, I'd appreciate if you could describe one.
> This strikes me as no way to have a civilization, and I suspect that at some point we’re all going to find that out.
At least the software network has yet to have enough history to have a world war or a famine on its hand.
On the other hand, the universe of Final Fantasy, the cuteness of Pokemons, the thrill in League of Legends... Much is still left to humans other than the game, even in computer games. Smithsonian Museums won't suddenly start throwing away artifacts which don't attract visits. Congress Library won't suddenly start ditching books which don't attract reads. National parks will still be open and maintained. We will still be humans, for good or bad.
It sounds like your frustration is not really with the software per se, but the game which is currently implemented by the software, which is global liberal capitalism. Now that sounds like an interesting post I'd pay to read. ;) signal signal
> Sorry, I don't get this distinction between human systems and the supposed Everything Game. Is it the human network is less connected? Is it that human brain is less stringent and more arbitrary than software? Is it the scale of human bureaucracy is smaller than the internet? I'd answer no to all three questions, maybe conditional yes to the second one.
Interesting, because I'd answer "yes" to all of these. There's a lot more heterogeneity in human-embodied systems than there is in networked software. Software forces everyone to play by the same set of rules, implemented the same way.
> Again, I don't see when has the human society been any different. School be like that, job seeking be like that, entrepreneurship be like that, politics be like that. Maybe that's because I am too young to have witnessed a better time before, in which case, I'd appreciate if you could describe one.
I do think having fully come of age in the pre-networked-software world is a huge factor in grasping this. But even without that, I'd put it this way:
Say you were passing by a store on Main St. and you saw a "Help Wanted" sign, and since you needed a job you went in and applied. You filled out the application, and the manager asked you to come immediately into his office for an interview. So you interviewed, and as you did so you were conscious of the signals you were sending her — the way you were dressed that day, how you sat, how often you smiled, etc. Throughout the whole interview, you were trying to infer what signals she was looking for, what rules she was using to evaluate them, and against what metrics. All of this was in your mind that day.
Two things about this scenario:
1) It's a post-software scenario, where you're using software as a "lens" (to use an academic metaphor) for interpreting the job interview; there are surely other lenses from other cultures you could use, like, say, that of a game, or a chase, or a hunt, or a courtship.
2) The signals you're sending are not literally signals. Like, you're thinking of them as signals, but they're not actual signals being fed to an algorithm. Whereas in the Everything Game, they would be literal, actual signals fed to an actual algorithm. It's not a lens or a metaphor — it's an actual software pattern.
> Software forces everyone to play by the same set of rules, implemented the same way.
I disagree about this. Since your worry initially comes from computer adopted deeper into science, I understand that to imply that the capability of software would be tracking the demand of science, which is more precise modeling. Such modeling requires complexity of software according to the heterogeneity of the system it aims to model. We already have software systems implementing different rules for different people: subscription system of a newsletter, access control systems of an office, welfare delivery systems, potentially biased machine learning systems, etc. This will be expanded below.
> The signals you're sending are not literally signals.
I understand "signal" the word in three parts: 1) traffic signals; 2) hardware signal processing; 3) Signaling Theory in zoology. I am only a student but I rarely see the word used in my software courses. I guess because "signal" implies its counterpart, "noise", which is traditionally not as much of a concern in software. 2) and 3) are similar in that the sender designs the signal to be better able to survive in the noise, but in 3)'s case the sender is not humans but the software (or hardware driver). Back to the tweet, I think the recent inroad software has made into science is due to the improvement in its pattern recognition, i.e. picking out signal from the mixed environment including humans, compared to before, when the receiver had to be tuned specifically to a known software sender. I am curious which software pattern you had in mind.
I take it that you think the situation is one that the variety and heterogeneity of the human world would be forcedly squished into a rigid and laggy software model. What I observe though is the software models growing more flexible and responsive on a quest to meet human demands. I trust the scientists that they, on their own quest to understand complexity, would not be satisfied with software that is anything less. The bureaucracy, though, I don't know. What used to be preventing the human world from being squished by bureaucracy into a rigid software model, I can only hope those will still be in effect.
Thanks a lot for this article, top read of my week, resonating with my thoughts.
I think game theory is eventually the sole human compliant model to model any systems of humans.
Physics can model linear systems, Biology can model non linear systems but you need games to model meta linear systems of humans that can play with the lines, locally or globally.
This is especially true now that what you call "scaled network software" produced a single interconnected system of humans, aka Connected Humanity.
The solution for me is thus not to fight against the game, but to play the right one, which, thanks to mechanism design, can be proved to have explicit rules that produce locally and globally satisfying results, make it explicitly playful and useful with the right ergonomics and ergology, and make it fair, right and well enough that nobody wants to break its rules anymore.
> There are a lot of human systems that look like the Everything Game, but what makes the Everything Game unique is that it’s mainly implemented in networked software and it happens at scale. Without all three of those things — the network, the software, and the scale — it’s not the Everything Game.
Sorry, I don't get this distinction between human systems and the supposed Everything Game. Is it the human network is less connected? Is it that human brain is less stringent and more arbitrary than software? Is it the scale of human bureaucracy is smaller than the internet? I'd answer no to all three questions, maybe conditional yes to the second one.
> I suspect that when everything is mediated through networked software at scale, then everything becomes about signal manipulation and attempts to discover structure for the purpose of arbitraging your way into the top of the power law distribution.
Again, I don't see when has the human society been any different. School be like that, job seeking be like that, entrepreneurship be like that, politics be like that. Maybe that's because I am too young to have witnessed a better time before, in which case, I'd appreciate if you could describe one.
> This strikes me as no way to have a civilization, and I suspect that at some point we’re all going to find that out.
At least the software network has yet to have enough history to have a world war or a famine on its hand.
On the other hand, the universe of Final Fantasy, the cuteness of Pokemons, the thrill in League of Legends... Much is still left to humans other than the game, even in computer games. Smithsonian Museums won't suddenly start throwing away artifacts which don't attract visits. Congress Library won't suddenly start ditching books which don't attract reads. National parks will still be open and maintained. We will still be humans, for good or bad.
It sounds like your frustration is not really with the software per se, but the game which is currently implemented by the software, which is global liberal capitalism. Now that sounds like an interesting post I'd pay to read. ;) signal signal
> Sorry, I don't get this distinction between human systems and the supposed Everything Game. Is it the human network is less connected? Is it that human brain is less stringent and more arbitrary than software? Is it the scale of human bureaucracy is smaller than the internet? I'd answer no to all three questions, maybe conditional yes to the second one.
Interesting, because I'd answer "yes" to all of these. There's a lot more heterogeneity in human-embodied systems than there is in networked software. Software forces everyone to play by the same set of rules, implemented the same way.
> Again, I don't see when has the human society been any different. School be like that, job seeking be like that, entrepreneurship be like that, politics be like that. Maybe that's because I am too young to have witnessed a better time before, in which case, I'd appreciate if you could describe one.
I do think having fully come of age in the pre-networked-software world is a huge factor in grasping this. But even without that, I'd put it this way:
Say you were passing by a store on Main St. and you saw a "Help Wanted" sign, and since you needed a job you went in and applied. You filled out the application, and the manager asked you to come immediately into his office for an interview. So you interviewed, and as you did so you were conscious of the signals you were sending her — the way you were dressed that day, how you sat, how often you smiled, etc. Throughout the whole interview, you were trying to infer what signals she was looking for, what rules she was using to evaluate them, and against what metrics. All of this was in your mind that day.
Two things about this scenario:
1) It's a post-software scenario, where you're using software as a "lens" (to use an academic metaphor) for interpreting the job interview; there are surely other lenses from other cultures you could use, like, say, that of a game, or a chase, or a hunt, or a courtship.
2) The signals you're sending are not literally signals. Like, you're thinking of them as signals, but they're not actual signals being fed to an algorithm. Whereas in the Everything Game, they would be literal, actual signals fed to an actual algorithm. It's not a lens or a metaphor — it's an actual software pattern.
LOL I realized the manager changed genders in the middle of the story! Apologies.
> Software forces everyone to play by the same set of rules, implemented the same way.
I disagree about this. Since your worry initially comes from computer adopted deeper into science, I understand that to imply that the capability of software would be tracking the demand of science, which is more precise modeling. Such modeling requires complexity of software according to the heterogeneity of the system it aims to model. We already have software systems implementing different rules for different people: subscription system of a newsletter, access control systems of an office, welfare delivery systems, potentially biased machine learning systems, etc. This will be expanded below.
> The signals you're sending are not literally signals.
I understand "signal" the word in three parts: 1) traffic signals; 2) hardware signal processing; 3) Signaling Theory in zoology. I am only a student but I rarely see the word used in my software courses. I guess because "signal" implies its counterpart, "noise", which is traditionally not as much of a concern in software. 2) and 3) are similar in that the sender designs the signal to be better able to survive in the noise, but in 3)'s case the sender is not humans but the software (or hardware driver). Back to the tweet, I think the recent inroad software has made into science is due to the improvement in its pattern recognition, i.e. picking out signal from the mixed environment including humans, compared to before, when the receiver had to be tuned specifically to a known software sender. I am curious which software pattern you had in mind.
I take it that you think the situation is one that the variety and heterogeneity of the human world would be forcedly squished into a rigid and laggy software model. What I observe though is the software models growing more flexible and responsive on a quest to meet human demands. I trust the scientists that they, on their own quest to understand complexity, would not be satisfied with software that is anything less. The bureaucracy, though, I don't know. What used to be preventing the human world from being squished by bureaucracy into a rigid software model, I can only hope those will still be in effect.
Thanks a lot for this article, top read of my week, resonating with my thoughts.
I think game theory is eventually the sole human compliant model to model any systems of humans.
Physics can model linear systems, Biology can model non linear systems but you need games to model meta linear systems of humans that can play with the lines, locally or globally.
This is especially true now that what you call "scaled network software" produced a single interconnected system of humans, aka Connected Humanity.
The solution for me is thus not to fight against the game, but to play the right one, which, thanks to mechanism design, can be proved to have explicit rules that produce locally and globally satisfying results, make it explicitly playful and useful with the right ergonomics and ergology, and make it fair, right and well enough that nobody wants to break its rules anymore.
That's what I'm producing with https://umanitus.com