The Examined Life in the Age of Optimisation (Rodney King)

My thoughts on this article are very much still forming, but since I've been thinking about for a week, I figure it's time for a rec.

Thought one: as a game designer, I'm very familiar with people's urge to optimize within the context of a system. For example, it's what gets people to grind for levels, even when exploring a new area might be more fun for them. Stafford Beer talked about this as "The purpose of a system is what it does," while I typically frame it as people being sensitive to the system you made and not the one you imagined, but I think these concepts are tightly related.

Thought two: as a scholar, I see this through the lens of meta-motivational states. The urge to optimize is highly telic - directed toward a future goal - rather than paratelic, or directed toward the immediately pleasurable. This article is a good illustration of why we need both. The urge to play isn't something to be suppressed, but rather engaged as a way of being in the world.

Thought three: as a Jew, the idea of philosophy being about practicing a way of living is no surprise. Maimonides, for example, argued that the point of Jewish practice is to enable you to live like a "philosopher-king," since most of us cannot figure out right living from first principles. This is why I'm so serious about practicing both Jewish traditions and values on a daily basis - whether that's feeding my pets before I feed myself, or paying people as fairly as I am able, or studying a piece of Torah.

I have no clever conclusion yet, but that's what I'm thinking!