I have thoughts about “Mediums Overpower Messages”. I would spell them out, but I’d be interested in trying to Socrates you about them. That work for you?
lsusr
I love Socrating.
abstractapplic
My reaction to that post was to take it as a massive (and at least slightly unfair) compliment. Can you figure out why?
lsusr
Well, I know you as the guy who writes D&D.Sci. Is that going in the right direction?
abstractapplic
Yes. That’s it, but I’d like to see if you can figure out both reasons that made me take it as a compliment. (Pretty sure you already have the easy one but please spell it out.)
lsusr
This website is dominated by non-fiction dialectic essays. Basically, a claim is started in the title and then argued for in the body.
In my post about mediums, I wrote about how different mediums make me smarter vs make me dumber. It basically came down to how hard they made me think. The harder a media format requires me to think, the smarter it makes me, and D&D.Sci forces the reader to think harder than anything else on this website.
abstractapplic
Yes, that’s the (easy half of the) answer I had in mind.
abstractapplic
(I don’t know about it being the most hard-to-consume content on the entire website but sure it’s definitely above-median, I’ll cop to that.)
lsusr
Then there’s another half of the answer.
abstractapplic
At least; I just now realized there’s actually like 2.5 pieces to it.
abstractapplic
Want a hint?
lsusr
Hint please.
abstractapplic
You said in Mediums Overpower Messages that your list was symmetrical. I just checked and you didn’t say it was “perfectly symmetrical”, which is good because that would be false. Can you tell me why?
Note for readers: “the list is symmetrical” = “the harder a medium is to make, the easier it is to consume and vice-versa.”
abstractapplic
(Or just give me some counterexamples to “perfectly symmetrical”?)
lsusr
Sometimes there is low-hanging fruit. For example, Dynomight’s post My stupid noise journey is both easy to read and actionable. I read that post, immediately bought a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, and it changed my life.
abstractapplic
That is actually not a class of counterexample I was considering, but that’s a valid answer. Can you think of another class of counterexample?
lsusr
Fiction. As a general rule, immersive puzzles are better teaching tools than abstract questions.
abstractapplic
Is that a counterexample to “perfectly symmetrical” though? Or are you saying that making puzzles immersive is a free action / actively easier?
lsusr
In theory, making puzzles immersive are a free action that makes them both easier to digest and more educational. However, crafting good narratives takes more skill than nonfiction dialectic essays. It becomes a free action after you’ve put the hours into learning how to tell a good story.
lsusr
Which is why I like how your D&D.Sci always has a narrative. :)
abstractapplic
I think that matches my experience pretty closely, actually: the narrative for each .Sci is usually the part that takes least time and effort on my part.
abstractapplic
But that’s also not what I’m fishing for, though it is a valid counterexample.
lsusr
Hmmm. What are you fishing for?
abstractapplic
The other ~half is the fact that D&D.Sci manages to be an awkward janky mess to make as well as an awkward janky mess to play. So if someone works in a medium like that (or better yet, at-least-kind-of-invents and at-least-kind-of-popularizes a medium like that), then per Mediums Overpower Messages . . . that person would be pretty great, no?
Note for readers: “or better yet, at-least-kind-of-invents and at-least-kind-of-popularizes a medium like that” is the +0.5 in my (abstractapplic’s) 2.5 intended answers.
lsusr
What a backhanded self-compliment. 🤣
abstractapplic
From my POV, you’re the one who gave it to me. :P
abstractapplic
Your post actually came across as more congratulatory than that, tbh.
abstractapplic
I started making D&D.Scis after trying and ~failing to make educational/rational videogames.
abstractapplic
So it wasn’t just “You’re great!” but “You’re great, and being bad at that thing you were bad at is actually Morally Good from at least one standpoint!”
lsusr
The DarwinGames were also an awkward janky mess to make, and the first one was a buggy awkward janky mess to play too. I had thought of that as a failing, but, now that you point it out, I learned a ton from them.
abstractapplic
“Unrelated” tangent: how do you feel about the SV concept/practice of “dogfooding”?
Note for readers: dogfooding = using your own product
lsusr
I like dogfooding because it guarantees authenticity. The catch with dogfooding is it often leads me to create a complicated, cryptic, badly-marketed product. My preference is to start with dogfooding to build the heart of a thing, and then iterate in the direction of easy-to-use. I feel this guarantees an authentic product.
abstractapplic
You say “catch”, but to a lsusr clone, “complicated” and “cryptic” would be selling points. (Right?)
abstractapplic
And “badly-marketed” would get you indie cred.
lsusr
Depends on the lsusr. My heuristics have evolved over time. The older I get, the more I prefer “elegant” to “complicated”, and “precise language” to “cryptic language”.
abstractapplic
Okay, this Socrating thing is way harder than I thought; declaring bankruptcy here. The tension I wanted to highlight is that you have a lot of posts about the value/valor of Effort and Suffering almost as ends to themselves, and then make Youtube videos.
(Which doesn’t make you a hypocrite, it means you’ve changed your mind over time and/or are in a symbiotic relationship with your viewers, just rules out them being lsusr-clones-circa-whenever.)
((And meanwhile I spend a lot of time wishing good University-level educational media which required no/negligible effort existed, and then make challenges players interface with through spreadsheets and .py scripts.))
lsusr
We do what we can, with what we have.
For what it’s worth, I am awful at predicting what will add value to people and what won’t. My most popular stories lay around as unpublished drafts on my laptop for months.
So I just throw everything at the wall. The stuff people like gets passed around and the rest fades into quiet obscurity.
Aside regarding Socrating: as you’re noticing, there are two situations. Either you can predict what your interlocutor is going to say or you can’t.
If you can predict them, then you can tie their mind in all sorts of knots and paradoxes which breaks their habitual logic and force a stacktrace.
If you can’t predict them, then you need to be ready for all the different possible answers. I like to ask a question with many different answers, not knowing which one to expect, and then pretend that the answer I got was the one I had predicted all along.
abstractapplic
I also have thoughts about “predicting what will add value to people and what won’t”, but they should probably be in a different dialogue.
An Unintentional Compliment
Note for readers: “the list is symmetrical” = “the harder a medium is to make, the easier it is to consume and vice-versa.”
Note for readers: “or better yet, at-least-kind-of-invents and at-least-kind-of-popularizes a medium like that” is the +0.5 in my (abstractapplic’s) 2.5 intended answers.
Note for readers: dogfooding = using your own product