The real genius in the design of real life, is that life itself doesn't even seem to be the main focus of the game -- none of the rules say that life has to even exist! The design seems to have been optimized for its physics engine. The life system that most players spend all their time on wasn't even added until the game had already been online for billions of years.

But limiting myself to just this part of the game, it seems to have been geared quite beautifully to giving players meaningful moral choices, and doing so within the contingencies created by the physics. In most games with meaningful moral choices, the player can usually read the world pretty well, and tell whether a particular choice is good or bad for them. But in real life, this isn't so -- the specifics of the physics don't allow for this kind of cohesion. Yet, instead of the morality breaking down, this makes it much more important. The very fact that outcomes are in no way uniform puts those who live by their ideals to the test, but also punishes those without scruples. It rewards those with virtue, and makes the vicious complacent. More than any other game, life makes players question what's right and wrong and whether they themselves are good or evil.

If you can't remove that one giant design flaw, the redesign is an inherent failure

I don't think it's a design flaw at all. In fact I think it's the only reason life is worth living. There is no such thing as fair. Fair is very subjective. For everything to be 100% fair we would all have to be 100% the same and that's not a life worth living.

If you can't remove that one giant design flaw, the redesign is an inherent failure

I don't think it's a design flaw at all. In fact I think it's the only reason life is worth living. There is no such thing as fair. Fair is very subjective. For everything to be 100% fair we would all have to be 100% the same and that's not a life worth living.

We'd only have to be 100% the same at birth, people would go different directions pretty quickly. But I don't buy unfairness as a reason life is worth living at all. Imagine a test case where everyone is the same except for a 50% of having a random disease. How could being born with a disease, or seeing others born with a disease when you are healthy, possibly make your life better?

No, we'd all have to be the same all the time. If you were born to be able to throw a ball really fast and I can't, well I see that as not fair because that leads to you getting paid more money to play sports. If you want everyone to be fair then you would have to not let that person throw the ball fast which isn't fair to that person. Maybe you just mean health and economic fairness, because for everything to be "fair" would be a horrible system where people aren't allowed to be naturally unique (natural ability) because it makes it not fair for others who aren't like that. This is why fair is subjective. I would love to be able to throw a football 70 yards but I can't and I think that's unfair. So either I deal with the unfairness (which is unfair) or I make it law that nobody can throw farther than the average person (which is unfair to the ones who can throw it). Fairness isn't just about health or money.

Let's reverse the experiment and say everyone is always healthy and can't get sick or even die. You think people procrastinate now . What would be the point in doing anything? Why eat? You don't need too because you won't get sick and die anyway. Fear motivates all animals to live. I fear starvation (even if it's way back in my mind because it's unlikely) so I work to make sure I have enough money to eat and feed my family. If I lose my job and can't get another one that fear starts creeping it's way to the forefront of my mind.

To make a perfect world you would have to alter all living things minds as well, which then you'd have to question what kind of life is it, or is it even a life? I'm sure rocks have a fair and perfect life.

The point in doing things is not only because it improves our lot in life. The point of doing things is often that doing the thing is intrinsically fun, valuable, or improves the lot in somebody else's life. Pediatricians, teachers, hospice workers, artists, and others work jobs that pay crap, demands 80+ hours of work per week, and they're not doing it for any reason other than their love for the field and/or love for the people they help.

(Before anybody says "Doctors make bank!" do some legwork on that thought. <3 Doctors make lots of money due to in-office procedures, which pediatricians do very, very few of compared to all other fields. They are some of the worst paid doctors. Really you can expand it [or change if you prefer] to nurses, orderlies, any other hospital support staff you choose.)

Meanwhile, imagine World of Warcraft or Dark Souls or any other multiplayer game, co-op or otherwise, where some people spawned in at level 40 and others at lv1; and maybe the people that start at lv1 can never surpass lv30. Because "life isn't fair" the designers say. The level constraints aren't random, either: they're based on what region on Earth you live in, maybe some non-P.C. demographics, and how much money you elect to pay per month.

How well do you think that would sell? :)

Let's reverse the experiment and say everyone is always healthy and can't get sick or even die. You think people procrastinate now . What would be the point in doing anything? Why eat? You don't need too because you won't get sick and die anyway. Fear motivates all animals to live. I fear starvation (even if it's way back in my mind because it's unlikely) so I work to make sure I have enough money to eat and feed my family. If I lose my job and can't get another one that fear starts creeping it's way to the forefront of my mind.

Okay, let's imagine that no one can get sick or die. On top of that, let's suppose that the Earth was an infinite flat plane, so we don't have to worry about space problems. Does this produce a world of lazy gluttons? No, because as thade said:

The point in doing things is not only because it improves our lot in life. The point of doing things is often that doing the thing is intrinsically fun, valuable

The arts, sciences, and play survive in this hypothetical world because these things capture our passion for their own sake, and not only because they lift ourselves or others ever so slightly out of the pit where misery and death lie.

But even if, in our world, these were not inherently enjoyable, we would still practice and partake in them because the alternatives are boredom, anomie, and nihilism.

Now, one final thing: we remove the emotion of boredom. We may suppose everyone ceases to act, content to laze in eternal decadence, even though this is not proven. Are they not still content?

then you'd have to question what kind of life is it, or is it even a life? I'm sure rocks have a fair and perfect life.

Sure, this hypothetical world lacks the struggle for survival and meaning that our lives are based around, but its inhabitants don't mind. What is it that makes our kind of life preferable?

I think you agree that self-expression is intrinsically enjoyable. That includes game-making, cooking, and long conversations with friends where you really open up to them. If that's true, we can work with that.

Boredom is a choice; it is not an inescapable consequence of external factors, but a fully escapable consequence of internal ones. I get that a lot of people really like to proactively dismiss the idea that each of us are responsible for our feelings, but that doesn't challenge the fact that we are. As Louie C.K. says, the world is vast and each of us has explored basically zero percent of it; our minds are functionally infinite. While we can't always (maybe never) choose what comes to mind or what happens to us, we do get to choose how we react. These are foundational truths to humanity and I think dressing us up like we're helpless is nothing more than an actively harmful appeal to pathos.

Whether you agree with my definition of boredom or not, if your assertion is that, purely, we should remove "boredom" as a possible status effect in our "redesign", I'm down with that. But it's maybe unnecessary if we can just present the "users" with a lot to do and not a lot of busy work to get to the fun stuff.

If all basic needs were guaranteed to be met for all people (something that I think most of us here have put on the table for our "redesign") that doesn't necessarily result in a "world of lazy gluttons." Indeed, we have (I emphasize *few*) lazy gluttons now who 1. are NOT a majority and 2. do not necessarily have all of their needs easily met. In reality, most people have to work (very hard) to meet even a portion of their needs, most people have esoteric hobbies they enjoy, and virtually all people who partake in some form of free self-expression (art) report that it makes them happy.

If we take away the need to work, I assert that we won't negate the desire to work; certainly we won't negate the need for self-expression, or the desire for esoteric hobbies. Why? Because, right now, whether somebody works to sustain survival, or because they feel the work is a calling of some kind, or they find true joy in their career climb (the three ways people approach work, according to research), people will still follow the other avenues to enjoyment. In many of the proposed "redesigns" here, people can still work careers if they want to, but nobody has to work three fast-food less-than-minimum wage jobs in order to survive. (Unless they really enjoy that.)

Imagine a world where you were guaranteed shelter and healthy food and reliable healthcare even if you did NOTHING, then you could go about doing whatever you wanted: meeting people, exploring, studying and leaning about what others before you had discovered; more time to spend with family and friends, more time to spend on entertainment, art, sports, whatever.

If we can design life to facilitate this, why wouldn't we?

Actually, I agree with virtually all of that. I was trying to contest rpiller's position, and quoted you because your point supported the one I was trying to make. You're right that my post "seems to take 'life sucks' as if it's obviously so" (though you've since redacted that part of your response). That was accidental, and I don't really believe it.

What I was trying to say was that people don't only act out of fear of starvation (or some other cause of death), as rpiller implied, but that they also do things simply for the joy of doing them. In fact, many of the best things in life are done for this very reason.