Highly doubt it as games themselves are designed to produce this energy and motivation. It's not like we have super geniuses who are wasting their potential on games, but rather games provide a sandbox that encourage exploration, experimentation, and create intrinsic motivation loops. I feel confident saying that playing games like Factorio is a much better use of time than using social media or passively consuming media.
replyThe real world is filled with industry know-how, real-life constraints, and monetary risk. I'm almost positive these people don't have millions of dollars lying around to invest in agriculture R&D.
If they don't, someone does, and a different reality would have them give them the money to go do that R&D. There are definitely super geniuses out there not being utilized to anywhere near their full potential because they're off on some distraction or other, but they get to choose to do that because we're all about self determination.
replyI'm sure they would choose real factory building instead if it was just as easy (at least, I would)
- no bureaucracy/planning conflicts, you are the sole dictator
- full vertical integration, no supply costs or land costs
- building is near-instant and perfectly reversible
- machines don't have 6 month lead times or go out of stock
- maintenance is done by magic, machines never break down
- infinite research and information to build every machine from scratch
replyWhen I play Factorio with my friends, I don't have to sit through 1 hour planning meetings where half the people don't know what game we're playing and the other half want to make all decisions by committee in a future, unscheduled meeting.
replyModernized agriculture runs on 1-2% margins, it is already super optimized.
replyAgreed, and a lot of the volatility comes from weather which is an unknown that can swing wildly.
replyTrouble is, these factory games are fairly deterministic and are nowhere near as opaque as the real world.
replyKind of like how the Travelling Salesman Problem is near impossible in a static network, it's truly impossible in real life as changing conditions constantly make the solution different, so even an instant answer isn't good enough.
I realize as I'm typing this that your thoughts are almost exactly what the more optimistic Communists thought in the Soviet Union (very laudatory towards you by the way), I really should get around to reading Red Plenty, I have a thing for bureaucratic tragedy.