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Stop Optimizing and Gamifying Your Life
Optimization is for machines, not humans
The danger that humanity faces isn’t that algorithms and robots will rise up and seize power. The threat we face is that we will voluntarily become indistinguishable from the algorithms and robots.
Everywhere from digital nomad gurus to the false prophets of productivity, we are taught how to optimize every aspect of our existence. You can find carefully scripted routines for your mornings, your sex life, and your bowel movements.
There is no aspect of human life that you couldn’t be doing better.
Our phones are littered with apps that help us “do better” by turning life into a series of mini-games and pinging us with alerts every hour of the day. Get a badge for reading seven days in a row! Complete a circle by taking lots of steps!
To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum’s character, Ian Malcolm, in Jurassic Park:
We’re so busy studying how to optimize our lives that we never stopped to consider if we should optimize our lives.
The illusion of optimization
Optimization means making something the best it can possibly be. Shouldn’t that be what we are…
