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wnoise comments on Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians - Less Wrong
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"Min-maxer". Now that could be a reasonable label.
Slang meaning's very similar to 'munchkin', but doesn't make people who aren't gamers think of fairy-tale midgets. Sounds good to me. It's also got decision theory connotations as a bonus.
Min-maxing connotes being extremely good at some things by being extremely bad at some others (the "min" part), so it's not quite the right fit.
Recognizing things that are not worth putting effort in as well as things that are isn't a bad thing, given that there is an infinite number of skills you could use your time to get good at. Such as shaping gravel into mounds exactly 17 centimeters tall, memorizing telephone directories, or playing chmess competitively.
Okay, but that's not what defines munchkins. Munchkinism, as I see it, is less about getting points in good areas by burning points in bad areas (min-maxing) than it is about getting points in good areas by burning the spirit of the game.
I think that willingness to burn the spirit of the game when it comes to things like signing up for cryonics instead of confronting the inevitability of your mortality, drinking extra-light olive oil instead of trying to diet by sheer willpower, or building a recursively self-improving AI instead of trying to solve the world's problems the normal way, is exactly what distinguishes Munchkinism from mere hacking.
--game theory connotations, to be specific.