I write as an ex-christian. Common misconceptions:

-All christians believe in creationism(as opposed to evolution). -All christians believe that the Bible is 100% correct and the inerrant word of God.

This particular idea of fun(solving increasingly more complex problems) seems to reflect the audience's intellectual mindset. I wonder what people who hate mathematics would have to say. If you are a professional golf player how would your perfect world look like? Would it be an ever increasing golf game where you had to hit a small hole over astronomical distances?

@ac:

Unlike Roland, who is obviously a puritan, I rather enjoy the occasional spot of idleness. For a non-trivial number of people, playing WoW for a couple of hours a day is more fun that playing real life. Rather than make thinly veiled moral judgements about folks for their unproductivity, perhaps he should consider what makes certain games so engaging.

I enjoyed playing games myself, so I know what you are talking about.

You mention idleness, which I agree is sometimes worthwhile. This is the package deal fallacy since there are other ways to achieve that, hanging out with your friends being one of them. Also I'm not making a moral judgement here and the point is not loss of productivity but foregoing much more rewarding things like:

-increasing your social circle(online friends don't count). -enjoying some hobby with real life benefits. -having quality time with your significant other. -if you don't have a significant other invest some time trying to find one. -improve your health by doing exercise, or eating better. -etc...

And if you don't have any ideas then instead of solving artificial game riddles think about what you could do to improve your life.

@D. Alex: (For Robin Hanson: have you heard about the economic studies carried out in WoW setting?)

Since you mentioned economics, did you ever consider the opportunity cost of playing WoW?

@ D. Alex: Some important reasons why the game is so pleasurable seem to be:

a) the ultimate goals are pretty clear (so unlike real life...)

b) the "measures of progress" are likewise clear -

c) the rewards are clear -

This looks like real life without the hard parts. Sure, it makes it more fun, but at the end will you feel rewarded? If you look back now or in a few years to the time spent playing and consider what you could have achieved in real life if you invested the same time into real challenges how will you feel? From my own experience I can tell you that I regret every minute I wasted playing stupid games. Nowadays I still play chess ocasionally to relax, but I'm successfully getting rid of that habit. I avoid overly immersive/addictive games like the plague.

@haig: good point.

@Bryan Bishop: Your quote about inertia reminded me of EY's post Created Already In Motion.

What I'm successfully experimenting with at the moment is:

Prime the pump for action! Whatever you need to do, just get started. If instead you start thinking and analysing too much you will find 1000s of other things to do. A related advice: do your email and webbrowsing at the end of the day, not at the beginning or middle.

spelling: like attaching beak => like attaching A beak

@ Z. M. Davis

Yes, there is a forum but it's not an official one. The whole point is creating a central place on the net to discuss and collect rationality related stuff.

OB is great but it only has the top guns. Where is the place where the lower rank people can ask questions or publish inspiring new ideas? No, the comments section is not enough and the open thread neither. Stuff just gets buried in nowhere land. Try reaching the 2. or 3. page of the comments and you will know what I mean.

And I don't think we should underestimate the potential contributions of the no-names here. How about giving others a fair chance to present their views?

Again, I propose a two-tier system:

1. OB for the top posts(including those promoted from the general forum below). No comments allowed here, instead a link to the forum for the corresponding comments thread. 2. A general forum for everyone to post and comment on the OB posts. Comments in tree format, not linear please. Posts in OB link here for their comments.

Those who don't have much time can just continue reading the top postings in OB as before without bothering with the forum.

I second EY's idea. Yes, we need a community forum where everyone can post. Some where concerned with the quality of user generated posts to which I have to say that the point of the forum is not only to have good posts but also to ask questions and clarifications and spark new ideas. Nowadays those often get lost in the comments. Say you didn't understand what exactly a prior is, you can create a new posting asking for clarification. And there hopefully will be enough qualified people to answer it, freeing up time for EY. The ideal format for this would be a newsgroup with searchfunction.

The important posts could be promoted onto this site, with a link to the corresponding thread in the newsgroup for comments. Comments here should be disabled.