Curse of Sisyphus

We all believe that we are not that susceptible to manipulation and many of us think less immediately obvious manipulation lacks efficacy. However, it is all around us ingrained in the narrative we construct for one another. The curse of Sisyphus comes from an ancient Greek tale, Zeus punished Sisyphus for cheating death twice by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down every time it neared the top, repeating this action for eternity. The Sisyphus curse is when there is an illusion of progress however no progress is actually made. For instance running up an escalator, it feels as if you are making progress however the floor beneath you is moving negating any actual upward movement.

Figure 1. What we make vs what we say we need year on year.

In the real world, studies have shown that there is a down regulation of pleasure as people gain more income. Figure 1 shows how much people make Vs how much people say they need, year on year.

Computer games

Computer games are a prime example of a Sisyphus curse. As a pretext, many people do not realise that the computer games industry is almost double the size of the movie industry.

However, video game development sits aside from the movie and tv industry as it is not a passive activity. Games create a new world and set a new set of parameters everytime a new game is created. These are made by computer game designers to be addictive, so that you will come back. Candy crush uses colours and progression techniques to make sure gamers come back for more. However it works two ways, if the the game industry comes up with a new idea for a MMPORG a new way for you to advance and get hooked it will deploy it and be able to garner how effective it is by reporting back to the computer games head office. This what they know what works and can tweak it in later editions of the games. This is fine, however proprietary data pools have been created each owned by a different corporate entity. These entities do not share their information. Unlike the medical sector which peer reviews and openly publishes, proprietary data is locked inside of different corporation data pools. If these entities were to share and compare notes, work together analysis from games could bring a greater understanding of how humans operate.

References[edit | edit source]

1. ↑ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/videogames-are-a-bigger-industry-than-sports-and-movies-combined-thanks-to-the-pandemic-11608654990