[HN Gopher] The Fun Scale (2014)
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       The Fun Scale (2014)
        
       Author : brudgers
       Score  : 55 points
       Date   : 2022-02-15 18:53 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.rei.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.rei.com)
        
       | mym1990 wrote:
       | I think a good balance between Type I fun and Type II fun is
       | where its at. Type II fun really tickles the curious part of us
       | and provides a healthy does of challenge and growth(hopefully).
       | Type III fun is great until you're in a stretcher on the way to
       | the hospital and no one knows if you're going to make it, at
       | which point it ceases to be any type of fun.
        
       | pcthrowaway wrote:
       | As a climber, I found this example of type III fun hilarious:
       | 
       | > Offwidths
       | 
       | For those not familiar, they involve shoving part of your body
       | into a crack and trying to wriggle your way up. The shoulder/knee
       | jammed in may keep you from falling out while also introducing a
       | significant chance of getting stuck and needing rescue. Meanwhile
       | the majority of your weight outside the crack creates an
       | uncomfortable/painful torque.
       | 
       | And yet, there are people who actually _enjoy_ offwidth climbing.
       | Personally I 've enjoyed the challenge, but the ones I've climbed
       | has led to days of pain afterwards. There's still an allure to
       | attempting them though.
        
         | up_and_up wrote:
         | Theres a great documentary about Offwidth climbing for the
         | uninitiated (trailer for Wide Boyz):
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m3QzIibtsw
        
       | hprotagonist wrote:
       | This is a long time favorite post of mine. Kelly Cordes is rad.
       | 
       | As alluded to at the end of this, the real bastard about the fun
       | scale is that if you live in type II fun long enough, the things
       | you do for type II fun become type I fun.
       | 
       | ... and that's how people wind up thinking ultras are a great
       | idea, kids!
        
         | jhickok wrote:
         | Agreed. I started backpacking with my brother a few years ago
         | and it was miserable the first few times because there were so
         | many things that we were anxious about, we bad with, or just
         | didn't know to do. For example, we bought heavy waterproof gear
         | and learned quickly there is no avoiding getting wet, so might
         | as well trade in the waterproofing for fast-drying. Now we can
         | open up a little and have a little fun in the rain. Same with
         | coffee. We used to lug gear around to make piping hot coffee,
         | now we heat up a little water and mix in a little instant and
         | we get 75% of the benefit with very little overhead.
        
           | zarq wrote:
           | Well see you were just optimizing for the wrong things. You
           | thought avoiding wet was the thing to optimize for, but now,
           | with experience, you find other things are more important to
           | you and you aim at optimizing those. What things are wrong
           | and right vary by person and by purpose (and probably by
           | time, too).
        
         | molsongolden wrote:
         | Where do you bucket: "wow this is so miserable, lol, this is
         | great" while doing the thing?
         | 
         | I wrote out and deleted a comment about this being a subset of
         | Type II but maybe it's just a damaged person's Type I...
        
           | beardedetim wrote:
           | My body being in pain and my brain enjoying working the body
           | are not at odds with each other.
           | 
           | In my experience trying to become an ultra runner, its not
           | that I enjoy the pain. I enjoy the workout. I enjoy the run
           | while my body is in pain, not that I enjoy the pain itself.
        
           | hprotagonist wrote:
           | that sounds like just the normal fact that i summarize as
           | "the first half-mile always sucks", which appears to be true
           | for any sort of fun.
        
           | intrepidhero wrote:
           | When I tell people I swim, they're always like, "Oh wow! That
           | is so good for you." But they don't understand, I'm not fast
           | or a strong swimmer or anything. It's cold, I struggle with
           | my form, I'm slow, I can't kick turn, I'm constantly gasping
           | for breath. Swimming is getting in the pool and convincing my
           | lizard brain that I'm drowning for an hour. But when I get
           | out the endorphins are fantastic, like every cell of my body
           | is so relieved to be alive.
           | 
           | At same time, the struggle to overcome that lizard brain
           | response to hard physical work is itself enjoyable in a way.
           | It wasn't when I started working out but after years it has
           | become an acquired taste. If you'll forgive a little
           | hyperbole, it's the moment when I look my own mortality in
           | eye and say, "you might win eventually, but not today."
        
       | stnmtn wrote:
       | This misses one type of fun, Type 4 Fun:
       | 
       | When something is fun in the moment, but in retrospect was not
       | fun at all and was awful. The most obvious example is drinking
       | too much on a night out, or binge eating.
        
         | cshimmin wrote:
         | Interesting, I've never heard Type IV before. I've always heard
         | the more succinct definition: Type I -- fun now, fun later,
         | Type II -- not fun now, fun later, Type III -- not fun now, not
         | fun ever. But now that you mention it, the fun classification
         | is obviously just a 2x2 truth table:
         | fun now?                    +------------+------------+
         | |     Y      |      N     |
         | +-----+------------+------------+         fun  |  Y  |   Type I
         | |  Type II   |              |-----+------------+------------+
         | later? |  N  |  Type IV   |  Type III  |
         | +-----+------------+------------+
        
           | at_a_remove wrote:
           | Clearly, we have to switch the Y/N, both in rows and columns,
           | then start our numbering scheme a bit earlier.
           | 
           | Type Null fun is not fun: not now, not later. This puts
           | something as being fun now _and_ later at Type III, which
           | sounds just like a lot of fun, and so it is; Type I and II
           | Funs would be mixed bags. You could even say that Type I +
           | Type II = Type III.
        
         | csdvrx wrote:
         | > The most obvious example is drinking too much on a night out
         | 
         | I've found interesting (russian meds) and creative (supplements
         | like NAC) solutions to that problem on reddit.
         | 
         | Even funnier: they seem to actually work! No headache the next
         | day!
        
           | stnmtn wrote:
           | I'm not only talking about the hangover (But you've inspired
           | me to look into MAC), I'm talking about the things you do
           | when too drunk at a bar. Acting like a fool and being
           | embarrassed about it, spending a lot of money on drinks only
           | to not even remember the next day.. things like that.
           | 
           | Going out to a bar and having the right amount of drinks can
           | definitely be Type 1 fun, but when you pass a certain
           | threshold of drinks it slides to Type 4
        
             | csdvrx wrote:
             | Then a few years later you joke about it with your friends
             | and it becomes Type 5 fun :)
        
         | Lammy wrote:
         | Like when REI's CEO starts a DEI initiative but then uses it to
         | prevent worker organization
         | https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/rei-s-union-bust...
        
       | suckmore wrote:
       | One of my favourite examples of type III fun: The Apollo 13
       | mission. It's just so ludicrous, and it embodies the "not fun in
       | the moment and let's not do that again" sentiment.
        
       | brink wrote:
       | My friends and I used to dare each other to run around the house
       | barefoot in the snow. By the time I was half-way, my feet hurt so
       | bad I could barely walk, but it didn't matter, because I saw my
       | friend who was running faster than I had ever seen before, that I
       | could barely stand up due to laughter.
        
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       (page generated 2022-02-16 23:01 UTC)