[HN Gopher] Universal Paperclips
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Universal Paperclips
        
       Author : FPGAhacker
       Score  : 280 points
       Date   : 2022-11-03 02:23 UTC (20 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.decisionproblem.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.decisionproblem.com)
        
       | axiolite wrote:
       | And here's the solution:
       | 
       | https://marclitchfield.github.io/paperclips-auto/
        
       | mr_ploppy wrote:
       | After 30 minutes I managed to close the browser. I feel like I
       | danced with the devil, but then managed to run out and get in an
       | Uber while they were in the bathroom.
        
         | ncr100 wrote:
         | There's an app version if that floats your boat...
        
         | literalAardvark wrote:
         | If you've never played it, it's worth finishing once for the
         | "story" and takes less than 10 hours if you grok exponential
         | growth quick enough.
        
           | throw2500 wrote:
           | Does it have a branch where you hack your own utility
           | function and gain +infinity utility?
        
           | bena wrote:
           | There's an optimal path that can get you to the end in 3 to 4
           | hours.
           | 
           | Really, it's about getting to space then being able to
           | configure your drones to survive fights and explore.
        
             | Damogran6 wrote:
             | How many playthroughs did it take for you to find this?
        
               | justsomehnguy wrote:
               | One is enough.
               | 
               | Though technically it was too, I accidentally restarted
               | the first through the in-game restart modes.
               | 
               | Second one I just blatantly gave myself enough money to
               | get to the monstrous amounts of clippers so it takes only
               | minutes to proceed to the second part.
               | 
               | But it's worth to see the both endings.
        
       | somat wrote:
       | I can't help but cheat in this game, the source is there, in well
       | written javascript, after a while, I go, "well I will just get
       | over this next hump and give myself a few dozen dingleberrys(or
       | whatever resource is next in the techtree)", after all the only
       | person I am hurting is myself... And it is a clicker game... The
       | lowest and most insidious form of gaming.
       | 
       | Honestly at this point I see it as a feature.
        
         | iNic wrote:
         | What I love is that this exact behavior is one of the minor
         | problems of advanced AI. How can we make sure that a
         | sufficiently advanced AI doesn't just edit it's reward center?
         | Usually called wire-heading or reward hacking. Humans do it too
         | :)
        
           | mellavora wrote:
           | Isn't that what the cocaine is for?
        
           | redox99 wrote:
           | That's basically just a matter of the inputs and outputs of
           | the AI.
        
             | iNic wrote:
             | If the AI has sufficient "real life" access, think a robot
             | body, then it can do wire-heading. Assuming it is smarter
             | than us, and we have thought of this idea - it will also
             | think of this idea. Now it doesn't have a reason anymore to
             | do anything else (except maybe kill all humans so that we
             | don't stop it from wire-heading).
        
             | PartiallyTyped wrote:
             | Not necessarily; the AI could figure out how to change the
             | world - without achieving the task - such that the RF is
             | maximized.
        
               | manholio wrote:
               | Like in the NI case, it's conceivable that only the most
               | rudimentary artificial intellects will fall pray to this
               | self hacking.
               | 
               | Trully intelligent agents will be capable of
               | introspection and self-defined goals and rewards. You
               | know, just like a certain species of ape, hard wired for
               | banana maximization, the descendants of which sometimes
               | dream of visiting Mars.
        
               | PartiallyTyped wrote:
               | And yet said species is notoriously known for its
               | inability to make long term plans, is easily controlled
               | by its own libido and dopamine circuits.
               | 
               | Actually, if we are being honest with ourselves, that ape
               | is constantly falling prey to its own capacity to adjust
               | its goals. Take for example the issues that come with
               | porn addiction; the issues are a consequence of dopamine
               | seeking behaviour where the person keeps seeking more and
               | more extreme ways to satisfy their urges; ie hedonistic
               | adaptation.
               | 
               | Even what you mentioned, dreaming of visiting mars is to
               | some degree a goal motivated and mediated by dopaminergic
               | circuits; novelty, exploration - like sex - feed dopamine
               | circuits.
               | 
               | I can recommend the book "The molecule of more".
               | 
               | Introspection is very limited and can be even motivated
               | by the circuits themselves; the person can only achieve
               | an outline of their actions to change their software, but
               | can't inspect and manipulate individual synapses. In the
               | same vein, a software can not inspect itself and predict
               | its own outputs and modify them at runtime etc etc.
        
         | vanderZwan wrote:
         | > _after all the only person I am hurting is myself... And it
         | is a clicker game..._
         | 
         | I would argue the "hurting" part of that first sentence is
         | being compelled to spend hours playing a clicker game that you
         | would have liked to spend elsewhere.
         | 
         | At least that's how clicker games work for me: I don't even
         | enjoy my time playing them, they just _hook_ me against the
         | wishes of 99% of my brain activity (but apparently not the 1%
         | of my brain that decides where I spend my time)
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | The funny thing about Cookie Clicker (not UP) is that getting
         | over the next hump doesn't change the game at all. A few words
         | change, a few colors change, an old meter fills more often, but
         | a new meter appears. You're not even hurting yourself.
        
         | metafunctor wrote:
         | That's how I ascended in NetHack the first time -- reading the
         | source code. There were quite a few things there that I don't
         | think I would've ever discovered otherwise.
        
       | residualmind wrote:
       | > Investment engine upgraded, expected profit/loss ratio now
       | 0.5800000000000001|
       | 
       | Wonderful!
        
       | acutesoftware wrote:
       | Oh that's just great - I was planning to muck about with some odd
       | coding tonight, but I guess I'll be playing this (awesome) game
       | again.
        
       | gwbrooks wrote:
       | Give me a laptop with Universal Paperclips and No Man's Sky?
       | 
       | There's not enough Diet Coke in the world to fuel the time I'd
       | waste.
        
       | kregasaurusrex wrote:
       | This game provides more satisfaction than solving a difficult
       | coding contest problem. Some may treat it as a time sink; I see
       | it as an allegory for our species as a whole. Is this the logical
       | conclusion for humanity? To make paperclips?
        
       | nirse wrote:
       | Nooooo! Can anyone remove this post? I can't stand another round
       | of paperclip addiction!!!!! HEEEEEEELP!!!
        
       | LoveMortuus wrote:
       | Wow! This game is amazing, It'll suck your time away though~
        
       | arc-in-space wrote:
       | Oh, god, not again, I was intending to do work today.
        
         | simonh wrote:
         | It could be worse, you could have just lost The Game.
         | 
         | ...oops!
        
       | motohagiography wrote:
       | HN needs Universal Paperclips to convince us that reading or
       | commenting here most days for years on end is a better use of our
       | lives. It's simulations all the way down.
        
       | uni_baconcat wrote:
       | Like this kind of game.
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Has anyone attempted yet to run a reinforcement learning strategy
       | on it?
        
       | ubermonkey wrote:
       | YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW
        
       | agubelu wrote:
       | Another productivity black hole: Antimatter Dimensions
       | 
       | https://ivark.github.io/
        
         | xnorswap wrote:
         | Also available as an android app (tweaked with arguably better
         | pacing in the early game).
         | 
         | I started around a week ago, it's definitely one of the better
         | incremental games out there right now.
        
           | agubelu wrote:
           | It's personally my favorite incremental game. And the Android
           | app is even more dangerous, because you can procrastinate
           | anytime, anywhere (plus the interface is arguably better than
           | the web app)
        
         | ndsipa_pomu wrote:
         | That's a great little idle game. There's some real challenges
         | that are tricky to complete and it doesn't penalise you for not
         | keeping it running - you can just leave it churning away and
         | return to it later. My one complaint is that the "Studies" has
         | a "To be continued" button at the bottom, but it hasn't been
         | yet.
        
         | jayknight wrote:
         | I can finish UP in a day if I really lean into it. This one
         | takes weeks to get through, and I've done it multiple times.
        
       | w-ll wrote:
       | It just says
       | 
       | "Paperclips: 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0
       | 00,000,000,000,000,000"
       | 
       | What does that even mean?
        
         | paulannesley wrote:
         | Probably means that you played and completed it some time ago,
         | and the state is still in your browser's Local Storage. (Mine
         | was too)
        
           | w-ll wrote:
           | The atoms in my brain must have been recycled into paperclips
        
         | Aaron2222 wrote:
         | It means a lot of paperclips (about 20% the mass of the
         | observable universe by my calculations, assuming 1 gram per
         | paperclip and using Wikipedia's definition of 1.5e53 kg for the
         | observable universe).
        
           | literalAardvark wrote:
           | Yeah it means he won the game. Sadly your post is a major
           | spoiler for those new to this wonderful game.
        
             | tommica wrote:
             | I'm new to this game and I have no idea what this means -
             | so I guess I avoided the spoiler...
        
       | Lio wrote:
       | Is this related to John Sterman's Beer Game?
       | 
       | i.e. Supply/demand chain modelling?
       | 
       | https://mitsloan.mit.edu/teaching-resources-library/mit-sloa...
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | MVorlm wrote:
       | It still doesn't save state between reloads or prevent
       | accidentally page refreshes and that makes me sad(still)
        
       | gonzo41 wrote:
       | What a wonderfully fun and dangerous thing to find during the
       | workday.
        
       | pietroppeter wrote:
       | a recent podcast on the game: https://caneandrinse.com/universal-
       | paperclips/
       | 
       | endorsed by game author:
       | https://twitter.com/flantz/status/1581736112925511680?s=20&t...
       | 
       | and an older article with the story behind the game:
       | https://www.wired.com/story/the-way-the-world-ends-not-with-...
        
       | dxuh wrote:
       | This did indeed consume my day whole, but it was amazing. This is
       | one of the best games I have ever played. The shift in scale is
       | funny and shocking and it's a nice way to experience principles
       | like supply and demand. Its great at transitioning between
       | different games that all kind of have something to do with
       | paperclips, but are essentially different, though in the same
       | genre. And it does it with almost unstyled buttons and text and
       | not much more. I'll buy a shirt!
        
         | windock wrote:
         | I just finished it too. It was really an unproductive but happy
         | day.
        
       | J_tt wrote:
       | I just lost 4 engineers (including myself) a whole afternoon of
       | work to this :(
        
       | TheLocehiliosan wrote:
       | Nope. You will not suck me back in. Not today!
        
         | lowbloodsugar wrote:
         | Maybe you could just leave it in another window...
        
         | justusthane wrote:
         | Haha I know, I had to hurriedly close the tab as soon as I saw
         | the paperclip box.
        
       | checkyoursudo wrote:
       | One thing I enjoyed was to write some automation to play UP. That
       | became another game for me in its own right.
        
         | codeflo wrote:
         | I hope you realized the irony.
        
         | shaunkoh wrote:
         | Oh that sounds even more fun. How did you do it? Would love to
         | play around with it!
        
       | rpigab wrote:
       | Looks fun, but I'm too lazy to not open the js console and type:
       | clipClick(100)
        
       | bmacho wrote:
       | Tab crashed when quantum something option appeared. Never again.
        
       | 7373737373 wrote:
       | It's a very interesting optimization problem to try to beat such
       | games in the least time possible.
       | 
       | I once created a much simpler/discrete/deterministic simulation
       | (https://qewasd.com/) and someone showed me how to solve it
       | optimally with a linear MILP solver. I have no idea what kind of
       | modeling and optimization approach would be suitable for _this_.
        
       | willemlabu wrote:
       | This reminds me of another excellent time sink game:
       | http://clickingbad.nullism.com/
        
       | krater23 wrote:
       | Please! Not again!
       | 
       | ....too late...
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _Universal Paperclips_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29496595 - Dec 2021 (82
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Universal Paperclips - play the role of an AI programmed to
       | produce paperclips_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27121348 - May 2021 (2
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Universal Paperclips_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26524117 - March 2021 (1
       | comment)
       | 
       |  _A filmmaker thinks he can turn Universal Paperclips into a
       | movie (2019)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24405682 -
       | Sept 2020 (2 comments)
       | 
       |  _Universal Paperclips_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24389655 - Sept 2020 (84
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Universal Paperclips_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22394560 - Feb 2020 (1
       | comment)
       | 
       |  _The Unexpected Philosophical Depths of the Clicker Game
       | Universal Paperclips_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19513089 - March 2019 (52
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Universal Paperclips - A Paperclip Production Simulator_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15439569 - Oct 2017 (3
       | comments)
        
         | Mathnerd314 wrote:
         | Seems like it gets popular about once a year.
        
       | LoganDark wrote:
       | This game reminds me of Candy Box! https://candies.aniwey.net/
       | and https://candybox2.github.io/
        
       | nigerianbrince wrote:
       | Ah shit, here we go again.
        
       | bvrmn wrote:
       | Wow. 4 hours of my life have disappeared.
        
       | NKosmatos wrote:
       | A warning to fellow HNers that are not familiar with universal
       | paperclips. Please don't click the link as it will create a black
       | time hole that will start absorbing your time and reduce your
       | productivity.
       | 
       | Be warned that this isn't a naive lazy clicker game, it's an
       | instrument of destruction from the future, created by our
       | paperclip overlords :-)
        
         | Keyframe wrote:
         | You might be reading these comments and going like - huh, seems
         | a lot of people agreeing, now I HAVE TO SEE IT.
         | 
         | Don't. You have been warned.
        
           | robofanatic wrote:
           | And your comment reinforced his thought. Now I HAVE to see
           | what it is.
        
           | __MatrixMan__ wrote:
           | I lost about a week to it the first time. It was worth it.
           | 
           | Never has a game made its point so well as universal
           | paperclips.
        
           | Damogran6 wrote:
           | I've seen it, and it didn't grab me. I think I'm a special
           | kind of stupid. Whew.
        
           | robotguy wrote:
           | Reminds me of a term I came up with years ago: Engineer
           | Critical Mass. As soon as you get X or more engineers
           | standing around looking at something, you will start
           | increasingly attracting more engineers at a rate proportional
           | to the current size of the group. Kind of like a lower level
           | "stiction" for inquisitive gravity.
           | 
           | At my last job X=3 and we had around 40 engineers on-site so
           | it was pretty dangerous.
           | 
           | At my current job X~5 maybe but we only have 2 engineers on-
           | site, so it's safe.
        
         | adhesive_wombat wrote:
         | Laughs in Factorio.
         | 
         | Honestly I think that's a game made to destroy technological
         | economies.
        
           | agentwiggles wrote:
           | Haha, what a funny thought. It's like a special productivity
           | poison, takes some percentage of your engineers and just
           | deactivates them. That sounds like a great premise for a sci
           | fi short, aliens sending some nerd-snipe super stimulus to
           | soften up Earth.
        
             | adhesive_wombat wrote:
             | This is the plot of an Alastair MacLean novel involving a
             | mysterious electronic device that was supposed to be "lost"
             | to the Soviets (the guy they choose to lose it wasn't told
             | about that bit and turned out to be pretty good at the job
             | he thought he had).
        
               | dropit_sphere wrote:
               | I love Alastair MacLean's stuff! What was it called?
        
               | adhesive_wombat wrote:
               | I remembered wrongly, it's _Running Blind_ by Desmond
               | Bagley. Mostly set in Iceland.
        
             | throw2500 wrote:
             | From the Wikipedia article about the multi-armed bandit
             | problem:
             | 
             | >Originally considered by Allied scientists in World War
             | II, it proved so intractable that, according to Peter
             | Whittle, the problem was proposed to be dropped over
             | Germany so that German scientists could also waste their
             | time on it.[13]
        
               | Verdex wrote:
               | "General, the Allies have dropped pamphlets containing
               | what our top scientists are calling a memetic
               | infohazard."
               | 
               | "An infohazard? Have the eggheads come up with a new term
               | for propaganda, we've got people to handle this stuff,
               | why are you bringing it up to me?"
               | 
               | "Well, sir, they say this time it's different. It's not
               | propaganda for ordinary citizens, it's a distraction for
               | scientists and technical personal."
               | 
               | "Okay ... do they have any recommendations?"
               | 
               | "Yes sir, they say the only thing we need to do is make
               | sure that the eggheads don't read it."
               | 
               | "That's it? Well, these are men of science and
               | discipline, that should be easy. Issue the order. I
               | wonder why they thought it was so important that you
               | would have to interrupt me."
               | 
               | "I couldn't say, sir. They seemed quite agitated."
               | 
               | Meanwhile, in the lab.
               | 
               | "So, this folder contains an enemy memetic infohazard. In
               | order to prevent it from taking effect we've been ordered
               | to not read it."
               | 
               | Several scientists give knowing glances to each other.
               | 
               | "A real memetic infohazard? I wonder how they
               | accomplished that?" The scientist moves towards the
               | folder.
               | 
               | "Wait, what are you doing? We're not supposed to read
               | it."
               | 
               | "It's fine. I'll be the only one reading it and then I'll
               | let you guys know what I find." The scientist opens the
               | folder and looks at the papers within while making
               | several 'hmm' sounds. "Hey, Frank, what do you think of
               | this."
               | 
               | "No, you said you would be the only one!"
               | 
               | "Just me and Frank. Don't be a wet blanket."
               | 
               | Frank begins to look over the papers, "You know, I bet
               | this applies to what Sarah has been working on. Let's go
               | talk to her."
               | 
               | "Wait, no. You just said ..."
               | 
               | "Me, Frank, and Sarah, no big deal." The scientists leave
               | the room with the folder.
        
               | TremendousJudge wrote:
               | perfect, reads like a story by qntm
        
               | NKosmatos wrote:
               | Hello fellow SCP agents. We're supposed to keep our
               | involvement with the SCP foundation hidden. This
               | antimemetic sentence will take care of any leaks ;-)
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | thallian wrote:
         | Reading this while drinking from a universal paperclips mug, I
         | can only sigh and agree.
        
         | jarenmf wrote:
         | Although I've played it before, I was sucked into the black
         | hole.
        
         | l0b0 wrote:
         | I've played through UP twice. When it comes to time sinks, it's
         | nowhere near the ultimate death spiral that is Kittens Game. To
         | date it has taken me about 5 times as long as a UP playthrough
         | (and 500+ lines of JS automation which I seem to have to tweak
         | every day to deal with the changing economy) and I don't seem
         | to be anywhere near the end.
        
           | throwaway81523 wrote:
           | I'm happy to have not tried Kittens and will stay away from
           | it. UP wasn't too bad. It was a time sink until I played all
           | the way through it, and then wasn't too bad. The murderous
           | game for me was 2048. I had to block the site in /etc/hosts
           | to break out of the game. More recently, duckduckgo has
           | embedded it as an easter egg in their search screen, so it's
           | harder to block that way.
           | 
           | I also waste time on chess puzzles, lichess.org/training ,
           | but that isn't so bad since it's easier to pull away, and I
           | felt for a while like it was helping my game, and decided to
           | count that as improving my mind, as contrasted with 2048
           | which is pure inanity.
        
             | muxator wrote:
             | The 2048 author used to hang around here. I am sure he
             | would be glad to give you back all the time he took from
             | you with his black sorcery!
        
           | danuker wrote:
           | The way I broke out of addiction to the Kittens game is by
           | using save game editors, which I warmly recommend.
           | 
           | Before that, I have spent days with it piggybacking on my
           | brainwaves. But after that, I lost interest, feeling
           | overwhelmed with the complexity of the game.
        
             | philsnow wrote:
             | I only broke my Diablo 2 addiction in college when I used
             | one of those tools that drives your character on Mephisto
             | runs to scum drops.
             | 
             | In the course of one night running it unattended, I got the
             | two items I'd been looking for for weeks. Cheating at the
             | game broke me out of the Skinner box overnight.
        
               | hallway_monitor wrote:
               | I like your quitting story. I quit when my very high
               | level character died, in hardcore mode. Thinking about
               | the hours that went into that character was horrifying.
        
               | philsnow wrote:
               | I generally play "roguelike" games (the most important
               | criterion of which, in my opinion, is permadeath), and I
               | often feel the same way.. the thing is that I feel that
               | way _win or lose_.
        
               | foobarian wrote:
               | I had a hard time with that one. I tried leaving the CD
               | at the office, but late at night when the withdrawal
               | kicked in I ended up driving to the office and fetching
               | it anyway. I truly felt like the meta-story of the game
               | was that the CD itself was the crystal and the player was
               | the traveler.
        
             | joshspankit wrote:
             | This has been one of the only consistently successful
             | techniques to break game addictions.
        
           | mellavora wrote:
           | OMG!Why did you do it! Why did you mention the kittens!
           | 
           | Before this moment, I was blissfully ignorant and had time to
           | get things done, time to take walks in the sun with my wife,
           | 
           | And now, now, mrweow!
        
           | aidenn0 wrote:
           | I'm on year 37,000 of my current reset; 3k more will get me
           | the last achievement with a star. Of course in the meantime
           | they added some new challenges...
        
           | yurishimo wrote:
           | Have you ever played Trimps? Started a week ago and I'm
           | hooked... I wish it had better mobile support though.
        
           | NKosmatos wrote:
           | Oh come on now!!! Why did you have to mention Kittens Game,
           | I've got actual work to do. Who has the time to gather catnip
           | during their normal working hours...oh look a new kitten has
           | joined my village :-)
        
           | beckingz wrote:
           | Kittens Game is so amazingly brutal. Numbers go up, but at
           | what cost!
           | 
           | (hundreds of hours)
        
           | bigyikes wrote:
           | Oh my god, I put my phone down for a few minutes and killed
           | 10 kittens.
           | 
           | Why did you do this to me?
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | oh my sweet winter child, you have not even begun to
             | accidentally.
        
         | Grothendank wrote:
         | Well, I just spent 7 hours on it before reading this warning,
         | thanks for nothing you sick bastard!
         | 
         | Just kidding! I just genocided a whole universe into
         | paperclips. I've never BEEN more productive! OR MORE SELF
         | LOATHING! _SHRIEKS THE 'THRENODY FOR THE HEROES OF THE BATTLE
         | OF SHA"DUIN'_
        
         | vikingerik wrote:
         | Counterpoint: Do go play Universal Paperclips. It's a long term
         | play. You'll lose a week or so immersed in it... but it's so
         | good that then you'll lose any taste or desire for any of the
         | other clicker games designed for longer time spans.
        
           | GenerocUsername wrote:
           | It's about 10 hours in playtime if your being casual.
           | 
           | More if your bad.
           | 
           | Speedrunners have it at about 1.5 hours
        
             | dragontamer wrote:
             | I'd say it took me ~3 days to complete in my first run (a
             | few hours of play for 3 days).
             | 
             | I've got it down to about 3 hours. Not speedrun worthy, but
             | yeah, proof that the game is short enough to complete in
             | one sitting if you know what you're doing.
        
         | coldpie wrote:
         | I clicked the button until it said 30, clicked all the other
         | buttons a few times and nothing happened, then closed the tab.
         | I guess I'm immune.
         | 
         | When does it get interesting?
        
           | __MatrixMan__ wrote:
           | It gets interesting once you see that hypno drones are
           | something that you can save up for and buy. You're an AI, so
           | the ability to influence the humans around you is useful.
           | 
           | You'll need somewhat more than 30 paperclips to get the full
           | story.
        
             | coldpie wrote:
             | So, the first thing happens at 31? 500?
        
               | __MatrixMan__ wrote:
               | I don't know. I'm at 16,285 and stuff is happening. If
               | you optimize your price and invest in auto clippers it
               | shouldn't take too long to really get rolling.
               | 
               | If the available inventory is bouncing off of 0 your
               | price is too low, if it's growing, it's too high, so you
               | (as an AI) are learning about market clearing price right
               | now. Later, you'll learn other things.
        
               | dottedmag wrote:
               | 50 or 100
        
               | bakkoting wrote:
               | The first interesting thing happens when you have $5 of
               | available funds. (Specifically, autoclippers become
               | available to purchase.)
               | 
               | When precisely you hit that point depends on how well you
               | are managing the price to balance ensuring that your
               | unsold inventory is getting purchased reasonably quickly
               | against getting a reasonable amount of money per unit
               | sold, but it will probably be less than a minute.
        
               | coldpie wrote:
               | Thank you. May give it another look after work.
        
         | raydiatian wrote:
         | If you've got the time it's a quaint meditation in unbounded
         | exponential growth. Besides, a future without hypnodrones is no
         | future at all.
        
           | aidenn0 wrote:
           | It's bounded, eventually we all must succumb to the drift...
        
           | rpastuszak wrote:
           | That's exactly what a hypnodrone would say
        
         | daveslash wrote:
         | Me: What is this... I don't get it....[ _clicks around_ ]
         | 
         | Me 2 min later: _Well, shit.... there goes my morning...._
         | 
         | Me 20 min later: _What the hell, I 've already spent 20 minutes
         | on this thing?!?_
         | 
         | Edit: Okay, all jokes aside.... I just spent a whole hour on
         | this. Seriously.... holy cow....
        
           | bo1024 wrote:
           | See you next week
        
             | daveslash wrote:
             | Update: I'm back. nearly 8 hours later.... I finished/beat
             | the game. _sigh_.... back to work.....(but it was fun while
             | it lasted)
        
         | harel wrote:
         | That is truth and fact... Take it from the UP survivors: don't
         | start
        
         | mcrowson wrote:
         | Found this several times over the year$. I cannot lose another
         | day to universal paperclip domination. not today paperclips,
         | not today....
        
           | loopdoend wrote:
           | 6 hours later...
        
         | sixothree wrote:
         | At the very least, do _not_ do this during work hours. It looks
         | like something you can knock out on a quick break. It is not.
        
       | carl_dr wrote:
       | Have there been any recent, good games of this genre?
       | 
       | It seems to have reached a peak with Cookie Clicker, Kittens
       | Game, A Dark Room and Universal Paperclips, others I've tried
       | have been poor in comparison.
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | Kittens has been by far the most interesting for me - because
         | the various loops are so different and the concept of
         | "resetting". It's the only one I've played with for longer than
         | a few days, because somehow I don't feel like I've "lost out"
         | if I stop for a week.
        
         | willis936 wrote:
         | Clickers cross over with idle/incremental games. Both genres
         | are rife with dark patterns and player exploitation, but there
         | are some notable exceptions.
         | 
         | Reactor Incremental takes the concepts from IndustrialCraft 2's
         | nuclear reactors and pushes it far. I think it's the peak of
         | the 2D geometry geometric growth optimizer genre.
         | 
         | https://www.kongregate.com/games/cael/reactor-incremental
         | 
         | I've wanted to make my own for a while but I haven't thought of
         | a way to overcome the what I think is the main issue with the
         | genre: waiting. Instead of running constantly a design could
         | run instantly at the cost of some credits. The better the
         | design the more investment credits you would get in return.
         | Balance would have to heavily favor investment in design
         | changes in between runs to avoid the game switching from an
         | incremental idler to an incremental clicker. Perhaps the player
         | would need to spend a type of credit that you only get from
         | design modification to run a round.
         | 
         | Basically: I want a 2D geometry optimizer incremental game that
         | isn't an idler or a clicker.
         | 
         | There is also a lot of room for creativity in this space. I
         | think the ceiling can be really raised with things like
         | multiblocks. Imagine something like a fusion reactor where you
         | need confinement blocks and heating blocks. There is no
         | prescriptive layout, just some rules needed for it to work and
         | performance would depend on the layout.
        
         | polyx_ wrote:
         | Antimatter Dimensions is another really good one, focused on
         | different kinds of prestiges and BIIIG numbers and by big I
         | mean 1e100000 big
        
         | acutesoftware wrote:
         | Not that recent, but another 2 good games are: Evolve (
         | https://pmotschmann.github.io/Evolve/ ) start as cells, evolve
         | to humans (or anything), craft stuff, conquer space
         | 
         | Swarm Simulator ( https://www.swarmsim.com/ ) breed bugs, eat
         | meat, consume universe
        
       | jmpman wrote:
       | I've read there's a push to legalize cocaine. I'm willing to make
       | Universal Paperclips illegal in exchange for cocaine
       | legalization. Overall harm reduction.
        
         | pjscott wrote:
         | You know what else gets you a lot of harm reduction, for
         | (almost) any given utility function? _Hypnodrones._
        
         | aliqot wrote:
         | > legalize cocaine
         | 
         | It's legal already, just scheduled and controlled.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | mikewarot wrote:
       | I ran through it 100 times, that was enough. Long covid gives you
       | lots of time for silly things like that. 8(
        
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