There is something vaguely off putting about this game and games like it. It only recently occurred to me what exactly it is.

Cards Against Humanity is a game that allows people who don’t really like each other to pretend to be friends.

Games can be a kind of psychic prison. Although your actions in a game may feel natural and spontaneous, the options available to you are tightly scripted according to the intent of the game’s creators.
The intent of the creators of CAH is to present you with a serious of building blocks to, more or less, simulate cracking slightly transgressive jokes.

In other words, it is a game designed to simulate the vibe that usually only exists between people who really trust each other.
I’ve lost count of the number of times a particular kind of person has brought up CAH as though it represents the very apogee of “off colour” humour. I’m sure you know the type. They love a good graph, they’d never be caught dead in a gym, and enjoy making others uncomfortable.
But more than enjoying making others uncomfortable, they desperately crave the kind of easy, relaxed mood that only comes in the presence of real friendship - something from which they are more or less completely shut out.
Most people, when they think of being trapped in a virtual world, probably think immediately of the Matrix.

But in reality “the simulation” is much more insidious and dangerous. And it’s in these seemingly innocuous little bugman products where its essence is most concentrated.

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I like this heuristic, and have a few which are similar in intent to it:


Hiring efficiency:

How long does it take, measured from initial expression of interest through offer of employment signed, for a typical candidate cold inbounding to the company?

What is the *theoretical minimum* for *any* candidate?

How long does it take, as a developer newly hired at the company:

* To get a fully credentialed machine issued to you
* To get a fully functional development environment on that machine which could push code to production immediately
* To solo ship one material quanta of work

How long does it take, from first idea floated to "It's on the Internet", to create a piece of marketing collateral.

(For bonus points: break down by ambitiousness / form factor.)

How many people have to say yes to do something which is clearly worth doing which costs $5,000 / $15,000 / $250,000 and has never been done before.