C. Thi Nguyen

speaker

3,183 appearances 5 recordings 5 series first heard Jan 2026 last heard 7 Jul

C. Thi Nguyen’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.

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Two Percent with Michael Easter · #25: Why Numbers, Scores, and Metrics Make Life Worse | Thi Nguyen · 2 Jul 2026 podcast

So the sexiest way he puts it is that in games, the goals are partially constituted by the obstacles.

So if you're just trying to do something in non-game life, practically, you just do it the most efficient way you can.

It doesn't matter how you do it, right?

If I just want to be at this spot...

right?

Because it has some stuff I want.

Just get there the fastest way you can.

But crossing the finish line of a marathon is the goal, but that goal is constituted by obedience to constraints.

So if I took a cab, it doesn't count as crossing the finish line.

If I used a step ladder on the basketball court, it doesn't count as making a basket.

What making a basket is, is getting ball through the net while following all these constraints and rules.

And what this teaches us, I think,

Is that the struggle has to be essential to the point.

That the difference for suits between ordinary life, practical life, and games is in ordinary life we often just want stuff and we'll try to get it as efficiently as possible.

And games are inefficiencies on purpose.

We force ourselves into inefficiencies.

Why would we do that?

Only if much or all of the value came from the process of struggling rather than the outcome.

Yeah.

So...

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