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How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game
by C. Thi Nguyen
A philosophy of games to help us win back control over what we value.
The philosopher C. Thi Nguyen—one of the leading experts on the philosophy of games and the philosophy of data—takes us deep into the heart of games, and into the depths of bureaucracy, to see how scoring systems shape our desires.
Games are the most important art form of our era. They embody the spirit of free play. They show us the subtle beauty of action everywhere in life in video games, sports, and boardgames—but also cooking, gardening, fly-fishing, and running. They remind us that it isn't always about outcomes, but about how glorious it feels to be doing the thing. And the scoring systems help get us there, by giving us new goals to try on.
Scoring systems are also at the center of our corporations and bureaucracies—in the form of metrics and rankings. They tell us exactly how to measure our success. They encourage us to outsource our values to an external authority. And they push on us to value simple, countable things. Metrics don't capture what really matters; they only capture what's easy to measure. The price of that clarity is our independence.
The Score asks us is this the game you really want to be playing?
"[A] trenchant philosophical investigation... . Illustrating his ideas with lucid philosophy and descriptions of his own innumerable hobbies (Tetris, bouldering, yo-yo), Nguyen skillfully explores the ways in which humans think about progress, creativity, and play. It makes for a captivating look at how imperfect measures of success shape society." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Delightfully irreverent ... [The Score offers] an engaging look at the games we play and whatever freedom we might have as we do so." —Kirkus Reviews
"One of the most clever and revealing books I have read in a long time. It genuinely changed how I think." —Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus and Chasing the Scream
"You wouldn't expect that careful thinking about games and how they work would produce bracing new insights about how powerful forces reach in and modify our values without our even noticing, and what we can do about it, but that's because you haven't read C. Thi Nguyen's The Score. You probably should." —Jordan Ellenberg, author of How Not to Be Wrong
This information about The Score was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
C. Thi Nguyen is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Utah, and a specialist in the philosophy of games, the philosophy of technology, and the theory of value. A former food writer for the Los Angeles Times, Nguyen is active in public philosophy, writing for the New York Times, the Washington Post, New Statesman, and elsewhere.
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