James Stevens

There’s a particular allure to a simple point system as a means of evaluating behavior. It smooths out complexity, giving individuals clear metrics and goals. Gamification makes progress feel visible and tangible, rewarding you with a sense of achievement each time you hit your workout goal on your fitness tracker or log a movie on Letterboxd.

“It g... See more

game designer Margaret Robertson coined the term “pointsification,” arguing that what we consider mainstream “gamification” is really just the process of attaching point values to behavior, without any further “game-like” qualities.

Some Notes Concerning Technique

Long have I thought that I should write a book on technique, as I have learned much over the years that may aid others in their or-chards. For now; I will simply state, for the record, my position on some of the great debates of our profession.

Pruning should be done in moderation. There are those who would remove cros... See more

Our existential showdown with machine intelligence isn’t a martial conflict between Sarah Connor versus the Terminator, but a confrontation between the human conscience and the absurd. The language machine doesn’t care whether anybody’s eating glue pizza. Glue pizza is a “you” problem. You might think that a computer ought to supply instructions fo

... See more

Luxury spending in China has been crimped by the combination of a housing crisis and a government campaign against showy displays of wealth. Rather than monogrammed totes, Chinese youngsters now carry their belongings around in plastic bags to flaunt their frugality.

An almost-funny tragedy is decimating basically every artistic industry: there are too many things. Too many movies, too many shows, way too many songs and books and videos and email newsletters.