Introduction

I wanted to write a follow-up post to Handing People Puzzles, since I thought it was a really fun post to make, and I'm getting into the spirit for attending the Metagame Night Market, where I will definitely Hand People Puzzles^[1]. Tl;dr for that post is that nerdsniping people (sometimes with physical puzzles) is more fun than doing small talk. Separately, having more puzzles/interactive objects in group houses makes them more fun for visitors.

I realized only after posting, though, that that idea is incomplete as I presented it: it's missing detail on the joy of Being Handed Puzzles, which I've thankfully experienced a lot. 

Puzzles are Candy

I recall a line that Harry Potter says to Hermione in Chapter 87 of HPMoR (quote is not spoilers and is self contained):

I got ahold of a bag of chocolates from the Weasley twins and I'm just going to give you one every time you see me as a positive reinforcement if that's all right with you...

In the context of the story, this is about Harry trying to make up for something he did, trying directly to counter any negative association Hermione might have with him by introducing a new association: Harry provides candy, and candy is Yay!, so Harry seems less bad/negative/ugh/non-okay now. 

This technique isn't just effective for atonement: it holds pretty generally that giving people little Yay!s sometimes when they see you probably makes them more excited to see you. In this community, Yay! can be made of Handing People Puzzles:

• It's commonly a fun task for people in the nerd/intellectual sphere. I've belabored this simple point in the previous post on this anyways, I don't think I need to explain here why puzzles are fun.
• It clearly shows that this person put effort and thought into interacting with people and preparing to be interesting. This feels nice in the same way that someone spontaneously providing candy or giving a compliment feels: they did something non-obligatory that was kind^[2].

Puzzles can be Hard

Some of my favorite conversations I've had have started with people challenging me to something at the edge of my abilities: try to think quickly about something exotic that I'd never considered, solve a puzzle, come up with poetry on the spot, etc. 

These sorts of people start talking and something in my mind goes "oh, it's time to Actually Think now, instead of just being on social autopilot for the first few minutes." All of my attention focuses in, and I'm in Real Conversation now. 

A good Hard Puzzle is fun because it's impossible (in a short amount of time, at least), and because to solve it you have to go hard and run around doing a bunch of novel things in your head. 

Conclusion

I work in AI safety, and as TsviBT reminds us, we shouldn't throw our minds away just because of doom or timelines or what have you. We should let the curious, playful part of our minds flourish, since that part is important for doing the other things that we want to do.  

I think a lot of people around here could stand to spend less time at social events small-talking (or doom-talking) and more time being curious and gifting curiosity to others, to nurture each other's minds and have ultimately more fun.

1. ^{^}

   I won't be at the whole of Metagame, but I suspect that this will be a great way for people to get handed puzzles. Info about the main event here.  

2. ^{^}

   This is related to how I try to think about doing good/having an impact: you can do things and that's really cool, but I'm not going to say people are bad for taking something like the default path in life. Similarly, you don't have to hand people puzzles, but I think it's really cool if you do. (Post about this)