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How Gamification Has Made Things Harder

Apps promising certain results via game-like aspects don’t have all the solutions.

Eric S Burdon
8 min readNov 18, 2024

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It was the night before the US presidential election.

Recorded in a room with solid bricks for a wall, a black man started to perform stand-up comedy. He talked about how Biden was so old and how we generally treat the elderly in a pretty poor way.

He transitioned from one topic to the next, the crowd laughing at his various jokes and comments and he finished off with a joke that still stuck with me.

He compared the American people electing Obama for the first and second time as the “clearing the first level of the classic Mario game.” He did the sound effects, the classic Mario tune. It was brilliant.

He encapsulated the feeling so many people had when electing Obama. That electing their first black president out of the numerous elections they had, they squashed racism. Or at the very least America was ready to be more progressive.

But along came level two. Kamala Harris.

The man’s name is Trevor Noah, former host of The Daily Show and has been touring the world, doing comedy bits and interviews on occasion and promoting his children book.

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Eric S Burdon
Eric S Burdon

Written by Eric S Burdon

I write (and sometimes do videos) about self-help for those who don't like self-help. Complete with the occasional memes and riffs on the industry that I love.

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