Process Brain is the Scourge of Our Time (Or. why the Rockets should WIN NOW and forever)

MadMax · Jun 25, 2023

SamFisher said: ↑

Fellows, I come here in admission of error. I have followed the Rockets for many years, as a child in the waning days of Moses Malone through the glory years of the 1990’s to He’s coMING to the (underrated, I daresay) Harden era.

The Rise of Process Brain

For many years in the halls of these fora, I used to pile on as the sporting establishment entered the information age. I thoroughly enjoyed positioning myself with the quants, despite having base-level excel skills, as the old-line jockocracy-industrial complex was upended by various Moreii, Prestii and Hinkieii - the acolytes of what I call Process Brain. The empty Jim Beam bottle-wielding scouts and their disheveled Denny’s grand slam breakfast-stained legal pads replaced with PERs and VORPS and Winshares and Second Spectrum and other such concoctions with which I could smugly smite my bbs enemies. It was glorious, and pathetic.

But now, things have changed, or I have matured, or not, or both or neither. One, is that part of the fun of these things was the ego-boost that having some sort of hacked, secret knowledge quickly dissipates as it becomes common knowledge.

Into the Takeoverse

The second, and far more pervasive development, is that NBA Takes have outgrown the NBA itself - it was one thing when NBA takes were purveyed in limited quantities, in limited places. Newspapers. Magazines. A brief segment on the national show. Your local AM radio guys and various Homers and Bills calling in from Pasadena on a mobile. At that point, the games took primacy. The takes were limited. We spent more time watching, listening, and seeing actual basketball, and less time take-having

The other thing about takes is that they are invariably negative; as takes are creatures of social media, their foundation is anger and insult to “maximize engagement” and sell you things. That’s the way the system is built.

Houston and the Rockets in particular seemed to be particularly prone to the most negative aspects of take-dom, with the Harden era coinciding with the meteoric rise in takeology typified by “voices of the fan” like multi-hundred millionaire Bill Simmons and other such luminaries. Ringz culture, legacy conversation (legacy is imaginary people); Heated MVP debates - these are all fruit of this same poisonous tree.

Inevitably these two streams converged, and takes now incorporate vast quantities of Process Brain conventional wisdom from team composition to play style to team building philosophy. Add 3 & D players, maximize rookie deals, trade down for more value, draft younger players, etc ad nauseum.

We are told on this forum that we must suffer, and suffer, the Process way, for there is an omnipotent moral arbiter on top who sees our suffering and will one day reward us with glory. PUt up a 20 win season? Fine, you’ve tanked and set yourself up for the lottery. Another one? Stay the course, it takes time, they’re just 19. Another? Rome wasn’t built in a day. Oceans rise, empires fall, we will see each other through it all.

This is all there is. There is no next thing.

Gentlemen, I suggest to you that this is flawed. The God of Process Justice does not exist.

I originally decided to watch the Houston Rockets basketball club to see them try to win basketball games. Because it was fun. Not as a real life exercise in optimizing a simulated outcome given a zillion other unpredictable variables that mostly depend on random chance.

Each wasted season may launch a thousand posts by me, but those are ultimately just compensatory due to the fact that we fundamentally have a team and an organization that is devoted to Process Brain (which, btw, also makes the already obscenely-weealthy inherited owner and his children even more money in the short term) for the ostensible greater good.

I would like the Rockets to try to be competitive and win games. Not to position themselves for a theoretical championship in 2030. It frankly reminds me of the transparent garbage of Long-Termism - a maximum copium movement dreamed up to allow the ultra wealthy to plow their wealth into vanity projects for fun in order to maximize injustice and cruelty today to “prevent” utterly unforeseeable future harm.

TL;DR - Rockets should try to sign Harden or trade for established vets, going into the season with a team that is going to lose 70% of the time makes me not want to watch after 3 years of this ****.
Click to expand...

I tried to message you through here but for some reason it wouldn’t allow it. You’re awesome and this post is fantastic. Even people who disagree with it should appreciate the heart behind it. Aside from that, it’s just great writing and self-deprecating and funny. Go Rockets!

SamFisher · Jun 26, 2023

[

MadMax said: ↑

I tried to message you through here but for some reason it wouldn’t allow it. You’re awesome and this post is fantastic. Even people who disagree with it should appreciate the heart behind it. Aside from that, it’s just great writing and self-deprecating and funny. Go Rockets!
Click to expand...

Thanks man - i mostly just did it because i enjoyed writing it. And if people enjoyed reading it...even better. A good way to spend a bit of a hot summer Saturday pm.

I probably should have sat on it for a day and cleaned it up a bit and added in the part i forgot - but my wife came back and said "are you doing work? "

At the time ," Yeah no I'm kind writing an important meta-basketball team - building-life essay for my Internet bros" was not the conversation i was ready to have so i just hit " Post".

I've spent the last few months working with LLMs like GPT and while I find the capabilities amazing - you know what? I still like writing a lot - especially for fun and don't care that a machine could do as good or better. Frankly it makes me want to do it even more.

As i get older I enjoy doing lots of stupid boring things (like digging up weeds or whatever) simply for the sake of doing them rather than having them optimized out of my field of view by someone or something else.

Os Trigonum · Jun 26, 2023

SamFisher said: ↑

[

Thanks man - i mostly just did it because i enjoyed writing it. And if people enjoyed reading it...even better. A good way to spend a bit of a hot summer Saturday pm.

I probably should have sat on it for a day and cleaned it up a bit and added in the part i forgot - but my wife came back and said "are you doing work? "

At the time ," Yeah no I'm kind writing an important meta-basketball team - building-life essay for my Internet bros" was not the conversation i was ready to have so i just hit " Post".

I've spent the last few months working with LLMs like GPT and while I find the capabilities amazing - you know what? I still like writing a lot - especially for fun and don't care that a machine could do as good or better. Frankly it makes me want to do it even more.

As i get older I enjoy doing lots of stupid boring things (like digging up weeds or whatever) simply for the sake of doing them rather than having them optimized out of my field of view by someone or something else.
Click to expand...

it's better to travel than to arrive

MadMax · Jun 26, 2023

SamFisher said: ↑

[

Thanks man - i mostly just did it because i enjoyed writing it. And if people enjoyed reading it...even better. A good way to spend a bit of a hot summer Saturday pm.

I probably should have sat on it for a day and cleaned it up a bit and added in the part i forgot - but my wife came back and said "are you doing work? "

At the time ," Yeah no I'm kind writing an important meta-basketball team - building-life essay for my Internet bros" was not the conversation i was ready to have so i just hit " Post".

I've spent the last few months working with LLMs like GPT and while I find the capabilities amazing - you know what? I still like writing a lot - especially for fun and don't care that a machine could do as good or better. Frankly it makes me want to do it even more.

As i get older I enjoy doing lots of stupid boring things (like digging up weeds or whatever) simply for the sake of doing them rather than having them optimized out of my field of view by someone or something else.
Click to expand...

That’s awesome. Yeah, I love writing too. I might be one of the last dying people it will matter to, but I’m not interested in reading books written by computers. The connection to the author in the story/writing matters to me. My grandmom wrote short stories and poetry, and it always feels like a connection to her for me when I write. She was very Irish and said it was “in our blood.” I’m certain that’s not true, but it’s all a connection to our humanity anyway, so let’s roll with it!

Anyway, great post and Go Rockets!

DaDakota · Jun 26, 2023

Lawyers....SHEESH !

DD

Glendelicious · Jun 26, 2023

SamFisher said: ↑

Fellows, I come here in admission of error. I have followed the Rockets for many years, as a child in the waning days of Moses Malone through the glory years of the 1990’s to He’s coMING to the (underrated, I daresay) Harden era.

The Rise of Process Brain

For many years in the halls of these fora, I used to pile on as the sporting establishment entered the information age. I thoroughly enjoyed positioning myself with the quants, despite having base-level excel skills, as the old-line jockocracy-industrial complex was upended by various Moreii, Prestii and Hinkieii - the acolytes of what I call Process Brain. The empty Jim Beam bottle-wielding scouts and their disheveled Denny’s grand slam breakfast-stained legal pads replaced with PERs and VORPS and Winshares and Second Spectrum and other such concoctions with which I could smugly smite my bbs enemies. It was glorious, and pathetic.

But now, things have changed, or I have matured, or not, or both or neither. One, is that part of the fun of these things was the ego-boost that having some sort of hacked, secret knowledge quickly dissipates as it becomes common knowledge.

Into the Takeoverse

The second, and far more pervasive development, is that NBA Takes have outgrown the NBA itself - it was one thing when NBA takes were purveyed in limited quantities, in limited places. Newspapers. Magazines. A brief segment on the national show. Your local AM radio guys and various Homers and Bills calling in from Pasadena on a mobile. At that point, the games took primacy. The takes were limited. We spent more time watching, listening, and seeing actual basketball, and less time take-having

The other thing about takes is that they are invariably negative; as takes are creatures of social media, their foundation is anger and insult to “maximize engagement” and sell you things. That’s the way the system is built.

Houston and the Rockets in particular seemed to be particularly prone to the most negative aspects of take-dom, with the Harden era coinciding with the meteoric rise in takeology typified by “voices of the fan” like multi-hundred millionaire Bill Simmons and other such luminaries. Ringz culture, legacy conversation (legacy is imaginary people); Heated MVP debates - these are all fruit of this same poisonous tree.

Inevitably these two streams converged, and takes now incorporate vast quantities of Process Brain conventional wisdom from team composition to play style to team building philosophy. Add 3 & D players, maximize rookie deals, trade down for more value, draft younger players, etc ad nauseum.

We are told on this forum that we must suffer, and suffer, the Process way, for there is an omnipotent moral arbiter on top who sees our suffering and will one day reward us with glory. PUt up a 20 win season? Fine, you’ve tanked and set yourself up for the lottery. Another one? Stay the course, it takes time, they’re just 19. Another? Rome wasn’t built in a day. Oceans rise, empires fall, we will see each other through it all.

This is all there is. There is no next thing.

Gentlemen, I suggest to you that this is flawed. The God of Process Justice does not exist.

I originally decided to watch the Houston Rockets basketball club to see them try to win basketball games. Because it was fun. Not as a real life exercise in optimizing a simulated outcome given a zillion other unpredictable variables that mostly depend on random chance.

Each wasted season may launch a thousand posts by me, but those are ultimately just compensatory due to the fact that we fundamentally have a team and an organization that is devoted to Process Brain (which, btw, also makes the already obscenely-weealthy inherited owner and his children even more money in the short term) for the ostensible greater good.

I would like the Rockets to try to be competitive and win games. Not to position themselves for a theoretical championship in 2030. It frankly reminds me of the transparent garbage of Long-Termism - a maximum copium movement dreamed up to allow the ultra wealthy to plow their wealth into vanity projects for fun in order to maximize injustice and cruelty today to “prevent” utterly unforeseeable future harm.

TL;DR - Rockets should try to sign Harden or trade for established vets, going into the season with a team that is going to lose 70% of the time makes me not want to watch after 3 years of this ****.
Click to expand...

This TLDR doesn't at all address the title or first few sentences of the post and my eyes glaze over when I start to read this ramble. If it's "the process is stupid because stats aren't real" then I can just add it to the list of stupid threads to ignore.

Os Trigonum · Jun 26, 2023

Glendelicious said: ↑

This TLDR doesn't at all address the title or first few sentences of the post and my eyes glaze over when I start to read this ramble. If it's "the process is stupid because stats aren't real" then I can just add it to the list of stupid threads to ignore.
Click to expand...

Jose Cuervo · Jun 26, 2023

Rebuilds suck, hopefully they turn out good on the other side.

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