but there's a difference between the "meta" being a description of the way people play the game and reifying the meta as an almost tangible "thing". I mean like how IQ gets reified. IQ isn't a "thing". People don't have an "IQ". People may get a score on an IQ test, but we don't have "IQ" the way we have ears, or dreams, or emotions, or even intelligence. And so "the meta" becomes an artificial construct in the same way, I think. And an unhealthy way.
You could say that basketball has a "meta" or chess has a "meta", but people don't typically talk about it that way, and the cultures around those activities are a lot better for it.
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but there's a difference between the "meta" being a description of the way people play the game and reifying the meta as an almost tangible "thing". I mean like how IQ gets reified. IQ isn't a "thing". People don't have an "IQ". People may get a score on an IQ test, but we don't have "IQ" the way we have ears, or dreams, or emotions, or even intelligence. And so "the meta" becomes an artificial construct in the same way, I think. And an unhealthy way.
You could say that basketball has a "meta" or chess has a "meta", but people don't typically talk about it that way, and the cultures around those activities are a lot better for it.