Concept that comes from RPG's, or any sufficiently complex optimization problem where you have a limited number of total points to spend so you "min"-imize the least helpful stats and "max"-imize the most helpful. For a fighter character, you'd obviously max out strength, as well as constitution and dexterity. You'd minimize intelligence, charisma, and wisdom - not because they’re not helpful but because you only have a limited number of points to spend. In the context of:
> The trick to effective min-maxing in social contexts is to make sure people can't tell you're min-maxing.
It means that, while in interview situations there is an expectation that you say "I did this", in social situations you might get more benefit from seeming to be more humble and appear to withhold your accomplishments, perhaps doing it in a way where someone else fills the gaps for you, or it entices the other parties into doing a bit of digging on their own and perhaps find some well-placed bios online that look like they weren't written by you / at your behest which do your bragging for you.
This avoids the situation where someone will say: "I work on Copilot now, and I can say this guy is totally full of himself." as other people respond "huh. yeah. that makes sense."
While it may have existed for a long time, it's gotten significantly more use in recent days in a non-RPG settings. Quick illustration from HN comment section[1]:
- From 2010 to 2019: 40 occurrences in HN's comments
- Compare that to over 70 for just the past two years.
Basically, it's as if you said “Woke” wasn't a contemporary word, because it used to exist in a niche for a long time.
FWIW, while I don't know the origin of this term, I learned it first as a noun, used in the context of AI - the old-fashioned AI, as applied to game development, some 15 years ago. The verb form, however, is something I've only noticed people using in the last few months; it's possible this is due to some recent events that made the term more widely known / popular.
> The trick to effective min-maxing in social contexts is to make sure people can't tell you're min-maxing.
It means that, while in interview situations there is an expectation that you say "I did this", in social situations you might get more benefit from seeming to be more humble and appear to withhold your accomplishments, perhaps doing it in a way where someone else fills the gaps for you, or it entices the other parties into doing a bit of digging on their own and perhaps find some well-placed bios online that look like they weren't written by you / at your behest which do your bragging for you.
This avoids the situation where someone will say: "I work on Copilot now, and I can say this guy is totally full of himself." as other people respond "huh. yeah. that makes sense."