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b'When we play Monopoly or basketball, we know we are playing a game. The stakes are low. The rules are silly. The point system is arbitrary. But what if life is full of games \\u2014 ones with much higher stakes \\u2014 that we don\\u2019t even realize we\\u2019re playing?\\n\\nAccording to the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen, games and gamified systems are everywhere in modern life. Social media applies the lure of a points-based scoring system to the complex act of communication. Fitness apps convert the joy and beauty of physical motion into a set of statistics you can monitor. The grades you received in school flatten the qualitative richness of education into a numerical competition. If you\\u2019ve ever consulted the U.S. News & World Report college rankings database, you\\u2019ve witnessed the leaderboard approach to university admissions.\\n\\nIn Nguyen\\u2019s book, \\u201cGames: Agency as Art,\\u201d a core insight is that we\\u2019re not simply playing these games \\u2014 they are playing us, too. Our desires, motivations and behaviors are constantly being shaped and reshaped by incentives and systems that we aren\\u2019t even aware of. Whether on the internet or in the vast bureaucracies that structure our lives, we find ourselves stuck playing games over and over again that we may not even want to win \\u2014 and that we aren\\u2019t able to easily walk away from.\\n\\nThis is one of those conversations that offers a new and surprising lens for understanding the world. We discuss the unique magic of activities like rock climbing and playing board games, how Twitter\\u2019s system of likes and retweets is polluting modern politics, why governments and bureaucracies love tidy packets of information, how echo chambers like QAnon bring comfort to their \\u201cplayers,\\u201d how to make sure we don\\u2019t get stuck in a game without realizing it, why we should be a little suspicious of things that give us pleasure and how to safeguard our own values in a world that wants us to care about winning the most points.\\n\\nMentioned:\\n\\nHow Twitter Gamifies Communication by C. Thi Nguyen\\n\\nTrust in Numbers by Theodore M. Porter\\n\\nSeeing Like a State by James C. Scott\\n\\n\\u201cAgainst Rotten Tomatoes\\u201d by Matt Strohl\\n\\n\\u201cA Game Designer\\u2019s Analysis Of QAnon\\u201d by Reed Berkowitz\\n\\nThe Great Endarkenment by Elijah Millgram\\n\\nGame recommendations:\\n\\nModern Art\\n\\nRoot\\n\\nThe Quiet Year\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.'