Think about the moments you want more of, when you feel alive, light, and full of energy. We all experienced them at some point in our lives. Yet how often do those experiences actually guide our choices? And how often do they not? We spend our lives pursuing different things like success at work, loving relationships, security, recognition, and growth. Yet they all point toward the same underlying objective: Maximized Good Times (MGT)
The MGT objective clarifies what we are ultimately trying to achieve: not only to have good moments now, but to make those moments last, to compound, and not to pay for them with bad times later.
Schnepf’s Four Playgrounds™
On the way to Maximized Good Times, we often assume a tradeoff between what brings immediate good times and what leads to longer-lasting, higher-quality good times. When we separate these dimensions, it becomes clear that tradeoffs are not inevitable. They are choices.
The Four Playgrounds™ organize choices by how attractive they feel in the moment and how attractive their consequences are over time.
Hover over each playground to see what kind of time you are creating
We commonly approach our pursuits in life assuming they are reliable means to Good Times. Yet the same pursuit sometimes leads to Good Times and sometimes does not.
When this happens, we tend to assume the problem is simply not having enough yet. So we optimize harder instead of questioning whether the pursuit itself is actually connected to Good Times. When a path occasionally works, and enough people follow it, we begin to treat its connection to Good Times as a given fact and follow it blindly — even though it repeatedly fails. Like ants following a pheromone trail long after the food is gone.
Ants confuse the path with the food. We confuse our pursuits with Good Times
Up to this point in history, we have navigated life largely through intuition, stories, social trends, and advice, hoping they move us toward “Green Ground”: conditions where Good Times naturally grow.
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To shift from guessing to knowing, we must measure the effects our pursuits have on Good Times. The Good Time Ratio (GTR) metric does this by making Good Times observable.
It allows individuals and collectives to track where, when, and under which conditions Good Times increase or decline across cultures and ages.
One universal objective. Individually blinded.
Can we reach Maximized Good Times?
For most of human history, reaching Maximized Good Times seemed impossible. We relied on intuition, stories, and trial and error to navigate life. Today, for the first time in history, we can systematically study how different life paths influence experienced Good Times across people, cultures, and time.
Insights from the Science of Good Times (SGT) and GTR-based data increasingly enable identification of paths that reliably support Good Times now while sustaining them in the future. Combined with personalized AI systems, this creates the possibility for individuals and societies to navigate life with unprecedented clarity.
Today, we stand at a pivotal point in history where the pursuit of Maximized Good Times shifts from wishful thinking to a practical, scalable reality
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For Researchers & Academics
The following outlines the foundational structure of the Science of Good Times (SGT), an interdisciplinary scientific field dedicated to understanding, measuring, predicting, and maximizing Good Times.