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Why We Fight
AsiNisiMasa writes "The Contrarian in this week's The Escapist is a brutally honest and exceptionally disturbing piece entitled 'Why We Fight.' It examines the underlying mentality behind our affinity for violent behavior in games, citing the desire for efficiency at all costs. From the article: 'Your people face famine, plague, poverty and unrest. What policies would you enact to solve these problems? (Fans of Tropico, you know how this works.) My friend's solution? Death camps. Round up the sick, the lame, the infertile, the ignorant, the useless, the unproductive and execute them.'"
The story in the summary reminds me of "Conscience of the King" -- a ruthless dictator killed half a colony's population during a famine so there would be enough food for the other half. (The story took place years later, after the ex-dictator had gone into hiding. Kirk and another Enterprise crewman had grown up on that colony, and recognized him in -- of all places -- an acting troupe.)
When resources are scarce, we usually don't attack our own societies, we attack those next to us. Don't look for cover for your fascist ideals in "human" nature. It's just your nature. The rest of us *do* weed people out who assert it, whether it takes a censure or a war.
Killing is a little strong, but knowing when some schmuck pisses you off that you get to connect full on with his eye with no repercussions... that's a beautiful thing.
Hell, even a free "poking with a pointy stick" card would be nice.. then even the elderly and handicapped could partake.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I think this is a work of satire. Especially if you read through the entire article to the closing statements. As I read through I couldn't believe he could think so highly of such a single-minded enterprise, and I heavily disagreed with his statement that hardcore gamers only wanted to games that allowed them to kill. Maybe the definition of hardcore has shifted in the years, but my pile of strategy titles would argue with that initial claim.
Whether it's intentional or not, this article is pointing out how shallow and narrow our options for interactivity are. Technically we have a wider spectrum of options available to us in our games today, but it's really just a wider spectrum of violence. Solutions to problems that don't involve gunning down waves of enemies seem novel in action titles now-a-days. Half-Life was a memorable action title because you could actually *talk* to characters, the first 30 minutes of the game didn't even present you with a weapon.
I hope what the author is trying to say, is that we really need to look at other ways to interact in these worlds. I like the occasional action title as much as the next guy, but by *nothing but* killing waves of mindless enemies we're not only dumbing ourselves, but making the gamer demographic look more unappealing and less intelligent from the outside as well.
This is supposed to be a new artform. Play some Katamari, people!
This reminds me of my Brick Idea. It would revolutionize customer service. Every month, you get one non-transferrable, non-carry-overable brick. You cannot throw that brick at people or animals but you can throw it at anywhere else you want and not be held liable for the damages.
Car dealership work you over? They get a brick through one of their shiny new showroom models.
Phone company giving you lousy customer service? Take a brick to their equipment out on the roadside. Granted, one brick might not break the equipment but if they make enough people angry, they could get together and all brick it into oblivion. (I'd do it in somone else's neighborhood.)
Did a car shoot in front of you to take a spot you were turning into? I'll bet a brick through the windshield will make them think twice about doing that again.
There would just be a mountain of bricks where mortgage companies once stood.
Suddenly, a new market for Punch Cards opens up. Sellers and buyers haggle over price and everyone who owns one can sell it!
;)
Rich people could own dozens of punch cards and personally punch the living daylights out of anyone they choose.
Or, better yet, they could hire professional boxers and lend them their punch cards with a contractually signed designated target. Think Mike Tyson as Hit (er Punch) Man. Talk about getting your money's worth.
Also, punch cards could be considered sexism since (on average!) women can not punch as hard as men.
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I defer to one of the most profound statements ever made... and by none other than Chris Rock amazingly. When he did his bit on making guns accessible to everyone but make bullets cost $5000 dollars... that way when someone got shot, everyone would say DAMN, he really must have pissed someone off. And accidental shootings would become non-existant.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea