Reportedly, the Danish RKI register for people who cannot pay their bills get a least one request a week from someone who wants to be added to their files (article in Danish).
The applicants do not trust their future selves to resist the temptation of a quick loan.
I find this deep skepticism towards one’s future abilities to control one’s own behavior quite fascinating. In strategic situations with more than one player it is often a smart move to limit one’s own options (as in the oft-mentioned example of visible tearing out one’s steering wheel in a game of “Chicken”). But we also constantly limit the options of our future selves when there’s no-one else involved.
As Daniel Gilbert puts it in his book Stumbling on Happiness we spend much of our time attempting to make sure that our future selves will be happy (and Gilbert’s point is that we are often quite wrong). But we clearly also make an effort to ensure that our future selves at some point will be unhappy (e.g. when we cannot get that loan) so that our even-more-future self will be happy (when we come to our senses). It must be quite complicated being us.
My second daughter was born last Friday
My daughter Hannah was born last Friday to the great thrill of her older sister and to her parents.
It all went according to the Midwife’s Book of Troublefree Arrivals.
Players’ Realm anthology launched
Players’ Realm: Studies on the Culture of Videogames and Gaming which I’ve edited along with Patrick Williams has now been published. There’s info on the book’s own page and it is available at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and at other self-respecting book dealers.
I have a chapter in the book entitled Who Governs the Gamers? Political Power in Large Game Worlds which examines how classical debates of political theory relate to game worlds.
I’d like to thank everybody involved for their dedicated and professional attitude towards the project.
Playing racing games correlates with having accidents, from which we can conclude that…
Various media (e.g. The Herald) report how a German study has shown racing game players to be prone to reckless real-world driving.
Crucially, the researchers seem to have found a correlation between self-reported racing game use and self-reported accident frequency.
That is not a causal link.
There might exist such a causal link but the importance of the study is being overestimated.
Never ask the author
OK, I can understand why journalists like to interview famous people about their work. It looks nice on the CV.
But I’ve always thought that the least interesting articles or program segments tend to be those in which actors/directors/authors share their thoughts on their work. For instance, the BBC film review podcast that I listen to regularly looses all momentum whenever some director is invited into the studio to give synopses or even thoughts on film-making itself.
But why, you ask, have I not previously shared this important observation with you? Because I haven’t had a really good example. Till I heard this exceptional piece of cutting-edge film journalism in the Danish Broadcast Cooperation’s “Filmland”.
The journalist has sought out David Lynch who’s visiting Denmark. Lynch reveals how inside us there are deep oceans of creativity, and inspired by the rural surrounding, the reporter inquires:
Journalist: But are only humans able to access the great ocean within, or do birds go there as well?
To which, Lynch responds ponderously:
Lynch: I believe they do. I believe all the creatures flow with that to a certain degree. But it’s the human being, it’s the human being that’s built to dive within and experience that deepest level of life and unfold it and that’s the difference between the birds and a human being…
There’s some more stuff and then Lynch further reveals that:
Lynch: Now the birds they flow with nature and their songs probably have some fantastic vibration, but they go, I think, in a group. So a group of them will all go to sleep at the same time and they’re kind of ruled by a kind of a group soul I guess […] when you grow more consciousness you grow more bliss […]
But the reporter counters with a sharp
Journalist: Can’t the birds do that?
Lynch, however, remains unshakable:
Lynch: No, birds can’t get a technique. They may flow, they may be very very happy. But no…
Seriously, and laying all sarcasm aside, this is inane beyond all comparison. I won’t be able to watch a Lynch movie for years without hearing the twitter of birds flowing with nature.
The 07 GDC Game Studies Download
I am in excellent company on the 07 GDC Game Studies Download Top 10, as covered by Raph Koster. Here are the slides. The esteemed scholars are referring to my dissertation.
Trouble in the off-world colonies
In the LA Times article Virtual loses its virtues, Alana Semuels makes interesting observations on social tension in Second Life. In particular she notes how old-timers feel a loss of control in the face of the massive influx of commercial interest. Early residents who have expressed their discomfort via virtual weaponry say that they
…don’t necessarily mind the new residents, but they want more influence in deciding the future of the virtual world. Most important, they want Linden Lab to allow voting on issues affecting their in-world experience.
Now, the tension between “original” inhabitants and new-comers is a common virtual world issue (and a first life one as well). It often results in an exodus of groups of discontents. But the tension is also interesting in terms of how future virtual world rivals will approach the issue of commercial use. Will SL competitors choose far less economically focused models or will they simply copy the SL format with improved features and graphics?
BTW, I reflected on social development in virtual worlds in my master thesis on The Architectures of Trust (chapter 2). Slightly dated in terms of virtual worlds, but perhaps not in terms of human nature :-)
Via Secondlife.dk
Second Life, some thoughts
Recently, I’ve been talking to a good number of journalists about Second Life.
I know about virtual worlds, but I always try to point out that I have no particular SL expertise. I haven’t spent enough time in that world to fully grasp its mechanics and particular features. Anyway, that disclaimer rarely makes it into the articles, which may be fair enough.
The most common question I’m asked is this: Why are all these companies/institutions/libraries establishing themselves in Second Life? To this my reply is always: I don’t know, you should ask them, but if you want my guess a part of the reason is that many are eager to become experienced with a possibly important platform for marketing/interaction, are afraid to miss out on an important development and are attracted by the chance for publicity.
Now, this “answer” puts me in the “critical” camp. And indeed I am critical about the potential of SL (and 3D virtual worlds). But only in relation to widespread claims of their world-transforming effects. 3D virtual worlds have their uses but they are not, IMO, universally fantastic. An example: It makes sense to sell clothes and cars in such places but it makes no particular sense to sell books and CDs in there. Also, it makes immediate sense for an international company to use SL for conferences (if the alternative is developing one’s own expensive and inferior system) but it makes no immediate sense for a public library to establish an unstaffed house in SL offering visitors virtual ice cream.
In terms of revolutionary capabilities, I think that SL is comparable to chat rooms and MUDs of the nineties. For sure, it has potential but a large part of the enthusiasm can only be explained with reference to over-enthusiastic hype. To recycle an old cliché: The challenge is figuring out which part.
More
I’ve been quoted for saying that Second Life is unlikely to last for more than 5-7 years. What I mean, of course, is that while 3D worlds will prevail, Second Life itself is unlikely to. This is nothing but a historical observation, neither MUD1, Active Worlds, LambdaMoo, Ultima Online nor EverQuest are market leaders today. Second Life may last forever (depending to a large degree on specifics of its core design) but all I’m saying is, I’d be surprised.
The implications of this is that Second Life specific investments are unlikely to pay off forever – experience gained on use of virtual worlds, of course, will not be lost if SL loses steam one day.
Unrestrained animosity
I’ve just finished Richard Dawkins’ bestselling anti-religious The God Delusion. Entertaining for sure but in a sort of indulgent way since I pretty much found its premises about as hard to swallow as Italian ice cream on a sunny day. Having one’s own views intelligently and conveniently confirmed – hasn’t that sort of become the domain of podcasts these days?
Anyway, one interesting feature was the rhetorical effect of Dawkins’ outright anger. An example:
“I have described atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sado-masochistic and repellent. We should also dismiss it as barking mad, but for its ubiquitous familiarity, which has dulled our objectivity.” (p253)
It is one of Dawkins’ points, of course, that religion deserves no particular respect and that its claims and concepts should be treated as critically as all other types of claims and concepts. Nevertheless, there is obviously spite here and while it can read as honesty it can also read as personal vendetta and thus, perhaps, seem dismissable out of hand to some. Anyway, it illustrates the interesting and complex rhetorical features of anger.
All in all, I recommend the book, but earlier work by Dawkins is more essential if you haven’t been there already.
BTW, the New York Times was somewhat sceptical while The Guardian‘s reviewer had a better time.
Dissertation arrives in print
My dissertation has arrived in printed form. If you’d like a copy, come by the office or drop me a line.