The next game you play, might be the one that saves the world

[bluejogger]

We're leaving the real world in a mass exodus to play virtual worlds, so the solution, as crazy as it sounds, is to start playing games that will save humanity.

(video) http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

gaming

Comments

[whswhs]

I wish you warned me that it was a video; I wouldn't have clicked it had I known.

[bluejogger]

I'll put (video) in front of the link and try to remember that convention.

When the transcript gets put online, I'll email you a copy.

[whswhs]

That would be great. Thanks!

[whswhs]

Thanks very much for sending me the transcript. Rather than comment on it privately, I'm going to comment on it here, so that anyone who wants to listen in can do so.

As I understand McGonigal's argument, she says that the online world, and the communities of online games, have four distinctive characteristics: (1) urgent optimism, the desire to act and the sense of a reasonable hope of success; (2) bonds of trust; (3) blissful productivity; (4) epic meaning. And that's an interesting and appealing point. But I believe that she is describing something that has already been invented and that has already transformed the world for the better, and that will go on doing so, if it's not destroyed by people who dislike it. And that thing is capitalism.

Urgent optimism? Capitalism is driven by entrepreneurs who are looking for opportunities to make exchanges and to start new ventures, and who feel a reasonable hope of success in doing so. And the political conditions under which that drive is possible are those that provide security of

[bluejogger]

I don't think she's trying to replace capitalism. But, like a good capitalist, she sees this wealth of untapped resource of man-hours and trying to figure out a way to create a real social good from it. Isn't that the very duty of every capitalist?

[whswhs]

Absolutely. Capitalism is the one economic system that is inherently revolutionary . . . or perhaps "self-modifying" would be a better term in this context. I'm not so much suggesting that she wants to replace capitalism, as suggesting that she wants in effect to invent capitalism . . . or reinvent it. It's a good idea, and it was a good idea when Adam Smith came up with it the first time. I just think she doesn't realize that it fits her specifications so well.

And note that her description of increased numbers of people migrating into the world of game playing exactly fits the migration of increased numbers of people into playing the capitalist game.

[bluejogger]

You know, I'm facing a lot of cognitive dissonance trying to keep the Adam Smith version of capitalism (as explained above) and the modern version of capitalism in my head. It seems almost a thought crime to call them the same thing.