#and i like the differences between the two of them being The attractor features

[vaultsixtynine]

my sakusai agenda is immense

[iwaywardcreatorstudentblr]

Psychology of Games – Task 2

For the game that we are planning to develop one of the main theories that will be incorporated is that of Player Types. The reason for this being that by focusing on this theory is that we can build a game that targets one or more types of players, in turn making it more appealing for them to continue playing the game or making players with certain preferences interested in trying out the game.

The theorist that devised the Player Types is Bartle, who created a cross model that depicted what types of players people were based on their personalities and their playing preferences, through this he identified four major types the Achievers, the Explorers, the Socializers and the Killers. This model though was originally made and targeting at players of MMORPG games and was originally based on MUD games, Bartle’s Taxonomy can also be used to create mechanics that would appeal to certain types of players in single player games as “[d]eveloping the right mechanics for your players becomes much easier once you understand the way they like to approach a game” (Kumar, et al., 2020).

For our game we are thinking of targeting the Explorer Player type, these are the kinds of players that are more interested in exploring and discovering every nook and cranny of the video game as they are “not as bothered about points or prizes” (Kumar, et al., 2020). Though we are aiming to target also the sub-sections of the Explorer class, the first one being the Navigators, they are also the types of players who are interested in discovering all the secrets of the game, unlocking new areas and acquiring ‘Easter Eggs’[1]. The other sub-class we are considering for our game is that of the Detectives, they are players who are problem solvers, they “likes being confronted to a new situation where he needs to find the keys. Sometimes, it means thinking out of the box and adopt a totally new behaviour” (Mangiatordi, 2017). So, if we are to target and satisfy Detective players we are considering adding a few puzzles in the environment that need to be solved before they can continue to be exploring, examples of puzzles we could implement are time-constrained puzzles.

The other Player type we are considering of targeting and pleasing with this game is the Achiever type. These types of players are more inclined to receive rewards in games, this can be in the form of prizes, points and even the game achievements system, for example the speed runner achievement which is awarded depending on how fast the player completes the game. They are the type of people who completely focused on the game and in the goal/quest and do all they can to complete it, included going through any obstacles in their way being the game world’s enemies or even other players, though they would not seek out conflict unless it was necessary. Though we would very much like to cater to the Achiever type it would be very difficult to insert attractors that would appeal to them in our game due to time constraints to build the game, our current beginner level in coding and lack of familiarity with the programs and the length of the game, which is why we are only considering it and only if we are able in terms of ability, time and have completed our game would we confer with each other about trying to add Achiever type attractors to the game. If we were to try to cater to the Achiever player types, we would rather target the Collector sub-class. The Collectors are players who “enjoy multiplying activities and projects. Mainly because he is more motivated by the joy of improvement than by the final objective itself” (Mangiatordi, 2017). The Collectors are also players who are more likely interested in gathering all the game items so that they can complete a set, an example of this being that the player buys all the equipment in the game so that they can record it and complete the list. To try to garner interest in Collector types then throughout the game we would hide or place items that the player can collect, these may also have a minor description of what they are and in turn enrich the game world. It could also be said that there Collector’s tendencies to gather items stems from two factors; the elusiveness of an item due to “[t]he likelihood and difficulty of acquiring an object, which makes you feel a sense of accomplishment when you track it down. This gives you the "thrill of the hunt" as you comb through antique stores, flea markets, and auction listings in search of that rare piece” (Madigan, 2019). The other factor is the item’s authenticity, which would be “[t]he extent to which an object is seen as "the real thing" based on how close in time or space it was to a significant person, event, or thing. It gives the object a uniqueness based on its history” (Madigan, 2019).

Though Bartle’s Taxonomy is extremely useful in identifying player types and in turn the features that would attract them it is not completely absolute, like any theory there are exceptions and situations where it is not best to completely follow the theory. Bartle’s Taxonomy is useful when one want to make “more technical decisions about your game mechanics according to the type of player you're targeting, it allows you to pinpoint and design mechanics that will sit well with your game and the audience playing it” (Kyatric, 2013).

To appeal to the innate Explorer player types a concept that I was thinking that would interesting to them would be if myself and my group partner could create two different environments that are connected from one of more pathways. The differences in the two environments will naturally attract the Explorer’s curiosity and since they are different their need to explore the areas so that they can find out what is there, additionally the multiple pathways can also fuel this need because that will also allow the Explorer types to take different routes which could delay the feeling of boredom due to the player having to look at the same scenery when going back and forth between the two environments. On the other hand, for the Detective sub-class of the Explorer players what we can do is in all the routes we could place one or more puzzles that the player will have solve if they wish to get to the other environment. An example of these puzzles we will use is the Sliding Square Jigsaw puzzles that to win you must fix the image. To make it more interesting we could have different difficulty levels for each route, for example one route will be easy while another route will have a medium difficulty. This difficulty levels for the routes can also tie in with the Achiever/Collector Player Type we can try to attract. This can be done by giving them a special prize which is additionally a collectable item.

A theory that can help enhance the game experience and the main theories that would be used to build the game is that of the Mental Models theory. The reason it should be used is that by using Mental Models, which is “are organized mental structures that let us understand what's going on around us and to be aware of relationships between things in our environment. This, in turn, lets us make predictions about what's going to happen next and what we might want to do first” (Madigan, 2019), if we take advantage of the ‘data’ that players would have automatically collected from playing games, such as symbology and game systems, then we can use this to help players navigate, identify and explore the game world better. One factor that a player’s mental models can influence is the game mechanics, it has been noted that “novice players initially focus on the surface characteristics of the environment and tend to move away from these surface characteristics with additional experience” (Graham, et al., 2006). This is an extremely important feature of human behaviour that has also adapted itself to the video game domain, due to this we must be knowledgeable and research games to see the common denominators that is recognizable in multiple games, so we must be thorough and careful with what we implement into our game otherwise we could end up confusing the player. This can be used by making certain special items non-diegetic so as to stand out more to the player from the environment, we could do this by building the asset in the certain manner or by attracting attention such as making it shine, marking it as something important. We could also use Mental Models when it comes to the genre and the narrative of the game. As we are planning to make this a short prologue and tutorial type level, we could use research on adventure stories to create a narrative which can get players to recognize that the genre is adventure. Since this will be a tutorial level we also have to consider the preconceived notions that come with the game controls, depending on the platform we are using, for example the ‘A’ button on the controller is used to interact with game features while the ‘B’ button is usually used for cancellation. This is why when choosing which platform our game would be made for, we must take into account their controls and what they are commonly linked to. Since a part of Mental Models is that of the person being given the chance for experimentation to build up their understanding of what they are interacting with a tutorial level is the perfect area for the player to test out controls, see their characters abilities and familiarise themselves with the game.

The theories mentioned will be used to enhance the players experience, connect with their personal preferences, and have a sense of familiarity even though they are playing a completely new game. Using the theories will allow us to easily narrow down a target audience for the game while making the game interesting for them to want to continue playing. It will also allow the players to process the game in an easier manner and not overwhelm them due to having features which they have previously encountered numerous times.

 [1] “Easter Egg is a small bonus within a game – sometimes it’s as simple as a little joke, whereas in other cases it might be a full extra video sequence regarding what has been accomplished” (Kumar, et al., 2020)

References  

Dori, A., 2020. Designing  your game mechanics based on player types. [Online]  Available at: https://uxdesign.cc/designing-your-game-mechanics-based-on-player-types-b16a95fb7f60  [Accessed 22 April 2020].

Graham, J., Zheng, L. & Gonzalez, C., 2006. A  Cognitive Approach to Game Usability and Design: Mental Model Development in  Novice Real-Time Strategy Gamers. [Online]  Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7004222_ACognitive_Approach_to_Game_Usability_and_Design_Mental_Model_Development_in_Novice_Real-Time_Strategy_Gamers  [Accessed 23 April 2020].

Johnson-Laird, P. N., 2010. Mental models and human  reasoning. [Online]  Available at: https://www.pnas.org/content/107/43/18243  [Accessed 23 April 2020].

Kumar, J., Herger, M. & Dam, R. F., 2020. Bartle’s  Player Types for Gamification. [Online]  Available at: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/bartle-s-player-types-for-gamification  [Accessed 08 April 2020].

Kyatric, 2013. Bartle's Taxonomy of Player Types (And  Why It Doesn't Apply to Everything). [Online]  Available at: https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/bartles-taxonomy-of-player-types-and-why-it-doesnt-apply-to-everything--gamedev-4173  [Accessed 08 April 2020].

Madigan, J., 2019. Shared Mental Models Win Games. [Online]    Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiemadigan/2019/07/21/shared-mental-models-win-games/#5106f1dc5670  [Accessed 22 April 2020].

Madigan, J., 2019. Why Do People Collect Virtual Items?.  [Online]  Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiemadigan/2019/12/13/why-do-people-collect-virtual-items/#61c963f67cff  [Accessed 22 April 2020].

Mangiatordi, D., 2017. Gamification at work: the 8  PLAYER TYPES. [Online]  Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gamification-work-8-player-types-dominique-mangiatordi-/  [Accessed 08 April 2020].

Melero, J. & Davinia, H.-L., 2014. A Model for the  Design of Puzzle-based Games Including Virtual and Physical Objects. [Online]    Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265206701_A_Model_for_the_Design_of_Puzzle-based_Games_Including_Virtual_and_Physical_Objects  [Accessed 23 April 2020].

[bentuhoekenobi]

In Transit

My mind is relocating. From the 7 years of being and educator and gamedev community volunteer in Auckland to something else.

This transition will take between 2 to 12 months. Likely around 8.

Because of this I am  going to migrate my few posts on my staff blog to here with some post reflection on them.

I’ve also removed mention of my PhD from this blog. Although I am still planning to do the project that was the core of my PhD, it will be different due to the loss of an academic context and the gaining of a commercial one. It is highly unlikely I will ever do PhD. Or re-enter academia.

SOMEHOW I COPE

Published by Ben Kenobi on August 29, 2018

In the interest of documenting my process and outcomes:

for my professional profile,

to promote my events and attract collaborators for research projects,

to slow myself down and do less,

to reflect critically on the outcomes of my efforts and potentially drop responsibilities,

to act as a way to collect all of my efforts in to a single place,

I'll start by identifying value in what I produce to help me select what remains - or becomes - a part of my workload and what doesn't.

As it affects the documentation process itself I'll also be developing workflows to COPE (create once publish everywhere) (Fox, 2017) and identify - and potentially create - value across all metrics: learning, research and leadership.

RISE

Published by Ben Kenobi on August 30, 2018

What a busy couple of days...

SEP AKLGAMEDEV MEETUP - GUARDIAN

I've organized the content and set up the event page for the next AKLgamedev Meetup.

This month coming is the first time since the idea first surfaced a couple of years ago, that the AKLgamedev Meetup is going to provide an 'Indie' Launch Party service. The idea is that the meetup trades a themed catered celebration for a developer presentation and, depending on the size of the studio, some sponsorship contributions.

See the announcement in Yammer event page for more details.

I'm having troubles with the room booking because I'm dead keen to use the WZ building in some new and interesting way.

PHD SUPERVISORS

I have two potential supervisors meetings early next week.

Ultimately I just want someone who can guide me through the PhD process. It doesn't really matter too much what they do. I prefer someone with a qualitative background.

I've been set a deadline of "the end of September" to have my PGR2 accepted.

I also met Boris Bacic who takes the COMP819 Ubiquitous Computing paper. I have asked if I could go along to a class to see what they do there and connect.

OFFICE 365

I've been quite thoroughly testing the new features of 365 - especially those available off-campus.

STRENGTHS + OPPORTUNITIES

We are now using a platform and front end that Microsoft are still willing to support and update. This means obviously good and potentiually easy-to-implement features are now available to us...

Some features seem to work well off campus now (like the scheduling assistant) and I'm hoping to identify interesting work habit opportunities that can make for better work/home habits and more productive off campus working.

Ultimately I am focusing on identifying how this new platform can help us breaking the culture silos at AUT. The financial silos are harder to break, so it's more a matter of either ignoring them or just "playing them" - making them work in ad-hoc ways with 'back-room deals'.

One of the more technical advantages is that it's easy to invite AUT staff and students to the platforms. This is a big deal as the first 'wall' is often enough to turn new adopters away.

Delve has helped me understand a bit more about how the university works and exactly who everyone is. It's still not as good as it could be and I suspect that a lot of the HR information is out of date (e.g. who reports to who).

CHALLENGES

Behaviour change. Even for the willing it's hard to adopt new skills, approaches and workflow cultures.

I've already noticed some features lacking from the suite. For example Trello is still far more advanced in many ways than Planner (although Planner does have some nice things that Trello doesn't). So far I haven't seen enough of a feature 'dip' to warrant not giving it a good test. I'll be testing Planner out, for example, on the Creative Tech Showcase + Awards (staff and students) and some Bachelor of Creative Tech Planning tasks (staff only).

LEGO SKETCHES (DISCONTINUED)

I've also started up my "Lego Sketches" exercise again as part of my PhD. The image above is an example and I'll explain more as I go.

TRANSMEDIA NARRATIVES PRESENTATION PREP

I've started working on a 20min presentation I'm giving at Pete Rive's CTEC704 Transmedia Narratives paper on Sep 19th. It's split in to two halves:

A brief intro to some of the more famous ARG's that have been born out of the commercial video game industry focusing mostly on Fletcher Dunn's presentation on Valve's Potato Sack ARG at Digital NatioNZ 2014.

A quick look at the Suburban Quilt: A street-game about bees. Although not a transmedia project, it was planned to be and it has some parallels with some of design tools and the fact that it needs to be facilitated.I'll then be working my way through the teams talking to them about their projects.

FOREST FOR THE TREES

Published by Ben Kenobi on September 04, 2018

I have two days of solid meetings lined up. So I doubt I'll get much work done.

I'm reminded of the race on Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy that realises that the only way to mask their telepathy was to talk more because beings that talk more usually think less.

...

PHD PROGRESS

I met with my first potential PhD supervisor. We both feel we'll be a good fit.

Next step is to meet with my first potential secondary (Wednesday) and then start on my PGR2 to help clarify to all involved parties what our expectations are. I'll blog my update but I need to narrow down some theoretical frameworks and methodology.

I've asked for some good PhD examples in my area.

SENIOR STUDIO HALF-TIME REFLECTION

During our Senior Studio meeting today we reflected on the crit format.

The students receive a slideshow template that has instructions for what kind of information is expected in what week.

This is a shared doc so all students and staff can see each others progress. I've never had a problem with students deleting or interfering with other team's presentations in the 4 years I've been doing it this way.

This is a formative assignment and feedback is written by all staff present in to the notes of the first slide of each group's presentation. This means that we need a minute or two between each group to clean up the feedback but at the end of the session the assessment task is done.

A roughly clustered continuous timeline is be made. Students are expected to engage with 1-2 before and 1-2 after their own. The idea is to increase engagement:

teams are clustered with projects relevant to their own,

there is often a lot of repetition in the verbal feedback so we only say the repeated stuff once every 3 presentations and constantly remind groups to engage during other crits to hear their feedback,

engaging with a crit is exhausting - the fewer that each student has to see the more they will engage themselves...

What was interesting to me was when one of the 'commercial-video-game' teams had made the terrible mistake of focusing on all the things in their game that didn't matter. Assets and animations and no mechanics. They have a fairly clear final visual aesthetic but were under the unjustified impression that they could design their mechanics in complete abstract. Maybe I wasn't as explicit about that at our last meeting.

The interesting part was that the team they were clustered with had done a pretty rigorous prototyping process making several 'grey-box' (Winters & Zhu, 2018) and they jumped in before I could comment and 'laid in to them'. It was good advice - so I let them go and endorsed them.

The first group, who were mostly younger (half were year two) got to see that the techniques were 'not magic', 'obvious' and something they would be expected to do in a year's time.

O365 REFLECTION - ATTRACTOR LANDSCAPES + BOUNDARIES

A staff member asked if they should consider using Planner in their team.

I'm an avid and relatively expert Trello user. I prefer Favro over Trello but it costs more. I have used both in other organizations and they save a tonne of time. No more agendas - just agenda tags. Minutes are much shorter as the action item info is translated straight to the task during the meeting. Although things like conflicts of interest still need to be reported.

The hardest thing about trying to use all of the good tools that the industry use at the university is that academics don't want to learn them. I'm hoping that the lack of a registration wall, and the fact that if managers start using OneDrive, staff will hopefully gradually start to use the associated apps. I'm not holding my breath. But I'm optimistic.

I've started using Planner with some of my more willing tutors, technicians and professional staff and it's working well:

meeting action items go straight to the buckets on the fly

static info is stored in the associated Sharepoint,

and chatting[1] is done through the associated Teams team.

Although Planner it's definitely a 'Trello-lite' I think the fact that it integrates with the other 365 platforms that have no "registration-wall" - and is part of a infrastructure eco-system that the staff can't really avoid - is why I'm optimistic the culture may gradually shift towards realising these tools may help us not just save time and work more effectively as individuals, but reject some of the silo-culture tendancies we all have.

The hard part is how attractor landscapes (Case, 2018) can be used to show that these tools can help us work across faculties.

Before the coalition of the willing can tackle that we must first prove that they can help us work across faculties.

I've been documenting the pros and cons through this blog. This weeks lists of downsides:

Planner

Teams

Shortcuts. Especially for searching/filtering. Which I do often.

Removing a deadline seems to be impossible and you have to delete the task and start again.

Feature request: Add students from a class to a Teams team (and subsequently a Planner plan, OneDrive folder and Outlook group).

[1] The 'chatting' I'm referring are things like: clarification and exploratory conversation. Not 'off-topic' banter.

MECHATRONICS LAB

We've made positive steps towards streamlining the Mechatronics Lab and equipment loan processes using Office 365 apps.

MONKEY SEE MONKEY DO

My almost 4yr old started kindy today. It was definitely cute. But what was interesting was seeing her observe what we'd all done - introduce ourselves - and then do her most confident and best interpretation. "Hello my name is Amelie. I live in Ruakaka. I go to the beach. And I have so many toys at my house to play with." None of that was scripted. It was all from her watching the adults introduce themselves. She deconstructed our introductions as far as:

Hello my names is [name].

I live in Ruakaka.

A few other things.

DEFENSE

Published by Ben Kenobi on May 30, 2019

I live in a culture that encourages overworking. You need to set your boundaries. Doing everything accomplishes nothing.

RESEARCH

Potential advisor.

Regular meetings. Some structure is necessary. Primary good of regular meetings is spitballing.

Potential Masters supervision with some overlaps.

Project Shadowmeld.

Post Secondary School Play

Macarthur foundation 2010

Gee 2007

identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups

PHD EXAMPLES

Attending an ethics approved playtest.

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Tasks workflow is finally ​almost there. One feature that Planner has that Trello doesn't. A sortable personal task list - removes the need for a separate app to handle you own personal tasks. You just need to create a separate "Personal To Do Planner Plan" for any tasks that you don't want to show up on another team's Plan.

OnePlaceMail looks like it might have some good uses. It's not a big priority for me right now (until more of the team start using Teams). What I'm really looking for is something that can convert an email in to a Planner task. I've Tried using Flow but it's very limited. It's hard, for example, to bring in links (like what happens in the example on that OnePlaceMail site) from a webmail. This guy got it working so the email body is trawled for links that get turned in to link attachments on the card. But it's a lengthy hack. The main thing is that I don't want to lose the initial information from the email. Judging by my forums search, there's not even an easy way to add the email as an attachment to the Planner task.

Case, N. (2018, May). An Interactive Introduction to Attractor Landscapes. Retrieved September 3, 2018, from https://ncase.me/attractors/

Fox, V. (2017, December 5). Five Benefits of Using the Create Once, Publish Everywhere (COPE) Method - Blackboard Blog. Retrieved August 30, 2018, from https://blog.blackboard.com/five-benefits-of-using-the-create-once-publish-everywhere-cope-method/​

Winters, G. J., & Zhu, J. (2018). Guiding Players through Structural Composition Patterns in 3D Adventure Games, 8.

[hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff]

LARB presents an excerpt from Geert Lovink’s latest book, Sad by Design: On Platform Nihilism, which was released this month by Pluto Press.

¤

“Solitary tears are not wasted.” — René Char

“I dreamt about autocorrect last night.” — Darcie Wilder

“The personal is impersonal.”  — Mark Fisher

Try and dream, if you can, of a mourning app. The mobile has come dangerously close to our psychic bone, to the point where the two can no longer be separated. If only my phone could gently weep. McLuhan’s “extensions of man” has imploded right into the exhausted self. Social media and the psyche have fused, turning daily life into a “social reality” that — much like artificial and virtual reality — is overtaking our perception of the world and its inhabitants. Social reality is a corporate hybrid between handheld media and the psychic structure of the user. It’s a distributed form of social ranking that can no longer be reduced to the interests of state and corporate platforms. As online subjects, we too are implicit, far too deeply involved. Likes and followers define your social status. But what happens when nothing can motivate you anymore, when all the self-optimization techniques fail and you begin to carefully avoid these forms of emotional analytics? Compared to others your ranking is low — and this makes you sad.

Omnipresent social media places a claim on our elapsed time, our fractured lives. We’re all sad in our very own way. As there are no lulls or quiet moments anymore, the result is fatigue, depletion, and loss of energy. We’re becoming obsessed with waiting. How long have you been forgotten by your love ones? Time, meticulously measured on every app, tells us right to our face. Chronos hurts. Should I post something to attract attention and show I’m still here? Nobody likes me anymore. As the random messages keep relentlessly piling in, there’s no way to halt them, to take a moment and think it all through.

Delacroix once declared that every day which is not noted is like a day that does not exist. Diary writing used to fulfil that task. Elements of early blog culture tried to update the diary form for the online realm, but that moment has now passed. Unlike the blog entries of the Web 2.0 era, social media have surpassed the summary stage of the diary in a desperate attempt to keep up with real-time regime. Instagram Stories, for example, bring back the nostalgia of an unfolding chain of events — and then disappear at the end of the day, like a revenge act, a satire of ancient sentiments gone by. Storage will make the pain permanent. Better forget about it and move on.

In the online context, sadness appears as a short moment of indecisiveness, a flash that opens up the possibility of a reflection. The frequently used “sad” label is a vehicle, a strange attractor to enter the liquid mess called social media. Sadness is a container. Each and every situation can potentially be qualified as sad. Through this mild form of suffering we enter the blues of being in the world. When something’s sad, things around it become gray. You trust the machine because you feel you’re in control of it. You want to go from zero to hero. But then your propped-up ego implodes and the failure of self-esteem becomes apparent again.

The price of self-control in an age of instant gratification is high. We long to revolt against the restless zombie inside us, but we don’t know how. Our psychic armor is thin and eroded from within, open to behavioral modifications. Sadness arises at the point when we’re exhausted by the online world. After yet another app session in which we failed to make a date, purchased a ticket, and did a quick round of videos, the post-dopamine mood hits us hard. The sheer busyness and self-importance of the world makes you feel joyless. After a dive into the network, we’re drained and feel socially awkward. The swiping finger is tired, and we have to stop.

Sadness has neighboring feelings we can check out. There is the sense of worthlessness, blankness, joylessness, the fear of accelerating boredom, the feeling of nothingness, plain self-hatred while trying to get off drug dependency, those lapses of self-esteem, the laying low in the mornings, those moments of being overtaken by a sense of dread and alienation, up to your neck in crippling anxiety, there is the self-violence, panic attacks, and deep despondency before we cycle all the way back to reoccurring despair. We can go into the deep emotional territory of the Russian toska. Or we can think of online sadness as part of that moment of cosmic loneliness Camus imagined after God created the earth. I wish that every chat were never ending. But what do you do when your inability to respond takes over? You’re heartbroken and delete the session. After yet another stretch of compulsory engagement with those cruel Likes, silly comments, empty text messages, detached emails, and vacuous selfies, you feel empty and indifferent. You hover for a moment, vaguely unsatisfied. You want to stay calm, yet start to lose your edge, disgusted by your own Facebook Memories. But what’s this message that just came in? Strange. Did he respond?

Evidence that sadness today is designed is overwhelming. Take the social reality of WhatsApp. The gray and blue tick marks alongside each message in the app may seem a trivial detail, but let’s not ignore the mass anxiety it’s causing. Forget being ignored. Forget pretending you didn’t read a friend’s text. Some thought that this feature already existed, but in fact two gray tick marks signify only that a message was sent and received — not read. Even if you know what the double tick syndrome is about, it still incites jealousy, anxiety, and suspicion. It may be possible that ignorance is bliss, that by intentionally not knowing whether the person has seen or received the message, your relationship will improve. The bare-all nature of social media causes rifts between lovers who would rather not have this information. But in the information age, this does not bode well with the social pressure to be “on social,” as the Italians call it.

We should be careful to distinguish sadness from anomalies such as suicide, depression, and burnout. Everything and everyone can be called sad, but not everyone is depressed. Much like boredom, sadness is not a medical condition (though never say never because everything can be turned into one). No matter how brief and mild, sadness is the default mental state of the online billions. Its original intensity gets dissipated. It seeps out, becoming a general atmosphere, a chronic background condition. Occasionally — for a brief moment — we feel the loss. A seething rage emerges. After checking for the 10th time what someone said on Instagram, the pain of the social makes us feel miserable, and we put the phone away. Am I suffering from the phantom vibration syndrome? Wouldn’t it be nice if we were offline? Why’s life so tragic? He blocked me. At night, you read through the thread again. Do we need to quit again, to go cold turkey again? Others are supposed to move us, to arouse us, and yet we don’t feel anything anymore. The heart is frozen.

Social media anxiety has found its literary expressions, even if these take decidedly different forms than the despair on display in Franz Kafka’s letters to Felice Bauer. The willingness to publicly perform your own mental health is now a viable strategy in our attention economy. Take L.A. writer Melissa Broder, whose So Sad Today “twitterature” benefited from her previous literary activities as a poet. Broder is the contemporary expert in matters of apathy, sorrow, and uselessness. During one afternoon she can feel compulsive about cheesecakes, show her true self as an online exhibitionist, be lonely out in public, babble and then cry, go on about her short attention span, hate everything, and desire “to fuck up life.” In between taking care of her sick husband and the obligatory meeting with Santa Monica socialites, there are always more “insatiable spiritual holes” to be filled. The more we intensify events, the sadder we are once they’re over. The moment we leave, the urge for the next experiential high arises. As phone and life can no longer be separated, neither can we distinguish between real and virtual, fact or fiction, data or poetry. Broder’s polyamorous lifestyle is an integral part of the precarious condition. Instead of empathy, the cold despair invites us to see the larger picture of a society in permanent anxiety. If anything, Broder embodies Slavoj Žižek’s courage of hopelessness: “Forget the light at the end of the tunnel — it’s actually the headlight of a train about to hit us.”

Once the excitement has worn off, we seek distance, searching for mental detachment. The wish for “anti-experience” arises, as Mark Greif has described it. The reduction of feeling is an essential part of what he calls “the anaesthetic ideology.” If experience is the “habit of creating isolated moments within raw occurrence in order to save and recount them,” the desire to anaesthetize experience is a kind of immune response against “the stimulations of another modern novelty, the total aesthetic environment.”

Most of the time your eyes are glued to a screen, as if it’s now or never. As Gloria Estefan summarized the FOMO condition: “The sad truth is that opportunity doesn’t knock twice.” Then, you stand up and walk away from the intrusions. The fear of missing out backfires, the social battery is empty and you put the phone aside. This is the moment sadness arises. It’s all been too much, the intake has been pulverized and you shut down for a moment, poisoning him with your unanswered messages. According to Greif, “the hallmark of the conversion to anti-experience is a lowered threshold for eventfulness.” A Facebook event is the one you’re interested in, but do not attend. We observe others around us, yet are no longer part of the conversation: “They are nature’s creatures, in the full grace of modernity. The sad truth is that you still want to live in their world. It just somehow seems this world has changed to exile you.” You leave the online arena; you need to rest. This is an inverse movement from the constant quest for experience. That is, until we turn our heads away, grab the phone, swipe, and text back. God only knows what I’d be without the app.

Anxieties that go untreated build up to a breaking point. Yet unlike burnout, sadness is a continuous state of mind. Sadness pops up the second events start to fade away — and now you’re down in the rabbit hole once more. The perpetual now can no longer be captured and leaves us isolated, a scattered set of online subjects. What happens when the soul is caught in the permanent present? Is this what Franco Berardi calls the “slow cancellation of the future”? By scrolling, swiping, and flipping, we hungry ghosts try to fill the existential emptiness, frantically searching for a determining sign — and failing. When the phone hurts and you cry together, that’s technological sadness. “I miss your voice. Call, don’t text.”

We overcome sadness not through happiness, but rather, as Andrew Culp insisted, through a hatred of this world. Sadness occurs in situations where the stagnant “becoming” has turned into a blatant lie. We suffer, and there’s no form of absurdism that can offer an escape. Public access to a 21st-century version of Dadaism has been blocked. The absence of surrealism hurts. What could our social fantasies look like? Are legal constructs such as creative commons and cooperatives all we can come up with? It seems we’re trapped in smoothness, skimming a surface littered with impressions and notifications. The collective imaginary is on hold. What’s worse, this banality itself is seamless, offering no indicators of its dangers and distortions. As a result, we’ve become subdued. Has the possibility of myth become technologically impossible? Instead of creatively externalizing our inner shipwrecks, we project our need for strangeness on humanized robots. The digital is neither new nor old, but — to use Culp’s phrase — it will become cataclysmic when smooth services fall apart into tragic ruins. Faced with the limited possibilities of the individual domain, we cannot positively identify with the tragic manifestation of the collective being called social media. We can neither return to mysticism nor to positivism. The naïve act of communication is lost — and this is why we cry.

¤

Geert Lovink is a media theorist and internet critic and the author of Zero Comments, Networks Without a Cause, Social Media Abyss, and Sad by Design: On Platform Nihilism. He founded the Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and teaches at the European Graduate School. He stopped using Facebook in 2010.

The post This Is Why We Cry: From “Sad by Design: On Platform Nihilism” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://bit.ly/2YAr2Re

[corinehackett-blog]

Family Court Tyranny Against Dads Versus The Cover.

I invested final Mommy's Time taking it easy on an excursion covering under the warm skies from the Boston Harbor - thus warm, in fact, that my other half as well as I sought among the only insufficient plants atop Spectacle Island for shade. Wedding ceremony might be actually additionally a substantial evening to fitting your needs collectively along with for the mother. Various fathers are under the feeling that if you grant the mama to secure full guardianship first time round, that they can easily rebound in a year or more and also apply for joint guardianship, however this hardly ever ever operates. She additionally mentioned she possessed cosmetic surgery to get rid of the monstrousness" with which her mother taunted her. They have a quite small gestation time frame and also the mother continues to nourish the child also when that is completely grown. Male discussed to me that their self-worth is actually quite linked in to their work as well as if something isn't working out during that area it causes all of them to overlook whatever else to aim to correct whatever they experience mistakes.

I can not think this mom is being disciplined for attempting to provide her children a far better life. My granny has made it her passing away yearn for me to begin keeping and talking consulting with my Mama again. Little bit of else is extra comforting compared to neighboring yourself along with Nature's offerings after an occupied nine-to-five workday or a total program with little ones and house. The eco-friendly and/or blue different colors this stone coordinate with several clothing, a truth which has no doubt brought about aquamarine's recognition. Human beings often tend to be attracted to those that are taken into consideration to be attractors i.e. folks that are actually beautiful or at least physically eye-catching while they are put off by those that are actually unsightly. This allegory that contrasts the mommies' palms to a shrivelled burnt granadilla skin" (lines 5-6) defines the grow older and harsh labour intense life of the mama. If your grown-up kid still needs you to become capable to manage, then I would certainly advise that one thing is really wrong. A male that is actually argumentative is actually the reverse of my dad, yet much like my mommy. That's her true love for him that makes the son start believing that his mommy is the greatest worldwide. It was actually composed the congregation Anna's mama used to attend, on the wedding anniversary of her fatality. Or even, she puts her kid in a situation where he must selected between the better half or even the mother in legislation. This has actually been set up that kids in the womb reveal points alike with their mom. A lot of proto Brythonic cultures left behind little bit of sculptures from body fat females often strongly believed to become mother - goddesses. Actually, Mama Gothel is actually certainly not her mama in all and is actually utilizing her for selfish methods. If you believe a person is actually ugly at that point it ´ s your viewpoint as well as nothing succeeded ´ t modification that. Our grandparents failed to do this, our pre-human forefathers didn't do that, so there need to be something incorrect with it, one thing evil, sinful. The mother-daughter connection is such that the wedding day of her little girl is actually extremely significant for the mommy. Perhaps the kids's mama or an additional family member will have the ability to step in if that were the case. The gold tone exterior web links from the bracelet is actually matched through dark polyurethane jagged interior web links, a perfect prologue for the cumbersome frame surrounding the dial, readily available in black or blue. Mama of the bridegroom toast samples possess tips featured which enable any type of audio speaker to jot down the greatest wedding ceremony speech. Anyway I believe the check out was practically as anticipated - he took presents for everybody and still dealt with to rub a handful of folks up visit the up coming site upside-down; that is a particular ability from his which doesn't seem to have actually discolored with time. The second rhyme was actually written for a hand created memory card that Emily created her mama for Mother's Day. Gail has two of one of the most terrific daughters around the world, however her mommy have not contacted her since she wed Carlos, her university sweetie, which is actually inappropriate to her mama because he's Latino.

[theodorasresearchjournal-blog]

RESEARCH ARTEFACT // Research Update IV - A focus on generative, algorithm-based art

Definitions of Generative Art

“The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” — Sol LeWitt, 1967.

-art that in whole or in part has been created with the use of an autonomous system

-It should be evident from the above description of the evolution of generative art that process (or structuring) and change (or transformation) are among its most definitive features, and that these features and the very term 'generative' imply dynamic development and motion. ...(the result) is not a creation by the artist but rather the product of the generative process - a self-precipitating structure (Clauser, 1998)

-Celestino Soddu, Chairman of Generative Art Conferences, Director of Generative Design lab of Politecnico di Milano University, Scientific Director of ARGENIA Association => a contemporary overview of Generative Art:

“Generative Art is the idea realized as genetic code of artificial events, as construction of dynamic complex systems able to generate endless variations. Each Generative Project is a concept-software that works producing unique and non-repeatable events, like music, images or 3D Objects, as possible and manifold expressions of the generating idea strongly recognizable as a vision belonging to an artist / designer / musician / architect /mathematician. This generative Idea / human-creative-act make an unpredictable, amazing and endless expansion of human creativity. We can create species of events with a recognizable identity, following our vision. Computers are simply the tools for its storage in memory and execution. This approach opens a new era in Art, Design and Composition: the challenge of a new naturalness of the artificial event as a mirror of Nature. Variations, like in Bach music, are the best strong communication of the Idea. Once more man emulates Nature, as in the act of making Art. This approach suddenly opened the possibility to rediscover possible fields of human creativity that would be unthinkable without computer tools. If these tools, at the beginning of the computer era, seemed to extinguish the human creativity, today, with he generative approach, directly operates on codes of Harmony and on codes of Identity. They become tools that open new fields and enhance our understanding of creativity as an indissoluble synthesis between art and science. After two hundred years of the old industrial era of necessarily cloned objects, music, architectures, communications the one-of-a-kind object becomes an essential answer to emergent contemporary aesthetical needs.”

- In essence, all generative art focuses on the process by which an artwork is made and this is required to have a degree of autonomy and independence from the artist who defines it.

- John McCormack identifies a distinction between what might be termed “strong” and “weak” generative art. Strong generative art gives creative autonomy and independence primarily to the computer, minimising the creative signature of the human who designed the system. In contrast, weak generative art uses the computer more passively as a tool or assistant, the human artist having primary creative responsibility and autonomy. 

-This distinction is complemented by different views of art within the generative art community. These views range from a perception that art primarily refers to stand-alone art-objects that are evaluated for their formal aesthetic value, to understanding art as an embedded social and cultural activity within which machines are currently unable to participate independently. In this latter view, relations and artistic meaning emerge through a network of interactions between people and their activities.

-”This (generative art) is a typical example of the move in art towards automation arising from the current mathematisation of the world. A phenomenon that is certainly inescapable and all the more revolutionary as it also puts the role of human beings in the creative process in perspective. “ (Extract from http://media.digitalarti.com/blog/digitalarti_mag/algorithmic_art_the_age_of_the_automation_of_art)

Philip Galanter on Generative Art:

“What is Generative Art? Complexity Theory as a Context for Art Theory”  Philip Galanter, BA, MFA

Generative Art and the Question of Authorship 

- “Certainly when one turns the creation of a work of art over to a machine, and part of the work is created without the participation of human intuition, some will see a resonance with contemporary post-structural thinking. Some generative artists work specifically in the vein of problematising traditional notions about authorship. But the generative approach has no particular content bias, and generative artists are free to explore life, death, love, war, beauty, or any other theme.”

Hans Haacke’s ‘Statement’ as a proposed manifesto for generative art

- “As curators for the exhibit “COMPLEXITY – Art and Complex Systems” Ellen K. Levy and I were thrilled to be able to present Haacke’s 1963 piece “Condensation Cube”. A simple acrylic cube with a bit of water at the bottom and sealed shut, “Condensation Cube” becomes a miniature weather system as an ever changing display of condensation forms on the cube’s walls. 

This work anticipated meteorologist Ralph Lorenz’s discovery of chaotic strange attractors, and stands as a wonderful example of generative art. The following artists statement written by Haacke in 1965 could stand today as a manifesto for generative artists exploring complex adaptive systems. 

_______________________________________________________________________

‘HANS HAACKE

Statement 

...make something which experiences, reacts to its environment, changes, is non-stable... 

...make something indeterminate, which always looks different, the shape of which cannot be predicted precisely... 

...make something which cannot 'perform' without the assistance of its environment... 

...make something which reacts to light and temperature changes, is subject to air currents and depends, in its functioning, on the forces of gravity... 

...make something which the 'spectator' handles, with which he plays and thus animates... 

...make something which lives in time and makes the 'spectator' experience time... 

...articulate: something natural... 

Cologne, 

January 1965.’ ”

_______________________________________________________________________

Generative Art in the context of postmodernism

“Certainly one can make generative art that exhibits a postmodern attitude. Many do. But one can also make generative art that attempts to refute post-modernism. 

Two of the most significant impacts of post-modernism on art are: (1) the proposed abandonment of formalism and beauty as a meaningful area of exploration, and (2) the proposed abandonment of the notion that art can reveal truth in any nonrelativistic way. Form, beauty, and knowledge are held to be mere social constructions. 

Generative art can be used to attack these fundamental points head on. First, generative artists can explore form as something other than arbitrary social convention. Using complex systems artists can create form that emerges as the result of naturally occurring processes beyond the influence of culture and man. 

Second, having done this, generative artists can demonstrate by compelling example reasons to maintain faith in our ability to understand our world. The generative artist can remind us that the universe itself is a generative system. And through generative art we can regain our sense of place and participation in that universe.”

(Full text available at 

http://jonmccormack.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/TenQuestionsV3.pdf)

10 Questions Regarding Generative Art

1: Can a machine originate anything? That is, can it generate something new, meaningful, surprising and of value: a poem, an artwork, a useful idea, a solution to a long-standing problem? Certainly, computers have played a role in creating all these things and more, but how much of the creativity comes derives from the program and how much from the programmer?

2: What is it like to be a computer that makes art? The goal of programming a machine to be an autonomous artist seems to impose a double standard: we’re asking the machine to be autonomous, yet we’re also asking for human creativity, assessed by human standards. If we abandon this second constraint, we then have the problem of recognition – what could possibly be the defining characteristics of an autonomous computer artist?

3: Can human aesthetics be formalised? If an aesthetic measure or algorithm can be devised, then it could be used to automate the generation of aesthetic artefacts (using evolutionary techniques or machine learning, for instance). If the formalisation included knowledge of individual tastes and preferences, the artefacts could be tailored differently to every individual, uniting modern mass-production with aesthetic haute couture on an unprecedented scale.

4: What new kinds of art does the computer enable? Computation is a relatively new medium for creative expression, but computers appropriated for digital art may simply use them as display devices, or for automating prior processes or paradigms [4]. Generative art predates the digital computer and many widely respected generative artworks do not involve digital computers. So what – beyond generating more art – does generative computer art bring that is new to art? Does the computer change or enable artistic possibilities beyond mimicry, automation and remediation? 

5: In what sense is generative art representational, and what is it representing? Unless software design is conceptualised directly at the level of individual bits, it is impossible to write a computer program without recourse to some form of representation. The nature of programming enforces this constraint. Generative computer art often draws on ideas and algorithms from the simulation sciences. A simulation involves the representation of important characteristics and dynamical behaviours of some target system. However, few generative artists would view or conceptualise their works as direct simulations of reality. If generative art is representational, what is it representing?

6: What is the role of randomness in generative art? What does the use of randomness say about the place of intentionality in the making of art? John Cage wanted to take the artist’s ego out of the production of the work, but in Iannis Xenakis’s compositions “randomness is introduced as a necessary part of a willed product”.

7: What can computational generative art tell us about creativity? Creativity is highly sought after. Brains and bodies do it, societies do it, and evolution does it, but how do these things give rise to artefacts and ideas that are new, surprising and valuable?

8: What characterises good generative art? Why is generative art in need of special quality criteria? Is it better considered alongside other current practices? Consider two important principles that differentiate generative art from other practices. The first is that the primary artistic intent in generative art is expressed in the design, specification and construction of the generative process. This process is what the artist creates, and as such should arguably be the subject of scrutiny in appreciation of what it produces. Secondly, the way this process is interpreted or realised is also the locus of artistic intent, and is intimately intertwined with the first principle.

9: What can we learn about art from generative art? Generative art redistributes traditional notions of authorship and intention, introducing autonomous processes and agents, allowing us to appreciate the systemic aspects of contemporary art production, exhibition and consumption from an illuminating perspective. [...] Additionally, generative art’s emphasis on algorithmic techne and explicable mechanisms alienate it from the mainstream art world, which often remains tied to the “irreducibility of the work of art” [5]. What then, is generative art’s place and role within contemporary culture? Is it confined to academic research or just a commercial-art tool currently in vogue, but possibly nearing exhaustion? Is its role simply as a generator of new techniques for application in the design and cultural industries? Is it closer to craft practice than art practice? 

10: What future developments would force us to rethink our answers? The staggering changes brought about by developments in computing technology present us with many opportunities to rethink our relationship to the world. In recent years, digital technology has bound itself to our social organisation and is slowly pervading everyday objects to create an internet of things. These in turn present new niches for technological evolution, social and creative change. The complex, emergent nature of these relationships makes prediction of their long term impact difficult. But change will undoubtedly occur, and these changes will force us to rethink our questions.

Excerpts from the research paper “Ten Questions Concerning Generative Computer Art Jon McCormack”, Oliver Bown, Alan Dorin, Jonathan McCabe, Gordon Monro and Mitchell Whitelaw, 12 April 2012.

(Full text available at:

http://jonmccormack.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/TenQuestionsV3.pdf)

Resources on algorithmic and generative art:

- a walkthrough theoretical perspectives and central artists:

https://www.mat.ucsb.edu/~g.legrady/academic/courses/01sp200a/students/brentYokota/200a_fin.html

- An ample overview by Robert Verostko:

http://www.verostko.com/algorithm.html

- ‘The Methodology of Generative Art’  by Tjark Ihmels, Julia Riedel:

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/generative-tools/generative-art/1/

- the ‘Vademecum of digital art’ by GRATIN:

http://www.gratin.org/vademecum_en.html

-’Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art’ by E.A. Shanken

https://www.leonardo.info/isast/articles/shanken.pdf

-  ‘Read_me, run_me, execute_meCode as Executable Text: Software Art and its Focus on Program Code as Performative Text’ by Inke Arns

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/generative-tools/read_me/1/

[ileneca7]

An Interview with David Brin

Our guest David Brin is an astrophysicist, technology consultant, and best-selling author who speaks, writes, and advises on a range of topics including national defense, creativity, and space exploration. He is also a well-known and influential futurist (one of four “World’s Best Futurists,” according to The Urban Developer), and it is his ideas on the future, specifically the future of civilization, that I hope to learn about here.   

Ilene: David, you base many of your predictions of the future on a theory of historical conflict between two models of civilization -– the diamond and the pyramid. Can we start with a brief explanation of these?

David: In somewhere like 99% of human cultures, the stable attractor state was feudalism or some variant, a pyramidal society with owner lords controlling ignorant masses. This structure was a huge success for the topmost males, who got harems, reinforcing the system… but it was lousy at governance because it inherently suppresses criticism and ferment and creativity from below. Whenever human males get a lot of power, we feel within us a temptation to consolidate that power and re-create that pyramid.

The Enlightenment diamond-shaped society, with a huge, prosperous, socially-mobile, empowered middle class, is by far the most productive and creative system the world has ever seen. In 200 years, we accomplished more than all other societies combined, and not just in physical endeavors. Also in attacking age-old assumptions about race, gender and environmental blindness. Adam Smith showed us how to use competition – open and fair – to create fecund arenas – markets, democracy, science, etc. – that in turn spawn cornucopia.

But the diamond is unstable. The very same wealth that we use to attract creative people to take risks and foster new goods, services, etc. starts to build a new caste of owner-oligarchs, whom Adam Smith knew to be the inherent enemies of the very system that engendered them! Marx was also aware of this basic “contradiction of capitalism.” Capitalism’s winners are tempted to become cheaters, using wealth to suppress new competition. And cheating kills capitalism, perverting it and giving it a bad name.

Ilene: Lately, it seems like there are a lot of winners who are also cheaters… are we going backwards?

David: Amid 6,000 years of feudal despotisms, a few brief moments of illumination happened when citizens rose up to rule themselves. Periclean Athenian democracy was spectacularly agile and creative, but only lasted about one human lifespan, before it was crushed by neighboring oligarchies. The Florentine Republic was shorter lived. But we’ve managed about 250 years of an amazing experiment.

So don’t be myopic. Other generations of Americans faced crises and attempts by would-be feudal lords to smash our diamond back into the old pattern. Generally, these phases of the American Civil War (we’re in phase eight) have ended surprisingly well, as we extend freedom and rights and dignity to ever more kinds of people. But at the time, each crisis seemed impossible to overcome.

We need confidence. Alas, that is why many voices in power and media try to spread gloom.

Ilene: You said above that we are in Civil War, phase eight? What were the previous seven phases of American Civil War?

David: I describe them elsewhere (e.g. Phases of the American Civil War). Simplistically speaking, there have been two Americas. One is dynamically forward-looking, obsessed with trying new things and taking on new challenges. It respects pragmatism, negotiation and science, admires the self-made man or woman, and tends to keep widening the circle of those who can play. The other side of our character is romantic drawn by mythologies and nostalgia for the past – its rituals and symbols and hierarchies. One might call this our “confederate” side, but indeed, those traits were official doctrine in most of those older societies wherein our ancestors dwelled. Moreover, you can see romantic leanings all across the spectrum, in the incantations of Karl Marx and the conjurings of J.R.R. Tolkien and George Lucas. The Nazis were an extremely romantic movement, as were the Stalinists.

What of those phases of our recurring civil war? Well… Phase one took place in the South, during the Revolution, when the British found their strongest support among Loyalist/Tory militias in Georgia and the Carolinas.  It was Scots-Irish hill settlers, fighting for Daniel Morgan, who tipped the balance in that struggle, toward what would become the American Experiment.

Phase two featured a period when southern politicians grew ever stronger in control of the U.S. federal government.  True, Andrew Jackson clamped down on John C. Calhoun’s secessionism, in the 1830s, and kept the nation together. But Jackson’s overall sentiments were what we might call “confederate.” Indeed, southern control over levers of power only grew until, by 1860, five of nine Supreme Court justices were slave-owners.

There’s no time or space here, to go into great detail, so I’ll leave the others as an assignment!

Ilene: Thank you, I’ll check that out. I’m curious, if, as you’ve suggested, our imaginations cause us to be delusional, how do we still manage to advance?

David: Human beings are inherently misled into subjective fantasies, but there’s a saving grace. We all have different delusions. Other people don’t necessarily share yours, and hence they will help you penetrate yours through the miracle of criticism! Others will tell you about your delusions.  (And boy, will you be eager to return the favor!)

The greatest discovery of our recent, enlightenment revolution was reciprocal accountability, a method that allows adversarial competition to work its magic in flat-open-fair arenas, the greatest of which are markets, democracy, science, justice courts, sports. All five are regulated to limit cheating and monolithic domination. In all five, the core principle is that empowered participants keep an eye on each other.

Competition by itself always leads to cheating by the powerful, who try to establish pyramids of power, like feudalism. Yet, competition is the great creative force! So how do we save it from its own contradictions? By cooperation! By cooperating with each other, via politics, to make rules and prevent cheating, so that competition can thrive!

This is clear in the fifth arena — sports. Without tight rules and regulations and referees, any sporting league would collapse. As it happens, something similar is why our other four arenas – democracy, science, courts, and markets – work better now than they ever did, in any previous society. But cheaters will innovate, and all of our creative-competitive arenas are currently under attack by rogues, seeking to re-establish pyramids of inherited power.

Ilene: Do the arenas for competition that you describe have different ideal amounts of rules and rituals?

David: Markets need creativity and can afford a high error rate, so their ritualized combat is loose. Science can regulate itself largely because practitioners are watching each other, fiercely. Courtrooms need very little creativity but a very low error rate, hence they are meticulous, slow, patterned and structured. Of course, this starts to break down when the judges become political shills.

Ilene: Do you think there is still a long way to go to reach satisfactory balances in the marketplace and other arenas?

David: Markets are the filthiest competitive arena, but produce the wealth that keeps the others going. The left denounces “competition” and the right denounces “regulation” when it is only regulated competition that has ever prevented inevitable human cheating and allowed our creativity to flower.

All the five competitive arenas feature ritualized combat – in the marketplace, elections, science conferences, the courtroom, and playing field – where “truth” is determined in terms of best products, policies, theories, cases and teams. But there is no similar way for us to adjudicate between ten million rumors, stories, lies and fake news items that spread each hour on the web. I predicted this would be a problem 25 years ago, in my novel EARTH. Alas, no one heeds science fiction authors!

Ilene: Perhaps we should! How did you know?

David: I don’t know why some things seem obvious. In the twenty years since I published The Transparent Society, almost every single page has come true, in one form or another.

Ilene: This quote of yours made me wonder whether insatiability might be like a design flaw, hardwired into us. Do you think it is?

The question of satiability is crucial here. Among the elites in any society, there are those who measure their status and contentment by their relative wealth — the degree by which they appear to be elevated over the majority. Others measure their sense of success in terms of personal goals — items they want to own and things they want to do or achieve. To these latter individuals, it is immaterial whether millions of others get to own and do the same things. In fact, the more the merrier!

Distinguishing between these two motivations for seeking wealth can be profoundly significant, not only psychologically but also philanthropically. Many political and social disagreements among members of the monied elite arise from tension between these two views of wealth — whether it is a means to achieve status above others, or a means to achieve specific and tangible goals. What seems to determine the balance is satiability, having to do with an individual’s ability to draw genuine satisfaction and a sense of completion from the achievement of his or her previously stated goals.

David: Well, well. Whoever wrote that sure had a strong point of view! I hope he got plenty of critical scrutiny to penetrate or interrogate delusions! It would also be nice if he got to test that theory. By getting rich.

Ilene: Sign me up too! You’ve been saying that we are in the midst of a culture war.  Now, if anything, this culture war has been getting more intense. Science is under attack; even basic human rights principles are under attack. Sometimes it feels like we’re losing.

David: It’s a mistake to get distracted by matters like symbolism, or “left vs right,” or even racism, as appalling and deadly evil as it is. The main issue today – underlying all others — is the destruction of our ability to use facts, to refute rumors and to demolish lies. To provide a basis for grownup negotiation.

And it’s not just in science!  Can you name for me one profession of high knowledge and skill that’s not under attack by extremists on the far left or today’s entire right? Teachers, medical doctors, journalists, civil servants, law professionals, economists, skilled labor, professors… oh, yes and now the intelligence community and military officer corps, which are being denounced as a malignant “deep state.”

We could get past the surface problems of culture war – and yes, finally crush racism and sexism and environmental neglect – if facts were still weapons that moderates could use against fanatics. Or that sane adults could use for negotiation. The destruction of fact has been the top priority of those re-igniting civil war.

Ilene: And they have been pretty successful! A substantial portion of our population distrusts scientists and rejects science. Climate change denial is a good example. In spite of tremendous evidence, many people believe climate change is a hoax. They believe thousands of scientists are part of a conspiracy which sells climate change for its own purposes. Why has this “War on Science” been so effective?

David: Science had to be attacked first. Most Americans do not buy into the “War on Science,” but a large enough minority has that they now will believe any cult incantation can substitute for facts or evidence.

Think about how this fits the model of an oligarchic coup. The New Lords will never be able to take complete control so long as fact-people like journalists, teachers, economists, doctors, the FBI… and yes, scientists… can stand in their way saying, “the facts don’t agree with you.”

Ilene: And in the arena of democracy, an anti-science minority now has enormous political power…?

David: The core objective of the enemies of the Republic has been achieved – the total destruction of politics as a problem-solving methodology for the American Republic. The very word has been trashed. And the “Hastert Rule” promises damnation for any member of one party who dares to offer to negotiate with the other.

Ilene: What are your predictions for the US and the world in 50 years?

David: About a century ago, John M. Keynes prophesied that rising industrial production would pour forth so much wealth with such automated efficiency that the forty hour week (just then coming into fashion) would be reduced to thirty hours, then twenty, as jobs were shared and the working class got more leisure time. As it happened, there was a vast world out there that still needed to industrialize, and the West’s appetite for ever-more goods kept factories and mines etc. humming hard for all of those decades. And the two were related, for the developing world was uplifted primarily out of the spending of Americans and others, on trillions of dollars’ worth of crap we never needed.

But there’s a light on the horizon. A century forestalled, the era foreseen by Keynes appears about to dawn, with automation seeming about to render most kinds of human industrial employment wholly or partially obsolete. Indeed, many white-collar jobs and even creative tasks seem prone to takeover by AI systems. Local production of goods and food may end the long chains of container ships carrying cargoes across oceans, an ecological godsend, but sending the world economy into convulsions.

If the Keynes era dawns, then we’ll be faced with many decisions:

Who will own the means of production and the cornucopia that pours forth. If it is a classic, feudal pyramid, then exploitation and unfairness are guaranteed, followed by revolution. But it needn’t be that way.

Will paychecks be replaced by UBI or Universal Basic Income? Or else by giving every citizen a “share” in these urban factories and farms, so they can live off dividends?

Either way, how will folks spend their time?  We are already in an under-appreciated era of hobbies, pastimes, avocations and amateur sagacities. There are more blacksmiths and sword makers in the U.S. today that in the Wild West or European middle ages.  In my novel Foundation’s Triumph… and separately in EARTH… I posited an Age of Amateurs, and it is already here.  But… will that suffice for all people?

If all of this happens under the guidance of Artificial Intelligence, will they help us to design better ways for a better era?  And will we agree with those super-minds about what is “better”?

Ilene: When do you think AI will surpass us and what will “they” do with us?

David: For this, let me refer you to my big talk on AI, before a packed house at IBM’s World of Watson congress in Las Vegas, October 2016. A punchy tour of big perspectives on Intelligence, as well as both artificial and human augmentation. (Innovation Talks: David Brin.)

Ilene: Do you think there is more to a human being than what can be replicated by AI? Something non-reproducible, maybe non-material?

David: Brain science suggests we may be harder to emulate than the AI optimists and “singularity” zealots claim. First we thought we’d need the same number of computer binary “flops” as there are neurons in a brain – in the hundred billions range. Then folks said we’ll need to emulate the number of inter-cellular synapses, in the hundreds of trillions. Now we know that each synapse flash is accompanied by “calculations’ taking place inside the neurons and surrounding tissues… perhaps a hundred quadrillion murky, nonlinear bits of info processing. Oh, we are marvels, all right.

Still, I wager within just a few years computer emulations will seem intelligent enough to cause us real uproar.

Ilene: If attacks by cheaters which destabilize human society are a consequence of human insatiability, perhaps we could create AI that is less insatiable?

David: Watch that video of my IBM talk. I describe six approaches to making AI. One of them – “machine learning” – is really taking off.  One of them – secret Wall Street trading programs — could end our species. But one of them, portrayed in EXISTENCE and some of my short stories, could offer us a soft landing into a world of AI beings who are decent folks. If we raise them as our children. As humans.

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To learn more about David, please visit him at his website and blog. 

Originally posted at Phil’s Stock World.

Pictures courtesy of Pixabay.

An Interview with David Brin was originally published on MarketShadows