6 ms·

Reminds of this story from a while ago: the head writer for Call of Duty switched to working at a think tank, given his experience imagining the future of warfa

by bbctol 9y ago

Reminds of this story from a while ago: the head writer for Call of Duty switched to working at a think tank, given his experience imagining the future of warfare. http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/09/22/call-of-duty-star-video-game-director-takes-unusual-think-tank-job/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/09/22/call-of-duty-star-video-...

hammock 9y ago
It's the opposite of when Valve hired a Chief Economist in 2012[1]. We've come full circle. [1]http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/06/18/yanis_varoufakis_becomes_chief_economist_for_valve_software.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/06/18/yanis_varoufa...
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  CCP (the EVE Online people) have a whole team of economists also. My favorite story, though, is still epidemiologists studying the Corrupted Blood plague in WoW for real world lessons on bioterrorism.
  - alasdair_ 9y ago
    Hopefully they don't come to the conclusion that "rebooting" is the best way to solve the problem.
    - thevardanian 9y ago
      It's ok just because C-173 got Cronenberged there are still plenty of dimensions left. Sometimes rebooting is the only option.
      - logfromblammo 9y ago
        Look, Rick, you can't just eliminate options just because they seem like too much work for you, specifically. What you meant to say is that sometimes rebooting is the easiest and least boring option.
      - doc_gunthrop 9y ago
        Bit of a nitpick, but it's actually [C-137](http://rickandmorty.wikia.com/wiki/Dimension_C-137 http://rickandmorty.wikia.com/wiki/Dimension_C-137)
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - aeorgnoieang 9y ago
    Holy fuck that is awesome
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      It's a wild story. The craziest part was that the players who intentionally spread the plague would retreat to other regions and log out in an attempt to incubate the disease across victim die-off and mod actions, then return to cities to reinfect people. That's what got epidemiologists hooked, because disease control in the face of enemy action is (fortunately) short on real-world data. The question of how the plague could be resolved without server-level actions (which are obviously unavailable in the real world) is awfully interesting.
      - mirimir 9y ago
        I've at times wondered why Ebola hasn't been weaponized. Rather like slow motion suicide bombing. If you're healthy, you have a few days of decent fitness, while shedding virus. It'd be hard, psychologically. But consider the 9/11 attackers. They worked for months, preparing to suicide.
        nonbel 9y ago
        Ebola isn't going to kill everybody, apparently ~25% of people show pretty much no symptoms at all: http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0005087 http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal... It is pretty usual for viral infections to have a range of effects with only a small percent (~15% in the case of measles I believe) of people getting sick enough to report it. I don't know what that number is for ebola but it always seemed to me the initial estimates of its virulance were going to be high. I mean, nobody was going to go reporting flu like symptoms in an african village to the CDC.
        Bartweiss 9y ago
        I've wondered this also. The question occurred to me when I heard about the epidemiology of Ebola in pre-Spanish South America. Supposedly (haven't verified) the disease incubated in wild animals, and occasionally crossed over into human populations. What limited an epidemic was that travel was slow and rare enough that the disease would spread and debilitate a single settlement before anyone could transfer it too far. (Obviously late-stage patients don't do a lot of traveling.) So the question becomes why this hasn't changed with increased access to travel. Quarantine measures and sensible behavior appear to be the answer for inadvertent spread, but what's stopped malicious transfer? Is it just too hard to find and contract before quarantine goes into place? Is it tactically or psychologically unappealing for the groups willing to use other suicide tactics?
  - Fomite 9y ago
    I was one of the epidemiologists who wrote that paper :)
- codeulike 9y ago
  ... who then went on to be Minister of Finance for the Greek government.
  - hinkley 9y ago
    "DO YOU THINK THIS IS SOME KIND OF A GAME?"
  - travmatt 9y ago
    I remember cracking up laughing when he described Germany's proposed austerity measures as 'fiscal waterboarding' - such a vivid description.
kevinmchugh 9y ago
The US Army consulted in October 2001 with Hollywood screenwriters to come up with terrorism scenarios they couldn't foresee: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2001/10/10/army-looks-to-hollywood-for-scenario-618809784.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/2001/10/10/army-looks-to-hollyw... Details are still scant: https://www.wired.com/2007/03/foiled_by_foia_/ https://www.wired.com/2007/03/foiled_by_foia_/

by bbctol 9y ago

hammock 9y ago

It's the opposite of when Valve hired a Chief Economist in 2012[1]. We've come full circle. [1]http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/06/18/yanis_varoufakis_becomes_chief_economist_for_valve_software.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/06/18/yanis_varoufa...

Bartweiss 9y ago
CCP (the EVE Online people) have a whole team of economists also. My favorite story, though, is still epidemiologists studying the Corrupted Blood plague in WoW for real world lessons on bioterrorism.
- alasdair_ 9y ago
  Hopefully they don't come to the conclusion that "rebooting" is the best way to solve the problem.
  - thevardanian 9y ago
    It's ok just because C-173 got Cronenberged there are still plenty of dimensions left. Sometimes rebooting is the only option.
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      Look, Rick, you can't just eliminate options just because they seem like too much work for you, specifically. What you meant to say is that sometimes rebooting is the easiest and least boring option.
    - doc_gunthrop 9y ago
      Bit of a nitpick, but it's actually [C-137](http://rickandmorty.wikia.com/wiki/Dimension_C-137 http://rickandmorty.wikia.com/wiki/Dimension_C-137)
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- aeorgnoieang 9y ago
  Holy fuck that is awesome
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    It's a wild story. The craziest part was that the players who intentionally spread the plague would retreat to other regions and log out in an attempt to incubate the disease across victim die-off and mod actions, then return to cities to reinfect people. That's what got epidemiologists hooked, because disease control in the face of enemy action is (fortunately) short on real-world data. The question of how the plague could be resolved without server-level actions (which are obviously unavailable in the real world) is awfully interesting.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      I've at times wondered why Ebola hasn't been weaponized. Rather like slow motion suicide bombing. If you're healthy, you have a few days of decent fitness, while shedding virus. It'd be hard, psychologically. But consider the 9/11 attackers. They worked for months, preparing to suicide.
      - nonbel 9y ago
        Ebola isn't going to kill everybody, apparently ~25% of people show pretty much no symptoms at all: http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0005087 http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal... It is pretty usual for viral infections to have a range of effects with only a small percent (~15% in the case of measles I believe) of people getting sick enough to report it. I don't know what that number is for ebola but it always seemed to me the initial estimates of its virulance were going to be high. I mean, nobody was going to go reporting flu like symptoms in an african village to the CDC.
      - Bartweiss 9y ago
        I've wondered this also. The question occurred to me when I heard about the epidemiology of Ebola in pre-Spanish South America. Supposedly (haven't verified) the disease incubated in wild animals, and occasionally crossed over into human populations. What limited an epidemic was that travel was slow and rare enough that the disease would spread and debilitate a single settlement before anyone could transfer it too far. (Obviously late-stage patients don't do a lot of traveling.) So the question becomes why this hasn't changed with increased access to travel. Quarantine measures and sensible behavior appear to be the answer for inadvertent spread, but what's stopped malicious transfer? Is it just too hard to find and contract before quarantine goes into place? Is it tactically or psychologically unappealing for the groups willing to use other suicide tactics?
- Fomite 9y ago
  I was one of the epidemiologists who wrote that paper :)
codeulike 9y ago
... who then went on to be Minister of Finance for the Greek government.
- hinkley 9y ago
  "DO YOU THINK THIS IS SOME KIND OF A GAME?"
- travmatt 9y ago
  I remember cracking up laughing when he described Germany's proposed austerity measures as 'fiscal waterboarding' - such a vivid description.

kevinmchugh 9y ago

The US Army consulted in October 2001 with Hollywood screenwriters to come up with terrorism scenarios they couldn't foresee: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2001/10/10/army-looks-to-hollywood-for-scenario-618809784.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/2001/10/10/army-looks-to-hollyw... Details are still scant: https://www.wired.com/2007/03/foiled_by_foia_/ https://www.wired.com/2007/03/foiled_by_foia_/