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I think there's a weird tendency in modern internet culture to take long-established things and decry them as myths, where the whole debunking consists of bad f
by glenstein 9y ago
I think there's a weird tendency in modern internet culture to take long-established things and decry them as myths, where the whole debunking consists of bad faith engagement with a straw man argument not attributed to anybody. And sometimes even the debunking itself is just a more nuanced restatement of the idea supposedly being debunked, offering to substitute it for the 'simplistic' view that someone, somewhere, supposedly believes.
And I don't think the thesis put forward by the Civilization franchise is necessarily wrong, however dreary. As with anything, it depends on the level at which you engage with it, and how much good faith you apply and which things you choose to emphasize or not emphasize. Economic strength and accumulation of resources and sheer population do have a lot to do with who dominates. But maybe it takes other stuff, too. Maybe playing a game doesn't mean you're ignoring it, and "correcting" the thesis of the game doesn't mean we're due for an overthrow of a grand cultural dogma.
- hliyan 9y agoI explain this to myself using a simple maxim: "Any premise that can attract eyeballs will eventually appear as an article on an ad-revenue-driven website".
- Avshalom 9y ago>Economic strength and accumulation of resources and sheer population do have a lot to do with who dominates. But maybe it takes other stuff, too. That may be but it's got nothing to do with the article which is talking about Civilization--and games in general-- presenting monotonic, consequence free growth as the only state of being until the "A Winner Is You" screen (the dangerous myth) Which as a side effect leads to grind-y end games where you have dominated everyone but still need to put in another hour of grind to actually finish them off or otherwise end the game (the bad game design).
- glenstein 9y agoHuh? The stuff I'm talking about might as well as have been a verbatim quote from the article itself. >Through the Civilization lens, raw economic strength is success. Population is power. What's the difference between that and my statement, "Economic strength and accumulation of resources and sheer population do have a lot to do with who dominates." ?
- Avshalom 9y agonothing, but that sentence is not the topic of the article.
- glenstein 9y agoAs I read it the article has two parallel points. One is that the game Civilization advances a supposedly dangerous narrative about the myth of progress. Another is that, in gameplay terms, this infinite expansion and growth leads to a grindy end game. You seem to be saying that the latter is the real point, and that by addressing the former I'm missing the point. I think the former is the more important point and I feel like I did a reasonably good job of being responsive to it, and I feel that cryptic comments telling me I'm missing the point are unfairly dismissive.
- dmix 9y ago> One is that the game Civilization advances a supposedly dangerous narrative about the myth of progress Agreed, the author is not only making the point that it's a dynamic of modern games (to our detriment) but a reflection of a popular 'myth' held within our post-industrial revolution societies. >> We live in a brief historical blip where abundant resources and a few centuries of astounding progress have allowed many to believe that the good times will roll forever. Which is strange worldview considering "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is one of the most popular and well known books in history, and a widely debated topic in academia. Always with undertones comparing to the unique growth of the modern western society. There has always been plenty of anxiety about growth throughout our recent history...
- Avshalom 9y agoYou wabbled about click bait and then took issue with how dominance is achieved, meanwhile literally every other sentence in the article is about perpetual growth, how perpetual growth a dangerous myth, how other games deal with it or how it's bad game design. You didn't address the myth of progress at all, which regardless of it's merits from a grand historical point of view certainly doesn't apply to individual nations which rise and fall all the time. You certainly didn't present any arguments against the idea that unthinking growth sometimes actually has consequences which Civilization games have actively been removing. All you said economic power and resource accumulation probably leads to dominance. But it's not dominance the article takes issue with, it's that dominance is represented only by growth which is why one sentence after your quote: "Only growth matters"
- psyc 9y agoI really like the approach taken by Factorio, which is that you play as a villain. A genocidal, colonialist, polluting, industrious, and perhaps unconscious villain. The game doesn't state this, but I believe most players basically agree it's the case.
- xg15 9y agoIs that their actual intent? I always had the impression the game is mostly not caring about the consequences at all and simply wants to be a toy for people engaging in fantasies of complex automated systems. (Otherwise those people might find other outlets for their fantasies... like designing horribly overengeneered software architectures...) I agree you could make an awesome game about this by pretending to be a purely utilitarian engeneering puzzle and later showing you the actual consequences of your actions. But I wasn't aware that was their actual strategy. If it was, hats off!
- sbierwagen 9y ago>I always had the impression the game is mostly not caring about the consequences at all Then why does the pollution game mechanic exist, and why does pollution kill trees?
- xg15 9y agoGood point.
- caf 9y agoThat does actually exist: http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/