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The Game of Everything, Part 3: Civilization and the Narrative of Progress

76 points by doppp 9y ago

jmcomets 9y ago
These posts are the most interesting pieces of game development / history I've read so far. Hats off to the author!
- pixelbath 9y ago
  This site is absolutely fantastic.
- smacktoward 9y ago
  If you want to support his work, he has a Patreon you can chip into here: https://www.patreon.com/DigitalAntiquarian/overview https://www.patreon.com/DigitalAntiquarian/overview
truculation 9y ago
I unashamedly think that progress in many fields has occurred, is a good thing, and that we should expect more of it! However we don't get there by trying to change things, per se. (Only people who think they already have the answers do that.) Rather progress comes from trying to understand things as they are. Specifically from understanding the problems better. For example, if we understood exactly why people eat too much, exactly why the dozen or so excellent fusion projects out there haven't yet succeeded, exactly why people go to church, then a lot of progress would happen spontaneously.
- cjarrett 9y ago
  That was a succinctly put clarification of some thoughts I've been trying to coherently put together for quite some time! Thanks for this.
- sskates 9y ago
  100% agreed on this. Invention is a myth. We don't invent new things, we discovering them through deeper understanding of what's actually going on.
  - dmix 9y ago
    Typically the easiest path to 'invention' is discovering how things function in other similar contexts, whether by naturally occurring phenomenon or clever optimization, and cross applying it to another field. There are endless opportunities to do so in software (ie, in the 1990-2000s in enterprise software all you had to do was take x data heavy process and add a CRM/ERP/CMS/etc style system). Same with "web 2.0" web apps for clunky desktop software, mobile apps for desktop web apps, "sharing economy", IOT, and recently with deep learning/ML. Likewise in the industrial revolution, you could find any process involving lots of manual labour and add mechanize it with engines or electricity and plenty of metal/steel.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  You view people going to church as one of the problems? That seems... rather narrow-minded.
  - truculation 9y ago
    No no I mean the problem of explaining howcome people do go (or don't go). It's very interesting and the observable consequences of understanding it better are utterly unpredictable. E.g. it might result in fewer people going, more people going, or no change in attendance at all.
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      Ah. I understand.
- evunveot 9y ago
  >trying to change things >trying to understand things as they are Some might regard the following as overly charitable to the latter, but I think you could map those two strategies to political progressivism and conservatism (left and right), respectively. The ideal is probably a bit of both: without the 'trying to change' you don't have new ideas; without the 'trying to understand' you lose the lessons of the past. To my recollection Civilization hasn't addressed left vs. right politics except in a surface "here's how the simulation parameters change" kind of way, but I sense that there might be an interesting game mechanic there as far as what happens when your culture veers too far in either direction.
- tw1010 9y ago
  I agree. This reminds me of a famous mathoverflow answer by Thurston: https://mathoverflow.net/a/44213 https://mathoverflow.net/a/44213
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 9y ago
Ah, the End Of History, that glorious period 1991-2001. Just as the map is not the territory, the simulation is not the reality - but it can be a great toy for exploring the possibilities of interacting systems. Another factor at play is the "twenty minutes into the future" view of civilisation, including one or two not currently possible technologies leading to the interstellar voyage. Up until 2000, there was always this kind of futurism in popular media, but now we don't have that deadline to look forward to we're adrift.
smacktoward 9y ago
If you're interested in exploring an alternative to the "march of progress" way of looking at history, the Strauss-Howe generational model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...) is fun to contemplate. To (over)simplify, it argues that history is less a straight line than a pendulum that swings back and forth between institutionalism and individualism. The swing towards institutionalism yields a well-ordered, smoothly running society, but at the cost of increasing suppression of creativity and harder pushes to put people who don't fit the institutional mold on the margins. Eventually that uniformity gets so heavy-handed that it starts to feel oppressive, at which point people revolt in the name of individualism and push the pendulum in the opposite direction. That starts a trend towards increasing liberality, which goes on until individualism is maximized but institutions have been weakened to the point where nothing feels like it works anymore -- at which point people revolt in the name of making the trains run on time, and start the pendulum swinging back towards institutionalism again. It's definitely pop history, and you can pick it apart its specifics pretty easily if you want to. But its core insight (that history is made up of "people moving through time," rather than time washing over people) is valuable, and if you were raised on the March of Progress model thinking about history as something that happens in cycles can be thought-provoking.
- gowld 9y ago
  Is there reason to believe it's a "pendulum" and not just "variation"? A pendulum operating in many dimensions with many drivers and overlaying many periods is just a changing system. Calling it a pendulum is simply leaning on the fact that any mathematical function can be analyzed harmonically (Fourier analysis)
bronson 9y ago
Unexpectedly, this article contains one of the best descriptions of the Cold War that I've ever seen: > A decade earlier, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had said that the Cold War would be “unending”: “We must learn to conduct foreign policy without escape and without respite. This condition will not go away.” Which was perhaps just as well, given that no one could seem to formulate an endgame for it that didn’t leave the world a heap of irradiated ashes.
npunt 9y ago
Great article. About 18 years ago at E3 Sid Meier was running a Q&A and I asked why he hadn’t included regressions (like lost technologies and the like) into Civilization, even though history is full of examples of them. I believe the answer was ‘it wouldn’t be fun’. Given the stories that emerged since around Civilization’s hasty development (it was a complete oddball project for Microprose and completed on a tight deadline for Christmas season, and wasn’t anticipated to be much of a success), my sense is that it would have taken a lot more time to explore anything other than a simple progress narrative, and likely would have been infeasible. Civ also came out shortly after Railroad Tycoon, which did a great job simulating the progress of rail in the industrial revolution, and its pretty obvious that the game’s mechanics and gameplay were heavily drawn from RT. Sort of like in many science papers how authors overstate the implications of their findings in the conclusion, Civ took the notion of rail progress and applied it to all of human endeavor throughout history.

76 points by doppp 9y ago

jmcomets 9y ago

These posts are the most interesting pieces of game development / history I've read so far. Hats off to the author!

pixelbath 9y ago
This site is absolutely fantastic.
smacktoward 9y ago
If you want to support his work, he has a Patreon you can chip into here: https://www.patreon.com/DigitalAntiquarian/overview https://www.patreon.com/DigitalAntiquarian/overview

truculation 9y ago

I unashamedly think that progress in many fields has occurred, is a good thing, and that we should expect more of it! However we don't get there by trying to change things, per se. (Only people who think they already have the answers do that.) Rather progress comes from trying to understand things as they are. Specifically from understanding the problems better. For example, if we understood exactly why people eat too much, exactly why the dozen or so excellent fusion projects out there haven't yet succeeded, exactly why people go to church, then a lot of progress would happen spontaneously.

cjarrett 9y ago
That was a succinctly put clarification of some thoughts I've been trying to coherently put together for quite some time! Thanks for this.
sskates 9y ago
100% agreed on this. Invention is a myth. We don't invent new things, we discovering them through deeper understanding of what's actually going on.
- dmix 9y ago
  Typically the easiest path to 'invention' is discovering how things function in other similar contexts, whether by naturally occurring phenomenon or clever optimization, and cross applying it to another field. There are endless opportunities to do so in software (ie, in the 1990-2000s in enterprise software all you had to do was take x data heavy process and add a CRM/ERP/CMS/etc style system). Same with "web 2.0" web apps for clunky desktop software, mobile apps for desktop web apps, "sharing economy", IOT, and recently with deep learning/ML. Likewise in the industrial revolution, you could find any process involving lots of manual labour and add mechanize it with engines or electricity and plenty of metal/steel.
AnimalMuppet 9y ago
You view people going to church as one of the problems? That seems... rather narrow-minded.
- truculation 9y ago
  No no I mean the problem of explaining howcome people do go (or don't go). It's very interesting and the observable consequences of understanding it better are utterly unpredictable. E.g. it might result in fewer people going, more people going, or no change in attendance at all.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    Ah. I understand.
evunveot 9y ago
>trying to change things >trying to understand things as they are Some might regard the following as overly charitable to the latter, but I think you could map those two strategies to political progressivism and conservatism (left and right), respectively. The ideal is probably a bit of both: without the 'trying to change' you don't have new ideas; without the 'trying to understand' you lose the lessons of the past. To my recollection Civilization hasn't addressed left vs. right politics except in a surface "here's how the simulation parameters change" kind of way, but I sense that there might be an interesting game mechanic there as far as what happens when your culture veers too far in either direction.
tw1010 9y ago
I agree. This reminds me of a famous mathoverflow answer by Thurston: https://mathoverflow.net/a/44213 https://mathoverflow.net/a/44213

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pjc50 9y ago

Ah, the End Of History, that glorious period 1991-2001. Just as the map is not the territory, the simulation is not the reality - but it can be a great toy for exploring the possibilities of interacting systems. Another factor at play is the "twenty minutes into the future" view of civilisation, including one or two not currently possible technologies leading to the interstellar voyage. Up until 2000, there was always this kind of futurism in popular media, but now we don't have that deadline to look forward to we're adrift.

smacktoward 9y ago

If you're interested in exploring an alternative to the "march of progress" way of looking at history, the Strauss-Howe generational model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...) is fun to contemplate. To (over)simplify, it argues that history is less a straight line than a pendulum that swings back and forth between institutionalism and individualism. The swing towards institutionalism yields a well-ordered, smoothly running society, but at the cost of increasing suppression of creativity and harder pushes to put people who don't fit the institutional mold on the margins. Eventually that uniformity gets so heavy-handed that it starts to feel oppressive, at which point people revolt in the name of individualism and push the pendulum in the opposite direction. That starts a trend towards increasing liberality, which goes on until individualism is maximized but institutions have been weakened to the point where nothing feels like it works anymore -- at which point people revolt in the name of making the trains run on time, and start the pendulum swinging back towards institutionalism again. It's definitely pop history, and you can pick it apart its specifics pretty easily if you want to. But its core insight (that history is made up of "people moving through time," rather than time washing over people) is valuable, and if you were raised on the March of Progress model thinking about history as something that happens in cycles can be thought-provoking.

gowld 9y ago
Is there reason to believe it's a "pendulum" and not just "variation"? A pendulum operating in many dimensions with many drivers and overlaying many periods is just a changing system. Calling it a pendulum is simply leaning on the fact that any mathematical function can be analyzed harmonically (Fourier analysis)

bronson 9y ago

Unexpectedly, this article contains one of the best descriptions of the Cold War that I've ever seen: > A decade earlier, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had said that the Cold War would be “unending”: “We must learn to conduct foreign policy without escape and without respite. This condition will not go away.” Which was perhaps just as well, given that no one could seem to formulate an endgame for it that didn’t leave the world a heap of irradiated ashes.

npunt 9y ago

Great article. About 18 years ago at E3 Sid Meier was running a Q&A and I asked why he hadn’t included regressions (like lost technologies and the like) into Civilization, even though history is full of examples of them. I believe the answer was ‘it wouldn’t be fun’. Given the stories that emerged since around Civilization’s hasty development (it was a complete oddball project for Microprose and completed on a tight deadline for Christmas season, and wasn’t anticipated to be much of a success), my sense is that it would have taken a lot more time to explore anything other than a simple progress narrative, and likely would have been infeasible. Civ also came out shortly after Railroad Tycoon, which did a great job simulating the progress of rail in the industrial revolution, and its pretty obvious that the game’s mechanics and gameplay were heavily drawn from RT. Sort of like in many science papers how authors overstate the implications of their findings in the conclusion, Civ took the notion of rail progress and applied it to all of human endeavor throughout history.