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>Age of Empires & Civilization got me into history as a kid and I checked out dozens of books as a result. So this is kind of a problem. LOTS of people of our

>Age of Empires & Civilization got me into history as a kid and I checked out dozens of books as a result. So this is kind of a problem. LOTS of people of our generation learned a lot of our history from games like Age of Empires and Civilization. But these sources of information aren't neutral. They had biases baked into their narratives by the simple structure of game design. The notion of "nations" or "civilizations" as discrete, immutable, and clearly defined categories is actually straight up wrong. The idea of history as the story of competition between these civilizational entities is likewise wrong. But tons of people of our generation think of history this way. They think of technological advancement like a "tech tree" as if all of human progress can be charted on a map with no consideration for alternative ways the world could have shaken out. Monotheism MUST be invented after polytheism, you MUST have invented the wheel in order to invent agriculture, and so on. Overall you're being fed the idea that the world as it is is the only way the world could have been, which is just not the case. We were being acculturated into a specific (and imperialistic) worldview about what history is and how culture works. But because nobody ever took video games seriously, they never bothered to understand and unpack their influence as pedagogical tools. It's not like a novel or a movie where the morals and themes of the narrative are there to make an intentional point. With games the logic of needing to have a game to play and goals and objectives to meet winds up transmitting themes and morals that people either don't intend or don't bother thinking very hard about.

trynumber9 8y ago
Of course they weren't accurate, that's why I went to the library to learn more. But they transformed learning about history and geography from something tedious into something I would do on my own, in free time. Self-motivated learning, I think, is something special.
- naravara 8y ago
  I'm not talking about the accuracy of the specific facts. I'm talking about the framing of the facts that impacts how you interpret/make sense of them. >Self-motivated learning, I think, is something special. In certain disciplines, like philosophy or history, where narrative and temporality matter a great deal, "self-motivated learning" often puts people at high risk for falling in with total cranks and walking away with deeply problematic biases. The problem is that there is a lot of cool, fun stuff in these fields. But to actually understand them, there is also a fair bit of boring stuff about methodology and self-examination where you need to unlearn certain biases and confront a few types of of cognitive dissonance that we all have. Self-styled autodidacts have a tendency to spend a lot of time on the intellectual equivalent of candy and junk food and not enough on the "vegetables," so they come away with weird and unbalanced ideas about how the world works.

trynumber9 8y ago

Of course they weren't accurate, that's why I went to the library to learn more. But they transformed learning about history and geography from something tedious into something I would do on my own, in free time. Self-motivated learning, I think, is something special.

naravara 8y ago
I'm not talking about the accuracy of the specific facts. I'm talking about the framing of the facts that impacts how you interpret/make sense of them. >Self-motivated learning, I think, is something special. In certain disciplines, like philosophy or history, where narrative and temporality matter a great deal, "self-motivated learning" often puts people at high risk for falling in with total cranks and walking away with deeply problematic biases. The problem is that there is a lot of cool, fun stuff in these fields. But to actually understand them, there is also a fair bit of boring stuff about methodology and self-examination where you need to unlearn certain biases and confront a few types of of cognitive dissonance that we all have. Self-styled autodidacts have a tendency to spend a lot of time on the intellectual equivalent of candy and junk food and not enough on the "vegetables," so they come away with weird and unbalanced ideas about how the world works.