Our civilization has been telling this to us during millennia. You are not supposed to play with "serious" stuff. The basic assumption is that if you are playing with something, you are not taking it seriously. But there is also a component of what anthropology calls "magical thinking": the irrational belief that an event may happen just by pretending to perform it. This is nothing but good old fear of representation, that is in very good health all over the world, including countries like Afghanistan (where the Taliban destroys ancient Buddha statues) or the USA ( where Americans are so afraid of using the "f" word). However, the fear of simulation is different from the fear of representation. Unlike a statue, that simply represents, a game simulates an event and so it makes players to actually perform an action. It doesn't matter if the action is pure make-belief: to perform an action is even more "transparent" (closer to the "real" thing) than representation.
In addition to this fear of make-belief performance, there is also the fear of anything that is non-narrative. What do I mean by this? Since the beginning of time, our culture has been using representation and narrative (understood as representations that follows a certain structure) for making statements. This is why interpretation is so important, because it allows us to get a "message". Simulation works in a very different way. Simulation is not about the representation of events, but about the representation of behavior (potential events). Therefore, a simulation is not an artifact that can be interpreted as narrative. A videogame will produce different meaning depending on the performance of the player. A videogame about Anne Frank would be immoral because it would not be narrative. If Anne Frank died in one game session but survived on the next, we would perceive the game as plain wrong, because it would be trivializing the value of human life. Narrative is perfect for describing Anne Frank's story, because since it can not be changed, it can be used to make an statement. On the other hand, simulation is not about statements, but about change. Simulation is about exploration and experimentation. Simulation is about taking chances, even if sometimes the results may not be accepted as such by our values.
The fear of simulation is due to the fact that is a representational form that goes against the status-quo. Simulation is vague; it is always provisory. Simulation can empower humans because it carries an extremely revolutionary message: change is possible. Narrative is static, simulation is dynamic. And this is exactly why playing with serious stuff has been taboo. Now that we have the tools for creating compelling simulations, the taboo is likely to become even stronger. This is not Marxist babble from the sixties: I am arguing that simulation can really contribute to social change, because for the first time in history we can now simulate complex systems such as social groups (and in the next future, it is likely that we will be able to do the same with human relationships). Can simulation change the world (peace and love, peace and love!)? Of course not, you dumb-ass! Simulation can only contribute to change our static vision of reality.
In the next future, do expect a LOT of opposition against simulation. We will soon learn at which temperature simulations burn (my guess is that it will be even hotter than Fahrenheit 451).
In addition to this fear of make-belief performance, there is also the fear of anything that is non-narrative. What do I mean by this? Since the beginning of time, our culture has been using representation and narrative (understood as representations that follows a certain structure) for making statements. This is why interpretation is so important, because it allows us to get a "message". Simulation works in a very different way. Simulation is not about the representation of events, but about the representation of behavior (potential events). Therefore, a simulation is not an artifact that can be interpreted as narrative. A videogame will produce different meaning depending on the performance of the player. A videogame about Anne Frank would be immoral because it would not be narrative. If Anne Frank died in one game session but survived on the next, we would perceive the game as plain wrong, because it would be trivializing the value of human life. Narrative is perfect for describing Anne Frank's story, because since it can not be changed, it can be used to make an statement. On the other hand, simulation is not about statements, but about change. Simulation is about exploration and experimentation. Simulation is about taking chances, even if sometimes the results may not be accepted as such by our values.
The fear of simulation is due to the fact that is a representational form that goes against the status-quo. Simulation is vague; it is always provisory. Simulation can empower humans because it carries an extremely revolutionary message: change is possible. Narrative is static, simulation is dynamic. And this is exactly why playing with serious stuff has been taboo. Now that we have the tools for creating compelling simulations, the taboo is likely to become even stronger. This is not Marxist babble from the sixties: I am arguing that simulation can really contribute to social change, because for the first time in history we can now simulate complex systems such as social groups (and in the next future, it is likely that we will be able to do the same with human relationships). Can simulation change the world (peace and love, peace and love!)? Of course not, you dumb-ass! Simulation can only contribute to change our static vision of reality.
In the next future, do expect a LOT of opposition against simulation. We will soon learn at which temperature simulations burn (my guess is that it will be even hotter than Fahrenheit 451).
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