Politics

Let me preface this by saying that I do not follow politics all that much, nor have I studied it in the past.

There is something about growing up which makes everything you are a part of seem right, at least that is how I found it to be. The school I went to was great, the suburb I lived in was nice, the Country I lived in was flawless, and the governing system of Australia was perfect. Then when I was a bit older, I started thinking 'Hmm, some of these other schools are good... some of the people in this Country I don't agree with' etc. And when it comes to the governing system of Australia, I now believe it is very far from perfect.

My perfect governing scenario is this - the government should strive to do the best job for everyone and be elected into government based on the job they are doing or will do.

The above approach is impossible however, as it requires the population to be able to vote for the government who will do the best job. The problem here is that the population will not vote wholly based on who they believe will do the best for the country. Even if they did they cannot accurately know who would do the best for the country.

So what happens then?

Well a government knows they will not be elected simply by having the intentions of doing the best job for the country. Instead they need to make people vote for them, and to do this they need to ascertain why people would vote for them and exploit that.

If I wanted to get people to vote for me what are some options I could choose to do?

• Pay them money
• Make them remember me by seeing me over and over again
• Have good advertising to make myself seem likable
  
• Have stances on key decisions that people will agree with
  
• Bad mouth the competition
• If elected into a position, make decisions that people like
  

Essentially this is what I believe governments do, and they can't really help it. Hypothetical time - Imagine a political party who if elected will in fact do the best for the country, however they refuse to use the above points to help get them elected. Now imagine a political party who will in fact be bad for the country if elected but use all the above points to help them get elected. Which of the two will get elected... The bad party. If a 'good' party wishes to do good for the country, they need to be elected first. To do that they need to play the game.

The other difficult roadblock

Even if you play the game, there is another huge difficulty. That is - trying to explain to a whole lot of 'uneducated' people that a particular policy is a good choice. I don't mean to offend with the term 'uneducated', I am just trying to be accurate. I consider myself uneducated on most political issues that I hear about, but still I have to try and make a decision about it. Most of the education people would get on the issue would not come from quality educational sources but rather skewed opinions. A current example of this is the proposed mining tax in Australia. I am not an expert in the matter, but the majority of the information I have received about it has been from mining bosses, political parties and the general public. If I was to have a medical treatment who would i want advice from...

• Pharmaceutical companies?
  
• People who are trying to discredit my doctor?
  
• Random members of public?
  
• My doctor?

Really the best answer here is none of the above, the best advice would come from reading articles about the treatment from independent sources. In this example the doctor would hopefully be able to provide information from articles, and if he did not fulfill his job would be liable. In the case of the mining tax, I wonder how many Australians who have a strong opinion about the matter have read information from independent economists?


And in the end?

Well I paint a bleak view of the politics of Australia, however I do believe it is highly preferable to many other governments of the world. I think on the whole we have fairly good outcomes, it is just thoroughly inefficient. The question stands to be asked, what can be done to improve the system and is it worth the risk?

The Gamer Culture

A prominent and fairly recent sub-culture to emerge and survive has been that of 'gamers'. I guess a reasonable definition would be people who's main form of recreation is to play video games. There are many stereotypes about gamers, and like most stereotypes they are likely true for many cases, but not all. In this post I plan to discuss gamer stigma, video games as a lifestyle choice, video game addiction, rating systems and effects on childhood development, and a bit on the psychology of gamers. Here we go!


Gamer Stigma
For a long time there has been a stigma about video games, that they are unproductive and anti-social. If I put myself on the outside, I could say that gamers sit in a darkened room, pressing buttons while watching a TV screen - not accomplishing anything and not being socially interactive. What I am wondering is how true this is, and whether being a gamer is a poor lifestyle choice. I think the initial stigma against video games is that they were foreign to people of older generations, and a lot of the time foreign things are distrusted whether it be food, people or activities. These days I think the stigma still exists from young people who don't play video games. The basic argument is "Most people choose lifestyle A, therefore your choice of lifestyle B is wrong". They may try and argue that lifestyle A is a better choice than lifestyle B, but they can't really prove it. I'll give an example - imagine the situation where a person (P1) goes to the pub, gets really drunk stumbles home and passes out and the next day cannot remember any of the people they may have met the night before. Next imagine a person (P2) who that same night had some friends over to play video games together in the lounge room and eat junk food. It is easy to forsee a situation where P1 calls P2 a geek for not coming to the pub, implying their lesser lifestyle choice. However in terms of actual outcomes of the night, you couldn't really say that P1 had a more productive and social night than P2. Be aware that I am not trying to say P2's lifestyle choice is poor. Also be aware that P1 and P2 stood for person 1 and person 2, not player 1 and player 2 :)


Why Game?
I have tried to show how some of the stigma about gamers has been established, but now lets look at what being a gamer is about, and why people do it. I guess I liked gaming as a kid for the fact that it was challenging and interactive, and also that I would play it with friends. I guess the ability to improve at it and have positive reinforcement of 'finishing a stage' also added to the enjoyment. Currently there are many different genre's of video games, from FPS to RTS to action/adventure to RPG to MMORPG. Okay, so those acronyms may have gone over some people's heads, but the genres range through skills of reaction time and accuracy, ability to plan and micromanage, fine coordination of control and puzzle solving, exploring and collecting, analyzing attributes and abilities and much more. Apart from the skills used, some games are creative works of art, with in depth stories and cinematic mastery. In fact I have a friend who is a cinema fanatic but not a gamer, who gets me to play Metal Gear Solid for him just so he can appreciate the story and direction. My point in bringing up the different types of games, is that gamer's are attracted to gaming for different reasons whether it be interest in problem solving or wanting to play games with others. There is a lot more to gaming than sitting in a dark room pressing buttons while watching a TV screen.

Bad Gamers
I read a quote once which I thought was quite insightful:

"Normal person + anonymity + audience = total dickwad"

This was in reference to certain internet forum users, but I think it also gets at the psychology of some online gamers (who are probably the same people who post on forums). Playing online games is a different type of social interaction to meeting someone in person (they call me captain obvious). I think the reason is pretty much as above. I have enjoyed my fair share of online gaming and in that time I have seen a lot of reactions classic to gamers. I find gamers to be commonly obnoxious and self-hating in a group respect. Derogatory comments are often about being young, scrawny, unattractive and having a lack of a sex life. Its the kind of thing a non-gamer would say to a gamer, and in essence reinforces the stereotype of 'gaming nerds'. The other comments are often about skill level, the term 'noob' being the classic example. Noob is derived from a 'new player' or 'newbie' and is referring to the fact that a person is new at the game but commonly just referring to a lack of skill. This slander comes because people often get frustrated with having to rely on others of a lower skill level than themselves. However the problem is not with the person who is bad at a game because they haven't had a chance to get good, it is with the format of the game which allows those of high skill level to be mixed with those of low, something that doesn't happen that often outside of video games as often. I think its understandable to see how some gamers develop verbally abusive habits, but it doesn't make it any less annoying when you see it all the time. Keep in mind this is probably a minority of gamers, just that in multiplayer games where you can hear from a hundred of people in a session of playing, that one of a hundred can stick in your mind.

Too much gaming?
There is a lot of talk about video game addiction with the introduction of games that are seemingly without an end. I hate the idea of blaming addiction on the substance addicted to as it is a cop out from the person who is addicted, but that could be because I have never had a problem with addiction. Usually addiction is defined along the lines of using something even though it has negative effects, craving it, and having difficulty stopping it. When I was playing WoW, there were times when I played it for long hours on consecutive days, and I would think about playing it at times when I was not. However I don't know if it was having negative effects and I did not have trouble stopping it. At the time I just preferred playing it to doing other things - I was on holidays from uni and was working. I was still going to work on time, and when I went on holiday for a month, I just stopped playing WoW like that. I have met other people who spend a lot more time playing the game, but often it seems that if they stop playing one video game there wouldn't be much change to their schedule, they might find other games to play, or do other activities instead of finding a job etc. I guess they have just made a lifestyle choice that they like playing video games. As for stories of gaming addiction leading to death, I think if you are bad enough to do such a thing, it is your own fault not the game's. I started this paragraph saying that there is a lot of talk about video game addiction, but that is just it, a lot of talk. I think instead of sensationalising things such as video game addiction, real issues such as domestic violence should be addressed. Video game addiction is just an easy target.

Why can't I play that game?
The last bit I want to talk about is video game ratings. Australian gaming enthusiasts will be well aware of the current situation in which we can not get R rated games here because there is no classification for them. This means because there is no R rating, the highest possible rating in Australia is MA+, and so anything which would be above that rating is not allowed. I guess this is a part of the long running debate about violence in video games and its effect on children. I will not presume to answer the question of whether violence in video games causes negative effects on children, but I can't see the reason for ultimately banning games from Australia completely that would otherwise be an R18 rating. Alcohol and cigarettes are known to have negative effects on children, but both are allowed in Australia with an R18 rating (so to speak). It seems that it is just taking the place of parents autonomy in deciding whether they want their child to play such games, or monitoring their use. I could easily go into a discussion on parental autonomy in the current day and general institutionalisation but I won't.... The other big point in this is that it stops all the 18+ gamers from having easy access to these games (some of which are considered classics). I guess I find it along the lines of not allowing movies such as Fight Club or Pulp Fiction to be allowed in Australia. Both are renowned cinema classics, and both have an R18+ rating. For myself, if I hadn't been allowed to watch both of these movies I feel I would be less of a person than I am today. Just as anecdotal evidence I am an extremely non-violent person. Although I don't believe a single case is in anyway proof of a point, I think this demonstrates that violent media which is also high quality can have a generally positive affect on some people.

So, there is a lot more to gamers and video game culture than that, but it shall be left for another day. Funnily enough I think the impetus for me writing this post was from looking at photos of a bunch of gamers and thinking - whoa, what a bunch of geeks!

Spore and Evolution

So much excitement
I remember a few years back being so completely excited about a video game titled 'Spore'. I was sitting in my brother's room watching some videos he had downloaded from E3, when he showed me one from the creator of SimCity - Will Wright. He was demonstrating a project he was working on, which followed the same rough style of his other game, however radically different when it came to subject. In Sim City your playfield was a city, and you controlled it for a few hundred years. In The Sims your playfield was a household, and you controlled it for a few months. In Spore your playfield would be a galaxy, and you would control it throughout the evolution of a species.

What made it great?
The thing about Spore that filled my excitement meter so much was its huge scope and action creativity. The Sims was fun, but I would invariably end up in with a good job, nice house, lots of friends but always felt like something was missing. I guess the appeal of these games to me is the opportunity to be creative, and not just visually. That is why Spore looked so interesting, you could make unique looking creatures which also acted uniquely.

It finally came out
So after my first exposure to it I couldn't wait to play it. That was a problem though, because it was at least a couple of years down the track until it actually came out. I ended up losing a lot of interest by then, and didn't purchase it. I looked at the reviews which weren't amazing, looked at videos of the gameplay and wasn't too thrilled either. I eventually picked it up and gave it a go

Disappointment
The first stage of spore is by the most enjoyable. In the cell stage you create a single celled organism which is to compete in a 2d pool with other similar creations. Doesn't sound interesting huh, well it is the only stage in spore where physical appearance correlates well with ability. I learnt quickly that having a spike at the rear would prevent attack from behind, and that defensive weapons were not needed if you had speed, agility and a small body. I even experimented in not having eyes and just being covered with spikes, it worked a treat. However after you leave the 2d pool for the 3d world, the parts you choose just give you a standard ability. This was bitterly disappointing. Imagine 2 separate creatures - (1) a small slender creature with tiny little spikes on its feet and a cute little tusk on its nose. (2) A large creature with wings, thick legs, and a long tail flowing behind it. (1) has spikes and a tusk, and has thus been granted with attacking abilities and would beat (2) in a straight fight, but (2) would probably run away with its enhanced speed and agility. If Darwin existed in Spore, he would be a hack...his theory would not make sense.

Further disappointment
So I got through the creature stage and was on to the tribal stage and found even less options available to me. There are only about 8 basic actions available in the creature stage - Gather food, eat, give gift, attack, play music, capture wild creature, repair building, heal. I think that is it. The 'uniqueness' of the creature comes from the clothes that you wear which give you points to 4 different traits - social, combat, gathering and health. There are 9 tools available, 3 for attacking, 3 for socialising, 2 for gathering and 1 for healing. I imagined this stage would involve finding tools and then inventing further tools and uses until eventually you can build a building and vehicles and progress to the civilisation stage. In reality the timeline of Spore is:

• Cellular - begins adapting body parts to survive and evolve
• Creature - develops the use of limbs and body parts to attack or befriend other creatures
• Tribal - suddenly has a central building, and can use a variety of tools to attack, gather or impress
• Civilisation - suddenly becomes a civilisation with vehicles and can harvest spice. Learns sea faring and then flight. Also develops an 'economy' and 'religion'.
• Space - suddenly achieves space flight

The civilisation stage is similar in its limitations to the tribal stage. Only a few actions available, with different civilisations not being very unique. Space flight is kind of interesting, but you end up going around and seeing the same beings everywhere. Either someone who is warlike or someone who is friendly.

One final complaint about Spore
I am yet to mention one major detrimental point about this game, but here we go. As you evolve through a stage, you do not have to keep what was there before. You can start from scratch right at the end of the creature stage and go into the tribal stage with a completely different looking character. The only thing which caries on is some special moves which are attributed to you based on your actions (eg from cellular to creature stage a carnivore will get an ability to attack other creatures, whereas a herbivore might get an ability to befriend others). In essence though, I can't imagine the difference between going straight into civilisation stage at the start compared with going into the civilisation stage after playing from the cellular stage right through.


So...What from here?
After this disappointment I have wondered, what is it that I wanted to be in that game, and how would such a game be created. Here are some thoughts:


An evolution algorithm?
If I wished to make a game in which enemies you fought evolved as you played through the game, how would I do that? I could create a program which handled a list of creatures and made them compete with each other with consequences of that competition (eg the loser may die). I would need to specify a random factor in their individual attributes and in the encounters otherwise it would be the same result constantly. I would also need to have a decent population of each creature to be able to be able to determine what percentage of that population might survive. For example if I start with 100 of A, 100 of B, 100 of C and 100 of D; after x amount of time there are 90 A left, 75 B left, 20 C left and D has become extinct.

Reproduction
If I kept going with the previous algorithm, only the strong and hardy creatures would survive. There is a second point of evolution which comes into the equation, the ability to reproduce. No matter how protected endangered animals become, if they do not reproduce they will eventually become extinct. Some creatures ability to survive comes from their reproductive efforts, in that they can increase their numbers dramatically before they are killed by a predator. Thus in this algorithm reproduction would play a central role.

Resources
Resources are another important part of life, and the ability to have food on the table is important. Creatures who require little resources to survive or those who are good at obtaining their resources will do better than those who need a lot of resources and are not good at obtaining them.

Mutation
Essential to evolution, and really what evolution is all about. If mutation was not included, then it would just be the balancing of an ecosystem over time. If creatures are given the opportunity to change attributes or carry attributes through generations, they should evolve as a species. For this to work, all the previous parts of the algorithm would need to be functioning well in order to allow the best mutations to survive, and the bad ones to fall behind. This could be a major stumbling point...

Environment
This is where it gets dynamic. Working with that whole framework, but then putting the creatures in different environments with different resources available. Certain creatures should flourish in some environments but perish in others. This could be hooked in with magic as well, by simply adding magical element to the environment creatures who are associated with that magical element will flourish and those of an opposing element should die out. It would also shape the evolution of those species, in that they should adapt more to that environment as time goes on.

Attributes
So from all this, we have got several attributes we need to include, and others we can create in order to fill out the algorithm. There will need to be a logical weighting of attributes to keep a balanced system (eg can't have a strong creature who uses little resources and reproduces like crazy). From nature it is evident that attributes are balanced, a lion is big and strong, but its reproductive capabilities are not great and it needs a lot of resources to survive. But that tweaking is for further down the track, for now here are the attributes:

Fighting attributes

• Attack power
• Magic power
• Physical defense
• Magic defense
• Evasion
• Accuracy
• Speed
• Element
  

Other attributes

• Time to reproductive age
• Rate of reproduction
• Space needed
  
• Fragility
• Resource A requirement
• Resource A ability
• Resource B requirement
• Resource B ability

Environmental attributes

• Size
• Element
• Harshness
• Resource A availability
• Resource B availability

I have added a few points which I have not talked of yet - Fragility refers to how easily a creature might die off from disease, and harshness refers to how likely an environment is to cause disease. Size gives a limit of on the population able to be present in an area and space needed refers to the area needed for each creature. Resource availability would be the availability of one resource in that environment. Depending on the complexity wanted several resources could be used. Resource requirement would be the quantity needed for a creature, and resource ability would be the ability of a creature to get a resource.


So I guess the hype I had for spore and the subsequent disappointment led me to want to make think of something myself which would be base on evolution. Its not really related to the original idea of spore that I was so taken with, but it still excites me none the less.