[MUD-Dev] Game Economies

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:

> We're not individuals anymore.

Compared to the past we are more individualistic now than ever...

> licenses. Fingerprints. Blood samples. Dental records. We long ago shifted
> from being individuals to being communities, then to being demographics,
> and then to being markets.

You mean slaves -> peasants -> workingclass -> academics.  We became
demographic markets when we could afford more than the cheapest food, I
think?

> The entire point of human existence in modern
> life is to become one of the good consumers, one of the productive people
> who fits into this big machine we've built across the world and gets a
> paycheck every two weeks that he goes out and spends on things he doesn't
> need so big faceless companies can make more things he doesn't need and
> then convince him through blatant and time-honored manipulation tactics
> that he does *too* need it and should buy one right NOW.

Some sociologists claim that we are moving to an emotional period.  I guess
that means romantic.  What you say is that companies will buy you with
giving you fake attention?  That is a romantic move, I think.

If virtual worlds catch on as a match-maker, then I think that could be as
sign that we want more from relations than random spatial proximity. I think
there are housing projects that target people with assumed common interests
though...

> In the face of all this, it's really nice just to believe for a few seconds
> that some other human being actually gives more than a mouse fart in a high
> wind whether you live or die.

In the past, death was the norm.  Less tight communities ought to suggest a
move towards becoming individuals.
--
Ola




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev maillist  -  MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev