This past Thursday I went with Laurie to the University of Toronto for what is referred to as a Techno Science salon. The salon is a discussion forum in which she and her colleagues in anthropology as well as other departments present various papers akin to their research.
The topic of this salon was the merging of Geo and Techno-Politics. In tandem with this topic, there were several efficacious images and concepts brought to light. One of the papers discussed MMORPGs, (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), and their inherent effect on the populace.
The immersive and often highly addictive appeal of games like World of Warcraft (WoW) have introduced several combative developmental skills to otherwise archetypal proletariats. Conceptually, games like this are cultivating a familiarity with a vernacular that is reserved for military purposes. Group campaigns, augmenting rank, various battle strategies; it is all reminiscent of developing particular skill sets to be more effective soldiers.
Of course, using WoW as this example may seem like a stretch, because, hey, it's just a game. But the MMORPG catalogue stretches far beyond the fantastical shores of Azeroth.
One such example brought up during the Techno-Science salon was a game called Kuma/War. This is a virtual environment in which players enact historical military campaigns. World Wars I and II, Somalia and of course Iraq are all fabricated backgrounds for players to carry out simulated missions.
There is a slight twist in this case, however. These stages are set in real-life missions that have in some cases recently taken place. The slogan of the game is "Real World News, Real War Games". The goal for the players of course is to, in effect, ensure that the "good guys" win. Sometimes this means hypothetically altering the course of history (virtually, of course) by changing the outcome of an all-to-real battle or war.
If we consider for a moment the sheer addictive quality to MMORPGs, coupled with the appeal of interacting with others in various simulated battle sequences, we have a ripe ground for swaying impressions of reality.
For example, if you were never taught about the history of the Vietnam war, and you consistently carried out military campaigns from a young age in virtual environments which include real elements (names of geographical locations, actual campaign and battle names, etc.) then would that not alter your impression of history? If you didn't know any better, you may think that the outcome was a success for the US military, given the fact that you've never had any recourse to learn anything to the contrary.
Couple this with the alarming inclusion of missions set in campaigns that have yet to be carried out, in places like Iran, for example. The creators of a game like Kuma/War (who are retired US military operatives) could potentially predict probable outcomes of campaigns yet to be conducted. It could also be a convenient place for the military to scan for the user information of a soldier who is performing exceedingly well.
This may seem like it's getting a little bit paranoid-theory, but it certainly brings up thoughts about the future of online communities and gaming. When the lines start blurring between the real and the virtual, in a historical sense or a soon-to-be sense (and by the way, I am saying nothing about the US in Iran: that is apparently one of the missions you can choose in the game) then we need to be overtly aware of the effect it could potentially have on us.
We need to be aware of the kinds of profiling and impressionistic categorization taking place in these virtual environments. I think it is one thing to hone military vocabulary and develop strategy in a simulated imaginary setting, (I like playing video games too) however when the edges start to fray in between the fabricated and the real, we need to be cognizant of the potential bias and the sway on impressionable minds.
This is a relatively frayed analogy, but when I was young, I used to play a board game called RISK. Many people know it, but for those who don't, it's essentially a military game carried out on a map of the world, where players strive for complete control. Even though the game creators clearly state right on the playing board that the map of the world is used strictly for the purposes of the game (not an accurate geographical depiction of the continents, in other words) I still picture that map when I think of the location of a country on a continent. I played the game enough to engrain that impression of the world into my psyche, perhaps forever.
Even though the game is based on reality to the extent that actual country names are listed, to use the map as a geographical reference point would be a mistake, seeing as it's not factually correct. But I keep doing it.
I guess that's my point.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
surround
my voice is not my own
it is populated, words overstated
worry lines
stretched taut
taught not to worry about it
superego lego block
tall wall hides nervous talk
dialogue diatribe, decisions decide
try to hide?
your voice is not your own
it is saturated, underrated
blurred alignment
forgot
sought truth, or not allowed it
coiling steaming pressure lock
prison mall the clock is watched
dialogue or die trying, leaving, arriving
trapped inside?
beacon breaks
through pain and shaking
us awake
realization
of what's at stake
no mistaking
our voices are not our own,
they are made by everything around us.
it is populated, words overstated
worry lines
stretched taut
taught not to worry about it
superego lego block
tall wall hides nervous talk
dialogue diatribe, decisions decide
try to hide?
your voice is not your own
it is saturated, underrated
blurred alignment
forgot
sought truth, or not allowed it
coiling steaming pressure lock
prison mall the clock is watched
dialogue or die trying, leaving, arriving
trapped inside?
beacon breaks
through pain and shaking
us awake
realization
of what's at stake
no mistaking
our voices are not our own,
they are made by everything around us.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
in contention
live life, career center progress
under duress, making a mess of things
swallowed hollow versions of past allowed excursions
mirror image scrimmages on fringes of
things regretted, begetting things forgotten
whet the blade, cut the cable
float the airless void, unable
breathing steady, pulse is pounding
a hundred million thoughts resounding
racing with the blindfold donned
breaking vapor here, beyond
wisps of memory brilliance shone
life alike is here then gone
hovering silent sparkling spaces
flashes light on ebon faces
sparkles of snapshots taken from the crowd
emaciated, overrated
wan impulse emancipated
tablet terror markings faded
walls, division reinstated
crimes of loving, lost or hated
shades of days, delayed, created
gunshot wounds the skies
look for your face in the dark of the crowd
a beacon of light softly screaming out loud
with nighttime comes your soft embrace
by day, reluctantly we race.
under duress, making a mess of things
swallowed hollow versions of past allowed excursions
mirror image scrimmages on fringes of
things regretted, begetting things forgotten
whet the blade, cut the cable
float the airless void, unable
breathing steady, pulse is pounding
a hundred million thoughts resounding
racing with the blindfold donned
breaking vapor here, beyond
wisps of memory brilliance shone
life alike is here then gone
hovering silent sparkling spaces
flashes light on ebon faces
sparkles of snapshots taken from the crowd
emaciated, overrated
wan impulse emancipated
tablet terror markings faded
walls, division reinstated
crimes of loving, lost or hated
shades of days, delayed, created
gunshot wounds the skies
look for your face in the dark of the crowd
a beacon of light softly screaming out loud
with nighttime comes your soft embrace
by day, reluctantly we race.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Two Years
I won't be able to sum up all of the things I miss about you. Today is the second year anniversary of you passing on, so i am thinking about you more than usual.
Mainly, I miss your persepctive. Your advice, especially about things going on in my life. With you as my big brother, I always looked forward to telling you about things i had accomplished and goals I had reached. There was a fair amount of competition when we were younger, as naturally there should be between brothers, but as early as my late teens we ended up solidifying a relationship based on real admiration and genuine trust. It became not about competition, but more about increasing respect.
Today I read through some of our emails back and forth. It's really amazing how some of those correspondences are now captured in time— I read them and I feel like I'm hearing your words, sharing inside jokes with you, making plans to get together between hospital trips.
Even as recently as September 28th, 2006 we were sending messages back and forth about getting together. Not once did we have a message go between us without a joke or witty inside reference that, although I would try my best to explain, I still can't make someone else understand. Those referneces were between you and I. We shared them and they are now alive in the form of archived email messages.
Then that last message on the 28th, when you said bring over a flick or we'll just chat... not ten days later you were gone.
This year was not easier than last year, it was just different. Laurie and I got engaged and I couldn't share the news with you. I also can't tell you that you were going to be best man at our wedding.
I can't get advice from you anymore and I miss that incredibly. I hear songs on the radio and I still want to call you up and ask if you've heard it yet. And I think you'd dig the roll that Marvel is on with the movies building up to the Avengers, even though you were more of a DC guy.
I'll never stop thinking about you and using the strength and wisdom I learned from you while you were alive. You're the most inspiring person I've ever met. I miss you now more than ever.
Love to you always,
Bro
Mainly, I miss your persepctive. Your advice, especially about things going on in my life. With you as my big brother, I always looked forward to telling you about things i had accomplished and goals I had reached. There was a fair amount of competition when we were younger, as naturally there should be between brothers, but as early as my late teens we ended up solidifying a relationship based on real admiration and genuine trust. It became not about competition, but more about increasing respect.
Today I read through some of our emails back and forth. It's really amazing how some of those correspondences are now captured in time— I read them and I feel like I'm hearing your words, sharing inside jokes with you, making plans to get together between hospital trips.
Even as recently as September 28th, 2006 we were sending messages back and forth about getting together. Not once did we have a message go between us without a joke or witty inside reference that, although I would try my best to explain, I still can't make someone else understand. Those referneces were between you and I. We shared them and they are now alive in the form of archived email messages.
Then that last message on the 28th, when you said bring over a flick or we'll just chat... not ten days later you were gone.
This year was not easier than last year, it was just different. Laurie and I got engaged and I couldn't share the news with you. I also can't tell you that you were going to be best man at our wedding.
I can't get advice from you anymore and I miss that incredibly. I hear songs on the radio and I still want to call you up and ask if you've heard it yet. And I think you'd dig the roll that Marvel is on with the movies building up to the Avengers, even though you were more of a DC guy.
I'll never stop thinking about you and using the strength and wisdom I learned from you while you were alive. You're the most inspiring person I've ever met. I miss you now more than ever.
Love to you always,
Bro
Saturday, September 20, 2008
This is Your Friends on Facebook
Something happened at the supermarket the other day.
When you are in the supermarket, you tend to concentrate on the task at hand: buying groceries and enjoying the occasional small victory of paying sale prices for various items.
When you encounter an acquaintance whom you haven't connected with in a while, there is usually an internal dialogue that happens, determining whether or not you have the fortitude to actually engage them in conversation.
Of course it's not that you wouldn't have anything to talk about- it's more that depending on the environment, you may only have two to five minutes at most to sum up the past fifteen or more years of your life. Not to mention, you probably think about when the last time you and this person actually hung out and... what were they like again? And are you sure you remember what their name is?
A few years ago, I would actually go out of my way to get the attention of someone I recognized in public places. Then after a surge of luke-warm receptions, I realized that people for the most part need to be prepared to be recognized in public. IN fact, many would prefer not to be recognized. Seeing someone in the supermarket is almost like catching them as they're walking through their garden picking beans in their PJs.
Now when I see someone I know in the supermarket, who is essentially there doing the same thing I am there to do, it becomes an internal dialogue... should I acknowledge, or should I just pass by hoping they won't notice? There is in fact a fair amount of emotional investment involved.
This happened to me the other day. Laurie and I were shopping in our usual method of "scour and conquer" which is basically walking up and down every possible aisle of the store to remind us if we need anything. I tend to populate the cart with items we end up not needing, but that's beside the point.
There, coming down one of the aisles scouring in the opposite direction, was someone I recognized. Thus began the internal dialogue. It intensified as this person approached, until I found myself intensely staring at an array of Soy Sauce bottles in an effort to evade eye contact. I had basically decided that I was not prepared to make the effort. I was sure this person hadn't noticed, and now (phew) they were on their way past and I was in the clear.
But not for long! It appeared that their scouring process was exactly as ours! We ended up crossing paths in the aisle not once, but four times! Approach, avert, do not acknowledge. I think at one point I ended up burning a hole in an apple juice tin with my eyes. This was indeed ridiculous.
In the end, Laurie and I ended up leaving the supermarket with me not having said anything to this person. Interestingly enough, this person and I are in fact friends on Facebook. So, my plan was to flag them down (with a message, not a wall post... come on) to confirm whether or not they were actually at the supermarket on that day.
Lo, my Inbox contained a message from this person the next time I checked, asking if I was at the supermarket. Now we're reacquainting ourselves, from the comfort of Facebook. It feels like walking around the supermarket- not in my 'end of the week' jeans and the shirt I opted to wear twice (even though it had a very discernible beacon of fruit drink stain fastened to the chest plate like an emblem), but as my Profile picture... bold, confident, and sporting a face that says: I am ready to make small talk with acquaintances!
For all of its faults as being a cold, unfeeling replacement for physical social contact, Facebook actually has a place in modern society that fills a gap. If for example, Laurie and I had left the supermarket with me having said nothing to this person, that would have been that. Potentially, the chapter of my contact with this person would have been invariably closed for good.
But in fact, now this person and I are trading messages about work, family, old friends... basically catching up. And you know what I think is really interesting? The next time I see this person in the supermarket, we'll probably chat.
This is something my parent's generation never had- a comfortable, unassuming way to re-cultivate relationships with acquaintances. If for example at the time I feel like I'm not up to reaffirming a dialogue with an acquaintance in public, chances are we're friends on Facebook. And not that any of this is particularly profound in regards to me, but it does make me wonder about how online social networking will affect my children, as it continues to evolve and expand.
In the end, I guess I can say that I have friends, and I have friends on Facebook. Is it a replacement for personal physical contact? Certainly not. But it does fill a gap, and I think it does it very well.
Now if people would just stop sending me invites to corny third party applications...
KRC
When you are in the supermarket, you tend to concentrate on the task at hand: buying groceries and enjoying the occasional small victory of paying sale prices for various items.
When you encounter an acquaintance whom you haven't connected with in a while, there is usually an internal dialogue that happens, determining whether or not you have the fortitude to actually engage them in conversation.
Of course it's not that you wouldn't have anything to talk about- it's more that depending on the environment, you may only have two to five minutes at most to sum up the past fifteen or more years of your life. Not to mention, you probably think about when the last time you and this person actually hung out and... what were they like again? And are you sure you remember what their name is?
A few years ago, I would actually go out of my way to get the attention of someone I recognized in public places. Then after a surge of luke-warm receptions, I realized that people for the most part need to be prepared to be recognized in public. IN fact, many would prefer not to be recognized. Seeing someone in the supermarket is almost like catching them as they're walking through their garden picking beans in their PJs.
Now when I see someone I know in the supermarket, who is essentially there doing the same thing I am there to do, it becomes an internal dialogue... should I acknowledge, or should I just pass by hoping they won't notice? There is in fact a fair amount of emotional investment involved.
This happened to me the other day. Laurie and I were shopping in our usual method of "scour and conquer" which is basically walking up and down every possible aisle of the store to remind us if we need anything. I tend to populate the cart with items we end up not needing, but that's beside the point.
There, coming down one of the aisles scouring in the opposite direction, was someone I recognized. Thus began the internal dialogue. It intensified as this person approached, until I found myself intensely staring at an array of Soy Sauce bottles in an effort to evade eye contact. I had basically decided that I was not prepared to make the effort. I was sure this person hadn't noticed, and now (phew) they were on their way past and I was in the clear.
But not for long! It appeared that their scouring process was exactly as ours! We ended up crossing paths in the aisle not once, but four times! Approach, avert, do not acknowledge. I think at one point I ended up burning a hole in an apple juice tin with my eyes. This was indeed ridiculous.
In the end, Laurie and I ended up leaving the supermarket with me not having said anything to this person. Interestingly enough, this person and I are in fact friends on Facebook. So, my plan was to flag them down (with a message, not a wall post... come on) to confirm whether or not they were actually at the supermarket on that day.
Lo, my Inbox contained a message from this person the next time I checked, asking if I was at the supermarket. Now we're reacquainting ourselves, from the comfort of Facebook. It feels like walking around the supermarket- not in my 'end of the week' jeans and the shirt I opted to wear twice (even though it had a very discernible beacon of fruit drink stain fastened to the chest plate like an emblem), but as my Profile picture... bold, confident, and sporting a face that says: I am ready to make small talk with acquaintances!
For all of its faults as being a cold, unfeeling replacement for physical social contact, Facebook actually has a place in modern society that fills a gap. If for example, Laurie and I had left the supermarket with me having said nothing to this person, that would have been that. Potentially, the chapter of my contact with this person would have been invariably closed for good.
But in fact, now this person and I are trading messages about work, family, old friends... basically catching up. And you know what I think is really interesting? The next time I see this person in the supermarket, we'll probably chat.
This is something my parent's generation never had- a comfortable, unassuming way to re-cultivate relationships with acquaintances. If for example at the time I feel like I'm not up to reaffirming a dialogue with an acquaintance in public, chances are we're friends on Facebook. And not that any of this is particularly profound in regards to me, but it does make me wonder about how online social networking will affect my children, as it continues to evolve and expand.
In the end, I guess I can say that I have friends, and I have friends on Facebook. Is it a replacement for personal physical contact? Certainly not. But it does fill a gap, and I think it does it very well.
Now if people would just stop sending me invites to corny third party applications...
KRC
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Engagement
When I was young, I pictured different milestones in my life. I played out the scenarios in my mind as to how things would go- based on my preconceived expectations of a natural course of events.
Things have a way of not exactly turning out as we plan, of course. For example, I would not have been able to predict where I would be working when I was 30. I was not able to predict where I would end up living, or what I would look like, or whether I would have any children by this time. And, I would not have been able to predict that I would be using Facebook as a platform to announce my recent engagement.
So now, as it was when I was young, I find myself picturing what life will be like in the next 30 years, based on this new development. I figure I'm less apt to base much on these predictions, seeing as with age comes wisdom (or so one would hope) and even though I may think I have a plan, life has a way of taking the rug out from under you when you think you have sure footing, when you least expect it.
Is my life at 30 the way that I pictured it when I was younger? I honestly can't say yes or no. What I can say is that I am extremely happy and excited about where things are headed. I have an incredibly wonderful person as a partner. I am healthy, at least for the time being. I have been able to travel and see beautiful parts of the world. I have great friends. I don't know what more I could ask for, really.
Turning 30 was a milestone for me. Getting engaged is another milestone. Do I have a plan for the next 30 years? Yes and no. I think one of the great things in life is to be able to plan for the future, and also be ready to grow and change with the surprises that happen along the way.
I just know that I certainly plan to enjoy the next 30 years.
KRC
Things have a way of not exactly turning out as we plan, of course. For example, I would not have been able to predict where I would be working when I was 30. I was not able to predict where I would end up living, or what I would look like, or whether I would have any children by this time. And, I would not have been able to predict that I would be using Facebook as a platform to announce my recent engagement.
So now, as it was when I was young, I find myself picturing what life will be like in the next 30 years, based on this new development. I figure I'm less apt to base much on these predictions, seeing as with age comes wisdom (or so one would hope) and even though I may think I have a plan, life has a way of taking the rug out from under you when you think you have sure footing, when you least expect it.
Is my life at 30 the way that I pictured it when I was younger? I honestly can't say yes or no. What I can say is that I am extremely happy and excited about where things are headed. I have an incredibly wonderful person as a partner. I am healthy, at least for the time being. I have been able to travel and see beautiful parts of the world. I have great friends. I don't know what more I could ask for, really.
Turning 30 was a milestone for me. Getting engaged is another milestone. Do I have a plan for the next 30 years? Yes and no. I think one of the great things in life is to be able to plan for the future, and also be ready to grow and change with the surprises that happen along the way.
I just know that I certainly plan to enjoy the next 30 years.
KRC
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