Fight Fire with Fire
People that have known me a while often ask me why I got into designing video games for a living. I mean, philosophically, i'm completely committed to the cause of destroying what I perceive as the irrational boot that is stepping on humanity's throat, of which video games are a part of. I deeply believe that the human mind is fantastically stunted by the emotions produced by and the craving of entertainment, human relationships, aesthetics and other irrational phenomenon. I have said repeatedly,"A life of distraction is slavish and inhuman" and "Contentment, love and happiness have done more to destroy human potential than malice, pain and depression." Why am I not busy becoming an educator, scientist or writer?
Well, because educators, scientists and writers have very little influence on how society is structured. There's a reason that there are basically no educators, scientists or non-fiction writers that are particularly famous, regardless of the importance of their work. Where, Paris Hilton and Tyra Banks are famous and they've done nothing of significance in their entire lives. Think about that very carefully...people care more about an attractive person that does next to nothing than they do about basically ANY scientist, educator, or non-fiction writer. If a writer is to become famous, they have to compel us emotionally and it's very rare they can do that on a large scale with non-fiction. Even among relatively intelligent people, they're more compelled by politicians, entertainers, and even just pretty people that compel them irrational than speak very substantive rational thoughts and accomplishments.
Basically, irrationality is what matters to people. Trying to make an influence on them by speaking to their brain is a stupid strategy...it's all about what excited them or what they think is pretty. It's a monkey brain and you must think in terms of what will provoke its emotions. Educators, scientists and most writer's have value in society, but they have very little ability to individually alter the structure of the system because no normal person gives two fucks about what they have to say. Which is ridiculously sad because these are the people that often have the most to contribute to society if they were to become influential.
I used to have this stupid idea that if I figured things out rationally and explained it to people it would help them out. What it actually did is they would either A: feel better or B: feel worse and adjust the next day or two of their lives before they went back to their paradigm. It took me years to figure out that my ability to influence people with ideas was roughly limited to how their irrational thinking paradigm made sense of it. I thought I was pretty fucking smart until I realized I was just another prop in the irrational theater.
All that rationality that I treasure more than anything in this world just a smothered whisper into a suffocating pillow. Not to say it doesn't have value...as, in the same vein of what I mentioned about educators, it's some very powerful stuff. It just doesn't have any real impact because it doesn't really have much for legs in an irrational paradigm. Which is why communication and just spreading ideas around is a poor method to go about implementing those ideas.
The answer is power. I'm not an educator, writer or scientist because they have very little individual power and influence. I'm in video games because I believe that's where the power is. About once a year some poor guy drops dead from playing video games too long. What sort of irrational compulsion is this where someone will ignore sleeping and eating to the point of death? How does it work? I want to know.
And that's what i've been learning. The last game I worked on is in one in eight households in the United States and averages 87 minutes per day per user. I'm learning at the Harvard of irrationality...the core principles of behind some of the most viciously strong irrationality in the world. And it's been eye-opening.
One of the most important lessons i've learned in my entire life is you fight irrationality with irrationality. Fire with fire. Rationality is useful for half-convincing academics and your casual intelligentsia before they go back to jerking off their ego's and masturbating to celebrity gossip magazines like the rest of the society. The only effective path to restructuring society is accumulating enough wealth and understanding of irrational compulsion to push it through.
Well, because educators, scientists and writers have very little influence on how society is structured. There's a reason that there are basically no educators, scientists or non-fiction writers that are particularly famous, regardless of the importance of their work. Where, Paris Hilton and Tyra Banks are famous and they've done nothing of significance in their entire lives. Think about that very carefully...people care more about an attractive person that does next to nothing than they do about basically ANY scientist, educator, or non-fiction writer. If a writer is to become famous, they have to compel us emotionally and it's very rare they can do that on a large scale with non-fiction. Even among relatively intelligent people, they're more compelled by politicians, entertainers, and even just pretty people that compel them irrational than speak very substantive rational thoughts and accomplishments.
Basically, irrationality is what matters to people. Trying to make an influence on them by speaking to their brain is a stupid strategy...it's all about what excited them or what they think is pretty. It's a monkey brain and you must think in terms of what will provoke its emotions. Educators, scientists and most writer's have value in society, but they have very little ability to individually alter the structure of the system because no normal person gives two fucks about what they have to say. Which is ridiculously sad because these are the people that often have the most to contribute to society if they were to become influential.
I used to have this stupid idea that if I figured things out rationally and explained it to people it would help them out. What it actually did is they would either A: feel better or B: feel worse and adjust the next day or two of their lives before they went back to their paradigm. It took me years to figure out that my ability to influence people with ideas was roughly limited to how their irrational thinking paradigm made sense of it. I thought I was pretty fucking smart until I realized I was just another prop in the irrational theater.
All that rationality that I treasure more than anything in this world just a smothered whisper into a suffocating pillow. Not to say it doesn't have value...as, in the same vein of what I mentioned about educators, it's some very powerful stuff. It just doesn't have any real impact because it doesn't really have much for legs in an irrational paradigm. Which is why communication and just spreading ideas around is a poor method to go about implementing those ideas.
The answer is power. I'm not an educator, writer or scientist because they have very little individual power and influence. I'm in video games because I believe that's where the power is. About once a year some poor guy drops dead from playing video games too long. What sort of irrational compulsion is this where someone will ignore sleeping and eating to the point of death? How does it work? I want to know.
And that's what i've been learning. The last game I worked on is in one in eight households in the United States and averages 87 minutes per day per user. I'm learning at the Harvard of irrationality...the core principles of behind some of the most viciously strong irrationality in the world. And it's been eye-opening.
One of the most important lessons i've learned in my entire life is you fight irrationality with irrationality. Fire with fire. Rationality is useful for half-convincing academics and your casual intelligentsia before they go back to jerking off their ego's and masturbating to celebrity gossip magazines like the rest of the society. The only effective path to restructuring society is accumulating enough wealth and understanding of irrational compulsion to push it through.