Let us help in saving the world.
polycounter lvl 10
The world is vastly changing. 10 years from now, where in the hell we could be? We might not have the kind of life that we are enjoying right now. All these ps3, xbox, wii, 3d stuffs, game stuffs might be gone. We might not even get into the era of really cool next-gen games. Or instead of making games, we wipe those stinky sh!ts that are spreading all over a wrinkled as$ for a living. Or maybe, it's gonna get worse than we could ever possibly think. Whether we like it or not, people like us who are gaming geeks will get affected. It doesn't matter whether you're one of the top artists in the industry or just a newbie. Global crisis, AH1N1, war in middle east, racism, nuclear weapons by the north koreans and other stuffs like these will cause this kind of future. But hey, we cannot let this happen, right? I mean, we "CAN" not let it happen.
The gaming industry is part of the media, the most powerful thing that man has ever created. We can affect other people's minds, big time. So, we should all be responsible enough in what we are to trying to show or tell to the citizens of the world. The fate of the world is on our hands, literally. We can help in making this world better instead of worse. I am not saying that all the games we make should be themed saving the world or saving mother earth or anything. Even in small things that we do, we can make a big difference. For your environment art, you can put posters or graffitis of "stop cutting trees", "make love, not war" or "be good with your ex-girlfriend that slept with your dad", blah blah blah. Or in the characters we make, we can put these as tattoos or prints on their shirts. Anything you can think that can help. There are lots of other ideas. Just use our creative minds.
Of course, for many this many not be cool. But hey, making this world exist like hell is neither cool. Maybe in a game that would look cool, but in reality it would not. We are privileged by being in this industry. Let's encourage other people, cause we can. Make use of the power we have. The power of changing one's own belief. Let us help in saving the world.
The gaming industry is part of the media, the most powerful thing that man has ever created. We can affect other people's minds, big time. So, we should all be responsible enough in what we are to trying to show or tell to the citizens of the world. The fate of the world is on our hands, literally. We can help in making this world better instead of worse. I am not saying that all the games we make should be themed saving the world or saving mother earth or anything. Even in small things that we do, we can make a big difference. For your environment art, you can put posters or graffitis of "stop cutting trees", "make love, not war" or "be good with your ex-girlfriend that slept with your dad", blah blah blah. Or in the characters we make, we can put these as tattoos or prints on their shirts. Anything you can think that can help. There are lots of other ideas. Just use our creative minds.
Of course, for many this many not be cool. But hey, making this world exist like hell is neither cool. Maybe in a game that would look cool, but in reality it would not. We are privileged by being in this industry. Let's encourage other people, cause we can. Make use of the power we have. The power of changing one's own belief. Let us help in saving the world.
Replies
now be wery quiet, cat will save us from this uncool hell.
The real problem now is no one is offering any real solutions, or easy ones, haven't decided which one we don't really want to do.
There´s always some shit we have to worry about but just accept your fate. You will die. Only a matter of time. If it´s the world ending or you choking on a donut, Who knows.
Out of most possibilities i choose world destruction as one because hey, that would be pretty cool when you think about it.
GO GO POWER EARTH DESTRUCTION!
You're right. We all know the solution. The only thing that is hindering us is how are we going to put it into action. But we are in an industry that can spread the message. We should take advantage of it.
Epic xD
but you're right. I agree. I meditate every day to clear my own shit up, and one of my largest goals is spreading healthy consciousness.. and greener grass games might be the first step in that. we'll see.
it's easy to talk. are you doing anything?
I admire your idealism as everyones thought that at some point, then over time you realize the world isn't black and white but grey everywhere and that your essentially powerless. Unless you dump every responsibility and dedicate your life to change you won't make any difference. My advice is simply live as best you can, love your wife n kids, don't fuck anyone over who doesn't deserve it and you would have led a good life mate.
If we all die in an inferno of radiation and fire, deep down I sort of think we deserve it. Let the subsequent scorpion mutants have a go at creating a morally tenable civilization.
Sleep peacefully
The main problem that I find in trying to add these messages to games, is the fact that many people turn to games to get away from that stuff. Just like when you go the the theater, you don't want to see a political ad half way through, when you game you don't want a tree-hugger yammering in your ear. By misplacing such things, you do more damage than anything else; people will be too busy insulting you to listen to your message.
Now, organizing tree plantings, public area clean-ups, recycling drives, and so forth, would get you a lot farther.
There's a lot of things a lot of people could do to help conserve energy and, maybe not save the world, but destroy it a little bit less. Everyone already KNOWS about all those ways, but no one bothers doing it. Because people are stupid and lazy.
Walk to the store next time instead of taking the car. Take the bus to work rather than driving, yourself. Invest in a bike. Turn your computer off when you go to bed. Recycle whatever junk you can instead of throwing it all in a landfill. It won't help, at all, but if you don't do it no one will, and we'll all have to do something if anything good's gonna come out of it.
I suspect/hope that, soon enough, something will make some crazy powerful people get sick of everything, and make it illegal not to do all these "nice" things, and force us to live much less comfortable lives, for the sake of our own health and the health of everything around us. And a lot of people will complain. But not me, because I've already given a up a lot of these selfish conveniences. I don't have a drivers license and I don't ever want to get one, because as soon as I have the ability to drive a car, I know I'll get lazy as hell and do so even when I shouldn't. So I'm making sure it's impossible for me to make those mistakes. It's a hassle, but I feel good about it.
And that's what needs to be done. Less talk, more do. People don't need to hear about this stuff, they just need to sit down and think about it for a while. And there's nothing anyone else can do to make that happen. The more someone tells you to do something, the more eager you are to resist it because you have a will of your own.
Actually, don't games like Fallout make you scared of nuclear war and global warming and the inability to find clean water etc? Therefore, by writing for this mod you are making people see how worse can the world get. So you're actually doing your part whether you like it or not :P
Oh yeah, Recoil is making a FPS called Earth No More
You know what the real answer is? Micro-transactions!
Make it cost twenty cents to throw away a pop-can, and five cents to recycle. Need to get to work? Opening a car door will cost you five dollars, while mass-transportation will cost you two. Turning on a light will cost five cents an hour, but turning it off within a reasonable period of time will give you 50% off. You get a bonus pack of five garbage bags if you go completely solar.
If it works in MMO's...
Edit: Didn't see those other posts.
Certainly "the Man" is to blame for much of the problems in the world. There's virtually no regulation on how oil is obtained, how diamonds are obtained, etc. Just yesterday Shell was finally found guilty of human rights violations:
http://www.shellguilty.com/
What was their settlement? $15.5m. That's literally nothing to that company. So even when good people are heard, almost nothing is done.
To have any real impact, people need to decide what's important in their lives (hopefully friends, family, COMMUNITY) and NOT money, a new car, a new house...
Sounds like hippie mumbo-jumbo, but changing people's minds from "how can I do anything" to "how can I NOT do anything?" is the only way there will be real change. The corporations aren't going to give you change. Obama isn't going to give you change. You create the change you want to become in the world.
I'm a vegan; can I say that I've totally become self-sufficient? No. But I try to conserve energy when I can, I buy used when I can, I walk when I can, etc. It's a drop in the bucket, but everyone is a drop in the bucket.
Some cool stuff has been said by others here already
EDIT: I agree humans are fucking it up for humans, and your response is to get back to work? We're the brainwashed ones? Who's benefiting from you working? People have been working their whole existence to live, the difference is we've been brainwashed to think we need to work to buy Xboxes, huge TVs, huge cars, instead of living together with the people around us and loving each other.
We've been brainwashed to hate each other instead of caring and understanding.
woooo. fuck pandas!
classic
I'm sure you'd care if your entire neighborhood was destroyed to harvest some ore or oil, but our ability to empathize with other people has been eradicated, it seems.
Obviously I'm totally off-topic, as I don't think putting subtle messages into our games is exactly how to make a difference, but it can't hurt, either.
Don't most of the timelines for carbon reduction say if we can reduce our C02 output by a certain percent by 2020-30 we will be OK (not great but ok).
Basically we're human, and our nature is to cover our ears and keep doing what we want until circumstances force a change. There's no way anything short of widespread manipulation or totalitarianism is going to sway us as a group in any meaningful way.
Where the focus should be, is the schools. If little Jimmy is being taught that he needs to recycle and look towards the future when he is six, instead of sixty with all the trees gone and oceans dry, there might be hope. The same thing goes for those dreaded 'Community Service' hours. The average school requires what, twenty to forty? Eighty to one hundred at most? That's only enough to make people not like it, instead of becoming used to it. People give me funny stares whenever I tell them that I had three hundred hours required of me; once you get going, it gets easy. And when it gets easy, it can become fun.
Elhrrah: good news, the message has already been in schools. I learned Reduce Re-use Recycle in the 80s and I also had a elementery school science teacher tell the class "You will see the worlds oil reserves run out in your lifetime". Unfortunately it's still probably another 20 years before my generation is in charge :P
"Are you going to watch me destroy the ecosystem? Get active. Today."
Strangely enough while eating lunch today I got to thinking about all the meth heads and other drug addicts I see around my neighborhood. It seems as though a lot of these people get addicted at a young age, teens maybe younger and end up ruining their whole lives.
I believe that video games are a powerful medium which shouldn't be overlooked as simply fun and entertainment.
I wonder if anyone ever made a game about the horrors of drug addiction from the viewpoint of an addict. I think the current gen technology is sufficient enough to make it a pretty visceral nasty experience. Drug use is a dangerous lifestyle lots of bad stuff can happen.
Imagine a sandbox type game where your character is constantly motivated to get high. Your character needs to steal stuff or sell his/her body to get money for drugs. Of course all of those actions have inherent risks, not to mention just using some drugs can kill your character though an overdose. Most of the time your character ends up dead or in jail getting gang raped, or maybe you manage to stay alive but live out a horrible existence on the streets. Maybe you slowly lose control of your character as the drug use gets worse and it gets harder to steal. He/she becomes more disgusting over time and can no longer turn tricks. Your character goes into an uncontrollable rage and kills some kids playing in a park. Other drug addicts try to kill you for your drugs. Well you guys get the idea...
I don't really buy the argument that games can brainwash anyone. Playing GTA probably never gave anyone an uncontrollable impulse to go out and kill someone else.
However I do think games are a much more personal experience than say watching a movie. So maybe, just maybe if kids/teens were to play such a game they might think twice about trying out drugs.
Then again if it had to be rated "E" or "T" it probably wouldn't be that convincing, oh well... lol.
Of course, meth, heroin, really bad shit fucks people up. I'm speaking from growing up in the U.S., and in the U.S. acid is basically equivalent to cocaine. Pot is demonized. Shrooms will permanently fuck you up.
I'll come right out and say I have been taking salvia, which isn't illegal in many areas, but SURPRISE it's becoming illegal (Ohio just made salvia illegal). And guess what? It's helped me totally open my eyes. Ancient religions used hallucinogens all the time to "open the third eye". Guess what the major world religions are totally against?
Again, I imagine most people will be thinking "oh Ian's just using drugs," but that's the whole point. It's so illegal and so "evil" that realistic discussions can't even be held.
Does anyone think it's a coincidence that marijuana has been used for thousands of years for medicinal purposes, but now that companies can patent their drugs, cheap/free home remedies are increasingly "debunked". Pot can never be patented, so there's no way for major drug companies to make money off of it.
Cancer can be cured, but where's the profit? Treatment is where money is, prevention has no purpose in our capitalist society.
I really recommend watching this video:
http://www.phoenixtearsmovie.com/
Now, you may think I'm just crazy, but at least watch this video, and then afterwards ask yourself "does my government have my best interest in mind?" Or even more realistically "do corporations have my best interest in mind?"
There is growing medical evidence (not to mention thousands of years of experiential evidence) that marijuana is a very healthy, beneficial drug.
Anyway this is a huge rant, go smoke, or try some shrooms, or smoke salvia. Salvia is perfectly legal in many states. Approach it from the angle of "what can I learn from this" rather than just recreational drug use. There's a reason for shamans and other spiritual leaders; they help guide you on your trips so that you learn something meaningful, rather than trying to just "go somewhere else" for a while.
I sound crazy because self thought and learning has been totally annihilated in our culture. We're told that this is bad, this works, this doesn't work, but we don't try anything ourselves.
If you're really stuck on illegality, etc., try out salvia a couple of times, and read about it before you do so that you experience some truth for yourself!
Thread reminds me of this old article I am still fond of. Games are a great place to teach and learn, often touching more subtle things than what a Jack Thompson might vilify them for... but positive benefit from a game relies on the player's own introspection. If a kid is ignorant and mindless then it's ignorant and mindless.
I can't rightly say these are at all 100% true, but I thought I'd post them anyhow.
so someone snaps one day and gets up on a soap box to do something positive, and he gets "facepalm" bullshit? i mean the guy sounds a little naive, but common.
I always hear a lot of bullshit about how we can't do something, or how it won't work, etc.. which is basically self hypnosis.
this "we're helpless" rhetoric has spread through our culture with NOOOO problem what so ever, so don't anyone spew bullshit about how we can't effect change. the proof is in the pudding.
at it's base, most problems are consciousness related. people refuse to get resourceful. if you can spread a negative psychology that fits with lazy fucks, then you can spread a healthy one that fits with people who give a shit, or at least tells the lazy fucks to..
shut the fuck up, perhaps? -- because you're just re-enforcing the negative social conditioning.
There's a lot of lip service about how people are "sheep" but nobody will actually take responsibility to change what they believe, or to even begin to become aware of their own rhetoric. could it be that the sleepwalker is you? hows about we take responsibility for our lives?
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/water/140525/kudos_to_gq_for_revealing_the_coal_industry's_dirty_secrets_/
The clean coal conspiracy website!
I care about everyone on these boards, that's why I'm wasting my time trying to have a discussion
sure, will do.
dude, that is the other EXTREME. lets not pretend that the world is black and white, yes?
I *apparently* wasted an hour talking on these forums. i now have about 12 more to get some work done.. which I'm startinnggg now.
don't make massive distortions to justify decisions that you've already made on an irrational basis, because it's transparent.
That's not completely true, haha.. I try to do my part at least, keep energy consumption low, I usually turn all of the lights off and just open blinds for some natural brightness, turn the PC off at night, etc. (Mainly because I'm a cheap bastard)
We'd all like to do something to help someone, naturally.. That includes helping yourself, all you really have to do is keep some space in your plan to make sure whatever the shit it is you're doing doesn't completely fuck everyone else over.
I always thought self-help books were a bit ironic too, buying a book to help you help yourself. :poly142:
lol can't believe i missed this. I must be going blind. hahaha are you being sarcastic?
edit: uggh.. must .. not .. respond.. will.. start a fight....
"the unexamined life is not worth living." -- what do you suppose this means? anything at all?
Most of them are about that though anyway, aren't they?
that reminds me of a joke
2 planets meet
the one asks the other how hes feeling
the other anserews hes in bad condition, he has homo sapiens
the on says this too will pass