Outsourcing Our Moral Resolve-Video

Outsourcing Our Moral Resolve

We've all heard that no internet filter is foolproof. Undesired content will periodically get through to harass innocent users, and malicious users will always be able to find a way around any security measure. I'm sure we've also all heard, and even shared, that this is the reason why we need to have a personal moral filter to be safe. While that certainly is a reason, I very strongly feel that even if we  had a foolproof filter, where was never any chance of seeing lewd material by accident or intent, that that would in no way lessen the importance for a strong, moral compass inside. It is imperative that we be able to moderate our choices first and foremost by the strength of our own integrity, and thus we are not meant to outsource that responsibility to a software. All that being said, I do support filters and wholeheartedly recommend them, but they should only be seen as tools to complement, and never replace, our own moral resolve.

Illusionary Values

Entertainment can be a means for teaching real-life lessons in a condensed format through analogy and imagery. As an example, many video games tend to offer the player rewards in return for effort, providing a life-lesson of putting the necessary effort into attaining the richest things. If, however, gamers stop viewing the game as merely anecdotal, and the artificial rewards become as real to them as any other, then they end up valuing things of little worth over things of greater. Why put thousands of dollars and years of hard effort into a simple college degree, when you could just put in two hours and save an entire village? This skewed perspective fails to grasp that a village which can be saved in a couple short hours, must not be a village that is much worth the saving. The fact that real-life accomplishments come harder speaks to the far greater value of them. We should let our games encourage us to strive for the best of life, not spend the best of our lives striving in games.

Our New Media-Book Post

We live during a unique period of change in the media. Specifically social media is now prolific, changing the dynamic of how we receive and share ideologies, news, and entertainment. This has brought a massive increase in content and the ability for anyone to be producing it. So, is this new dynamic better or worse? In a word, yes. Simultaneously breadth and depth are being expanded, both for the best and worst of material. Ideally we would only be producing the good and worthy, but there is no authoritative standard that content must meet.
Before this onset, the media was filtered many times before being distributed. It was filtered by the laws of the land, by investors who demanded getting a profitable return, and by the ethics that the creator of the media had been trained to abide by. The system certainly had its flaws, but at least there were checks in place to counter and curb those flaws.
Today none of those checks are in place for our new media-sharing platform, and the only people who could police the content is us, the creators of it. The most empowering thing about social media is that if we don't like what is out there we can really do something about it. We can see the negative and the base and we can drown it out by producing our own positive and uplifting material. If it is quality, if the masses enjoy it, then it will become viral and its influence will make the internet that much better of a place to be. The internet will become what we determine it should become and if we wish to flood the media with goodwill, worthy content, and places of safety there is nothing to stop us.

Which System is the Right One?

The technological world hosts a great deal of variety, both in ideologies and implementations. One specific example is whether operating systems should be closed (Apple), open (Microsoft), or ridiculously open (Linux). The different core beliefs of each system naturally lead to very different implementations, and thus each method is innately more proficient in some tasks than its competitors, and more deficient in others. People tend to become attached to one or the other and then argue over why all the others are woefully inferior. Personally, I think that's silly. Would we really want to eradicate the others so that only one remained? In what way is it a bad thing to have a variety of different solutions for our many different needs? In what way it a bad thing for competition to drive each method to iterate and ever improve? We will never have a "perfect" single system, but we can at least have a powerful conglomeration of these unique ones.

Unwanted Attention

In the past few years the prevalence of women in technical fields like math and physics has increased, while computer science has remained a male-dominated pursuit*. Concerned parties endeavor to change the culture of computer science and encourage more women to consider that branch of study. While well-meaning, I wonder if these efforts might at times have the opposite effect of driving women away. I have heard young women in BYU's computer science program express exasperation over actually being too well received in their courses. They weren't able to just be another student, because they were constantly reminded of how rare a treat it was to have them there. It's nice to be wanted, but very few enjoy always being thrust into the limelight. In some ways, this treatment can even be insulting, as it tends to make one feel like a commodity. A valued commodity to be sure, but still, a commodity. Women are women, not a rare collector's item.

*http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/business/16digi.html?_r=0

Is the Internet Good or Evil?

We have been warned of the dangers in the internet. There are threats that range from merely wasting our time to degrading our very souls. In the most extreme sense, there is a very real issue of the internet destroying lives. All these troubles and concerns can at times consume our perspective, and we might come to see this technology solely as our enemy. When in such quandaries it is important to not forget the good that these resources also make available to us today. By that I do not mean just the trivial matters of convenience we gain; that alone would not justify the cost. Such an amazing transfer of information has a power to save men from ignorance and mistake, to propagate good ideas, and to bring together worthwhile collaborations*. It may be that the internet has been allowed to remain on this earth because its potential to save the lives and souls of mankind outweighs its own threat to destroy them. The burden is on us to ensure that that potential is not being squandered.

*https://www.lds.org/ensign/1984/06/the-church-and-computers-using-tools-the-lord-has-provided?lang=eng

Not All Play by the Same Rules-Book Report

People have interesting ideas about digital networks. They want their personal profiles to be protected. They don't want their credit card numbers sold, their personal files hacked, or their identities stolen. When exchanging personal information online, they expect the website to meet certain standards of encryption to prevent the data from being stolen. When information does get stolen, they expect the vendor to have resources and obligations to compensate and restore them back to their original state. Now the only way for these things to be secured is through structure. There have to be rules, there have to be ways of monitoring whether those rules are being followed, and there have to be ways to respond to infringements of them. These rules and the enforcement of them designate an implied government.
At the same time, though, people often want the internet to be an anarchy. They want the internet to be where they say what they want to say, show what they want to show, and do what they want to do...even if those things are not always legal in the physical environment. The idea of some authoritative police moderating that self-freedom is repulsive. When legislation like SOPA or PIPA is proposed some legitimately express concern over unintended consequences, however I have noticed a great amount of hostility simply at the idea of government involvement of any sort.
Perhaps there is a logical explanation to these two very real desires that seem to be at odds with one another. It might just be preservation of self-interest. It appears that people are fiercely in support of the measures that protect them, and fiercely opposed to the measures that protect others from them. People don't want their credit cards stolen, but they also don't want to stop their illegal torrenting.

Proper Abstraction

For a society to continually progress, it seems necessary that there be an abstraction that allows lower-level knowledge to be dismissed, otherwise we will eventually spend our entire lifetimes learning all that was previously learned by past generations with no time for new discoveries. Herein is a conundrum, though, as times may arise where that lower-level knowledge was critical but is now lost, a concern explored by Nicholas Carr's recently released book The Glass Cage*. Are we to run the risk of building on a foundation that all of us have forgotten the structure of, or are we to live without ever progressing as doing so would require losing something else? It seems obvious that society has chosen to progress and abstract, and can only be expected to continue to do so. Perhaps that doesn't have to be a doomed journey, though. By knowing what the danger is, we have the opportunity now to assess it and accommodate for it. We may yet learn how to forget safely.

*http://www.kansascity.com/ entertainment/books/article2436204.html

The Future is Divined from Our Needs

In 1947 Archibald Bennett, an LDS Church Genealogist, predicted that "A universal system of intelligent cooperation will bring together on one record sheet every fact in existence regarding a particular family."* One might say that he "saw our day". I don't feel his predicting the future, though, means that he had to have a specific vision of our smart phones, computers, and internet. In fact his language suggests that he spoke not of the technology of mankind, but of very human nature. To know the future of mankind it is enough to be intimately aware of what mankind's needs are. Just understanding that there was an innate need for man to seek out his progenitors and seal his ties to them is sufficient to know that some way will arise to accomplish this. As we understand our nature, we will know what the future will be because we will know what it needs to be.

*https://www.lds. org/ensign/2010/12/future-of-familysearchorg-explained-at-seminar?lang=eng

The Thrill of Being Ignorant Again

The announcement of the iPhone 6 showcased a phenomenon in our culture today. Millions of people paid in advance so that they could leave what they already knew and instead struggle to learn unfamiliar features and software*. Trying to learn new software can be frustrating, but it also reminds us that we are not idly remaining stagnant as the rest of the world flows by us. That's why we describe these periods of ignorance optimistically as "being on the cutting edge of technology". The "cutting edge" is whatever is new, innovative, different...the things we don't yet understand. Apparently that thrill of being a pioneer outweighs the ignorance that inevitably comes with it, as evidenced by the iPhone 6's immediate success. No wonder the technology industry has flourished, given how constantly it is able to evolve and make us all be ignorant again.

*http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2468504,00.asp

Technology = Humanity?

Advances in technology are often seen as implying that all other aspects of humanity and civilization will improve as a result. But this idea is unfounded, as technology could have the unintended and opposite effect of diminishing our quality of life. Many powers in life have to be earned or trained for, be they political position, wealth, devoted followers, or command of a nuclear power plant. Modern technology is also a power, but one which we rabble are given access to without having had any preparations to wield it. There are few things as destructive as power in the hands of the unready. How would things have been different if before nuclear physics was discovered we had already learned as a people to not try to destroy human life? Power is a force for good only when in good hands. And in regards to technology, unspeakable power is already in the hands of a rising generation before they have education, experience, or wisdom. Time will show how that arrangement pans out.

Why Video Games?

   So right now I am at the start of Fall Semester, and the class I am most excited about is the Game Development program that is held each year. Essentially I and 20-30 other students are setting out to make a simple, yet complete, video game.
   In our second class meeting we all introduced ourselves to one another, and had to state why we had chosen to work with video games. I thought that was a good topic for me to address here. I've stated in my "About me" that I want to enter the video game industry, so now here is the "why".

MY PASSIONS
   I figure the first and most important thing to get across is that I love telling stories. This is the foundation for everything that follows in this post, as all the things I am pursuing in computers and video game design now are ultimately in the service of that pinnacle goal. Stories have always been a way for me to both escape to another world and to express my ideas and feelings. I see stories in general as a powerful force for good, as I know that I've been personally affected by them for the positive in many different ways. I'm not yet sure how skilled I ought to consider my story-telling, but I want to hone my talents and consider that a fascinating and worthy pursuit. My ultimate dream would be to take these stories out of my head and be able to share them in some way with others. I used to try to do that with writing books.
   My first "book" was about 5 pages long and I did it for a school assignment. Despite its short length, I remember thinking I couldn't make it any longer because I had simply already said all that there was to say. I enjoyed the experience though and started writing more. The books got progressively more ambitious in scope, longer in length, and deeper in detail. I would sit down to my characters, unsure myself of how things were going to pan out exactly, thus I would just write and see where things took me. I was as much along for the ride as my imaginary adventurers. The last "book" I wrote was when I was somewhere between 16 and 18, and it turned out to be 300+ handwritten pages, detailing a medieval epic.
   I can talk more about my experiences writing  with another post. My point here, though, is that I very much fell in love with telling stories. Ideas for stories and how to tell them have ever since been on my mind.
   About the same time I was discovering the fascinating world of computers. We had a little programming platform on our Windows 3.1 called Ladybug Logo. It came with lessons to perform certain programs and I would take those and edit them around to create games, such as racing a car (that was a blue triangle) around a track (that was a red oval). I don't think I even knew that what I was trying to do was program. I certainly wasn't very efficient at it and I never really grasped the concept of things like objects and functions, I just tweaked already-defined methods. Later I started recording macros in Excel and tweaking those too. I put together murder-mystery games where some evidence would be hidden to implicate the culprit.
   Again, I can talk more about programming with another post, but understand that I had a natural interest in the technical. It was no wonder, then, that when I got to college and started taking Computer Science classes I immediately fell in love with it.
   So now that I had two great creative passions, it seemed natural to combine the two. Fortunately there are already two ways established to do just that: animated films and video games. So that brings us to passion number three: I love games.
   Why? Gee, I'm glad you asked.

WHY GAMES ARE AMAZING
   First off, let me make clear that I have a lot of criticisms of games today. Actually, I could probably do some blog posts about that, too. But those criticisms are really more with the industry than with the medium itself. I actually think the medium on its own is genius, particularly in regards to telling stories, the single occupation in life that I am most excited about.
   Reason number one is because games are interactive. I guess I should make clear I am defining a video game as any digitally interactive adventure. Why does interactivity matter? Well in regards to the story, a player is much more likely to become personally and emotionally invested in the outcome of the experience when they are putting in their own effort towards reaching that outcome. In books and movies an all-important challenge is to get the audience to connect and self-identify with the protagonist. In a video game you naturally already feel that connection by being the one who is in control of the protagonist (unless they utterly botch it and make you hate your own character). When the main character fails to achieve a goal that you personally invested hours of effort into helping them achieve, the tragedy hits much closer to home. Conversely, their successes are all the sweeter. As such, some of the most beautiful experiences I've had in stories have been in games. Take "To the Moon". That is one of my most favorite games of all time. The "gameplay" isn't really challenging, but I feel that the story was able to make a deeper impact just by its being interactive.
   Reason number two is that games are challenging. Most video games follow a pattern of teaching you skills that you will need to incorporate with increasing precision and/or complexity to reach a high standard by the end. A lot of the fun of games is tied up with this learning experience and being able to actually feel yourself getting better, in being able to look back on earlier levels and recognize personal growth since that point. In addition to being ridiculously fun, this design can also serve the story by creating a player-arc next to the protagonist-arc. While the main character is becoming empowered and developing, the player will be too.
   These elements of interactivity and personal challenge combine to form reason number three: video games encourage the player to insert him/herself into the experience. Notice that most players don't talk about the game-character beating the final boss, they talk about how they beat the final boss. It's personal and it's all the more exciting because of that. This connection with the main character goes both ways. When an NPC speaks to the character, it is perceived as being directed at the player themselves as much as to their in-game avatar. Thus this allows a way for a developer to speak to the audience in a way that is unique from other story-telling mediums. Notice how video game developers have recognized and capitalized on this unique blend of character and player. In what other medium do you have an entire story where the protagonist might possibly never say a single word? Where his/her motivations, feelings, and reasoning are all expected to be provided by the player alone. Ultimately, games have the opportunity to be the player's own story.

CONCLUSION
   There are other reasons why video games are awesome. There is the degree of power and control they give to the developers to create the wildest, most amazing things possible. There is how accepting the gaming community is of new developers, giving the most humble of creators an opportunity to create a household name (Minecraft, anyone?). There is also the excitement of the video game industry still being in its infancy and in need of pioneers to forge its evolution.
      To keep this post shorter and more focused, though, I think I should stop here. To summarize, video games are awesome to me because I want to spend my occupation in life telling stories, and games bring a deeper, richer environment for that than any other medium. I suppose that might seem like an odd claim to make, seeing as video games are notorious for consistently sharing some of the worst stories in entertainment. But the potential is definitely still there, and the failings are those of the developers. Storytelling in games needs to be recognized as its own art form, and given as high a precedence as any of the other factors-primarily visuals and gameplay.
   Now I know my experience is not the same as every other person's. Also, while I feel the most influential stories can be communicated with games, I understand that some stories require different mediums. Some tales need to be told as movies, and some as books, and some as songs. Also, I know that not all people have the same tastes, and therefore may not appreciate the finer qualities of games. That's okay...I feel the same about opera.
   Because, though, I have been entertained by games, felt them stimulate my creativity, and even push me to emotional places, I know that they can do the same for others. And that's what I want to do: make stories that matter, that touch people, that have real purpose and meaning. So that's why video games.