Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture and faith from the Antipodes.

Cyberspace

Myth of progress

Just writing up some stuff on different approaches to technology. From those who see technology as liberator, to those who see it as oppressor, and those who see it as value-neutral. Then this popped up in the newsreader.

Somedays a doctrine of total depravity seems to get it right.

Wired News: Pursuing the Libido’s Dark Side

And as for the comment by the developer that

it’s vital to remember that what happens in the game stays in the game. Therefore, he added, people shouldn’t be afraid that the game’s players will step away from their computers filled with violent lust.

I’m not convinced that people don’t take the thoughts of their hearts with them into the game. Mark 7:14-16 springs to mind:

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.'”

What’s inside of human beings that would want to make them play this game?

Obviously a case of technology building a better, brighter world for us all. (“sarcasm mode” there folks) Somedays you just despair of us ever doing the right thing.

++ Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy ++

3 Comments

  1. Andrew

    This is vile and disgraceful(the game not your post)!

  2. I read the article too and it intriguing. What amazes me is that these life simulators are becoming life for many people. It raises really interesting questions about what it means to live authentically : what would you do in a no-consequence world? Are these actions expressions of the real you? It seems that the hyper-existentialist experiences that anyone can indulge in with these games raises the question : am I defined by indulgence or suppression . . . what takes the greater courage? and finally, what truly reflects the authentic me?

    I know that many youth are compartmentalising their lives quite happily, it’s not hypocrisy to be one way with some people and another with others, it’s just different modes of existence. Identity (whatever that is) is being decontructed to oblivion and now they seem to have never thought about finding themselves so they just be who and what we want whenever they want. Adults probably don’t have courage to do this, which is why they resort to the game playing compartments.

    So, are people more ‘them’ in the game than in real life?

  3. Nice to hear from you, Stu. I was wondering in the last week or so what you were up to and now I have a look to your blog.

    Sherry Turkle’s book “Life on the Screen” looks at multiplicative identities, especially in games. One of her findings was that for some the games personalities are their “true” ones. The real-life (RL) ones simply exist to earn money, eat food etc.