RE: (TFT) Politics ramblings

[Todd Archer <todda39@hotmail.com>]

Do you really believe all this?

> Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2012 14:05:26 -0700
> Subject: (TFT) Politics ramblings
> From: maou.tsaou@gmail.com
> To: tft@brainiac.com
>
> How the ethics of the polis are determined is a very odd subject considered
> from a gaming standpoint.
> I am unaware of a political game that addresses politics as a general
> concept but know of many games that model more specifically framed
> situations like the u.s. presidential election or a small South American
> junta.
> Political systems are in the same class as religions or other social
> institutions with foundations based in fantasy.
> Dig to the heart of one of these systems and you start coming across stuff
> like apologies for the divinity of rulers or a holy of holies with priests
> crying "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain".
> This sort of thing often serves as justification for stuff like elite
> privileges and slavery and is usually fundamental to the cultures
mythology.
>
> I saw this bit on Sci-Fi "visionaries" on the Science channel the other
day.
> They were talking about George Lucas (a highly questionable choice) and
> some director or writer was saying that the modern era was lacking a modern
> mythos until Star Wars rolled around.
> Obviously this guy was conceiving mythology as the old stories our
> ancestors told each other around the fire at night for entertainment.
> It never occurred to him to consider modern assumptions as part of our
> modern mythology.
> The logic seems to make an assumption that modern man is some sort of
> advancement over our backwards ancestors and therefore modern axioms are in
> a different class than those of the ignorant past.
> (He also made the common mistake of associating the americans with the
> Rebel Alliance but it seems quite obvious to me that the u.s. is MUCH
> better modeled as the Empire.)
> The poor guy isn't alone in overlooking the modern mythos.
> I like Robert Krulwich from Radio Lab and NPR and enjoy reading his
> articles but even the best of us can miss a mythological assumption from
> time to time.
> Mr. K has been doing some reporting on a book that details research done on
> "cheating" showing a tendency for most people to cheat a little bit but not
> as much as possible.
> Bob writes;
> "The moment something is one step removed from money ... people can cheat
> more and [still] feel good about themselves. It basically relieves people
> from the moral shackles. And, the reason this worries me so much is because
> if you think about modern society, we are creating lots of cashless
> economy. We have electronic wallets, we have mortgage-backed securities, we
> have stock options, and could it be that all of those payment modalities
> that as they get more and more further from money become easier for us to
> cheat and be dishonest with them."
> The modern mythology's whispering were so strong that Mr. Krulwich forgot
> to question the assumption that money is "fair".
> A fiat currency under fractional reserve banking doesn't strike me as being
> remotely close to a state I would call fair or honest and that's a problem
> for the worldview he's expressing here.
> I've been alive for two different u.s. currencies.
> Just because you print the two different types of certificates to appear
> very similar doesn't make them so even if both are called dollar but it
> makes it easier to treat both the same when they look so similar.
> I live in a militaristic police state.
> I say this because the united states nearly matches the rest of the planet
> dollar for dollar in military spending in recent years and its roughly 5%
> of the global population holds about a quarter of the worlds prisoners.
> What else do you call such?
> Calling symbolic, ritualistic, cannibalism a sacred rite doesn't change the
> validity of the words symbolic, ritualistic, or cannibalism in describing
> such a practice it just covers the silliness of it all in a cloak of
> religious authority that establishes some "order in the court" when it
> comes to such blasphemies.
> How one initially responds to the claim that "I live in a militaristic
> police state" is a pretty good indicator of of one's level of belief in the
> american mythology.
> The political term for blasphemy is treason.
> Such a S.O.B. is no longer a member of the make-believe fold.
> The stage magician that tries to teach the rubes the tricks is a threat not
> just to the other magicians but to the portion of rube "true believers" as
> well.
> The altruistically minded often forget to question whether or not the rest
> of us actually WANT any "help" to begin with much less the kind of
> "payback" such help might elicit (it's hard to help someone who doesn't
> know their "place").
> My thoughts are that the key gaming concept here is "Happiness".
> In game terms I'd think it makes sense to set the effects of government
> actions in terms of a +/- to Population Happiness as a rule of thumb.
> Build a Theater, + Happiness.
> Raise Taxes, - Happiness per x%.
> etc.
> Modifier subjects that spring to mind are stuff like Illusions, and Talents
> like Theologian.
> Casting a successful Illusion in oratory or text is a somewhat different
> consideration than the holographic idea.
> Success is more limited and difficult lacking full sensual inputs like
> sight but the potential audience is larger.
> That would connect propaganda with Illusions which seems appropriate.
> There is a strong element of the group conceiving the political system
> expressing their "will" on the population at large.
> The more that will is kept in accord with the mythos of the culture and the
> will of the overall population the less unhappy making government is.
> In a situation where the government is directly at odds with the cultural
> myths and the populations will is not considered discontent runs highest.
> And of course fear by threat of force is a less subtle form of control.
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