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Endie recently posted “…Go West, Young Man!”, an essay to the EVE Online crowd that speaks to population density as a factor fueling conflict in that massive multiplayer online wargame (the alliance game). A rise in population relative to available territory is feeding the intensity and duration of conflict. He frames the issue this way:
One difference between a virtual world such as EVE and the real world is that with the virtual world developers can “print” new territory. While the developers are not looking to avoid conflict they are interested in managing it for sake of an enjoyable game; they can do this by varying the amount of territory available (and other factors). The real world has no such luxury. As has been worried in the popular press recently (e.g. world population growth; population displacement via global warming), 21st century earth may come to wish that it had such advantages.
PBS is commencing a 10 hour series (April 27 - May 1 at 9-11 p.m. ET.), “Carrier: Life aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz.” The preview episode is posted online at the PBS site at this link (excellent); full episodes to follow. It promises a uniquely detailed view of the human and cultural microcosm that is a modern super carrier, a floating small town -of sorts - of over five thousand inhabitants. Support PBS, this is excellent work.
I recently read a fine essay in The Economist on the reintroduction to America of John Adams, “the most neglected of America’s Founding Fathers.” Beyond a “cussed authenticity” the Lexington essay hinted at a question as provocative then as it seems now. John Adams’ political impulses seem to distrust the popular instinct - he prefered an educated elite to filter common impulse. In modern terms one would have not far to look to see a grounding for this argument, starting with the tension separating the internet versus established media.
Yet, to my mind, Ethan Zuckerman’s “The Cute Cat Theory Talk at ETech” reminds of the need for tolerance. Here is the flashy bait:
Web 1.0 was invented to allow physicists to share research papers.
Web 2.0 was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats.
It is a great presentation that makes a big point that Torill Mortensen interpreted this way: “if people are able to post pictures of their cute cats online, they can also post pictures of crimes against humanity and political unrest and activism.”
On this score I take John Adams’ words two and a half centuries ago as instructive:
liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. (A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765)
However, I think the Cute Cat Theory turns John Adams’ argument to a different cut. Libertine knowledge and frivolity are inseparable; else who would you trust to decide for you?
To close with a quote attributed to John Adams by David Cobb (citing the HBO mini-series [1]):
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
David’s application of a generational family narrative around these words is striking (and lovely). Strangely, with the internet model, the translation of cute cats into this hierarchy of exigency seems paradoxical. Third order activities (cute cats) with first order implications (politics). A modern conundrum.
[1] HBO Films. DvD Amazon (pre-order, June 10). Episode trailers available at website.
Endie is thinking about a stunning depiction of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. One could contrasted it to the storied rendering of Disney’s 1940 Fantasia. This format captures “striking patterns” (Endie’s words). I like the quality of exploration and travel present. For me this was most apparent with the depiction of Liszt, Feux Follets, S.139, R.2b, #5 - with which I was unfamiliar and whose “demonic complexity” (from comment at Endie’s site) could be anticipated through its visualization. The approaching graphical moments on the scrolling map, what is that going to be about?
I’ve seen Rudyard Kipling cited twice this past week. At one time I would have thought this to be astonishing. However, vaguely, it feels like it may be part of a trend. Disparaged once as colonial and jingoistic, it seems that Kipling’s works have found a new audience. A favorite from my youth is Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. This week’s nods: from The Economist (March 27, 2008 - print edition), “The future of NATO” quotes “Arithmetic on the Frontier“; and Endie makes deft use of a passage from “Tommy” as editorial.
- (Open Source) text: “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” and “Darzee’s Chant” (Jungle Book).
- Additional citations in comment - William Kristol, George Orwell.
The title of this post is a nod to a fabulous book by Valentino Braitenberg.
Folks, I’ve decided to no longer make available by download the increasingly sprawling document known as “A View of Morale and Politics in EVE Online.” Based on the crummy high-level stats my ISP provides, it appears that downloads have been wildly accelerating and yet the feedback from the EVE community has diminished. It is a document reaching outside of its intended audience without a proper introduction. I am also sitting on a mountain of research material that hasn’t made its way into this document - to do so would render it incoherent. It is time to move on to better structures and abstractions. Morale and Politics… is a working research resource for those engaged in EVE studies. I will continue to make it available (unpolished) - by request - to those so interested.
What is needed is a more complete discussion of the politics of conflict in the large scale virtual experiment known as EVE - a view of it as a synthesis of MMOG-play, PvP-competition, and sandbox culture. I’m thinking model-driven, perhaps as a full paper. Yet this is a hobby, so that means later in the year.
A bientot.