Life and Gaming: An Experiment in Psychology

Forget test tube babies, the eye of Big Brother, and training the mind to bring on adverse effects in response to undesirable behavior . Recent psychological thinking is considering a new vision of society, asking whether the concepts behind gaming could be applied to society as a whole.

Your first reaction might be to scoff, but before dismissing the idea I must draw attention towards the views of one of the world’s most influential psychologists, Roy F. Baumeister. The quote below is from his book Willpower (co-written with Science Journalist John Tierney).

Instead of bemoaning the games’ hold over children, we should be exploiting the techniques that game designers have developed. They’ve refined the basic steps of self-control: Setting clear and attainable goals, giving instantaneous feedback, and offering enough encouragement for people to keep practicing and improving. After noticing how hard people work at games, some pioneers are pursuing the “gamification” of life by adapting these techniques.

Read more (published at Addicted-Gamers.com; edit: link now defunct, rest of article added after the jump)

Reflections on Climate Change, the value of History and free thinking

Below is an essay I wrote in January of this year.  It is by no means a masterpiece, but it embodies an important milestone in my personal development.  In particular it touches upon the module (the coordinator was amazing) and articles that led me to really begin assessing society and education at an informed critical level.  This led in particular to 'free thinking', a concept which influences my opinion in all variety of topics.  The essay also explains the potential appeal and impact History can have and touches upon my frustrations in dealing with public view of History.  Yes, I study History, but that doesn't make me a bloody encyclopaedia on some obscure topic.  There is much more to be said for the skills and values, not the facts and figures.  Oh, and Climate Change, yeah I talk about that too.

I was not initially going to share this, as I felt it was too academic, but a good friend of mine convinced me it was worth sharing.  It is laden with information, so if you're not currently supercharged with coffee you're probably better off giving this a miss.

A word of warning: Plagiarists will be shot.

A blog against the superficial

The will to write is arresting.  It brings upon a squirming sensation that one can only be freed from by putting pen to paper.  The longer one sits upon that will the more they are consumed and compelled to pursue it.  So... yeah.  I finished reading The Picture of Dorian Gray nearly three days ago and since then have wanted to write something on my reading experience.  That is a pretty long gestation period, and part of the reason for that is that I have quite a few bases I would like to cover.

This blog entry should be seen as a review article, of sorts.  While it might have conventional elements, I would like to more so focus on my response to the text, however incomplete it may be, and the insight that can reveal into the value of fiction.  In essence I intend to apply a quote I saw by-chance posted on Tim Ferris' blog:

• '“In Amazon reviews, which would you rather have people talk about: you or your book?” 'The answer was, of course: “Neither. You want them to talk about THEMSELVES… the results they achieved, the before-and-after awesomeness in their lives.”' (link)

In context the quote was more so discussing non-fiction, but I also think it could be applied to fiction texts.  Now I am not saying that reading about the life of a man granted eternal youth, by having his soul reside (and show decadence) in a portrait has been exactly life-changing.  But, I do want to emphasise the personal benefit that can be had from reading fiction.

Welcome to my blog

I cannot reliably recount what came first, a loss of confidence, stagnation, or erraticism.  Nor do I intend to divulge specifics as angst teenage crap (ok, don’t remind me, I’m 20) doesn’t make for interesting reading.  I also do not know how one can go about making others understand what they do not understand themselves.  All that this welcome/introduction intends to do is give general sense of the purpose and reason for this blog.

The purpose is simple.  A person strangled finds they have much they want to say.  I am looking to loosen the vice and spew forth the backlog.