Playing Politics Workshop Response

In examine the two games, September 12th and the Kabul Kaboom, I think these political simulation games are effective in communication with people via the internet. As Frasca states in Lee’s article, these games are designed in a situation that you will never win (but its not the problem of the player’s ability), which is quite a contrary to the normal games we play, and this would result to a reflection to the players to the meaning of the game as long as they try to figure out the intentions of that mechanism.

Also, I think the political message in the two games I examined is obvious enough to transmit to the players. One of the reasons lies in the instructions of the games that they both instruct the players that they are not simply games. In the September 12th, it says “This is not a game” and “You can’t win and you can’t lose” in the first page of the instruction. Similarly, the instruction in Kabul Kaboom says “Remember kids, you can’t win this game, just lose.” These explicit instructions to the players could easily drive the players interest on what’s the content of the game. Moreover, the content and the mechanism of the two games are explicit enough to the players to get the message too. As long as we play the Septemer 12th for a while, we would easily observe that there are more and more terrorists in the town that people are turning to be terrorists when someone is being killed; the Kabul Kaboom is also a tough game that the dropping of the bombs are so much that we have no way to avoid “eating” the booms.

If I m going to make a political simulation game, I would like to talk a similar topic to that in the game September 12th about the violence would cause only more violence. As there is a template with nine holes, there will be the heads of the terrorists coming up randomly , the task of the players is to hit the head by the mouse in order to “kill” a terrorist. However, as long as the players hit one of the heads, there will be more heads coming out more frequently and with more numbers too. Finally heads will be coming up so quick that the player would no longer able to hit them, and hence bring out the message.

Lee, S. S. “I Lose, therefore I think.” Game Studies. Dec 2003. Accessed on 18 May 2006.

Presentation on "The Ethics of Porn on the Net" from Kath Albury (Week 8)

Albury in her “The Ethnics of Porn on the Net” suggests that while pornography is widely considered to be immoral or “perverse outsider”, we should in fact focus on how the internet pornography renewed the assumptions about pornography and the seems appropriate sexual expressions. “[It] is the internet’s diversity, and capacity for participation and change, which offers to make the most positive difference to the ways that sex and sexuality are represented pornographically.” As she makes some examples of certain pornography, they are a new kind of sexual beauty and desire, also with other related information and resources, which “does not conform to stereotypical images of the simpering, passive woman-in-pornography.” Thus, when considering pornography in terms of ethics rather than morals could offer us a new space to see this form of new sexuality and a relaxation from our anxieties on the danger of cyberporns.

Critical Annotated Webliography

“From Frankenstein to the Visible Human Project, technological ‘progress’ has always forced society to re-evaluate the meaning of ‘life’.” Discuss critically.

Since we entered the period of technology and science, different discourses were raised among our society. From the horror of uncontrollable technology in Frankenstein to the advancement in the Visible Human Project that provide us a new perspective on body and life, technology is influencing our perceptions on human body and the nature, so as the meaning of life. In this webliography, I m going to address on how the “meaning of life” is being re-evaluated from different viewpoints and different people.

As Murray critically access Waldby’s article on Visible Human Project, she states in her article (1) that the technology advencement in the Visible Human Project “blur the line between the organic and the machinic, between the actual and the virtual, between genesis and what Waldby calls ‘technogensis.’” “Life” and “death” are being redefined and destablized in the implications of these technologies. As a result, people begin to question the ontological implications of the project and the effects on human values and human life.

On the other hand, while Van Brakel admits that “the development of technology in general and of telematics in particular changes the life forms of human beings”, he also states that some changes are being exaggerated that “tends to be an overemphasis on the effects on the individual”. (2) By illustrating the technology development in recent decades of web, hyperspace and cyborgs, he suggests that the technology will eventually lead to “a hyperintelligence in which what were once called human persons have been reduced to homunculi or nodes in a neural network.” Thus he thinks we should examine more on the “socio-political ramifications of globalized technology” other than on the “parochial concept” of identity.

“Meaning in life is no longer a social given, but a matter of personal choice; it has to be constructed, or chosen, from a proliferation of options.” (3) As long as the technology development is influencing our concepts on the meaning of life, Eckersley suggests that the perceptions on the meaning of life are no longer influenced by the family, social ties and religion, but “comfortable with its absence of absolutes and blurred distinctions between real and virtual, equipped for its abundant opportunities, exciting choices and limitless freedoms, and its hazards and risks.”

De Garis also raises his concerns on his article (4) that worries about the machines will be smart enough to modify themselves of “searching out new structures and behaviors”. He thinks that these “Darwinian artilects (artificial intelligence)” will evolve in a sense that to improve themselves and finally become threatening to human beings by turning against us that beyond our control and comprehension. He hence comments that we should rethink whether the artilects should be built or whether the artilects should be allowed to modify themselves into superbeings. He generally show his anxiety on the apparently over developed technology that we will finally lose the control of them.

Kass suggest in his article (5) that the pursuit of “ageless body” or “untroubled soul” through technologies like genetic screening and genetic engineering is not the way of a flourishing life, but should be “lived in rhythmned time, mindful of time's limits, appreciative of each season and filled first of all with those intimate human relations that are ours only because we are born, age, replace ourselves, decline, and die – and know it.” He thinks that although one can seek the perfection through the biotechnological means, and get the effects “without understanding their meaning in human terms”, it disrupted the normal character of “human being-at-work-in-the-world" and we are being dehumanized.

Bell also agrees that the technological progress is driving the world toward a “Singularity” that “technology and nature will have become one”, and finally we will have new definitions of “life”, “nature” and “human”. (6) However, he argues that this “Singularity” will drive to an “unprecedented decline of the planet’s inhabitants”, and eventually an extinction of human race. The new technologies such as genetically engineered foods, nano-technology and robotics are argued that they have lost the connection to the nature that they are competing and combining together, and ultimately technology will defeat the nature.

By discussing the six component beliefs of cybernetic totalism, Grab addresses the fear of “cybernetic eschatology” that brought on when computers become ultra-intelligent masters of matter and life is an “intoxicated” thought that will not actually happen. (7) He thinks that “treating technology as if it were autonomous is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy”. As he argues, while biotechnology is attempting to computerize the body, it’s the quality of the “software” to manipulate the hardware of the body. However, he thinks that to get computers to perform tasks of significant complexity in a “reliable but modifiable way, without crashes or security breaches” is an impossible mission. Hence, he states the irony that the limitation of the software is “the best insurance our species has for long-term survival as we explore the far reached of technological possibility”.

In dealing with these different perspectives on how the meaning of life is perceived, we could observe in a few sources that there is generally a discourse about the threat of the technology that going beyond the control of human being and even cause the extinction of human race. In fact, we could also observe how the technological progress in the recent decades result to new definitions on what is “life”, “death” and “human body”.

(1) Murray, Stuart J. ‘Catherine Waldby's The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine.’, Reconstruction. 10 April 2006.
http://www.reconstruction.ws/021/revVisibleHP.htm

(2) Van Brakel, J. “Telematic Life Forms.” 1999. University of Louvain, 10 April 2006.
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v4_n3html/VANBRAKE.html

(3) Eckersley, Richard. “What’s it all about?” The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 March 2000, Spectrum section, p.4; We have know-how, we need know-why, The Age, 3 June 2000, News Extra, p.2. 11 April 2006.
http://nceph.anu.edu.au/Staff_Students/Staff_pdf_papers/Richard_Eckersley_papers/Richard_E_SMH-Age_meaning.pdf

(4) De Garis, Hugo. “The 21st Century Artilect: Moral Dilemmas Concerning the Ultra Intelligent Machine.” 1990. Revue Internationale de Philosophie. 10 April 2006.
http://www.cs.usu.edu/~degaris/essays/Artilect-phil.html

(5) Kass, Leon. "Beyond Theory: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Human Improvement." January 2003. The President’s Concil on Boethics. 11 April 2006.
http://bioethics.gov/background/kasspaper.html

(6) Bell, James. “Technotopia and the death of nature.” 2001. Earth Island Journal. 12 April 2006.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0469.html?printable=1

(7) Grab, Screen. “One-Half of a Manifesto.” December 2000. WIRED Magazine. 11 April 2006.
http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/lanier.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=

Menu-Driven Identity Workshop Response

In the three signing up pages for Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and the Second Life, they also require the users to provide some basic personal information of name, gender, and birthday. In the gender category, the three websites also provide only the options of either male or female, which is marginalizing other gender like the transsexual people.

In both sign up pages of the Yahoo! Mail and the Second Life, they require the user to enter the ZIP code in order to fill all the require information. However, ZIP code is mainly used in U.S. areas. Besides, we could observe from the security questions that these three websites are also aiming to provide services to the West affluent people other than Asians or lower class. The questions, for instance about the users’ favorite movie or TV drama, favorite vacation spot, pet’s name, high school’s mascot, and the user’s first car or bike, are assuming the users are living in affluent families mostly in the West, instead of from the poor area in Asia.

Furthermore, when registering the Second Life name, they provide limited choices of last name which are specialized for people in West, but not for the people in other (Asian) countries. These three websites show the fact that their services are mainly targeted to the white affluent people (male or female) instead a wide variety of people with different gender, race and class.

In the Lavalife, an individual’s profile like the gender, age, zodiac sign, ethnic background and body type are included in the search results. As the same case of the three websites of Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Second Life, gender category is limited to the choices of either male or female that other options are absence. Also, the website promotes the “youngness” of the members that the age of the member is emphasized in the search page and the search result pages.

Moreover, The result of ethnic background of the members are either in “white” or “other” that “other” is not stated clearly in the page, in which the website seems targeted also to the white instead of other ethnic groups. The absence of a option or category of ethnic background of the reader in the initial search page also shows that they assume the readers are white too. Thus, we would understand that the Lavalife is racist in a way that they mainly promote their service to white male or female to search for white male or female for further relationships in the websites.

Gattaca: the new standard of eugenics

The genetic screening and manipulation presented in the Gattaca absolutely evoke a new king of eugenics. We are now living in a society that we are classed mainly by our gender and race. While white is privileged and even seen as “non-raced”, black is seen as savage and belong to a lower class. (Dyer 1 -2) When the race is conspiring with the gender, the issue becomes even more complex. As Ware states, “[b]lack and white masculinities and femininities are constructed not as simple binary pairings…but in a more complex and asymmetrical pattern of interconnected and self-similar attributes.” (135)

However, the genetic manipulation presented in the film is promoting a new eugenics that gender and race are no longer the measures of the class status, but the quality of the bodies and life. The quality of body function, intelligence, and character would determine the privilege of oneself.

Dyer, R. White. New York/ London: Routledge, 1997.

Ware, V. “Purity and danger: race, gender and tales of sex tourism.” Back to Reality? Social Experience and Cultural Studies. Eds. A. McRobbie. London: Manchester University Press, 1997. 133-151.

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