From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Jun 30 2000 - 05:41:02 MDT
Adrian Tymes <wingcat@pacbell.net> writes:
> Anders Sandberg wrote:
> > Sounds a lot like Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, a game that I love but
> > think could be made even greater.
> >
> > (It is interesting to note that besides his collectivist/fascist
> > ideas, Chairman Yang has the best transhumanist quotes in the game -
> > Provost Zakharov is fun but far too much research for research's own
> > sake in his quotes to be a real transhumanist)
>
> I think the seven default characters were all designed with positive and
> negative aspects, to provide something to love or hate depending on
> whether you usually played as them or against them. Even more
> interesting is that most of the positive aspects lead towards
> transhumanism in one form or another - Deidre through merging with the
> ecosystem she protects, Yang as you noted, Morgan through engineering
> all kinds of new abilities, and Zakharov...well, just listen to the
> Voice of the Planet snippet.
Overall, that sequence is also a nice picture of the Singularity, with
its lovely information overload and Planet turning into white light.
> And then there's the both-libertarian-and-beauraucratic
> Peacekeepers...
I have always enjoyed Lal's hypocricy - sermonising about the
sancticity of life and the individual, but hoping to clone his
beloved.
I dream about making my own game in the same style, but deliberately
focusing on transhumanism. After all, it is a bit odd that you still
need farming and mines after you get nanotech, for example.
> If I recall correctly, this is not the first time that the nature of a
> lot of this game's quotes has been cited on this list. I, myself, have
> been able to explain some of my dreams as "what they have in this game,
> only make it available to us in reality," to those who might not have
> understood any other way. I wonder...what might it take, to encourage
> more popular fiction with these themes, so that those who grow up to
> emulate the stories they see have choices other than Frankenstein
> (movies, not the original book) and "anything you don't understand must
> be evil" modes?
Just the fact that these elements have become an important part of a
game that has sold quite well is telling. Our memes are spreading.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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