The subject of the talk: “do games have a significant impact on how we think?” And also: should we care? Having reviewed neuroscience studies, he doesn’t find low-level empirical evidence that useful for answering the question. Instead, looking at: culture, habits, norms, values.
Pointing out two very different positive takes on what games do: Jane McGonigal’s unqualified yes, it’s our duty to apply games to real problems. And Eric Zimmerman’s “this question is somewhat inappropriate,” art needs no justification, it’s an end in itself.
And @flantz is more sympathetic to the latter view, but he notes that @zimmermaneric *also* makes claims about how games have positive effects, literacy, could solve real problems, etc. 
These aren’t incompatible stances: games can have an ineffable artistic value and that value can also relate to how they actually affect us and relate to the rest of the world.
Invoking Jim Gee’s work on the positive effect of games on problem-solving, reflection, etc.
Counterpoint: Philip Zimbardo’s work on the negative effect of games (particularly on boys and young men) suggesting that they provide stimulation & reward for learning without real-world context, fostering toxic masculinity and disconnection
“And if you stand back and let the contours of gaming culture wash over you...” it’s hard to believe that any positive effects of “systems thinking” are happening, instead a breeding ground for toxic politics.
This slide accompanied by the comment “by the twitching of our thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” @flantz doesn’t believe games caused this toxicity, it’s very old, but thinks games must admit we have a special relationship to it.
It’s hard to ~empirically prove~ there’s a concrete connection between the whole toxic alt-right mentality and games, but we can’t ignore the possibility, the stakes are too high: a garbage-strewn refuse planet ruled by toxic memelords.
So if “systems thinking” is failing, what might be a real, legitimate example of the goals that Jim Gee pursues? To illustrate, @flantz talks about how his headphone cables get knotted in his pockets.
He realized that of all the permutations of two cables twining around each other, the ones where the nodes have no exits are knots, so there’s a certain random-walked probability of cables knotting
Talking now about how the foundations of probability theory were laid by Cardano, Pascal, Fermat, etc studying games
Probability and concepts like the “Dutch book” bet are hard to wrap our heads around, and games are there through this history as the concrete instatiation of theory that we can talk about and discuss, all the way to Nate Silver’s pre-politics baseball stats work.
Along with probability, the idea of state machines, closely caught up with looking at something as a system and the idea of computing. Games have a long history here from Go and Chess to Tennis for Two, etc.
“Games as the PR department for Computers, Inc and the R&D department for SystemCorp.” @flantz sees the question of systems thinking in games as a debate about how logic and modernity and the digital affect us.
“You can’t get out of this by claiming your videogame is not about logic, it’s about pastures! Well, that means you’re writing if/then and for statements about pastures!” We are all complicit in the problems of this Enlightenment problem.
All games with possibility spaces, exploration of space or choices, simulation partake of this “systems literacy” but @flantz does not see it as “increasing literacy.” Instead, literacy (written as well) is better understood as a centuries-long rewiring of the brain.
Overall, new literacies are good. We solve more problems, displacing older literacies like myth, tradition. Plato believed that written literacy would destroy the memory and knowledge, but it’s generally been good.
This slide accompanies mention of critics of the newer systems literacy, those who say it’s reductive, overreaching, soulless, inhuman, etc. Not wrong, but he believes that it will be a net positive. Literacies must solve the problem created by literacy.
Now @flantz is diving into Kegan’s stages of psychological and ethical development, as applied to individuals but also societies.
Each stage is a new way of relating to the world (and others) but you can always drop back to earlier stages for a moment. But transitioning to a new stage takes time and changes your whole individuality and world-view.
Stage 2 is organized around short-term interests and desires in a collection, Stage 3 is organized around relationships and you “have” preferences and desires. Associated with adolescence and pre-industrial society (yes, this framework is 60s sketchy and western-progress based)
In stage 3 you show up to work because you don’t want people to be mad at you, in stage 4 because it’s your responsibility and duty in a structure. 3’s decisions are based on the greatest pressure, 4 on the dictates of structure and ideology.
So stage 4 is associated with systems and modernity, the ideology that structures society. Eventually people in 4 start to realize the system is broken in ways, and arbitrary, leading to an awkward and somewhat nihilist “stage 4.5” where every system is bullshit
The 5th fluid stage is about systems again, but not a single overriding one or end in itself, as flexible tools for meaning-making. Meta-rationality that realizes rationality and systems are useful—but not always. Systems as “objects of creative play.”
That last is a David Chapman quote and @flantz notes that it’s quite Buddhist in some ways. To someone in 4, stage 5 may seem like a step backwards, into “abandoning” systems for relativism and so forth.
So it becomes easy to shrug, just be a nihilist. Stage 4 can fail us by feeling too cold & impersonal to move to from 3. Stage 5 can fail us by overvaluing a single system, an inflexible ideology, or by focusing too much on the nihilism-inducing inconsistencies between systems
Showing Opus Magnum animations as an example of why games can be good for level 5: game systems are meant to be moved between, not absolute. Not the one totality of “science” but many systems that exist outside and reflect on life without being it.
Many paradoxes in games: free and open play with rigid systems, deliberation and instant response, social ties and selfishness. These paradoxes are akin to the fluidity and moving-between nature of stage 5 meta-rationality.
Closing exhortation: we must take on the responsibility of doing these things well, because games are the R&D department of modernity, the artists who think about thinking. (Shot of Manifold Garden to illustrate.)
Questions: “So does this mean it’s all good?” No, that would be wishful thinking, just look around. It’s easy to come up with a justification for what you’re doing, but to really understand why and how it affects the world, must look closer.
Question: what relationship should games have to politics? In response, harkening back to a lost model of this: an old idea that leaders should be good at poker because of the values and skills that embodies. What should that be for today?
People can get too comfortable in the rationality of stage 4 if they whip through the relationship orientation of stage 3 super-quickly. I think @flantz is talking about nerds? “The word for that is... nerds.” (theoretical hand twist)
A questioner from Finland is asking about meta-modernity, which @flantz says is very relevant. But also that POST-modernism was too susceptible to collapse into nihilism or endless loops of self-reference. But look up meta-modernity?
“I said the word Enlightenment to @miguelsicart the other day and he recoiled in disgust.” Which does make sense, there are some good reasons for that.
Now Randy Smith asks, where are the documentaries of games, since we’re mostly talking about games as entertainment? @flantz suggests that in this context (games and modernity) abstract games may be the documentary equivalent?
My takeaway from this talk: if one of games’ strengths is the ability to fluidly+metarationally move between systems, it’s another reason to be wary of (or limit) totalizing projects to define, systematize, rate or evaluate “all games,” it’s a step back to over-rationalizing
