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Why can't we just have fun all the time?


pantodragon

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I made the mistake this morning of switching my radio onto a talk channel, instead of my usual classical music station, and, well, let me put it this way: it is a mistake I shall be very careful not to make again! I really do not need to wake up to the latest nightmare that our society is trying to inflict upon its citizens!

The subject was “gamefication”. This is the process of introducing game-playing into every aspect of life, “gamefying life”. People love playing games, they say, so let us introduce game play into all aspects of life, into the classroom to ‘enhance’ learning, into the workplace to make work more ‘enjoyable’ and workers better motivated, into health activities to promote good behaviour, into products to get customers more interested etc etc.

If you think there is anything benign about this, THINK AGAIN. This is so appallingly bad that I can’t think where to begin, can’t pull my thoughts together into some coherent order – it just makes me want to scream, “WAKE UP!” This is about control, this is about manipulation, this is about turning people into machines that can be manipulated entirely to the benefit of those in power.

There are university departments now devoted to researching Gamefication, this new latest control, manipulation and dehumanisation mechanism. Who funds university departments nowadays? Business. Who funds business? You and I do, the customer. So we are being duped into paying for the research to develop this new tool that is designed to give those in power ever more control over our minds, to take over our minds, to rob us of our minds and our humanity … neat little arrangement, no?

Games, the researcher says, is about ‘fostering loyalty and levels of engagement’. In other words, the business offers the customer some ‘game’ to play – at the simplest level it could just be collecting points for buying things – and the lure of gaming gets people to buy more, spend more, and – a point the researcher did not make – it diverts attention, like magicians do, so that they can put one over on you. Basically, if they can divert you with a game, then they can get away with selling you inferior goods. Well, that is at the simplest level, but that is just where it starts; once they find they can divert attention and pull fast ones, they will pull ever more fast ones which will be ever more to their advantage and ever less to yours.

There was talk of how they will introduce games into dull work, such as call centres. They will ‘reward’ workers with points, and when they get sufficient points, they will receive a prize, which might be just, say, a joke, or – and here they manage to sound SO like they actually have workers interests in mind – they might find out that some workers have ambitions to get, say, a university degree, so they will reward them with prizes in the form of nuggets of information taken from the subject they are interested in. Oh, they can sound SO seductive… but the more they can distract you, the more they can make you feel ‘happy’, the more they can tweak your emotions, the more they can get you involved in a ‘game’, then the harder it will be for you to get up and go. This is about making you physically strong and psychologically weak: this is about making you into an ideal workhorse, about making you strong to do the work, but with no will of your own. They will be able to squeeze blood out of you and you will have no will to protest at bad conditions, overwork, poor pay, oppression, etc etc. Yield to Gamefication and you will soon be a robot. And if you are competing with other workers for points leading to rewards, then your co-workers become less friends and allies and more competitors; gamefication is thus a means to ‘divide and conquer’. The power of unions took a huge blow at the end of last century; this is continuing that process by working to isolate employees from their co-workers.

Gamefication is getting into products that, supposedly, work to improve health. For example, there is the bracelet that measures the amount of exercise you get every day, and at the end of the day, you go online, plug your bracelet in, and you get the info back (And so, of course, does the information gatherer who will sell it on to businesses who will use it to better manipulate you.). As I said, you get the info back about how you are doing exercise-wise, and you get rewarded with little tunes for doing well – a lovely little pat on the head; and, of course, this is ALL to our benefit. Well. It’s obvious, isn’t it? How can you argue? All the experts tell us that exercise is good for us, and if someone can provide something that will motivate us to do these things that are good for us, well, that can’t be bad, can it? TOO RIGHT IT CAN!

This is ALL ABOUT CONTROL again. This is robbing you of your mind. Your own mind and body are the only authority on your health that you should be listening to. Your own body will NOT betray you. Listen to your own mind and body and they will tell you how much exercise to take, how much to eat and when and what, how much alcohol to drink etc etc. TRUST THEM. TRUST NO-ONE ELSE. They make it sound so simple. It is not. Think of dogs, for example. Grey hounds spend all day sleeping and think they are being hard done by if they are made to take more than an hours exercise in one day. Sheep dogs, on the other hand, feel miserable if they do not get to be out and about ALL day; they like to be always on the go. The difference is down to the different ways of life: the grey hound is a sprinter, throwing everything into short bursts of energy, whereas sheep dogs are about sustained activity. People are just as varied as dogs. They have different personalities and work in different ways and that means that they have different exercise needs and different nutritional needs and so on. Some people actually NEED to be fat. And if people have cravings for sugar or alcohol then it is their mind and body recognising that something is wrong and that they have need of medication, and that to take sugar or alcohol is actually better than to take vallium or other tranquilisers or, in fact, any of the chemical concoctions dreamt up by drugs companies. Sugar and alcohol are much more benign than prescription drugs.

Soon, if they get their way, they will have you playing games every minute of every day – while you work, while you exercise, while you eat, while at school or college or university, while you play, while you sleep – and by the time that happens, then you will have been robbed of any last vestiges of a mind of your own that you may still be hanging onto. So WAKE UP! Stop it before you lose your mind completely.

How can you stop it? Just do not play the games. Ignore any points system at work. Do not buy products that control your exercise or eating or anything else. Do not accept loyalty cards. Wherever you see games -- other than the monopoly or chess boards, or video games – avoid them; just do not play.

Of course, that can take courage. If you do not play along at work you can feel threatened with the loss of your job. And if you do lose your job you will be vilified as a lazy, work-shy layabout… but they have got to have people out of work otherwise they cannot threaten those with jobs with the loss of those jobs … what a wonderful world, no?

We are told we have never had it so good. The experts tell us of all the bodily diseases that are no longer a threat to us, they tell us we eat far better, we have all sorts of entertainments our ancestors did not have, and all sorts of comforts and gadgets, the internet being one, but what that hides is the fact that what you are being robbed of is something invisible, something less measurable: they are robbing people of their minds and their humanity.

This will no doubt read like some conspiracy theory. It is not. What is going on is FAR less sophisticated. What is going on is an ADDICTION TO POWER. Those ‘in power’ are simply drawn to whatever will give them a ‘high’, and that is anything that gives them control over other people. It really is all about drugs, and the irony is that those who are ‘on power’, just like any other drug abusers, are doing themselves more harm than anyone else. They may be taking control of other people, but they have long since lost any control of themselves: they are slaves to the drug. All the wealth in the world cannot make them happy or restore their humanity to them. In fact, all their wealth is to them is another weapon of power.

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I come home in the morning light

My mother says when you gonna live your life right

Oh mother dear we're not the fortunate ones

And girls they want to have fun

Oh girls just want to have fun

There's nothing new about what you're saying.

Edited by euroninja
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You have to understand even rich people are a number. We have a role to play. We are all a number. Jobs are fierce many employees are taking wage cuts to keep their jobs. Bonuses and incentives are in most cases a thing of the past.

Edited by euroninja
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The reaility is most jobs are expendable. There are only a handful of gifted people running the shows.

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There are only a handful of gifted people running the shows.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What planet are you living on? You totally fail to show any signs of having understood a word I have written, or having understood anything about the world you live in. The above remark is the mosdt utter nonsense but it's just exactly what they want you to think.

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I can't belive people would do this, but then again the general population would think this is great if they didn't think it through but in all reality it is terrible. This is indeed another way for people in power to use more power. This reminds me of a book I once read, one that I didn't particularly like called Feed. Essentially, the coporate world controled the populace through a mind implant that gave them suggestions on what to buy based on their veiwing preferences. Gameification sounds suspiciously like the concept, but life isn't all fun and games. The reason some people have more rewarding jobs than others is because they work harder and playing games all the time isn't going to help because 1) when everything is a game, you would start acting if everything is a game, including your relationships, 2) If everything was a game what would that do to your morality? would there be much good left in the world and 3) What would be the point of living if all you did day to day was play games? Although i'm not going to be quite as extreme to say things like to not play games at all, I am going to say to resist becoming a "zombie" of society. Free will is important and I think it is mosterous that people would esssentialy take it away from us through this "gameificaion". Don't people have better things to do in universities to research than to be a pawn in power games like this?

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I can't belive people would do this, but then again the general population would think this is great if they didn't think it through but in all reality it is terrible. This is indeed another way for people in power to use more power. This reminds me of a book I once read, one that I didn't particularly like called Feed. Essentially, the coporate world controled the populace through a mind implant that ............................................ Free will is important and I think it is mosterous that people would esssentialy take it away from us through this "gameificaion". Don't people have better things to do in universities to research than to be a pawn in power games like this?

I'm glad to know I'm not the only person who sees through this stuff. Sometimes one can feel like a lone voice in the wilderness.

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I made the mistake this morning of switching my radio onto a talk channel, instead of my usual classical music station, and, well, let me put it this way: it is a mistake I shall be very careful not to make again! I really do not need to wake up to the latest nightmare that our society is trying to inflict upon its citizens!

The subject was “gamefication”. This is the process of introducing game-playing into every aspect of life, “gamefying life”. People love playing games, they say, so let us introduce game play into all aspects of life, into the classroom to ‘enhance’ learning, into the workplace to make work more ‘enjoyable’ and workers better motivated, into health activities to promote good behaviour, into products to get customers more interested etc etc.

If you think there is anything benign about this, THINK AGAIN. This is so appallingly bad that I can’t think where to begin, can’t pull my thoughts together into some coherent order – it just makes me want to scream, “WAKE UP!” This is about control, this is about manipulation, this is about turning people into machines that can be manipulated entirely to the benefit of those in power.

There are university departments now devoted to researching Gamefication, this new latest control, manipulation and dehumanisation mechanism. Who funds university departments nowadays? Business. Who funds business? You and I do, the customer. So we are being duped into paying for the research to develop this new tool that is designed to give those in power ever more control over our minds, to take over our minds, to rob us of our minds and our humanity … neat little arrangement, no?

Games, the researcher says, is about ‘fostering loyalty and levels of engagement’. In other words, the business offers the customer some ‘game’ to play – at the simplest level it could just be collecting points for buying things – and the lure of gaming gets people to buy more, spend more, and – a point the researcher did not make – it diverts attention, like magicians do, so that they can put one over on you. Basically, if they can divert you with a game, then they can get away with selling you inferior goods. Well, that is at the simplest level, but that is just where it starts; once they find they can divert attention and pull fast ones, they will pull ever more fast ones which will be ever more to their advantage and ever less to yours.

There was talk of how they will introduce games into dull work, such as call centres. They will ‘reward’ workers with points, and when they get sufficient points, they will receive a prize, which might be just, say, a joke, or – and here they manage to sound SO like they actually have workers interests in mind – they might find out that some workers have ambitions to get, say, a university degree, so they will reward them with prizes in the form of nuggets of information taken from the subject they are interested in. Oh, they can sound SO seductive… but the more they can distract you, the more they can make you feel ‘happy’, the more they can tweak your emotions, the more they can get you involved in a ‘game’, then the harder it will be for you to get up and go. This is about making you physically strong and psychologically weak: this is about making you into an ideal workhorse, about making you strong to do the work, but with no will of your own. They will be able to squeeze blood out of you and you will have no will to protest at bad conditions, overwork, poor pay, oppression, etc etc. Yield to Gamefication and you will soon be a robot. And if you are competing with other workers for points leading to rewards, then your co-workers become less friends and allies and more competitors; gamefication is thus a means to ‘divide and conquer’. The power of unions took a huge blow at the end of last century; this is continuing that process by working to isolate employees from their co-workers.

Gamefication is getting into products that, supposedly, work to improve health. For example, there is the bracelet that measures the amount of exercise you get every day, and at the end of the day, you go online, plug your bracelet in, and you get the info back (And so, of course, does the information gatherer who will sell it on to businesses who will use it to better manipulate you.). As I said, you get the info back about how you are doing exercise-wise, and you get rewarded with little tunes for doing well – a lovely little pat on the head; and, of course, this is ALL to our benefit. Well. It’s obvious, isn’t it? How can you argue? All the experts tell us that exercise is good for us, and if someone can provide something that will motivate us to do these things that are good for us, well, that can’t be bad, can it? TOO RIGHT IT CAN!

This is ALL ABOUT CONTROL again. This is robbing you of your mind. Your own mind and body are the only authority on your health that you should be listening to. Your own body will NOT betray you. Listen to your own mind and body and they will tell you how much exercise to take, how much to eat and when and what, how much alcohol to drink etc etc. TRUST THEM. TRUST NO-ONE ELSE. They make it sound so simple. It is not. Think of dogs, for example. Grey hounds spend all day sleeping and think they are being hard done by if they are made to take more than an hours exercise in one day. Sheep dogs, on the other hand, feel miserable if they do not get to be out and about ALL day; they like to be always on the go. The difference is down to the different ways of life: the grey hound is a sprinter, throwing everything into short bursts of energy, whereas sheep dogs are about sustained activity. People are just as varied as dogs. They have different personalities and work in different ways and that means that they have different exercise needs and different nutritional needs and so on. Some people actually NEED to be fat. And if people have cravings for sugar or alcohol then it is their mind and body recognising that something is wrong and that they have need of medication, and that to take sugar or alcohol is actually better than to take vallium or other tranquilisers or, in fact, any of the chemical concoctions dreamt up by drugs companies. Sugar and alcohol are much more benign than prescription drugs.

Soon, if they get their way, they will have you playing games every minute of every day – while you work, while you exercise, while you eat, while at school or college or university, while you play, while you sleep – and by the time that happens, then you will have been robbed of any last vestiges of a mind of your own that you may still be hanging onto. So WAKE UP! Stop it before you lose your mind completely.

How can you stop it? Just do not play the games. Ignore any points system at work. Do not buy products that control your exercise or eating or anything else. Do not accept loyalty cards. Wherever you see games -- other than the monopoly or chess boards, or video games – avoid them; just do not play.

Of course, that can take courage. If you do not play along at work you can feel threatened with the loss of your job. And if you do lose your job you will be vilified as a lazy, work-shy layabout… but they have got to have people out of work otherwise they cannot threaten those with jobs with the loss of those jobs … what a wonderful world, no?

We are told we have never had it so good. The experts tell us of all the bodily diseases that are no longer a threat to us, they tell us we eat far better, we have all sorts of entertainments our ancestors did not have, and all sorts of comforts and gadgets, the internet being one, but what that hides is the fact that what you are being robbed of is something invisible, something less measurable: they are robbing people of their minds and their humanity.

This will no doubt read like some conspiracy theory. It is not. What is going on is FAR less sophisticated. What is going on is an ADDICTION TO POWER. Those ‘in power’ are simply drawn to whatever will give them a ‘high’, and that is anything that gives them control over other people. It really is all about drugs, and the irony is that those who are ‘on power’, just like any other drug abusers, are doing themselves more harm than anyone else. They may be taking control of other people, but they have long since lost any control of themselves: they are slaves to the drug. All the wealth in the world cannot make them happy or restore their humanity to them. In fact, all their wealth is to them is another weapon of power.

I can't stand fantasy football. A bunch of grown men obsessing over the stats and performances of other men. Or what video games do to young minds. I let my kids play them now ( I had zero tolerance policy for them before) but only with a very strategic plan to educate them and prepare them for the influences it can have on them. A bit like sparring I guess you could say ;)

Edited by Seeker79
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I can't stand fantasy football. A bunch of grown men obsessing over the stats and performances of other men. Or what video games do to young minds. I let my kids play them now ( I had zero tolerance policy for them before) but only with a very strategic plan to educate them and prepare them for the influences it can have on them. A bit like sparring I guess you could say ;)

Agree with this 100% I cant stand fantasy football if most who obsess over it spent the same amount of time training and practicing hell they might be in the NFL themselves.

I used to love video games when i was younger but always set a time limit for myself to play.Always prefered to be doing physical stuff in the real world.

Since i hurt my knee 2 weeks back i have spent far more time on the computer than i prefer,but only 6 more weeks and i should be back to training lightly atleast.Im already getting restless haha

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Agree with this 100% I cant stand fantasy football if most who obsess over it spent the same amount of time training and practicing hell they might be in the NFL themselves.

I used to love video games when i was younger but always set a time limit for myself to play.Always prefered to be doing physical stuff in the real world.

Since i hurt my knee 2 weeks back i have spent far more time on the computer than i prefer,but only 6 more weeks and i should be back to training lightly atleast.Im already getting restless haha

Im rarely on my laptop. but iphones are great. I must admit....a little bit of mechanized control has grabbed me in the form of posting on these dam forums, but its inbetween things. But getting back to what you were talking about. Even the iphone. A measure of control, like we are being conditioned to be good little worker bees and ants. Only working for the collective and kept ocupied otherwise. Its quite frightening. I cannot imagine what the world might be like in 100 years if this trend continues.

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I cannot imagine what the world might be like in 100 years if this trend continues.

Neither can i bro,glad i will not be around to see it haha

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Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What planet are you living on? You totally fail to show any signs of having understood a word I have written,

I understand more than you think I know. You should ask that yourself.
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What is a game? A set of instructions that, when followed, will result in a specific goal.

All of life is a game. We know what we're supposed to do, and we are rewarded with a goal.

I'm not prepared to give up the game. I am dependent upon money to meet my physical needs, so I must play the game and work.

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What is a game? A set of instructions that, when followed, will result in a specific goal.

All of life is a game. We know what we're supposed to do, and we are rewarded with a goal.

I'm not prepared to give up the game. I am dependent upon money to meet my physical needs, so I must play the game and work.

I agree life is a game we just have to know how to play and enjoy it.Every now and then we come across a "glitch" that can make it better or worse until the end.Would be nice though if we could pick which era we played in though.

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video games are pretty cool, its nice to just relax and shoot something.

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The above remark is the mosdt utter nonsense but it's just exactly what they want you to think.

You must still be young and naive. Are you still in a trendy school whining for dad's money? Edited by euroninja
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Those who are controlled and manipulated and don't realize it or don't care are the real danger to the health of a society.

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Wow, the concept of gamification, like any other thing you've brought up on this forum, has gone right over your head again.

It's funny how you have to turn everything in a conspirarcy theory because of your obviously insecure ego.

Thinking you're in the know and have to explain everything to the "not-knowing" gives you a sense of importance. While actually you're just talking about nothing and wasting all your time. Time you could use to get some self-insight or possibly actually learn stuff about the concepts you bring up instead of immediately twisting into this dark obscure intention of the evil scientists trying to take over the world. This isn't Spiderman, come back to reality won't you.

Your insecurity makes you call everyone stupid who calls you on your BS, because you have to keep persuading yourself you're smart to online people. So transparant, it's kinda sad.

Maybe check with a psychologist for your paranoia issues.

A great example of the very positive influence of gamification:

It all basically means the exact opposite of your little rant. Instead of treating humans like machines who only have to work and go home, they're trying to humanize it all again and take into account what people like to do to give some energy back into their dreadful daily schedules. But of course, im assuming you wont get it yet..first you need to work on yourself.

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can’t pull my thoughts together into some coherent order

Whats new?
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video games are pretty cool, its nice to just relax and shoot something.

Learn to DIY bow hunt. It's far from relaxing but will stimulate you in ways that that you probably have not considered.

Edited by Seeker79
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The reaility is most jobs are expendable. There are only a handful of gifted people running the shows.

Very true, which is why I think nothing of taking advantage of them ;)

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It all basically means the exact opposite of your little rant. Instead of treating humans like machines who only have to work and go home, they're trying to humanize it all again and take into account what people like to do to give some energy back into their dreadful daily schedules. But of course, im assuming you wont get it yet..first you need to work on yourself.

Well, they see you coming, don't they? Have you ever taken your head out the internet and actually looked about you?

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Whats new?

You have defeated me. Your insightful and perceptive analysis of my post has gone right to the heart of the issues and laid bare the inconsistencies, the fallacies and the groundlessness of my most cherished ideas which I now see were nothing more than hogwash. Well done. I am chastened. I will go back to the drawing board and completely rethink my thesis. maybe you could give me a few pointers?

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Im pretty sure they have medication for that.

Please! No more! I have been intellectually disected and exposed in all my foolishness by the previous poster (What's new?). I have been corrected and have retired with my tail between my legs, intending not to return until I have taken the medication and got my head sorted out.

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