Lately i had this idea in my head, which started back when i wrote the capitalism thing and i feel like it's a very interesting idea but i can't form it completely so that you would understand. But i'll try.
One of the negative things people say about games is 'instant gratification' which means that you get a reward instantly without having to wait for it. But the thing is that is the only mechanism that really works. If you can't link your actions to the reward you get on a subconscious level it doesn't train your 'lizard-brain'. That's why the dentist is scary, you always only get pain from going there and the pain you get when you don't go isn't connected to anything. It just happens. The 'just happens' aspect is why we get religion. We don't like 'just happens' we want a connection between things so we can quantify them in our head. Everything we can't control gets assigned a deity so someone is in control. We might only fool ourselves to think we have any influence on this 'deity' but to our minds that's far better than knowing that one human has hardly any effect on anything. Sure as collective we can change things but the individual has hardly any impact.
So it's in all aspects of our lives we see this instant gratification part, well not always 100% instant but always in a way the primitive part of our minds can understand. So the question i have been asking myself is:
Is it maybe better to move some of it into games instead of fucking up the real world by always only thinking about getting, getting getting.
See i'm good at a lot of video games. I get my satisfaction through them. I achieved things that not even too many of the people playing the games have achieved. Sure there are people better than me but i honestly don't care about them as we're rarely in competition as the rewards are only virtual. In video-games everybody can get the reward for their 'work', in Real Life you can do everything right and loose anyway. It's not just video-games, all games can satisfy you and let you feel like you achieved something. But most people get their satisfaction through work. Which is a very rigged game. Honestly i can't comprehend how anybody would do this to themselves. It is one of the things about normal humans i don't understand. People at the top seem to be getting rewards no matter what they do, because they are the ones deciding who gets rewarded. And people at the bottom get screwed whenever it pleases their 'overlord'. Our society has grown to complex for normal gratification mechanisms. Everything is connected. Of all the people that lost their jobs these past years, how many were actually responsible for being fired. We actually based our happiness on something that we can't control. We created this new god and are miserable because of it.
Now if we move this reward-system our minds need away from things we can't control. We already idolize people for being good at stupid sports. Why can't we look up to people playing stupid video-games? They are far better suited to satisfy us than the real world. They are completely fair as everybody starts on the same terms. Sure there are instances were you can buy the 'uber-item' with real world money but you still have to learn how to use it. The edge your money might give you is far smaller. The resources you're competing for aren't finite. There is no need for conflict as nobody looses anything. Sure there is conflict, because we're human but it doesn't hurt as much as in the real world.
In the real world chance has a gigantic influence over who succeds and who fails. But we don't see that chance. We only see the product. We celebrate people for nothing really. So why not celebrate nothing for nothings sake. Move our culture away from the highscore measured in $ or € and put it were it belongs into the games of our time. So we don't have to fuck over each other just so we can be 'winning'.
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