Gaming Counter-Insurgencies.
Thesis submitted. There are parts I’m happy with and parts that I’m not.
The paper is an exploration of the relationship between gaming and modern military intervention in developing areas, how the two interact and the social training we may be receiving through this form of media.
Paper: All your Insurgencies are belong to us
The following is an excerpt from the conclusion. It kind of sums up the paper.
Here’s the core of the problem, today’s military hands out aid with the left hand and shoots with the right. They are in the middle of a bunch of pissed off locals who are wondering why they are there and when they are going to improve their lives rather than just get in the way. They are in countries which are not always friendly and in which the ‘enemy’ is not always apparent. Games however, still portray the military as “your dads’ army” of young men “kicking ass” and saving the day. If we keep thinking of the military like this – and keep teaching 19 year old potential recruits that the military is this glorious realm of heroes rather than the tiring schizophrenia of humanitarian soldier, then we do our soldiers a disservice. By not emotionally or psychologically preparing our society for our role as peace makers in the transition and peace spaces required for meaningful development to happen, we do ourselves a disservice. As we run up budgets which would be better spent as development aid when we get bogged down, because we thought we were getting into something completely different, we do the entire exercise of intervention a disservice. The U.S. Military can “kick ass” better than any other, without a question. What they don’t yet do as well, is what comes after “kicking ass” and are hamperedfurther by a society not prepared to commit to the transition phase and peace building phase. Games can and do play a role in preparing or misleading the public, soldiers and international elements on what military intervention, by the U.S. or any other military, are about, how militaries should interact with local populations and how old school red vs. blue thinking is not only ineffective but down right dangerous.
We need to introduce to games, and the wider media, a more humanitarian, a more holistic approach to interventions that are necessary to win peace, not just win war. By training society to think more completely about peace-making rather than just war-making, we can begin to address the disservices we are currently doing to so many groups. This can be done through fun. This can be done through games. Game companies such as Kuma\War are explicitly attempting to start a dialog based in games. This paper is attempting to begin the pulling of that dialog into the development realm. We live in a world where the military process directly involves and impacts the development process in more subtle, more complex and more enduring ways than ever. Educating the public in how these two processes are intertwined is a key step in working with the military to provide meaningful development in hostile areas. I do not claim that all current games undermine developmental or military goals, nor that they are a magic bullet. Rather, I claim that we should be asking a few questions: In the gaming industry, are we giving all the issues “proportional and symmetrical” treatment? Is the industry bringing in all the facets and complexities that make military COIN ops so challenging? Is it possible to build a better, more fun game, based on these challenges which can spread constructive, rather than destructive messages?
The olpc XO laptop in my hands
I opened my gifts under the tree today and what do I find? A bright shiny green XO Laptop from, the people over at the OLPC [project (thanks parents!!)
I\ve been giving it a test run and firt thingsyou will notice from my horrible typing is thatthe keyboardtkes a little getting usedto. but then, it wasn’t designed for hands my size was it?
I had some troubles figuring out exactly where the connect section was for my home wi-fi (you have to go out to the neighbourhood view to find it, while there is an indicator of status on the desktop - would have made more sense to put a connect dialogue on the indicator as well as in the neighbourhood if you ask me) I’ve also managed to get the screen into fulll screen mode and am not 100% sure how to get it out of it (a warning or indicator of how to escape fullscreen would have been nice guys) .
The screen is sharp and easy to read (for something this small and at this price) . I have yet to try (find) the other mode for the screen so I can’t comment on that yet.
The speakers and photo quality of the camera are pretty damn good, recording for video it relatively low quality. but that is probably to be expected.
There is an odd bug in the browser, right now there is no caret or cursor to show me where I am typing and the right click context menu doesn’t work (but it does still tell me when my spelling is wrong, I just can’t correct it).
The construction seems fairly solid, I think I expected it to be more rubberized than it is to absorb shocks better, but will do. The buttons on the screen look a little cheap (they don\tfully line up with their holes in the casing) and it seems weird to have the keyboard be dust/spill resistant and covered in this slightly annoying rubber when the screen buttons are so open. It would fit much better if the buttons were more like the keyboard in my opinion.
On the topic of the buttons, having the left arrow keys work like a joystick when the screen is in “tablet” mode would add huge amounts of functionality in my opinion. right now you seem to only be able to scroll up and down, left and right,but not control the cursor (which is still visible, andif it was covering something you would have to un-swivel the screen to move it)
There is no fan, woohoo.
More later. this thing is great 