[FRIAM] Tonight We Riot!

[uǝlƃ ☣]

I wonder at the type of triggers a game like this sets off. Clearly I don't have the same trigger you have.

But I would challenge that the metaphor of antidote::Pandemic Resilience is a bad one. A more appropriate metaphor would be analgesic::Pandemic Resilience ... or maybe even anesthetic::Pandemic Resilience. Without particularly challenging the roadmap or the near- or long-term efficacy of the roadmap, it looks like a *mitigation* rather than a solution. I think the underlying condition will maintain. [†] And if we focus too much on simply mitigating its effects, the underlying process might get worse over time. I've made this point before about COVID-19 comorbidities. I'm not a conspiracy theorist posing that people don't die of COVID-19. But it does seem clear that any pandemic will kill poor people more than rich people. There's a HUGE slice of *us* that do not want the economy to return to "normal" because "normal" means the continued wage-slavery, rampant dis-ease in a growing slice of the population, a clearly failing social safety net, etc.

If you want current news that's just like the news 6 months ago, consider the cop and his idiot son who shot a jogger because he was ... well, jogging. That's our "normal" economy. The pandemic has simply given us rich people an excuse to focus on something other than the stinking, pus-filled, rot that sits at the core of our society.

So, it seems to me that it's not an antidote to the poison. It's analgesic that will help us return to hiding the poison. Games like this help to pop the pustule and expose the infection. If that means the pus that  is the modern Trump supporter is exposed to the sunlight, then I'm all for it. I bought my copy this morning. >8^D

[†] I haven't read the paper, yet. So it's possible they talk about poverty and healthcare as infrastructure. But the up-front talk about "economic remobilization" sounds neoliberal to me.


On 5/8/20 8:29 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> I haven't heard much about the Antifa movement, nor Anonymous lately.   I doubt that means they have lost their appetite for "resistance".   I suspect this game is targeted more at that group than say... the Open Carry RedHatters?  
> 
> A "core feature" is described as:
> 
> The unique catharsis that comes from throat-punching a billionaire ghoul who would rather watch the world and everyone on it burn than lose a tax break
> 
> I am perhaps most disturbed by realizing this could be an MMO, effectively recruiting a large number of young (mostly men) sheltering in place in their parents basements, just waiting for the trigger to boil up and out like so many termites or fire-ants.   
> 
> Some of the theoretical work in interreality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_reality#Interreality_physics) seems to provide some foreboding around the "alternate realities" that are emerging with our pan-global mediation OF reality.
> 
> As an antidote to this kind of stuff, I'm  just now watching the SFI discussion on the topic of Pandemic Resilience:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K63Y6uU7j18

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ