Spore, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

I'm kind of worried about Spore.

There's the standard "it won't live up to the hype" complaint, but few games do, and even if it doesn't it'll probably be pretty awesome. I've enjoyed every other Will Wright/Maxis game I've ever played, so I'm not worried about it not being fun.

What bugs me is -- IGN describes it as an "evolution game." It's not. If anything, it's an intelligent design game. Which doesn't bother me, intrinsically, because it makes a much better, or at least more approachable, foundation for a game.

But I do worry that describing it as an "evolution game" will get people mixed up, or that it's a sign that they're already mixed up. A minor worry, but something I think about.

A Bit of Non-Linear Thinking

It occurred to me, in a discussion with a friend, that I try to see problems in technological terms. He brings up this political/social problem, and his political/social perspective on it.

My initial response is a political/social one. My standard reply to issues of this nature is Ye Olde Efficiency vs. Stability, the idea that as a system becomes more efficient, it becomes less stable, and vice versa. If we lose languages and cultures, it becomes easier to get things done, but we are more vulnerable to certain kinds of disasters because our repertoire of responses is more limited.

But then I realize, after thinking about it some more, that this issue is going to be completely transformed by technology. Once machine translation becomes reliable (which may take a very long time, but unless the human brain is some weird quantum black box we have no hope of ever understanding, it will happen) the entire system of language interaction is going to be dramatically changed. I don't know how, exactly, but depending on the exact implementation--well, at the very least, it'll become less massively necessary to learn the dominant language.

This is how I try to see a lot of social problems. Social problems are big and messy and unsolvable, because they depend on cultural assumptions and value judgments. And conversations about social issues are even worse--I hate discussions where you go round in circles without getting anywhere, and that's what tends to happen when laypersons (and politicians) have these discussions.

But make it a technological problem, and suddenly it's solvable. Until that technological solution becomes its own social problem, but those issues tend to be much more clear cut and much easier to avoid.

You May Perhaps Have Read This In The Newspaper

Are Women Really More Talkative Than Men?

(Hint: No.)

Say No More

I was going to write a post about all the biological weirdness in D&D. Especially how everything can breed with every other thing. Apparently this was a big thing in the 80s. Breeding. And cross-breeding. Weird decade, all around.

I was going to write a response to Rae, who pointed out that D&D has biological problems with more than just nightvision. I was going to write about how it's actually worse than she says--according to the standard definition of species, celestials, fiends, and dragons are all the same species as . . . everything.

It was going to be this big long thing. Except that I remembered.

This game has owlbears.

Nightvision!

Elves and gnomes ought to be colorblind. Unless their low-light vision is magical, which the rules don't indicate.

I'd say orcs and dwarves, too, except that darkvision basically has to be magical. No animal on earth can see in absolute darkness. Animals that can see in the dark are just very efficient with the available light.

One of the ways to maximize this efficiency is by having lots of rod cells and few cone cells. Cones register color, but need more light to function. Rods only register greyscale, but don't need as much light. Since there's a limited amount of real estate in an eye, a creature can either be good at seeing color or good at seeing in the dark.

Maybe I'm missing something. Or maybe elves and gnomes just have extra-dimensional spaces inside their eyes.

Evil Genius Hoaxes

Today there is naught but a link. I'm on a trip, and very tired. Didn't get enough sleep last night.