The Rape Game

I was reading the headlines today when I saw an article about RapeLay, a new Japanese video game that allows the player to act out realistic simulations of rape. An excerpt from the article:

"The game beings with a teenage girl on a subway platform. She notices you are looking at her and asks, "can I help you with something?"

That is when you, as a player, can choose your method of assault.

With the click of your mouse, you can grope her and life her skirt. Then you can follow her aboard the train, assaulting her sister and her mother.

As you continue to play, 'friends' join in, and in a series of graphic, interactive scenes, you can corner the women, rape them again and again.

The game allows you to even impregnate a girl and urge her to have an abortion. The reason behind your assault, explains the game, is that the teenage girl has accused you of molesting her on the train. The motive is revenge.

When does a video game go too far?"

I don't even know what to say. I mean, it's horrible on so many levels; I don't know where to begin. It's just sickening. But the question asked in the news article is a good one, and approaches a question we asked when discussing the Super Columbine Massacre RPG in class. When does something become so morally repugnant that it's considered 'too far,' beyond even the realms of the controversial, experimental, and the avant-garde?

I've always been a big supporter of a free and open internet, and the uncensored exchange of information and ideas, but this makes me wonder if there are, perhaps, limits to freedom of expression. Do games like RapeLay go too far? What are the implications of an uncensored, unpoliced internet?

RapeLay can downloaded free here: http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/94626489/rapelay?tab=summary

Something to Think About

Today, I used a public restroom. Amongst the usual wall graffiti was written:

"Toy Story 2 was OK!"

...

For the Record: an Open Letter to Barry Joe

Dear Professor Joe,

I'm happy to say: I'm glad you were wrong too. Of course, if you had only mentioned it a bit sooner, I don't think you would've been allowed to labor under such an illusion for long! Haha.

I can't speak for the rest of my classmates, but I think you were right when you said that the juvenile notion that learning is lame and caring uncool is passing. Well, maybe not when it comes to graphing river bottom sediment flows, or memorizing French verb conjugations and all that. But in 1F00, certainly.

I mean, in what other class are we asked to examine things that are so relevant to our lives? In what other classes are we actually encouraged to think, and question, and learn, and grow? To explore what it means to be human? In other courses, we're told that knowledge is a finite, concrete commodity, and that we're here to absorb as much of it as we can, until four years down the road when we're all full-up, and handed a piece of paper that declares us 'educated' (and profoundly broke). In other classes-indeed, in the education system as a whole-we're told that we are ignorant and naive, and that the only way to succeed as a person is to supplicate to the elite knowledge-holders: the teachers, parents, and authority figures of the world, and to study and internalize their absolute Truth, accepting it as our own. And in other classes, we're taught that knowledge is a fixed destination, reachable only by following the well-worn path of mindless, mechanical, memorization; soulless, rote learning; and uncritical acceptance.

But IASC 1F00 isn't one of those classes. It's not about finding the right answers; it's about asking the right questions. And that, I think, makes all the difference.

Like I said, I can't speak for the rest of my classmates, but I can say that 1F00 is among the most important classes I've ever taken. Yeah, I'm going to need some chapstick for this ass-kissing, but it's the truth. In other classes I've always felt limited, like I was supposed to be learning, but only within the boundaries of a limited framework. Ask questions, but not those questions. Push the boundaries, but not too far. And quite honestly, I've always thought of education (the kind I've been subjected to, at least) as a big, fat waste of time.

But I don't feel that way about 1F00, because unlike the other classes I've taken over the last few years, I'm actually learning. Instead of feeling helpless, hopelessly ignorant, and dependent on my elders and betters to make me right, I'm empowered as an agent of my own betterment. Instead of being limited by inflexible criteria and curriculum, a fear of asking difficult questions, and the inability to stray from the beaten path, I feel free to be curious, to wonder, to reexamine myself, the world I live in, and my beliefs about it. Education is feeling less like a long, boring hallway with only one exit at the end, and more like a big room with an unending variety of doors, with more appearing every day, begging to be opened.

And that's not even touching upon the subject matter of our tri-weekly discussion. Whether you're a technophile, or a technophobe, a tech-savvy media fantatic, or a bookwork like me, there is something you can gain from our talks on mythology, morality, reality, communication, the future...because regardless of what's on the agenda, what we're really doing is stretching our disused intellectual and existential muscles. Figuring out what it means to be human, how to navigate the imposing overwhelmingly complex world we live in. And best of all, we're doing it in an environment where everyone is both student and teacher, and where everyone has something to offer and so much to gain. And I don't know about everyone else, but it's sure encouraged me to grow, as both a student and as a person.

In class, I believe it was Nikita who said that teachers ought to make students learn. On another occasion, it was suggested that no one present cared about learning and examining the world around them. No one spoke up to the contrary, and it was assumed that we all are truly and completely indifferent. However, I know both of these things to be false. I think that we do care, and that we are all curious and hungry to expand our knowledge. All of us. But I have a growing feeling that those years and years of being told that we don't know anything, that the things we do know don't matter, and that learning comes from a teacher, rather than from within has made us neglect all of that, taught us that caring gets us nowhere. I honestly think that sometime we're silently simply because it's been so long since we were asked to speak.

*Pause for dramatic effect. Or vomiting.*

Well, that's what I wanted to say. Maybe it's lame and corny, and looks like some grade-A brown-nosing, but it's how I feel. A year ago, I probably never would've posted this for other people to read, but part of what I've learned from this class is that you have to reach outside of your comfort zone to grow. So, here it goes.

Thanks Barry Joe!

An Idea

I'm sitting here in the fishbowl working on my flash game for IASC 1P30. It's going well; I'm in the home stretch, but I'm having a bit of trouble with some of the Actionscript, so I decided to check the 1P30 chat room on Sakai to see if anyone else had experienced the same problem. Reading through the conversation for the last few days, I saw that lots of people (lol, shout out to Kev, Simon, Jess and company) were taking advantage of the chat room to talk over their issues with our instructor, Matt, and help each other out. I find this to be pretty awesome- partially because seeing them talk through their problems is really helping me navigate mine-and partially because, well, could it be more appropriate?

Just yesterday we heard about Matt's appeal for students to share their thoughts on the role the internet has in education. When I first watched the video, I really had to think about it. Initially, I was tempted take the old-school approach and favor the familiar classroom experience, largely due to my frequently frustrating experiences with Brock's online offerings: the slow, horrendously outdated email service; the awkward, unwieldily Sakai; and let's not forget the generally abysmal Brock website, including the Student Portal and course registration site. It's often seemed to me that integrating all of our awesome new technology into our education is a great idea in theory, but that people seem to jump in head first, like a kid tearing the wrapping paper off of an expensive new toy, not reading the instructions but playing with it anyways, and making a big mess in the process. I've been thinking that perhaps we're so keen to wield all of the amazing potential of New Media that we don't always take the time to really understand how to make it practical and functional rather than a superfluous display of bells and whistles.

But when I logged onto the chat room and I saw a substantial portion of our class getting together in virtual space to talk homework, ideas, and troubleshooting (and also Booster Juice and space junk, of course), well, it made me reconsider. Instead of sitting alone at home in their jammies smashing their heads against the keyboard in frustration, everyone had the opportunity to connect with their peers and teacher to pool their knowledge and experience together for everyone's benefit. I don't know, maybe I'm just lame, but I thought it was kind of cool to see technology being used so effectively to meet its' users' needs and enhance their learning experience rather than being a hindrance to be battled with and cursed at. It was also kind of cool to see people really engaging with each other and collaborating: a chance to see some of the abstract 'connected intelligence,' H. G. Wells stuff we talk about in class happening right in front of me, in a kind of dichotomy-shaking, gestalt the-whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts kind of way. But I digress.

This little experience has opened my eyes to the idea that technology really can be used to supplement our learning, and be a very useful tool that allows us to do things we couldn't do otherwise, like have a real-time conversation with our teacher to work through an assignment quickly and conveniently, and with our work right in front of us. I'm reminded of using Google Wave for the second inquiry assignment, and using virtual space to extend our learning beyond what was already available to us in the 'meat world.' We asked ourselves the question 'why bother with new technology? Is it necessary?' And I feel like both Google Wave and this classroom/chatroom are perfect examples of why we should bother exploring these new avenues at all, and answers my personal questions about the role technology should play in our day-to-day lives as human beings. I've reached the conclusion that New Media shouldn't replace old media; e-learning shouldn't replace classroom learning; virtual reality shouldn't eclipse physical reality: they should supplement, augment, facilitate, support! Technology is made by us, and we should make it work for us, not the other way around.

Okay. This post wasn't meant to be nearly this long, but I guess I started a bit of a curiosity snowball with this topic, haha. I'm fascinated. But enough rambling: the original reason I wanted to write this entry was because while I was reading the 1P30 chat log it was obviously working to everyone's advantage, but it did have its limitations. Trying to help someone figure out the minute problems with an intricate Flash project, or trying to explain your Actionscript issues is cumbersome in a purely text-based environment. At one point Simon had to go through the hassle of uploading and posting a screenshot to explain what he meant.

This gave me the idea of expanding what Google has done with the Wave in allowing users to collaborate on a document, and perhaps taking it a step further by injecting it with more multimedia functionality. I have no idea if it's even possible, but imagine if you could log onto a program that allows you to chat and share, but with the added option of being able to show your peers your desktop workspace remotely, like a real-time video screen shot. That would make it so much easier to demonstrate an example for a friend, or show your instructor the exact difficulty you're having so they can help. Or perhaps take it a step further and make it interactive by allowing users to upload and work together on a Flash document, video-editing software, or programming exercise. Imagine doing a group presentation without commuting to meet, and instead joining a Wave to chat and brainstorm ideas, and then actually opening up a Powerpoint document and working on it together, or maybe making a video instead and having each user upload their contributions, link to youTube videos they want to emulate/integrate, and then edit it together in real time with each person contributing according to their own knowledge and skills. The cool game you found on the internet? Open up a shared browser window and play together. That ballin' easter egg you found in Halo 3? Open up a video/sreenshot and share. Or better yet, open up a PC version of the game and show people yourself.

To me, that sounds like the ultimate educational tool. Group projects would be a piece of cake to arrange, teachers could hold web sessions to walk students through new skills with live, interactive examples; or hold question-and-answer sessions; group brainstorms; or even assign online skill tests and practical exams. To me, such an application could consolidate all of the scattered, niche apps we currently use to communicate, share, and learn. But with my luck, such a thing already exists somewhere, and I just wasted an hour not working on my project for nothing :D.

Socratic Wisdom for Today

The unexamined life is not worth living.

A crazy Athenian man once said, and I'm inclined to agree.

In an Alternate Universe...

I'm not really a big Mac person. Outside of class, I never really get a chance to use Apple computers, so I was totally unfamiliar with how incredibly fun the Photobooth application is. Who needs games when you can warp your face beyond recognition for hours on end?






Awesome.

A Personal Renaissance

I have come to the conclusion that I'm not a very good blogger. I mean, three posts in a month? Pathetic, right? However, my blogosphere inactivity has had little to do with negligence or indifference; it's not that I've got nothing to say, there's practically too much! I have started half a dozen blog entries and never finished them due to my tendency to ramble and digress, and I've got several pages of jot-notes waiting to be fed into the blog machine. But once I get excited about something, it seems almost impossible to write about it; it seems like there there is just no way that my words will do it justice, or communicate what I want to say. What a conundrum!

But I suppose that sense of authorial inadequacy must be overcome at some point, and I'm going to start by expanding on my last update, The Answer. I quoted a passage I had read in Robert M. Pirsig's 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' about resolving the 'ugliness' of technology. Ben mentioned to me that it was a pretty cryptic post, and I suppose he was right. Just get caught in the moment sometimes, haha.

Well, anyways, the passage really resonated with me because it was talking about a primary conflict in my own life and view of technology. I mean, we all love our tech stuff: our Xboxes, laptops, self-checkout machines, right? But it seems to me like there's also a pervasive sense of wariness, and at times even fear and hatred, of technology. It's this love-hate relationship where we are half enthralled with technology's novelty and possibility, and half the time disarmed by a quickly shifting digital world whose techno-centrism makes us wonder where we, as human beings, fit into it all.

There's no doubt that we have an immense capacity to be really thrilled and engaged with the trajectory of technological advancement, from the triviality to touch-screens and video games to the more daunting prospects of connected intelligence, a 'world brain,' and the possibility of a sort of technological renaissance/paradigm shift. However in my experience there is an underlying tendency to regard the rapidly-changing technological landscape with skepticism, wariness, and even fear and hatred. It can't be denied that technology (in all of its many forms) is profoundly intertwined with how our world works: our communities, jobs, values, ideologies, economies, social hierarchies, knowledge, information, power...our very humanity. There is a lot at stake, so it's no wonder that we find ourselves, in the face of a burgeoning fountain of tech-advancement, asking whether or not all of this is good or bad, whether 'new' is synonymous with 'better.'

While a lot of us would label ourselves 'technophiles,' it seems to me like there's a far larger portion of the population who is decidedly more cynical, who hesitate to embrace the so-called virtues of new technology. Furthermore, I think there's a bit of this technophobe inside of all of us whenever we think about technology instead of passively accepting it: wondering about our security on Facebook, our intellectual property on blogs, net neutrality, censorship, and so on. I also think that there's a tendency to view things-not just technology-within the confines of dualistic thinking. That is, thinking that it's either bad or good, beautiful or ugly, human or machine, revolutionary utopia or 'creeping panopticon.'

And to jump just a little bit further, I think that these tendencies combine to shape a view of technology (and the forces that give rise to it) as ugly, mechanical, lifeless, inhuman. We see our 'humanity' challenged by machines, circuits, networks, our values challenged by cool, mechanical rationalism, the beauty of our world sullied by motors and exhaust fumes and telephone lines. The rapid ascent of technology in our world challenges our established notions of our selves and our world, and our tendency to view things in terms of binary opposites makes us resent it, view it as ugly and horrible.

Which brings us to that passage I quoted,

"The real ugliness [of technology] lies in the relationship between the people who produce the technology and the things they produce...between the people who use the technology and the things they use...The way to solve the conflict between human values and technological needs is not to run away from technology. That's impossible. The way to resolve the conflict is to break down the barriers of dualistic thought that prevent a real understanding of what technology is-not an exploitation of nature, but a fusion of nature and the human spirit into a new kind of creation that transcends both. When this transcendence occurs in such events as the first airplane flight across the ocean or the first footstep on the moon, a kind of public recognition of the transcendent nature of technology occurs. But this transcendence should also occur at the individual level, on a personal basis, in one's own life."

Which tells us that it is not the plastic, steel, silicon, and concrete that makes technology ugly, nor is it the mechanical, rational, and decidedly unhumanistic value system it embodies. It is our failure as people to reconcile our human values with technology. Our failure to reconcile what we are with the things we make. It suggests that instead of viewing technology as the 'other,' as something we cannot understand, engage with, or control, we should strive to find some sense of identity with it. Relate it to our values. Transcend.

This, I think, is one of the most important things I've learned all year.