Publisher Wants Politicians to Practice with Computer Game
Publisher Wants Politicians to Practice with Computer Game
January 6, 2009
Before taking office on January 20th, Barack Obama might want to spend some time playing Democracy 2.
At least, that's the view of Cliff Harris of UK publisher Positech Games. Harris has offered a free copy of his firm's political sim to any politician or candidate who would like to "practice."
Are you a politician? a candidate for real political office? an MP in the UK? A Senator or member of the House of Representatives in the US? or the equivalent anywhere in the world? If so, I...a humble games programmer from the UK would like to give you a free gift. a FREE copy of Democracy 2 for you to practice with.
There are no strings attached whatsoever, I won't publish your name anywhere unless you say I can, I'm not getting anything out of it other than the knowledge that just *maybe* I'm helping to make our current crop of politicians more prepared for the task ahead, especially with a global recession on the horizon.
Go on, give it a try, make your policy errors in a game, rather than making them for real...
For non-politicians, Democracy 2 is US$22.95, available for PC or Mac.
Via: Water Cooler Games
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Posted 11/08/09 at 01:07am
Austin_Lewis: Health insurance, brought to you by the same kind of bureacrats who couldn't, in timely fashion, investigate the comments of any of the men Obama appointed Czars. Or their past. Or their history of not paying taxes.
Austin_Lewis: Health insurance, brought to you by the same kind of bureacrats who couldn't, in timely fashion, investigate the comments of any of the men Obama appointed Czars. Or their past. Or their history of not paying taxes.
Posted 11/08/09 at 01:06am
Austin_Lewis: Yes, and what a piece of crap it was. Arresting and fining people just because they don't make a personal choice to buy healh insurance, creating over a hundred new bureacracies, and worse.
Austin_Lewis: Yes, and what a piece of crap it was. Arresting and fining people just because they don't make a personal choice to buy healh insurance, creating over a hundred new bureacracies, and worse.
Posted 11/08/09 at 12:24am
ZippyDSMlee: JDKJ:the only trouble is a bunch of witless hacks wrote it....its going to be a train wreck....
ZippyDSMlee: JDKJ:the only trouble is a bunch of witless hacks wrote it....its going to be a train wreck....
Posted 11/07/09 at 11:33pm
JDKJ: BREAKING: In a photo-finish at the wire, House passes health care reform bill. Relatedly, in a fit of pique, Austin Lewis kicks innocent dog.
JDKJ: BREAKING: In a photo-finish at the wire, House passes health care reform bill. Relatedly, in a fit of pique, Austin Lewis kicks innocent dog.
Posted 11/07/09 at 04:27pm
ZippyDSMlee: man I got alot of junk and dup files too >< god I need orginization...and no not the knee capping media mafia kind :P
ZippyDSMlee: man I got alot of junk and dup files too >< god I need orginization...and no not the knee capping media mafia kind :P
Posted 11/07/09 at 04:26pm
ZippyDSMlee: replaced :P
ZippyDSMlee: replaced :P
Posted 11/07/09 at 04:23pm
ZippyDSMlee: beemoh:hey its like 60GB porn,400GB anime 100GB games and crap I have took from all my DVDs, I hate waiting on dvds to install stuff..... oh and 40GB of my porn was in the found.000 folder...mostly corrupted.... least I got names of wut needs to be repa
ZippyDSMlee: beemoh:hey its like 60GB porn,400GB anime 100GB games and crap I have took from all my DVDs, I hate waiting on dvds to install stuff..... oh and 40GB of my porn was in the found.000 folder...mostly corrupted.... least I got names of wut needs to be repa
Posted 11/07/09 at 04:18pm
beemoh: @Zip: ...and you'd have to spend all that time re-downloading that porn?
beemoh: @Zip: ...and you'd have to spend all that time re-downloading that porn?
Posted 11/07/09 at 03:34pm
ZippyDSMlee: ggrrrrr......vista lost one of my hard drives and I had a heart attack thinking I lost 1TB of data....
ZippyDSMlee: ggrrrrr......vista lost one of my hard drives and I had a heart attack thinking I lost 1TB of data....
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:58am
JDKJ: Which could be explained by both (a) and (b).
JDKJ: Which could be explained by both (a) and (b).
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:56am
Austin_Lewis: JDKJ: You forgot C) the fact that, for some reason, every time he did something that would suggest he shouldn't be in the military, let alone an officer, higher ups ignored it or let it slide.
Austin_Lewis: JDKJ: You forgot C) the fact that, for some reason, every time he did something that would suggest he shouldn't be in the military, let alone an officer, higher ups ignored it or let it slide.
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:51am
JDKJ: Part of the problem is, I believe, that (a) the Army had a lot of time and money already invested in him and which they were unwilling to simply write-off and (b) an increasing need for the type of skills and services he provided.
JDKJ: Part of the problem is, I believe, that (a) the Army had a lot of time and money already invested in him and which they were unwilling to simply write-off and (b) an increasing need for the type of skills and services he provided.
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:48am
JDKJ: And that even if he was begging not to get cut loose, he was apparently a real good candidate for being cut loose, anyway.
JDKJ: And that even if he was begging not to get cut loose, he was apparently a real good candidate for being cut loose, anyway.
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:11am
JDKJ: @chada: And while Kennedy once noted that there's usually more than enough blame for everyone to get a slice, the possibility that the Army was unwilling to cut loose someone who was asking to get cut loose could be a factor.
JDKJ: @chada: And while Kennedy once noted that there's usually more than enough blame for everyone to get a slice, the possibility that the Army was unwilling to cut loose someone who was asking to get cut loose could be a factor.
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:07am
ZippyDSMlee: *noms on his feet*..nomnomnomnom*droooll* ...wuuutttttt uuu looking at?
ZippyDSMlee: *noms on his feet*..nomnomnomnom*droooll* ...wuuutttttt uuu looking at?
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:05am
JDKJ: I'm no psychologist, but I'm told that crazy people have a tendency to do crazy things.
JDKJ: I'm no psychologist, but I'm told that crazy people have a tendency to do crazy things.
Posted 11/07/09 at 10:03am
chadachada321: Whoops, was out of the convo for awhile. I do wonder what type of ammo he used etc, but the real issue is WHY he did it, not HOW
chadachada321: Whoops, was out of the convo for awhile. I do wonder what type of ammo he used etc, but the real issue is WHY he did it, not HOW
Posted 11/07/09 at 09:56am
JDKJ: But if it turns out that they actually did, they'll have Hell to pay.
JDKJ: But if it turns out that they actually did, they'll have Hell to pay.
Posted 11/07/09 at 09:45am
JDKJ: And I'd tend to rule out the possibilty of FN Herstal supplying restricted ammunition to someone merely because they're ordering it from a military base.
JDKJ: And I'd tend to rule out the possibilty of FN Herstal supplying restricted ammunition to someone merely because they're ordering it from a military base.
Posted 11/07/09 at 09:37am
JDKJ: I know you don't leave your gated community and get around much in dark alleys, so you may be surprised to learn that there's this thing called "the black market" where, if you've got enough money, ain't too much of anything which can't be bought.
JDKJ: I know you don't leave your gated community and get around much in dark alleys, so you may be surprised to learn that there's this thing called "the black market" where, if you've got enough money, ain't too much of anything which can't be bought.
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Comments
A generous offer, but i wonder how many politicians will actually take him up on it. The way i see it, most of the established Republicans and Democrats in the US, and the equivalents in other countries, will just laugh it off, whereas the new politicians, the ones who are starting their careers and are looking for a hook, might just be persuaded to give the game a go.
Still, its a nice idea...
Exactly, just like with SimCity some politicians hit it up just for the PR, saying it helped with city planning and so on. Though I could see a minor help, there is no comparison to the real thing, which is as slow pace as can be because everyone takes forever to do the simplest of things.
Oh wait, we need a study on this first, you know, because every state, county, or city around us has already done their own, we need our own too. We can not just average theirs together, especially since they all came to the same conclusion. We may come up with something different, then have to retest again to find out we were wrong.
Politics is just getting too washed out by BS and greed. Who was it that said, every mother wants their son to become president, but not a politician.
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How do we know a policy error in a game will be one in real life, unless the dev thinks they know exactly what the public wants.
They don't. That is why it is called a simulation. I am surethe game is not hardcoded with what the dev's think the public wants. At least I hope not.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
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Then what opinion on the public's desires IS it coded with? Or is it random? Because either way, the game is worthless as a 'learning tool' or anything like it. This whole thing smacks of a pompous developer making snide, passive-aggressive comments.
Isn't public opinion random anyway? I thought it was. Well, maybe not. Public opinion seems to flow in the following manner: Public demands A...two years later they are disatisfied with A and now want B...Two years later they are dissatisfied with B and now want A again. All the while ignoring C, D, E etc.
THat could be real easy to code.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/okceca
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1325674091
What about all the other things you have to consider? The fact that in quite a few countries (America, for example) the average voter is uninformed on the basics of what they're voting for? How about the fact that opinion is easily swayed via the media, which can create an altered picture of reality, or, even fabricate an all new one (my favorite spin is the one where Dick Cheney supposedly made billions off the war in Iraq, nevermind that in all his time at Halliburton he worked pro bono). How about those issues that change all the time, like how everytime some idiot kid shoots up a school video game legislation and anti-gun legislation becomes popular? What about the whole gay rights issue (where it changes state to state every other year in some places)? There's a million little nuances and that's just for one country. I don't believe for one minute that a game that costs $22 dollars took all that into account. Fuck, I don't believe that any game does.
Like I said earlier, I think the developer's just being a pompous dick while making snide, passive-aggressive comments.
The limits of training simulators are that they work best in representing scientific or mechanical models, but not on models based on "soft sciences" or social sciences such as politics, where the outcomes are dictated by humans and not a fixed system. It would take some intense fuzzy logic programming as well as continuous updates to reflect the real world political climate to some degree.
GameSnooper
I think it would be neat if they ran a site that did monthly polls asking people what they want, and have the game work off of that as long as the person has an online connection.
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Polls that would be completely useless due to a skewed sample.
Well. I really don't see the usefulness of this. A simulated model is only as good as the assumptions it's built on.
In lamen's terms: If a communist made the simulation and you played it as a capitalist, you would fail.
'The only model complex enough to simulate reality is reality.'
I seem to recall that axiom from somewhere..
I don't know where it comes from, but it's definitely accurately applied here.
That aside, I can't expect a politician to take such a thing seriously any more than someone else could expect me to play some kind of author/publisher simulation before I dive into the world of professional writing.
Protip for professional writing:
Use words that are offensive as often as possible. It worked for that jackass who wrote lost in the city, people think it's profound, when really its a collection of 'short stories' that use the same plot over and over with interchanging names and is just as cookie-cutter as some of the newer Tom Clancy books.