The metaphor of Avalon took on increased significance at the dawn of modern gaming, with the fall of grace of the West during the Vietnam War. The West was the fallen Arthur, now needing to recover after it’s ego and sense of self-worth were injured. So it turned to the virtual realm, a brave new world of infinite possibility, and sought to both create and be saved by it’s own Avalon.

The fall of the Soviet Union meant that global capital no longer had to be on it’s best behavior. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and global capital now had absolute power, or so they think. Games reflected this dark reality, classicly with the aptly titled Doom, and the rise of FPSes with their personalized murder.

After the 9/11 attack which challenged the hegemony of global capital in the world (however slightly), both the US military machine and gaming moved to the “military shooter”, murder masquerading as war in poor urban (Middle Eastern) environments.

The purpose of gaming is the same as Avalon’s purpose to King Arthur – to rejuvenate him, heal him, and allow him to save the world. Gamers through their very identity believe themselves to be injured, they believe the world to be in need of saving, and they believe that gaming is helping them help the world. Gaming relies on this ideological construct for it’s existence, and in recent years with the rise in “end of days” mythology gaming has gained in relevance. Gaming is popular now since all wealthy people in the world want to live in Avalon. Poor people want to live on earth.

Because it’s fundamental to gamers to believe themselves to be injured (thus victims) and because they are so stricken with despair over the fate of the world, they lack the willingness to self-examine beyond the merely insecure (and utterly false) consideration that they are “escaping” reality.

Avalon is where Excalibur was forged. According to the ideology of gaming, by exploring the virtual realm one gains the power to transform the real world. Gaming will save the world.

Yeah but it sounds gay

Are all Europeans terrible at spelling?

I agree Usual Suspects is one of the best movies Kevin Spacey has ever been involved in also moon was quite good

whoever edited this video is ass

LMFAO!

That’s a bootleg wheel

she should hurry up and do porn

Omg I hate to go near drink people.

That last dude just owned that

I am getting lost here on Youtube.

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In the 21st century, people like you,… who are agile and quick decision makers… will take an important part in society.  And what’s the key here? It’s games.

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The logic of the industrial revolution, which takes from the earth without giving back, entails self-annihilation unless the world is seen as merely a stepping stone, a crib which can be set aside when the infant grows out of it. Therefore a prerequisite for the industrial revolution was the work of Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei, who moved the earth from the center of the universe (therefore rendering it special and sacrosanct) and replaced it with the sun. Subsequent scientific development rendered the earth less special still, reducing its value and the propensity for humans to maintain its well-being or even existence.

The purpose of capitalism is to kill the world and force humanity to move on. According to current capitalist hopes, Mars is the first step.

This reality enlightens many of the interactions between capitalists and socialists. Capitalists consider socialists to be cowards, not so much due to the valuation of rugged individualism but the greater cowardice of not being willing or able to wish to leave the earth. Capitalists view socialists as babies unwilling or unable to grow up.

Socialists view capitalists as somewhere between stern authority figures and psychopaths.

My view is that it defeats the value of exploring the universe if the explorers are only there because they intentionally killed their own planet. A capitalist point here is that exploration of the universe might give the means for saving the earth, an argument that began its life meager and died a little each day after.

Think about this the other way around. What would we think of an alien species who only came to earth because they intentionally destroyed their own planet. Would we want them on ours?

What would the expected outcome be on another planet when colonized by a species whose ideology is based on destruction and “progress”?

The question perhaps is not whether or not we want outer space but whether or not outer space wants us.

Prior to the 1980s, American alien culture was centered around UFOs, which were often high altitude spy planes being tested by the US government. Interest in UFOs meant interest in greater transparency of the US government toward Americans.

During the 1980s, popularized a decade later, there was a shift in alien culture from UFOs to alien creatures. This matched up with the recognition that the world’s rulers were pursuing an apocalyptic ideology and were no longer caretakers of the earth and living creatures. Aliens became a metaphor for the rulers, who act to destroy the world and it’s people.

omega 616:
Extreme hyperbole and simplification would be “women are only good for cooking so need saving constantly”.

It’s a common misperception to believe that the reason women are so often “imprisoned” in games is due to their perceived impotence.

After all, in traditional reality (“real life”) men are imprisoned at a far higher rate than women, so according to this logic men are perceived to be far weaker than women.

The primary reason women are usually the ones imprisoned in video games is that the usual gender of the hero main character is male, and there’s a heterosexual factor in the “saving”, as per the original myth of the noble (horny) knight saving the princess locked away in a high tower within a castle. The implication is that upon saving the damsel the damsel’s king father will be so full of gratitude and so impressed by the knight’s bravery and prowess that he encourages or perhaps even forces (heavily coerces) the princess to marry the knight. While an utterly sexist myth, note that the princess’s weakness here is not inherent but rather is caused by the political/social reality. The tower is a phallic symbol, the princess is imprisoned within the penis, and the knight merely moves her from one prison to another, one which he obviously prefers since it’s his own. Also note that the tower is within an enemy castle, so the king doesn’t so much care about his daughter but rather about his own loss of prestige of having his daughter captured by the enemy.

Rather than appreciate any of this and respond to it by boycotting said games, most gamers will happily engage in “save the princess” sexist games while simultaneously claiming to be at the very least friendly to feminism. A hypocrisy which is very rarely called out, so life gets to go on with no real thought, care, concern, or self-criticism given to it.

Treating addiction, therefore, is a matter of breaking the addict’s fear of a break in the social order. The problem is that most doctors and psychologists very much want to maintain the social order, so desire to maintain or if possible worsen the disease of the patient.

Addicts are able to “break” their addiction and congratulate themselves heartedly at the supposedly monumental task, yet lapse back into addiction since they aren’t curing the disease that gives birth to it.

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Murder is typically thought of as between peers. For example, most humans consider it to be impossible to murder an ant, due to species bigotry. A human intentionally or otherwise causing the death of an ant is called killing, if it’s bothered to be called anything at all.

While ants and typically non-human animals are disregarded in general by many modern humans, a special word is used when referring to things that “deserve to die”, known commonly as monsters. To slay.

Dragons are slain. Goblins are slain. Zombies are slain. And, now, giants are also slain. As long as the “slayer” is a human, anyway. If a dragon kills another dragon that’s just called “killing”. It’s not called “murder” since only we moral human beings can murder something.

Humans are the only creatures who are so moral as to establish a hierarchy of value at which they themselves are at the top. They are the only ones who can murder. Murder is atrocious only because a human dies. Humans themselves define what are monsters and “deserve to die”, and they happily carry out the killing and celebrate it with the term “slaying”.

When a monster kills a human there’s often not even a word for it. The very same humans who happily abide by the reality I’ve just described are aghast at even the thought of a monster killing a human. The reality of such results in endless tears and anguished cries for revenge.

So – who’s a monster? Do rich people get to define poor people as monsters?  Do poor people get to define rich people as monsters? How about how Zionists define Palestinians? European colonists in America defining native Americans? German Nazis defining Jews, gypsies, and cripples? American soldiers defining Iraqis?

Does the proud law-abiding citizen get to define criminals as monsters? How about murderers – are they monsters?

Is murdering no problem at all if one can redefine it as slaying?

Where do humans really belong if we do an honest evaluation of morality?

“The opaque and sometimes secret crafts of activists, bureaucrats, and other humanitarian and development experts aiding Haiti made suffering productive. Their labor converted the suffering that embodies individuals after malevolent, inhumane interventions into what I call ‘trauma portfolios’, the aggregate of paraphernalia compiled to document and authenticate the experience of individual, family, or collective sufferers. The work of conversion created the identity of ‘victims’ or ‘survivors’ for individuals who were once [militants or activists]. It was a professional transformation of suffering that fed a growing humanitarian market.”

The greatest, deepest form of exploitation exploits exploitation itself. Sell someone a disease then sell them a cure. Punch them in the face and sell them a bandage.

A great form of exploitation is to cause someone suffering then teach them that suffering is noble. You like it this way. You want it this way. It’s ok – it builds character.

What is watched is not trusted.

A lesser known introduction to the 1990s was made alongside George Bush’s “New World Order” and Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history”.  1992′s Basic Instinct prophetized the rise of the online porn industry and one side of the cover for the surveillance state.

Prior to the 1990s there was an honored principle – privacy. When Americans no longer trusted themselves, finally breaking under the fear-driving of the Reagan Administration, they replaced privacy with transparency. Instead of wanting to not intrude upon others and not want to be intruded upon, they opened the doors wide and pried the doors of others open.

The Subway restaurant chain has grown into a global behemoth surpassing McDonald’s substantially as a result of their transparent meal preparation process.

One cover for this brave new world is the desire to save the world. Privacy limits the amount of information we have on each other, but when (arguably all of us) are trying to save the world, we need to break down all obstacles that prevent us from maximizing our knowledge, and what’s a little thing like privacy to stand in the way?

So privacy is antiquated, Americans tell us. Sigh, sigh, sigh, we just can’t afford privacy anymore.

The result is that we create humans whose identities form around their desire to be watched. So body consciousness, which we call shallow but in truth is no longer shallow, it’s a deep cultural reality at this point, is at a historical peak. Humans become drama queens, where everything in their life is super-important and of interest to everyone. One glimpse at “reality television” shows us the modern humans we are creating.

Humans become super-antisocial, of which the human networking trend is one example. When everyone is watching you and you lose the desire to be alone there’s no point in having an identity designed by oneself – one’s identity becomes what the viewers desire. Therefore one cannot be social, which implies the relating of oneself to another person, no more than a robot or a zombie can be social. Robots and zombies can do plenty of “social” networking though.

Oh we viewers are so special! Everything must bow before our gaze.

And, we grimly believe, everything will.

We are so brave to venture boldly into this new world without even a glance at our surroundings. Who needs to look around when we are the chosen ones who will save the world? Noone can tell us we’re wrong – we’re super right all the time!

Because the focus of the protest was the ghastly industrial war machine and the perpetual nuclear specter hovering over the world, the focus of the look back was also on war. So this group picked up lances, swords, and shields, and fought in mock combat (what would later be known as LARPing).

This culture, partly derived from Tolkien who experienced the horrors of two world wars including the terrible disappointment of the second one following the “war to end all wars”, would form the spiritual basis for Dungeons and Dragons, and Richard Garriott, the founder of the computer RPG genre, is a long time member of the Society.

Gaming itself rose to new heights of popularity following World War II, with a perpetual game played between the two great capitalist powers (the ideologies only arguably relevant), the West headed by the United States against the Soviet Union and it’s few allies. Game theory vastly increased in popularity and video games, a combination of game theory, interactive visual media, and art, was born.

The 1960s experienced a large increase in drug use, with the intent of escaping the rotten imperial culture or subverting it, depending on the user’s ambition. Then a mere fledgling art form, the recognition of the dangers of drug use greatly helped the popularity of video games, as they took the place of drugs in helping the users explore an “alternate reality”. Despite it’s inherent countercultural maturity, video games were often viewed as being for children, and most of the serious gamers beginning in the 1980s were children, often unsupervised by their parents. Parents, depressed about the failures of the 1960s and 1970s in creating a better world, pushed these new alternate realities upon their children in the hopes of being saved by them. Therefore games *had* to be safe, with wackos demonizing Dungeons and Dragons not helping the cause of thoughtful game criticism.

In 1989 with the end of the Soviet Union and the rise of George Bush’s “New World Order” and Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history”, games took a turn to the political right, heralded by id software’s Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, Doom in particular being an ironic and dark take on this brave new world we were entering. The “big fucking gun”, as id software called it, would be a very portentous phrase as countless shooters would fire innumerable bullets resulting in an obscene body count subsequently. The Fire and Forget genre with the main character playing what could only be described as a Marauding Berserker, covering most game genres from Call of Duty games to Neverwinter Nights style RPGs to Starcraft to World of Warcraft, was not so much about murder in the name of something but rather murder because there’s nothing better to do. Murder, because, well, fuck it – though typically translated by gamers into “because it’s fun”.

We should examine the need in gaming to save the world, one corpse at a time. Game after game after game is filled with monsters who are then murdered by someone(s) the game invariably calls a hero in order to cleanse the world and “save” it. Parallels between this and white racists during Hurricane Katrina celebrating the “cleansing” of New Orleans of people they consider to be monsters is uncanny. According to them, New New Orleans with its upscaling and whitewashing is now truly saved. Countless other examples exist, including the roughly one million dead and millions more displaced Iraqis who Condoleezza Rice celebrated as the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”. Or the “monstrous and savage” native Americans exterminated by the colonizing Europeans. Or the “inferior” Palestinians suffering slow extermination by the “chosen ones” of the Zionist Israeli state.

The market for video games has always been the West (the West includes Japan). Only in very recent years has that expanded somewhat, as the economies in East Asia and South America have improved. So while the West might keep calling the latest Call of Duty clone “fun”, societies not lost in such a high degree of imperial bloodlust have a different idea of fun and will enable different games.

After World War 2 American capitalists were ever expanding their operations overseas, selling to largely non-white people, and they realized that the rampant racism at home was no longer useful to them. The servants got the picture, and a “civil rights” movement grew in power until it achieved certain limited ends which were beneficial to the globalizing capitalist class.

The downtrodden servants, desperate for self respect, give themselves credit for “no longer hanging out at malls” and lots of credit for “no longer being racist”. Funny, that. Real funny. All they are doing is taking orders from the masters, and they still are. When the masters told them to be racist, they were, and when they tell them to stop, they do.

When the masters tell them to hate Arabs, they cheer and sometimes engage in anti-Arab abuse including American soldiers demonizing Arabs as “haijis” prior to bombing them – when the masters tell them to hate hispanics, they do the same. Where is their anti-racism now?

When the masters don’t need the entire population to be racist, that’s fine. A section of the population can congratulate themselves on being “progressive” and not being like those other people. Hence the population becomes divided between the “racists” and the “non-racists” and the age old tactic of divide and conquer succeeds. The capitalist smiles ear to ear.

When will we stop being good little servants and wipe that fucking smile off his face?

This is reminiscent of the American excuse for torturing Vietnamese resistance fighters – we must become monsters in order to gain the strength of monsters in order to maximize our power in order to ensure our domination of the world.

The outcome of such a policy may be domination of the world, although that’s merely one possibility among many. But even if the outcome is as the policy makers desire, the kings and emperors of this brave new world will be the most hideous monsters the world has ever seen.

If 80% of games featured dolphins the argument gamers would use against that is that dolphins over and over and over again is boring as hell. Too many dolphins, in other words, gamers would say, cut back that 80% number to 10%.

If 80% of movies featured killing as the primary plot device, such as for example Battle Royale, movie-goers would complain that for reasons of increased creativity, innovation, and *making better movies*, that number should be greatly reduced.

Yet gamers, because they believe that they need to remain constantly vigilant against the political machinations of the terrifying and terrified humans who proclaim games evil, welcome violence in games not because violence is fun, but because it’s rebellious against the very people who don’t deserve our rebellion.

By welcoming violence in games, gamers are reducing themselves to the same level as the monsters and fools who rail against games.

By needing to rebel against people undeserving as such, those people become NECESSARY and the Jack Thompsons of the world become useful tools who must be kept around to serve us.

Some gamers want that 80% raised to 90% or even 100%, not for the sake of more fun but to spit in the face of “our enemies”.

This is a plea from me to my fellow gamers to start caring more for the quality of games than the political pain we can inflict on others.

Please grow up.

In the lengthy early scene with the dwarves at Bilbo’s home, the movie points out that some of the dwarves are warriors, while the book made no mention of that, focusing on the importance of the mission.

Gandalf is further abused during the captured-by-goblins scene, as he unleashes warrior-wizard once again instead of in the book, where killing was only used as a last resort and flight was the primary action for all the characters (except for Bilbo’s curiosity about the ring).

Possibly the worst moment in the film was the easy takedown of the great pine trees by the wargs. Tolkien stresses the strength of these trees, a strength relied on by the party members. Only the goblin’s clever use of Gandalf’s fire put the group at risk. Jackson throws out the spirit of Tolkien, the trees become normal trees, and the wargs knock them over like dominoes. A fucking disaster.

Gone is the gentleness and cleverness of the book, replaced by soulless murder.