Gaming as a Religion.

What people believe is not restricted to religion of course, people can believe in ideals, in people, in political views. You can have your own beliefs that have no foundation in reality, like  black cats are (un)lucky, my football team will have a better chance of winning if I wear my lucky strip, or the truly deluded may believe that vaccines cause autism.

But ultimately everything we do and everything we see is shaped by our personal perspectives.
So; on this vein? I thought I would compose a little hypothetical in extreme belief:

What if Gaming was a religion?

Well I suppose it wouldn’t be monotheistic, as there is no real “God” of Gaming (Sorry Gabe Newell), but I suppose it does have an ideology of sorts, and a way of communal worship.
What would Gaming teach as the core tenants of its faith?

The Game, I suppose would be the most fundamental factor.

It’s not about the player, it’s about the game. Your skill, or lack thereof, your play-style, and your personality may be stamped on your experience, but ultimately nobody cares about you, they care about the game. With gaming as a religion, the Game would be your god, but it is not a god with a face, it’s more of a god with a concept, or perhaps just countless manifestations, not all of them good, but all of them will teach you something if you let them.

And thus we come to the patron saints of gaming, those who have risen beyond obscurity and become embodiments of the Game.

Saint-Commander Shepard, Who teaches that the ends may justify the means, but the means themselves are important, and define who you are and shape the lives of those around you.

Saint Mario, who teaches us unyielding patience when faced with repetitive and difficult tasks.

Saint Link, who teaches us that the world we are in is always going to be more important than us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t leave our mark on it.

Saint Sonic, who teaches us that haste may be an asset at times but a liability at others, and you can only be fast as something if you are also willing to be skilled too.

Saint Gordon Freeman, who taught us the folly of not speaking out. But also the virtue of being loyal and dependable.

Saint Samus Aran, who teaches us that skill, determination and selflessness are qualities that are admirable in anyone.

Saint Clemintine, who taught us that being strong is not the same as being capable, or important.

The Saints of Left 4 Dead, who taught us the importance of cooperation.

The Saints of Racoon City, who taught us to be strong in the face of our fears.

It’s truly an inclusive and ever expanding line-up (I am sure you can think of your own).

I guess worshiping at the church of gaming would be simple. Just pick up a controller and join in with your friends, or use it as a chance to make new ones. But I suppose all religion needs a prayer. So allow me to make one up.

Our server, who we are connecting.

Shallow be thy pings.

Our win may come,

Our games be fun.

In fantasy Land as it is in space.

Give us this day our friends and lols.

And forgive our teamkills, as we forgive those who teamkill against us.

For we must all be n00bs is we ever wish to one day be Pr0.

Forever and ever.

End of line.

I guess it has to have its sins too, like yelling at people who are learning and being a general dick to people to try and compensate for your own shortcomings. But I like to dwell on the positive, not the negative sometimes.

The Psychology of Bullying

What is a bully?

Well for the sake of this little exercise in self indulgence a bully is somebody who:
"Consistently and persistently empowers themselves at the expense of the safety, dignity or security of another individual or individuals."
So what comes to mind when we think of a bully? Is our bully male or female? Are they strong and beat you up? Or are they just snide and caustic and make you miserable through the use of gossip, lies and insults?

The simple approach is just to view bullies as some kind of immature child or sub-neanderthal and write them off as something less then human, or second-class citizens. The problem with this approach is it never really solves anything, why do people bully? Do they grow out of it? Or do they just get better at hiding it? Are bullies born or created?

Well to answer those questions like the smart-arse i am. Most (about 65%) of bullies fall into the category of "Bully-Victim", ie: A bully that is made because they are, or continue to be the victim of bullying and so in turn bully others as a way of empowering themselves. About 10% are just "pure bully" the other 10% are "pure victim" in the bully/victim populations that are surveyed by the types of people who love this sort of thing.

A bully is just as likely to be a man or a woman, and is likely to be any age. Though psychical violence does deteriorate as the bully gets older, they find other ways of gaining control over their own lives by making people around them feel powerless. A bully will focus on making sure that their victims have no agency, the most obvious being physical violence (I can hit you, you cannot defend yourself from me, I am in charge, I have the power, you have none.). But more subtle ways are often seen in the work place, spreading rumors, petty theft of belongings, and interference with personal relationships.

You see, a bully often works along an "Aggression/reward" scale, what act of aggression can get me the best reward with the least risk to myself. Obviously bullies work out fairly young that physical violence leaves evidence and therefore carries the greatest risk, and so other ways are discovered and employed. Hence in the adult world violence is no longer vogue, and passive aggression and using others as your proxy's becomes the weapon of choice.

Which leads me to the modern day bully-victims, people who have turned being a victim into a weapon to hit others with, and essentially become the bullies themselves. They have discovered the best way to avoid all or most risk while still being able to belittle, scorn, lie, and condemn others is to shout loud and proud from the rooftops that they are the victims and therefore any action taken against them is only proof that the people they are condemning need to be condemned harder. Social change at gunpoint, but you ensure that you are not holding the gun, and any bullets that come back your way either hit somebody else (as there will be hordes of people ready to defend a victim), or validate the use of even bigger guns!

I guess the point of all this is to emphasize that being the victim of hatred or oppression does not make you special, or even unique. And it does certainty not give you a right to enforce your opinion on others, no matter how upset or offended you are, you cannot break a cycle by feeding it. To do so would be putting your own desires and your own need for control over another persons right to autonomy and self-efficacy,

...and that my friends, is how bullies think.

I figure a pretty good opening post would be something about freedom of expression and censorship.

The recent events in Fergurson and the resulting media attempt to pour JP9 high octane jet fuel onto an already blazing and highly charged issue lead to some interesting points of view being shouted from the proverbial rooftops.
I honestly don't have too much of an opinion on the event itself, the various spin artists  and left/right aligned spokespersons and newspapers have done their best to ensure that it's easy to find news that conforms with whatever confirmation bias you already have. Thus digging through all that to discover the events of something that happened in another continent to people in a different (but admittedly similar) culture seems a bit of a waste of time, because even if I somehow did manage to discover "the truth" (at least the truth as I understood it) it would be rapidly dismissed by those who had their own "truths" that they had painstakingly researched. Such is the nature of these things.

However, it lead me to start thinking about the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, and of course the flip side of that coin, censorship.
The highly charged nature of things like racism, rape, domestic violence, crimes against minors and other violent crimes means they are often a lightning rod for those who wish to strike a rallying call for society to make a stand against such horrible things. I'm not really opposed to this in general, "raising awareness" as much as I sneer at such slactivism can actually help people think about such horrible things a little more and maybe start to have a little more insight into the crimes other then the knee-jerk "Kill them, lock them up forever." which is to social change what sticking your fingers in your ears and gong "LA-LA-LA!" is to reasoned debate.
But should we, (and do we) draw a line when it comes to our media? The freedom of the presses to create their attention grabbing headlines and their click-bait articles regardless of the irresponsible nature of their work seems to have flown under the radar of  people who cry out for censorship.
Admittedly the government often responds to media pressure, I'm reminded of the headlines a few years ago damning the government for not having enough vaccines to inoculate the country against swine flu. Then three years later the same papers were sporting the headline condemning the government for wasting money on all those vaccines it  had gotten into stock which were now due to expire. The media had effectively bullied the government into "wasting money" only to condemn them years later for responding to the crisis it had manufactured.
It's a very powerful tool for shaping the opinions and policies of both the population and the government, a strong argument for censorship? Perhaps. But it's also one of the only ways outside of a voting that the proverbial "voice of the people" can be heard in the halls of power.

It's food for thought, perhaps instead of looking at what the voice of the people is saying through the newspapers and websites of the world, we should perhaps look closer at who is holding the megaphone to direct that voice, and what their agenda is.