One of the common failures of proselytizing believers in simplistic political systems is failure to understand human behavior, which is partly a result of poor observation skills and partly a result of poor reasoning skills.

History is filled with such blunders. The ones in Europe, beginning with the French revolution, still bleed. A rudimentary understanding of human behavior would have allowed those French revolutionaries to see that the result of their bloody tantrum would be Napoleon and nearly two centuries of continental war. Cooler intellects anticipated the ensuing chaos and warned the world, but few listened.

The problem persists. This Wired article about video games lauds what they mistakenly characterize as teaching tools for cooperation.

September 12th isn't like other games. Because when a missile shot at Arab terrorists kills an innocent bystander in the game's fictional Afghani village -- and it's nearly impossible not to -- other villagers run over, cry at their loss and then, in a rage, morph into terrorists themselves.

"The mechanics of the game are about this horrible decision, whether to do things, to take actions that will inevitably kill civilians," says Noah Wardrip-Fruin, co-editor of First Person, a collection of essays about the relationship between stories and games.

Indeed, September 12th has a point to make: that our actions have consequences, and that we should try to understand why other people take to arms. As Wardrip-Fruin puts it, the goal of the game is to develop in the player "empathy for the people who will become terrorists out of that experience, of having seen innocent people killed."

hmmm, shouldn't that scenario begin with the terrorist acts that killed innocents? Where's the chicken, or even the omelette, in this egg drama? Shouldn't Robespierre have a speaking part? Why did the terrorists become terrorists in the first place? Why do they think that terrorism is useful? Have they read any Chekhov? Have the game designers ever heard of game theory?

More likely, they assume that there are customers, and media naifs such as those as Wired, that have never thought these things through and who will swallow this political propaganda packaged as uplifting entertainment. The propagandists hide in plain sight, they even call themselves Persuasive Games, safe in the knowledge that the dullards at Wired, and that buy such games, don't see the irony in a company dedicated to persuasion selling goods marketed as cooperative.

But it isn't all cynical marketing, there are true believers. The fashionably hyphenated Noah Wardrip-Fruin, co-editor of First Person, a collection of essays about the relationship between stories and games, seems truly deluded about the nature of such games and the views they promulgate.

...open-ended simulation games like The Sims do a very good job of encouraging constructive thought in game players.

"It's very hard to imagine one that is about hating some ethnic or religious other," he says. "I'd say that the fundamental thing about a computer game is the structure of what you do as a participant, and the structure of something like SimCity or The Sims is about understanding a system, and trying to make it grow in the way you want it to grow."

"the way you want it to grow"? These games aren't about tolerance, understanding, cooperation or mutuality, they are about totalitarian domination. Sometimes it is populist totalitarianism and sometimes it is an individual tyranny, but it's always about planning and manipulation, never about self determination. Learning the subtleties of herding cats doesn't teach you about cooperation, it teaches you about domination of flighty minds.

It is possible to implement simulations, games, that are more realistic in the sense of reflecting behaviors consistent with current best understandings of natural human behavior. But they would also require higher level strata that reflected various cultural overlays on natural human behavior. There could also be interesting if not realistic games that left out the cultural overlays. It's not at all clear that such games would be playable, entertaining and so popular or profitable. Games of conquest and domination, either FPS or more slyly manipulative versions, have greater appeal to primates.

I'd be intrigued by a game that implemented some of the common truths. If you plant ice you're going to harvest wind. You can't win, break even or get out of the game (actually, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave). Events are unpredictable. Sometimes you get lucky; good and bad. Your starting position is random; sometimes on top of the hill and sometimes in a deep hole. etc. It seems it would have to be an academic or hobby effort since I doubt it would ever have commercial funding or profit potential.

Update April,29

Anday Duncan at Catallarchy opines on a related theme and has links to other writings.