Author: SamRandom

But a figment of the internet.

The game: a definition

~ SamRandom ~ Leave a comment

Several definitions of games exist within and without the academic world. With this text I will make the case for one of them. This definition goes as follows, “each game must have an implicit or explicit player” Furthermore we will define the player as “Someone with implicit or explicit control over the actions in a game”.

An observant reader might have noticed that the two definitions are intertwined, there is a point that we will come to later. But first let’s break down these two definitions into smaller parts. Let’s begin with the definition of a game, this is a modification of a literary definition. “A text is a text if it has an explicit or implicit reader”. The distinction between explicit and implicit reader is important. This way a text is not only a text if it would be to read, but also if it had the potential to be read. The same logic applies to or definition of a game. A game is still a game, even if no one ever plays it, as long as there is a possibility that someone could play it.

The next step is to define the player that is mentioned in our games definition. It’s important to define the term player for two reasons. First of all, the term is not as directly obvious as that of a reader. Secondly, the term player is used in several different scenarios, which leads to a need for further clarity to avoid confusion.

These definitions clear up two things, a game must not have been played, in order to be discussed or analysed as a game. Finally these definitions together means one very important thing. In order for a game to be considered a game in our discussion, it must have one thing. It must be possible for a player to take control over, in other words change something in the game. Note that this control does not need to have any meaningful result on the game itself. There must exist a deliberate interaction between the game and the player.

When we in the future discuss games of any kind, from board games to video games to slot machines, this is the definition I will use.

This blog post was spell checked and edited for readability at 2021-06-07

Pop culture analysis: an introduction

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This series will be dedicated to a critical discussion about popular culture. This is made in a hope of deepening the discussion about pop culture and hopefully putting these texts in a broader context. I believe that we can learn much about culture and history from the types of media we consume.

In this introduction I will describe my definition of pop culture, and why I believe it’s worth studying.

The term Pop culture or popular culture is in broad terms “low culture’”. More specifically, everything that isn’t considered “art” or “high culture”. Part of the mission with these texts is to disprove some of these myths about pop culture.

This segment will contain everything from discussion about theme, writing styles to analysation and discussion about specific works.

This blog post was spell checked and edited for readability at 2021-06-07

Consider a state

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Today we will follow up on our earlier discussion about the state as a concept. Historicity has states, as defined by Hobbes, exist as long as humans have lived in any form of organized tribe.

Today we will focus on defining the “modern nation state”. With this term I refer in this text, specifically to the unified nations that formed as a result of, and with the explicit help of the rise of European nationalism.

This nationalism can in part be attributed to the rise of unified nation states in the west. Germany, the UK, France and many more nations went from decentralized governance to a more centralized form. With this centralization came the need for a notion of a complete and uniform national identity. This identity would unify the nation’s citizens under one banner. This national identity would also legitimize the state’s rule. This act also helped legitimize the state’s interaction with other states. These interactions include everything from trade negotiations, to war and colonization.

This nation state is as much defined as what it is, as what it is not. What I mean by this statement is the following. When defining who are the citizens of a state (us), one must simultaneously define why is not (them). At the rise of European nationalism this often meant exaggerating some perceived virtue of the nation’s citizens while exaggerating negative traits of the “others”.

It is true that nationalism has similar themes, discussions and problems etc has evolved in several areas and time frames around the world. The somewhat unfortunate Eurocentric standpoint of the environment this blog is created in, makes me think that Europe is where our discussion starts. With this said, I believe there are some simulates that can be found in most if not all of these events.

The common element that we are going to focus on here is the following: all national identities are by their design, fabricated. What I mean by this is the following:

All national identities are created by its parent nation, state and most importantly, the people that embody it. Next time we will look closer at what makes up a national identity.

This blog post was spell checked and edited for readability at 2021-06-07

Conider a country part 1

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Consider a country, consider it bearing in mind all we have considered before in these texts considering roads, towns, cities, cars and people. From above imagine the network of roads, towns, houses and businesses and lives. These collections are both independent, and completely dependent on each other.  Note that these dependencies do not end at an arbitrary land border, but spread freely, along the globe. But for this experiment, we will contain it within one nation’s imaginary borders. But a country constitutes more than that, more than the land it entitles, more than the people in it. These are in a way, arbitrary and incidental, simply existing in one time and space.

More than that a country also signifies a contract, for better or worse. A contract between the individual and a collective. This contract can be given the label of “citizenship”. These citizens collectively, and often forcibly build clumped together to create the populace of the “state”.

The state is a catch-all term for a ruling organ of some form, for where citizens get the rules of said citizenship contract. It is through these limitations, as well as the imagined borders of said country that the citizens get their shared history. This history, together with culture, traditions, customs and products created within these borders helps to form a citizens “national identity”. In doing this, these identity collectivity and simultaneously creates a country “identity”. Both affecting each other simultaneously.

This identity helps legitimize the state, and with it, its right to rule. The state rules with contracts between citizen and state and as Thomas Hobbes (1651) states “A monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force”. These nations also identify themselves in relation to other nations. Creating groupings of shared history, culture and other bonds, or forced together by one reason or another. A nation’s identity grows when it relates to others, for better or worse.

In this way a nation becomes more than itself, more than its borders, citizens and its culture. It becomes a collection of all these incidental parts, brought forth by time and space and becomes something else. Both as a physical force and as an illusion it becomes a nation, a country.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan 1651

This blog post was spell checked and edited for readability at 2021-06-07

Consider a city, part 2

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We continue by examining other buildings of our city. The buildings in which we do not live, but yet spend much of our time. These would be the buildings of professions, either of ours, or of those needed for our lives and well being.

Let us begin with the prior category. This is your location of business, note that for some this is also our home, tough for most it is not. Here we perform a service, or produce a product for consumption. Services can range from selling to repairing, and selling can range from physical items such as food and toys to abstract concepts such as stocks and insurance.

You may or may not enjoy this work. Though for the process of these texts, all these facts are secondary. The main point is that you have an occupation, in which you spend a set amount of time. For the time and effort you are compensated a monetary sum, which you can buy goods and services from the second category of buildings.

These transactions will inevitably be handled by another individual, currently at their job. For the time and effort of handling your monetary transaction, they too will be compensated.

After a set number of transactions this individual will be able to make a purchase of their own, and the monetary flow stretches out, flown and intertwined throughout our city. This transactional chain does not stop in our town of course, but rather sprawls out in the world, as said worlds transactions sprawl back in.

In this way our imagination is not only interconnected through the physical lines of traffic, but through the metaphysical means of the exchange of goods and services.

Lastly there is one more group of buildings I would like to take up. These are the buildings of government and services. In some cases funded by public means, in other words the citizens of said city, or  in other cases they are funded privately privately. In this category do I put everything from police, to libraries and garbage collection. These are here due to, the are in their very core to more or less mean to serve the public.

Note that these buildings are also where individuals work, and are part of the previously mentioned monetary web. Even though some of these buildings (in some areas) have a need to stay profitable, this is not their main goal. Their goal is to provide the services needed for others to make a profit. See them as a foundation support for your city, which the rest of the city is built around.

Here is where I will conclude my contemplations of a city for now. My hope is that you will not see your city or town as a collection of blocks and stretches of land. But rather a collection of homes. That you will see the workspaces, where people like yourself work to meet similar ends. Roads full of individuals, as well as people and work of numerous services, making it all possible.

My hope is that you will look out upon your city or town and see, something more.

This blog post was spell checked and edited for readability at 2021-06-07

Consider a city part 1

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Today we are going to continue where we left off, with a city or town. Full of rooms which, through complex norms, rules and social contracts, are considered homes. Homes that may be more or less yours.

Though these buildings make up so much of the actual city, their use and significance are rarely considered. Even less the apartments and lives within.

But leaving the apartment buildings behind, what else do we see? Homes yes, several, besides homes there are offices, stores, public buildings of different kinds, as well as industries and industrial complexes, we will return to these later.

For now, let us examine what lies in between these houses. Roads, paths and pavements. The grow, they shrink, they collide and they split up. They lead us towards our destinations, or away from them. At night, from above they spread out like glowing spider webs, like blood vessels they pump the traffic through the organism that is a city. Like so many things we will discuss in this series, they are simple, accepted, and almost invisible to us.

But what is a street? An area, or several, designated for transportation by car, bike, foot traffic etc. The speed, direction and phase, all dictated by abstract symbols and lights. These lines, and dots and arrows are each a message a symbol of a shared contract.

On these roads, our directions are predesignated by social and juridical norms and laws. We might walk on these roads, we might travel by bike or moped, we might travel by car. This journey might be spatially shared in a bus, in a car, or by foot traffic. Going towards something, going from something. But always with a goal, regardless if this goal is planned or not. But on all these occasions we are separate, in our own world, only these two places matter, and in a way only them exist. On our way there other travellers can seem like mere objects.

For example, you are in a car. You are travelling from your home to your job. It is rainy and cold outside, so you have your AC on. The radio plays the morning news. The car smells of home, and of you. This is your car, a several ton heavy machine, speeding along towards some-place else. But it’s not just a car, it’s your car, and it’s not just any destination, it’s yours.

Now consider the cars around you, imagine them with the same familiarity, as well as their goals, and a similar starting point. Continue with everyone on the same street, the same road, everyone from walking, to sitting half asleep on a bus. Continue to spread out through your city or town, the road full of, no longer traffic, but individuals, all from a starting point, to a goal, though not all of them planned.

Consider a city, as we consider the roads of said city.

This blog post was spell checked and edited for readability at 2021-06-07

Apartment blocks

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Have you ever considered what makes up an apartment block? A cube of glass, stone, maybe wood that makes up so many towns, that so many people do and don’t call their home.

First of all is a physical thing. Big, imposing a brick. Man made, yet it seems almost natural, like a hill, or groups of threes. This is how we usually see apartment buildings, or at least, the ones we never enter.

But if we were to enter one, the become tangible, more real. It has an inside, we already knew that said inside exists. But now it’s more comprehensible for us. A hallway, a staircase or elevator, and of course the apartment itself.

The apartment as in a set of rooms that we, or someone we know, calls home is now a set point to us. The space becomes a tangled entity to us as we enter it, as we see, smell and feel it. The things in there, their concepts as well as the memories of these things, creates, together with the room they occupy, a home.

Though this apartment is not the only one on this floor. There are others, try and imagine them, just as real. Try to give them the same sense of physicality as the one you know. The same reality.

Now let’s go on to the same procedure on the next floors of said house. Not any-more a block of concrete, but a labyrinth of rooms, objects and consents that make up several individuals’ ideas of their own personal home.

Now stretch your view out the window, through the tens, maybe hundreds of similar apartment blocks outside. All of them are full of personal universes, coinciding without any conscious awareness of each other. All of them identical in purpose, yet, all of them unique.

Have you considered an apartment block?

This blog post was spell checked and edited for readability at 2021-06-07