When I read The Last Lecture, the bestselling book containing the uplifting final words of computer scientist Randy Pausch who died of pancreatic cancer, this was my reaction: How ironic it is that a man who was brilliant in scientific thinking spent his life and impressive brainpower creating games instead of going into the medical field where he may have been able to discover a cure for the incurable disease that killed him.
I thought about this book again recently when I read an article about the computer game industry and the hours and hours of manpower spent trying to satisfy the ever-more-demanding denizens of the gaming world who are relentless in their quest for the most realistic explosions and depictions of blood-spurting dismemberment as they murder their way through their leisure time. In the name of entertainment arts, or I should say, Electronic Arts (because that is one of the companies for which Pausch worked), people who can write advanced code are creating fantasy lands of killing instead of trying to heal the world.
Earlier this week, I quickly glimpsed on the front page of my local newspaper a picture of a hand touching a computer screen. My first thought was that the article must be about the measures being taken to fix the healthcare website, but then I realized the computer screen in the photo had a felt green background and a smattering of playing cards. The story was about Internet gambling games that are appearing in casinos. Of course!
Let us direct the true geniuses among us toward the great halls of learning about tech fun. Let them create for us screens we can tap for entertainment, especially the kind of entertainment that panders to our most violent selves. Have them figure out a way for us to wear our computers on our faces or talk to our TVs so we don't even have to lift a finger, literally.
But this is a reality I don't like. If only I could design a game...
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