#28 / Reality Is Broken

I haven't read Reality Is Broken, by Jane McGonigal. I do, however, very much like the name of the book, which received a thumbs up reference in Chris O'Brien's technology column in Wednesday's San Jose Mercury News.

I like the title because it is premised on the view that "reality" is "constructed" through human action. If we are talking of the "human world," the world we most immediately inhabit, I couldn't agree more. That world is, indeed, "broken." Time for some repairs.

As for video games making reality "more satisfying for individuals," and creating "new ways to get people to work together to solve problems such as poverty and hunger and climate change," I am willing to entertain the thought. That seems to be the thesis of the book, as outlined in the review, and in this excerpt.

I am not a "gamer," and I think (without any experience, I confess) that the main lesson of of the games I know about is that applying violence effectively is the definition of how to succeed. Not the way to fix our broken reality, in my view.

But "progress bars" letting us see how we are doing vis a vis the elimination of poverty, environmental restoration, and world peace? I could get behind that!