There's a part in TSP where, after Stanley has thoroughly thrown The Narrator off track, The Narrator becomes agitated and decides to restart the game. As it turns out, the "restart" is fake; everything following it is all part of a preset storyline. This ties in with the illusion of choice, the last part of this series, but what's more brilliant is this: The player does not know the restart was fake. I had my suspicions, but after a few seconds of sameness I started to think it was an actual restart. When The Narrator started spouting new dialogue, I was surprised, and happy the game managed to decieve me.
When we take part in a narrative -- a book, a play, a movie -- we implicitly agree to a relationship with it. We are the entertained; the narrative is the entertainer. In the moment I described above, TSP reminded me: I was not the entertainer. I was never the entertainer. The game has a few preset, railroaded storylines. The only thing I get to control is what storyline I experience. When the game is capable of altering some aspect of the gamestate without my knowledge, it shows me just how little control I have in comparison to it. My relation to the narrative is not give and take. It is not fifty fifty.
Example two: There is another ending in TSP where you're stuck in a small room. A prompt comes onto the screen telling you to push the "q" button. You push it. The Narrator delivers a small bit of dialogue, remarking on your lack of autonomy. Another prompt, telling you to push "t". You push it. A prompt, you follow, Narrator. Lather, rinse, repeat until The Narrator begs you not to push the button, to spare yourself, to prove that you are free.
Nothing forces you to push the button; in fact, The Narrator actively tells you not to. At the same time, nothing happens until you do push the button. The room doesn't change. There is no additional dialogue. So what happens? Eventually, you push the button. You sacrifice your autonomy for progression's sake. Nothing is the railroad that gets you back on track. It's refreshing to see railroading stripped down to its most basic element: Progression.
Let's look at Stanley's job in the story. He pushes a button when a machine tells him to. He then feels happy because a mind control device tells him to. We look at this job with disdain and laugh at how ridiculous it is; clearly it's ridiculous. But TSP has made us Stanley. We push the button. We feel happy. TSP is the mind control device. In a way, all video games are the mind control device that tells us to push a button and rewards us with happiness in the form of rewarding gameplay and a compelling story. This is our relation to the narrative.
So my second favorite moment of TSP is when Stanley, after thoroughly wrecking The Narrator's story, arrives at two doors. The Narrator wants control back and so, after much internal deliberation, forcibly opens the door on Stanley's right. Stanley enters and sees a massive timeline of the story, indicating every choice -- every bit of The Narrator's dialogue, every instance at which you chose to wreck the story -- was predetermined.
Here's the best part: If you, the player, turn around, you see two doors behind you -- the same two doors you just saw, one of which you thought was forced upon you. Stanley's entrance into the room was inevitable, regardless of The Narrator's decision to open the door on the right. This minor detail reflects what the timeline is already showing you, only in a more powerful way. Every outcome has a script. You don't know when you are in control, and when the game is railroading you onto a narrative. You have no say over your autonomy.
Often, the illusion of choice satisfies us as much as an actual choice would. Truly open sandboxes are frightening; you've got all this sand and no idea what to do with it. Better to have a few tools and a set of loose blueprints than nothing. Better to have a clear goal than no goal. Better to embrace the illusion of choice than have bad options.
Writers often say the scariest part of their profession is the blank page.
The illusion of choice extends farther. Do we have any free will whatsoever?
That's a difficult question, so let's try to arrive at the answer in gradual fashion. The Socratic method will help us.
Imagine someone you really, really dislike. Think about all the vile, horrible things they do that cause you to dislike them. Now, ask yourself: If you had been raised in that person's circumstance, i.e. with the same genes, with the same family, with the same environment, would you act any differently? I don't think I would.
What makes you you? It must be your genetics, your family, your environment. People have been telling you what's right and what's wrong since you were born. Notice how none of these things are under your control. Your thoughts originate from exterior inputs. Your actions, every one of them, are traceable to situations beyond yourself.
Suppose after reading this, you say to yourself, "Wow, Weiliang is so wrong. I'll show him I have free will. I'm going to go outside and choose to pick up a particular rock. No one told me to go pick up that rock, but I did. This means I have free will." Yet the only reason you went out to pick up that rock was because you were reading this blog. You are only able to read this blog because I wrote it. This circumstance was outside of your control entirely. Meanwhile, the reason I started writing this blog was because I wanted to share my thoughts with other people; in other words, because of your existence.
It might be scary to think about the fact that we don't have free will (this idea is called determinism), but I think it's rather liberating. Imagine a judicial framework which subscribes to this theory. Such a system would recognize that a human being doesn't simply choose to become a criminal. Rather, criminals are borne out of the exterior influences of their environment. Such a system would focus on getting rid of the causes of crime, rather than punishing individuals for committing it. It would emphasize rehabilitation over degradation.
Think about what determinism says about love as a part of the human experience. Familial and friendly loves are woven into the fabric of existence. Romantic love is better. The universe conspires, on a daily basis, to ignite fires of passion and committment which bring even the most divergent people together. Look at someone you care about -- determinism says you are destined to have them in your life. Love is more powerful when we realize we have no choice but to experience it.
I recently played the game The Stanley Parable, and wanted to share my thoughts on it. I have a lot of thoughts, so these posts will come in no less than two parts. The second part will come later this week.
I highly recommend you play the game before you read this. However, I understand that many of you won't, so I'll tell you about it anyway. If you ever plan on playing this game, or even watching someone play this game, do not read on. I will ruin everything for you.
Here's the plot of TSP: A guy named Stanley works all day pushing buttons in an office. Then, one day, he finds his office building entirely abandoned.
This is where the player gets control. You, playing as Stanley, walk out of your office and eventually see a set of two open doors.
Accompanying you on your adventure is The Narrator. When you get to the two doors, The Narrator informs Stanley that he takes the door on his left.
This is the crux of the game. You, the player, get to choose which door Stanley takes. You can follow The Narrator's instructions, or disobey them. Your choices impact the story and every time you choose something different from the last time you played, you experience a different story. I want to talk about one of these stories, as I found it brilliant and thought provoking.
My favorite path was when you follow The Narrator's instructions every time. This story has Stanley finding a mind control device deep underground which controlled the emotions of the workers in the office building, keeping them happy while they pushed buttons endlessly. Stanley, upset and aghast that he had no autonomy all this time, turns the device off and finally becomes free from its influence.
Here's what's so brilliant about the ending: You, the player, were not free whatsoever. You obediently followed the narrator's every instruction; you pushed the buttons the computer told you to. You were doing what Stanley does, day after day. You sacrificed every part of your own autonomy. Even better, you lose all control of Stanley at the end of the story and have to just watch him walk around, all while The Narrator sings about how free he is. The game functioned as a mind control device for you -- the mind control device Stanley supposedly turned off in the story.
There's more. TSP is a commentary on video game design. Video games with stories often provide the player with the illusion of choice; however, everyone who plays the game experiences the exact same story in the end. This phenomenon is known as railroading. TSP mocks railroading while simultaneously asking, "Could it be worth it to sacrifice your autonomy to experience a story?". After all, the game designers worked so hard on the game.
If you answered yes to the above question, another follows: "Are we, as humans, willing to sacrifice our own free will just to be happy?" We typically think of free will as one of the most precious elements of the human experience. If someone offered to make all your decisions for you, and this caused you to be the happiest you've ever been, would you take the deal? Would you willingly become Stanley, pushing buttons all day under the influence of a mind control device?
Why not? After all, if you've experienced this ending, you've already made that choice.
My first two days of the job were orientation. The vast majority of orientation involved watching Computer-Based Learning modules, or CBLs. CBLs could last anywhere from fifteen minutes to two hours, and you basically sit there listening to someone narrating instructions on some aspect of your job. At the end, you take a quiz to check if you learned everything. There were tutorials on spill cleanup, hazardous waste disposal, spill cleanup, another one on spill cleanup, and many other things. I completed around twelve hours of CBLs in total, over two days.
Now, loathe as I am to disparage them, these CBLs were not what I would describe as "fun" or "interesting". In fact, I may be inclined to describe them the opposite way. Example: Halfway during the CBLs, I noticed that if I pulled my earbuds' audio jack out of the computer very slightly, the voice of the narration became distorted -- like Darth Vader talking over a staticky radio. I listened to the rest of my CBLs this way, and it was the most fun I had during the experience.
As I sat there, I recalled my relatives back in China who were getting paid less than a dollar an hour to inspect some screws. Think about this. My time is worth nearly ten times as much as theirs is. The work I do in one month is equal in value to the work they do in the better part of a year. Someone who makes $100/hr looks down on myjob with equal disdain, and they can't even see my relatives from where they're standing.
These facts are a little disturbing to me. It's scary to think that our employers dictate the value of the very time we have. Time is a communal part of the human experience, yet our hours and minutes are worth wildly different amounts.
When I hear I song, there is chance it will become a Rampage Song. This means I listen to the song nonstop for anywhere from a full weekend to two weeks (depending on quality). I don't listen to any other song for the duration of the rampage -- no radio, nothing.
What's weird is the song doesn't even have to be of good quality for it to become Rampage material. Here are some songs I don't even like which somehow made it on the list:
Payphone -- Maroon 5
Why Does the Sun Shine -- They Might Be Giants
Check Yes, Juliet -- We The Kings
Fine By Me -- Andy Grammer
Angels of Death -- Immortal Technique
Feel free to make fun of me for this list, and rest assured there are ten times as many good songs I've rampaged.
Let's talk about how these rampages feel. First, the songs are usually pretty catchy. I'll bob my head or beatbox or sing along to them (whichever is appropriate -- sometimes all are). This phase lasts for a few dozen listens. Eventually, the song is no longer discrete. It blends in to my environment -- it is a fifth wall in my room, another dimension of my car, another element of my existence. It follows me, or do I follow it? It doesn't matter. It exists as I exist.
Better still is what happens afterwards: Song association. I listened to Here I Am Aive -- Yellowcard for two weeks straight while writing a math essay. Now, whenever I hear that song, I immediately think about math. In fact, it's weird to listen to it without doing math. Similarly, I have song associations for going swimming, playing tennis, driving, and certain video games.
I think the following Charles Bukowski quote is appropriate:
I watched the Lorax recently. The plot is as follows:
A boy named Ted lives in Thneedville, where everything is artificial because all the truffala trees (read: trees) have been cut down. He likes a girl named Audrey, who has heard of trees before and really wants to see one. Wanting his relationship with Audrey to progress to the Next Level, Ted decides to go get a tree. (This is his only motivation to get trees, ever).
Ted's opponent is the insidious Mr. O'Hare, who is so evil he actually sells air to people. It's in O'Hare's interest to keep trees away from Thneedville because trees provide clean, fresh air which just won't gel with his plans of making more money. O'Hare prefers to keep the air polluted so people will buy his air. This is one of the most over-the-top caricatures of corporatism and anti-environmentalism I've ever seen. It's a laughable character. But O'Hare does have one scene-stealing moment (more on that in a bit).
In a development that surprised precisely zero people, Ted succeeds in obtaining a truffala seed from some guy with the unfortunate name of "The Once-ler" who tells him to plant it in the middle of the city. (Why the Once-ler didn't just plant it himself, I have no idea). He rallies the city behind him and they sing a song about it:
My favorite part of the song -- of the whole movie, actually -- comes at 1:30, where the villainous O'Hare sings a solo:
My name's O'Hare, I'm one of you
I live here in Thneedville toooo
The things you say just might be true
It could be time to start anew
And maybe change my point of viewww
(beat)
Nah! I say let it die!
Then, in a moment that made me actually laugh out loud, the guy starts singing "Let it die, let it die" while dancing and clapping. The music cuts out and it's just him, goin' crazy a cappella. At the end of his impassioned, impromptu solo, he asks, "C'mon, who's with me?" with a big smile on his face. Of course, it fails miserably.
The reason this was so funny is because my mind conceived of a scenario in which O'Hare actually changed everyone's mind. Imagine: After several bars of "Let it Grow", O'Hare sings his solo, starts dancing, clapping -- then people start nodding to the beat, the music cuts back in, and everyone's jumping around, dancing, clapping joining him, singing "Let it Die". Cut to Ted standing in utter disbelief as the people rally around O'Hare and raise him up. Everything returns to normal and Ted still doesn't have a girlfriend.
This idea was so funny to me that I composed the song Let it Die for the fun of it. For best results, read the lyrics while watching the video above so you get the tune.
You don't know me but my name's Vee
I just teach Thneedville history
And we're only here cuz there's no trees
So I say let it die
My name's Ben, and my name's Dirk
We think the Lorax is a jerk
And those dumb trees will never work
So we say let it die
Let it die, let it die
Trees will make the children cry
Plant a seed inside the earth
It's not a blessing, it's a curse
Let's celebrate O'Hare's rebirth
We say let it die
My name's Sal and I am three!
I really like artificial trees
They come prepackaged with batteries
I say let it die
I'm grandpa Dan, I'm old, I have grey hair
I remember when trees were everywhere
My allergy raised the price of my healthcare
So I say, let it die!
Let it die, let it die
Trees will cut your knees and thighs
Maybe it's just one tiny seed
But trees' bark will make you bleed
Let's never change the life we lead
We say let it die
My name's Ted, I'm one of you
I live here in Thneedville toooooo
The things you say are just not true
It must be time to start anew
We have to change our point of viewww
So I say let it grow
Let it grow, let it grow
You can't reap what you don't --
C'mon, who's with me?
Nobody!
Youuu greedy dirtbag!
Let it die, let it die
To truffalas, we say goodbye
Plant artificial trees inside the Earth
We'll always know those trees' market worth!
Let's celebrate those truffalas' dearth
We say let it die
We say let it die
Let it die, let it die
There's lots of air for us to buy!
It's just one tiny seed
But it has the capacity
To destroy this city's economy
Kill our jobs and society
O'Hare's air is nearly free
We say let it die
I had additional lines for lobbyists, economists, and biologists but there's no room in the original song for them. Oh well.
One of my new favorite card games is Mao. It's a game wherein you are initially under the control of an authoritarian dictator. No one ever tells you what the game's rules are; rather, you have to figure them out as you play. Whenever you make a move that is contrary to the game's rules, you get punished.
As you begin to figure out the rules of the game, you can start punishing other people whenever they break a rule -- and even make rules of your own. Each round, a new rule appears. Because of this, the game's complexity and ridiculousness increase rapidly, until everyone is under an oppressive bureaucracy of dozens of rules and playing a single card can result in many punishments.
I like Mao for a lot of reasons. For one, it's a brilliant political satire of Communist China and the police state system. Hidden rules are everywhere, and you, the citizen, are brutally and mercilessly punished for violating laws you never even knew existed. You must blindly struggle through this dark, mysterious world, desperately careful to avoid any missteps. As people begin to acclimate to the game, they are eager to punish their fellow compatriots -- who were just as blind as they were -- and learn to always praise Mao, to never question the ruleset, to under no circumstances disobey the dictates of the state. The threat of punishment silences everybody. Loyalty becomes of the utmost importance. The law is king, is god.
Mao is also a good metaphor for life. No one knows all the rules of life -- although some may know a few more rules than others -- nor is there any win condition. Rather, life just keeps on increasing in complexity as you and a few friends try to stumble through it together. The more you figure out, the more you become aware of your own ignorance. Laws are mutable and relative. People in positions of power have tremendous amounts of control over people not as lucky. The desire for success and the desire to satiate your own curiosity counterbalance the tendency of life to harshly punish anyone's mistakes. Life doesn't care who you are or what you've done in the past. A punishment is a punishment.
The game is hilariously fun. Laugh as people curse in frustration, and then punish them for cursing. Cackle as they constantly misplay cards, and then punish them for their errors. Guffaw as the people who were once your friends begin to experience a deep, burning hatred towards you, and then punish them for their animosity. Become nervous as you see them slowly figure out the rules, see their eyes light up as they punish someone for the first time. Panic as the ever-expanding ruleset spirals out of your control, out of everyone's control, so that the game becomes an unintelligible chaos, a whirlwind of cards flying to and fro, hither and yon. Play Mao.
