Subverting Pleistocene Automation
If an explanation for the difficulty involved in marketing applications which do not directly connect with human universals -- for example, software which teaches children calculus -- how might one test that hypothesis? One way I know that's been tried, and would seem to corroborate the hypothesis, is disguising non-universals in universal packages, but only when the disguise is so good that the consumer can (at the very least) suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy the experience and develop a meaningful relationship with the non-universal material. Obvious edutainment doesn't work, I don't think, because even kids can tell that you're hustling them if the experience isn't so engaging that they forget to care.
I wonder about the approach in disguising e.g. educational material as e.g. a game. I remember in second grade we had a computer class, but they just made us sit in front of the Apple ][ machines doing boring arithmetic problems and keyboarding lessons. I have a vague recollection of briefly doing something reminiscent of Logo there that excited me, but I really didn't get to do what I wanted to do (figure out how the Legend of Zelda worked so I could ape it with my own creation, I was art-child) until I was able to secure a computer for my own use, and it had a BASIC. Sadly, no one told me that the Apples there had a BASIC built in, because I would have eaten it up. The teachers would boot them past the BASIC prompt for us to a launcher application :/ and they even taught us to do that ourselves: they just never explained what the BASIC prompt was, and in the second grade, I didn't figure it out.
It made me distrustful of "edutainment" at a pretty early age, because I could sense that I was being deceived, and they weren't really teaching me about the computer like I wanted them to. So computer class was a terrible drag and everyone hated it, until our salvation arrived on a floppy disk: we got a game called Oregon Trail that had enough ostensible "educational value" that we were permitted to play it, and the game actually wasn't lame. We were all instantly hooked, so much so that right away rules were placed on how much we were allowed to play it, as the staff were worried that we weren't spending enough time solving the arithmetic problems. In other classes, no one wanted to talk about anything other than what happened when people tried to go to Oregon from Missouri, so if I remember they took it away from us for awhile.
When I was younger, I hated math, and I wonder now if the forced arithmetic in computer class was part of why; it was almost painful to sit in front of the machine from Star Trek and do things I could do just as well with a pencil and some paper. I sure as hell enjoy math _now that I'm free to do whatever I want with it_.
Another early godsend in my life was SimCity. It was unlike anything we'd ever seen. The game never ended, there was no obvious goal other than keeping a healthy city, the experience just powerfully engaged the creative drive, and it sated a certain curiosity about the world. Even though the models involved in the simulation were exceedingly simple, I believe that the experience of playing out different solutions to various problems in the game gave me a very different set of perspectives on subjects like economics and urban development from what my parents had. At the very least, it got me *interested* when I was still really young. I still play this game from time to time, I just build more complicated stuff now! I can't say that about many games. I've outgrown most of them.
I wonder how well this approach, and similar approaches which connect with universals other than "humans like to play games," have played out for others in the past. Can this also work with adults? If you have to "automate the Pleistocene" in order to sell an album, does having the ability to sneak a protest song through behind the pop single often justify the effort of the dodge?
--
Casey Ransberger
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<p>If an explanation for the difficulty involved in marketing applications which do not directly connect with human universals -- for example, software which teaches children calculus -- how might one test that hypothesis? One way I know that's been tried, and would seem to corroborate the hypothesis, is disguising non-universals in universal packages, but only when the disguise is so good that the consumer can (at the very least) suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy the experience and develop a meaningful relationship with the non-universal material. Obvious edutainment doesn't work, I don't think, because even kids can tell that you're hustling them if the experience isn't so engaging that they forget to care.<br clear="all"><br></p>
<div>I wonder about the approach in disguising e.g. educational material as e.g. a game. I remember in second grade we had a computer class, but they just made us sit in front of the Apple ][ machines doing boring arithmetic problems and keyboarding lessons. I have a vague recollection of briefly doing something reminiscent of Logo there that excited me, but I really didn't get to do what I wanted to do (figure out how the Legend of Zelda worked so I could ape it with my own creation, I was art-child) until I was able to secure a computer for my own use, and it had a BASIC. Sadly, no one told me that the Apples there had a BASIC built in, because I would have eaten it up. The teachers would boot them past the BASIC prompt for us to a launcher application :/ and they even taught us to do that ourselves: they just never explained what the BASIC prompt was, and in the second grade, I didn't figure it out.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>It made me distrustful of "edutainment" at a pretty early age, because I could sense that I was being deceived, and they weren't really teaching me about the computer like I wanted them to. So computer class was a terrible drag and everyone hated it, until our salvation arrived on a floppy disk: we got a game called Oregon Trail that had enough ostensible "educational value" that we were permitted to play it, and the game actually wasn't lame. We were all instantly hooked, so much so that right away rules were placed on how much we were allowed to play it, as the staff were worried that we weren't spending enough time solving the arithmetic problems. In other classes, no one wanted to talk about anything other than what happened when people tried to go to Oregon from Missouri, so if I remember they took it away from us for awhile.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>When I was younger, I hated math, and I wonder now if the forced arithmetic in computer class was part of why; it was almost painful to sit in front of the machine from Star Trek and do things I could do just as well with a pencil and some paper. I sure as hell enjoy math _now that I'm free to do whatever I want with it_.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Another early godsend in my life was SimCity. It was unlike anything we'd ever seen. The game never ended, there was no obvious goal other than keeping a healthy city, the experience just powerfully engaged the creative drive, and it sated a certain curiosity about the world. Even though the models involved in the simulation were exceedingly simple, I believe that the experience of playing out different solutions to various problems in the game gave me a very different set of perspectives on subjects like economics and urban development from what my parents had. At the very least, it got me *interested* when I was still really young. I still play this game from time to time, I just build more complicated stuff now! I can't say that about many games. I've outgrown most of them.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I wonder how well this approach, and similar approaches which connect with universals other than "humans like to play games," have played out for others in the past. Can this also work with adults? If you have to "automate the Pleistocene" in order to sell an album, does having the ability to sneak a protest song through behind the pop single often justify the effort of the dodge?</div>
<div>
<br>-- <br>Casey Ransberger<br>
</div>
</div>
However...
Music is one area where direct manipulation clearly wins over the command line. So... I'm curious what you
(generically) think about what's missing from this representation, and how it might be added back, to
reach the expressiveness of (for example) a well-made MIDI track. (The largest amount of time assembling
a nice-sounding MIDI track is not inputting the basic timing and pitch/instrument information but
rather in tweaking the velocities, expression, etc., to make it sound like humans are performing.)
I'm also curious what you (generically) think could/should be added to this to make a full-blown
sequencing language, capable of representing (e.g.) anything that can be programmed/manipulated
graphically in something like Ableton Live. I've always had a slightly frustrating experience with
Ableton (and Garbage Band, etc.) feeling that the semantic content of an assembled track is a lot less than
the amount of manipulation required to achieve the final result: copy and paste is a (very) poor
substitute for subroutines! On the other hand, I have no idea if a written representation could be much
more (or even anything like) as concise. Maybe a combination of the two is needed?
FWIW, it's worth following the link to the author's other projects. Degrafa, in particular, is very interesting.
Regards,
Ian
> "Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."
Semper Donne, semper dolens. 
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