Why the US government resembles a video game right now
Whether or not you play video games, the excitement of this form of entertainment is not hard to discern.
It offers high drama in often high-stakes circumstances, is intensely interactive and gives the illusion of initiative and courage even though the player is not really on some landing pod on an untouched planet or stuck out in the nighttime woods in mediaeval times. Instead, the player is sitting safely at their desk at home with all the mod cons of 21st century life.
It’s all play. A video game.
Take a good long look at the news out of Washington, D.C. right now and there is an unmistakable sense of the frenzied actions, outrageous proclamations and grand declarations of a video game.
First off, there’s the Big D. The aged fabulist, who’s been on the run from the rules of the universe for aeons, has suddenly acquired a magic briefcase. It gives him the power to stick it to those who enforce the rules. So he storms into their lair cheek by jowl with Mastermind M, the guy who turns every idea he thinks on into gold. Both gesture at the bodies huddled before screens, MM brandishes his Exfinity Gauntlet and points at the door. They laugh as the pale Rules-lings run headlong for the exit, dropping spectacles, lunchboxes, packs of tissues for sniveling noses. For good measure, MM shoots a laser beam at the fleeing hordes of cowards, smiling as they fall and then, roaring with laughter as the fallen don’t rise but remain still. Very still. Together, D and M shout “criminals” and the sound bounces off the walls of the lair…“als”…”als”…”ls”…”s”. The Cleansers whirr in, lights flashing, multiple metal hands quickly scooping up the quiet figures and tossing them onto the Big Pile. It is Incinerator Crew’s job to deal with the Big Pile twice a day. MM triumphantly intones “ball of worms” and kicks the Big Pile. Together, Big D and MM raise the flag and declare the lair liberated.
Okay, that’s not quite what happened.
But it does give you the big picture. Consider the evisceration of USAID, suddenly and by force. It has the decided sense of a video game, with Elon Musk at its centre, Donald Trump at his side.
As tech reporter Kara Swisher, who knows the tech billionaire fairly well recently noted of Mr Musk: “I think he’s greatly informed by video games…someone described him to me as Ready Player One. And everybody else is an NPC, which is a non-player character. So he always has to be the hero or the person who matters the most…he understands the hero’s journey kind of thing really rather well…And if it doesn’t work, we’re doomed kind of thing. So he uses language like that, doom…Most companies have problems, but everything is a disaster here, and I’m here to fix it.”
In real life, as well as in that video game.
And then there is Mr Trump, with his histrionics and reality star experience and instincts.
With Elon Musk as First Buddy to Donald Trump, it’s hardly a surprise there’s nothing the US government more resembles right now than a video game.
Originally published at https://www.rashmee.com
