Review: Reality Is Broken–Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World

6 Star Top 10%, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Best Practices in Management, Budget Process & Politics, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Survival & Sustainment, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
Amazon Page

Jane McGonigal

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Star for Concept–Ignores Past Pioneers–Energizes Us All

February 28, 2011

I took the time to read all of the reviews to date, and was reminded again of the chasm between those who understand technology and its possibilities, and those who do not. Being among the latter, in part because I am a veteran of 30 years of watching the US Government waste trillions over that period on too much badly designed technology (government specifications, cost plus) for the wrong reasons and generally without a positive outcome [the Internet being an exception], I must respect–as the author respects with her obviously counter-ripostive editorial interview here at Amazon–both the importance of getting a grip on reality, and the importance of being more respectful of past pioneers, such Buckminster Fuller (RIP) and Medard Gabel (co-creator with Fuller of the analog World Game, creator of the architecture for the digital EarthGame(TM), and recent contributing editor to Designing a World That Works for All: How the Youth of the World are Creating Real-World Solutions for the UN Millenium Development Goals and Beyond (Volume 1), and Russell Ackoff [e.g. Redesigning Society (Stanford Business Books) as well as John N. Warfield [e.g Societal Systems: Planning, Policy and Complexity (Wiley Series on Systems Engineering & Analysis). And then there are the 55 authors in Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, including Ms. Jan Watkins, Doug Englebart, Mark Tovey. In short, the WORST thing one can say about this book is that the author has had an immaculate conception to her great credit, but one that could have been vastly better grounded had she done her homework and a multi-disciplinary literature review, something her PhD committee evidently did not consider necessary.

Having said that, this book is without question a 6+, a ranking achieved by the top 10% of the non-fiction books and DVDs I have reviewed here at Amazon (1692 not counting this one). This is a world-changing book, and while the author has benefited from a fabulous personality and personal presence, and first rate representation and promotion, when read carefully and completely and placed in the context of all that is about us today, the originality, relevance, and imminent potential of this book and the ideas in this book cannot be denied. The author does not do what Medard Gabel has done–provide the architectural underpinings for the digital EarthGame(TM) and global to local holistic “dashboards” that integrate the ten high-level threats to humanity, the twelve core policies, the true costs of every good and service–she is still at the “one of” level rather than the meta level–but if she can reach out to Medard Gabel and others and actually harness not just the cognitive surplus of the crowds, but the contextual pioneering of those who have spent decades before her thinking and doing in this arena, then she will be the righteous public face of what I am starting to call “Open Everything: from Autonomous Internet to Global Panarchy.”

 

Continue reading “Review: Reality Is Broken–Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World”

Tom Atlee: A Whole New Ball Game–Collective Intelligence in ON

Articles & Chapters, Blog Wisdom, Correspondence, Movies, TED Videos, YouTube
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

I want to share three videos and one slide show that are having a profound impact on me and my work.  They describe different facets of a new realm of understanding and possibility that is making all the difference in the world even now — possibilities that we can help along by taking up the creative challenges these videos present to us.

Much of my work will be weaving these insights into the kind of democracy-shift we need right now.  They make it clear that we are, indeed, in a whole new ball game.

Enjoy!

Coheartedy,
Tom

Generation We:  The Movement Begins…

Us Now – We're entering an era where more of everything is run by users collectively… (7 parts)

Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make a Better World

Michelle Holliday's Humanity 4.0 slide show

Click to Enlarge

Phi Beta Iota: Above have been re-sorted to put Information Operations (IO) relevance from top to bottom.  The next big thing is a combination of EMPOWERING people, HARNESSING minds, and ERADICATING corruption.  GroupOn is the “good” counterpart to WikiLeaks, but WikiLeaks should not be scorned–it demonstrates the perfidy of the Industrial Era “rule by secrecy” top-down elite model that has now been shown to be completely incapable of micro-managing complexity and diversity with ethical integrity.  Tom Atlee embodies the future of America and through a restored America the Beautiful, the future of humanity.  We respectfully, urgently urge every person to give generously to Tom Atlee and the Co-Intelligence Institute.  He has been devoted for decades to the heart of the matter: actualizing the goodness that lies within each of us, and the wisdom that lies within us as the aggregate, Collective Intelligence, Community Intelligence, Integral Consciousness.  Giving to Tom is the spiritual equivalent of collective prayer.  We need every prayer we can get.  Please give to this righteous liberation endeavor.  St.

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Winter 2010-2011  Co-Intelligence Institute fundraiser  progress report:

Funds raised so far:  $450  //  Target:  $15,000
Percentage of needed funds raised so far:  3.0%
People on List:  2045  //   Days left in fundraiser:  44

Thank you to the 10 people who have responded so far!

TO SUPPORT THE CO-INTELLIGENCE INSTITUTE & TOM ATLEE'S WORK…

Please send a donation of any amount — $10, $25, $50, $100, $500 or more — to

The Co-Intelligence Institute
PO Box 493
Eugene, OR 97440

or use your Visa or MasterCard to make an online donation at
http://co-intelligence.org/donations.html

Do let me know when you've mailed a donation, so I can add it to our tally right away.  Including your email address on your check will help me keep track of your gift.

See Also:

Reference: The Kids Are All Right–Mad as Hell!

Graphic: Digital Learners versus Analog Teachers

Interview: Robert Steele on Echo Chamber 2006

2008: Creating a Smart Nation

2008 World Brain as EarthGame

Who’s Who in Collective Intelligence: Jane McGonigal

Alpha M-P, Collective Intelligence

Dr. Jane McGonical

Jane McGonigal, Ph.D. (born 1977) is a game designer and games researcher, specializing in pervasive gaming and alternate reality games. She worked with alternate reality game design company 42 Entertainment from 2004 to 2006, on projects including I Love Bees (2004) as Community Lead / Puzzle Designer, and Last Call Poker (2005) as Live Events Lead. Additionally, she has collaborated on commissioned games for the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.[citation needed]

In recent years, McGonigal has grown especially interested in the way that massively multiplayer online gaming generates collective intelligence, and interested in the way that the collective intelligences thus generated can be utilized as a means of improving the world, either by improving the quality of human life or by working towards the solution of social ills. She has expressed a desire that gaming should be moving “towards Nobel Prizes.”[1] These ideas informed her collaboration in World Without Oil (2007), a simulation designed to brainstorm (and potentially avert) the challenges of a post-peak oil future.

”]Reality is broken, says Jane McGonigal, and we need to make it work more like a game. Her work shows us how.

Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how.

TED Speaker Bio

Wikipedia Bio with Many Links

Institute for the Future

Avant Game (Her Home Base)

DuckDuckGo Search Results

See Also:

Who’s Who in Earth Intelligence: Medard Gabel

Who’s Who in Collective Intelligence: Jerome Glenn

Who’s Who in Collective Intelligence: Pierre Levy