Our local throw away hipster newspaper ran a special story: New Year's Revolution: If you had the power to make one change that would improve life for St. Louisans in 2012, what would that change be? By Kholood Eid, River Front Times, Thursday, Jan 5 2012
And most of it was essentially Whirled Peas which is great and laudable but . . . one change was so fresh and so sensible and so original I want everyone in the world to hear it.
Coyote G. Brynum, owner of the Sci-Fi Lounge
If I had the power, I would elect game designers and video game engineers to restore true democracy and reinvent our system of government with fair and ethical, common-sense rules. Their primary tasks would be to eliminate the corrupting influences campaign-finance and corporate lobbying have in politics (especially Congress) by creating an official MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) style voter/candidate forum. They'd also to design a simplified tax-code with an user-friendly interface that allows taxpayers to chose which programs their tax dollars support, and with the help of artists and city planners, to develop community revitalization projects for able-bodied citizens seeking unemployment benefits to participate.
The voter/candidate forum would allow each citizen to have one avatar that can participate in the online virtual world of politics. Discuss issues, track political news and protest without the pepper spray. Candidates would debate and challenge each other to a variety of games in a Player Vs. Player zone. The entire system would be policed by an independent fact checker, so anyone spouting misinformation would lose points and power-ups through their avatar, and be immediately corrected by a Gilbert Gottfried icon via pop-up bubble.
The community revitalization projects would blend elements of Habitat For Humanity and social-media games like Farmville. Taxpayers can nominate public-improvement projects or request help for private home repair projects based on need. Out-of-work individuals would earn unemployment benefits by rebuilding their local communities.
Game designers have a way of developing rules that are fair and fun. Imagine: If an idea doesn't work, instead of new legislation, we could just fix it with a patch update. Social media is a powerful tool for rallying people and ideas, but it is not an end-all. We also need to make it easier for people to want to help one another.
The Revolution will not be commercialized.
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