I want to push back a little bit on the "morally transformative technologies" bit. It does not agree with essentially any of my personal historical experiences. Firstly, the idea that brutal competition is seen as a negative thing in American society is simply false. At worst, it may be seen as an unfortunate truth that life is inherently competitive, but there is very little public pushback to the idea that it is. Homeless shelters have to compete for grants. Children compete to get into college. Social media is essentially a giant competition to grab as many eyeballs as you can. Americans in aggregate do not have moral qualms against competition, or our society would look pretty different.
This leads us to the second point, which is that competition is morally permissible when everyone is going to have a desirable experience, and this desirable experience is dependent on a game's players trying as hard to win as possible, within the confines of the rules. As I stated above, in my opinion, the idea that people have moral qualms about competition is pablum, but the idea that they might post-hoc justify themselves by saying that the point of the game is not winning but moral edification seems plausible. It is possible to approach a game as an optimization problem, and at each point within the game to make the moves most likely to lead to success. However, to claim that such behavior is desirable or necessary to give people plasticity of being is a pretty bold claim. You're just encouraging that person to view as many things in their life as possible as optimization problems. Someone who competes as hard as they can in gym class and then in chess club and then online at CoD is learning that competition is the point.
Hey Luke,
I want to push back a little bit on the "morally transformative technologies" bit. It does not agree with essentially any of my personal historical experiences. Firstly, the idea that brutal competition is seen as a negative thing in American society is simply false. At worst, it may be seen as an unfortunate truth that life is inherently competitive, but there is very little public pushback to the idea that it is. Homeless shelters have to compete for grants. Children compete to get into college. Social media is essentially a giant competition to grab as many eyeballs as you can. Americans in aggregate do not have moral qualms against competition, or our society would look pretty different.
This leads us to the second point, which is that competition is morally permissible when everyone is going to have a desirable experience, and this desirable experience is dependent on a game's players trying as hard to win as possible, within the confines of the rules. As I stated above, in my opinion, the idea that people have moral qualms about competition is pablum, but the idea that they might post-hoc justify themselves by saying that the point of the game is not winning but moral edification seems plausible. It is possible to approach a game as an optimization problem, and at each point within the game to make the moves most likely to lead to success. However, to claim that such behavior is desirable or necessary to give people plasticity of being is a pretty bold claim. You're just encouraging that person to view as many things in their life as possible as optimization problems. Someone who competes as hard as they can in gym class and then in chess club and then online at CoD is learning that competition is the point.