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Vincine Fallica

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Gaming the future.

My son had a computer game called ‘The Sims’. With it he was able to build a neighborhood of people that ‘interacted’ with each other and received the benefit, or not, of various characteristics and abilities he gave the ‘people’.

He once put a character inside a small fenced area with no shelter, no gate, no food, etc., to see what would happen. It walked around for awhile, laid down sometimes, was incontinent, etc. I don’t remember how long it took to die.

I’m aware of various demographic & environmental projections.

Is there a consumer level program/game that would allow us to go from our current world situation and see how the future might play out by changing various climate, population, resource, economic, etc., variables?

It would be interesting to see what kind of a world most people would engineer if we could see the hypothetical results.

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    Ashley Cooper 500+

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    TEDx Organizer
    Apr 8 2011: Check out Fate of the World http://fateoftheworld.net/ It is a newly released game that is just what you are asking for. It is a sequel to a game the company developed for a BBC Climate Challenge.

    And interestingly, we recently had an event called Gaming the Future where Fate of the World was released and other companies shared their gaming and visualization programs that focus on this intersection between science and gaming. Here are some links if you want to explore.

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4933537/Gamingthefuture.pdf
    http://wunc.org/programs/news/archive/TKT022411.mp3/view

    • Vincine Fallica

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      Apr 8 2011: Ashley,

      It sounds perfect. Have you 'played' it? Have you 'Saved the World'? Can you get a print out of what you did?

      >It’s More Than a GameAt some point, while playing the game, it’ll hit you: This stuff can really happen. But, like the game, we can stop it — if we band together, bring new ideas to the forefront, and make our leaders know we care.
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        Ashley Cooper 500+

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        TEDx Organizer
        Apr 9 2011: I've not played it myself. I've watched as some teenagers played it and was waiting for the mac version to be released. The kids I watched play it were amazed at how complex it is to be a leader of the world... how much one thing effects another thing. And many people enjoy the apocalypse option. In the game world you get to play out some of the what-ifs that are unimaginable and actually point to the end of the world... versus saving the world. Better to play that out in a game and figure out what could be done to help make a difference in the 'real world.'

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