Strategy Games & How The State Sees Us

Forgive me the irony, but this video, too, is viewed from the techne perspective, and is thus incomplete, shallow, and sometimes even wrong. This sounds like critique, but I am actually happy to see this video, because I like discussing this sort of stuff, so good job I guess. Okay, I have several issues with the contents of the video, but the three most striking points are the 1. simplistic approach, 2. a weird duality between techne and metis and 3. is that the interests of the state do not need to align with every individual's. 1. As a physicist with friends in engineering, we tend to think of those systems als interconnected systems that can be modeled. Depending on your goal and computation power, you can develop models that accurately represent reality (bad models are iterated (metis) until they are good or discarded). So methods of solving the problem is to find proper simplifications or increase effort by more computational power. I believe that those approaches are possible on the state level, and I bet that many functional laws are exactly fulfilling those conditions: A good simplification at the right points with minimal effort, describing and guiding reality in a meaningful way. 2. Every metis has started as a techne, and in between lie many trials and errors and iterations = organic growth. We physicists and engineers do this all the time, just take the concept of a car for example. Nobody is able to create such a marvellous piece of engineering in one go, a car has a history of thousands of iterations! And at the same time, we as a species can describe this in a simplified and meaningful way: A car. So a good government should also iterate on their laws, depending on information. 3. The state has a different viewpoint than an individual, and with the state's power, it is likely that they get their say over yours. So what might just look like a mistake or wrong simplification is just the state's power, simply disregarding your individual opinions and needs. This is most evident in totalitarian regimes.

There were so many strategygames that used this rigidity of numbers to reveal things about management. My favourite example that I couldn't fit in is how in Papers, Please you may realise it's possible get away with feeding your family only every other day, and so you may start taking advantage of that. I'd love to hear any other examples yall may have!

In a less realized way, this hit me the first time I played Europa Universalis III. I centralized the state, because doing that gives me benefits, and as a result I got lots of particularist rebels everywhere. I sent armies to kill them, because that's the tool that the game gives you to deal with that issue. I eventually grew disgusted with what I was doing, and stopped playing, but I've since become more distanced from it. Now, in a Paradox game, when I send troops to kill rebels I don't really think about it at all.

It is really cool to finally have a video to send when explaining the concept of Techne and Metis. Perhaps a good explanation of Metis is The Last Clockwinder where you later do not even understand how a system you built works now. It grew organically and it made sense back then, now you'd want it simplified, but you are no longer there. Perhaps a game can be made that is played at these different levels (there are those IRL War games where the general looks from a different perspective and does not see individual battles played as card games or such, and must rely on others actually making their own decisions well or listening to the general, something they may choose not to). Maybe the solution is to use other players as the uninteligible and opaque thing, instead of having the game be opaque.

Amazing. That genuinely added nuance to the way I think of government and strategy games. I love your videos, I look forward to seeing more.

I think about community formation a lot. I live by a commuter town where 70%+ of workers leave every morning and come home in the evening. so their work friends are rarely the same people as their neighbours. you can see alienation in how people talk about it.

Yo the editing is sooooooo good. You deserve many millions more subscribers, Ephemera.

Fantastic essay: a simple but novel point, elegantly made, with a bit of interpretation at the end. As a member of a complex separate community, you've put into words a concern I hadn't found a way to formulate. Great stuff. I've read a couple of Scott books, but How to See Like a State is still on the ol' wishlist. Anyway, subscribed. Thanks!

God Bastion's music is so good.

A few days ago I discovered your channel by chance (guess that at last I managed to train the algorithm well) and I loved it. Keep up with it!

Nice content, my man

I know I can't be impartial when someone uses any Supergiant game soundtrack in their video essay, but this was excellent.

Very well made video and an interesting idea! But on the other hand... would you like to play a strategy game where every single tile has a different size and shape, and has hundreds of parameters which wold take an hour to untangle? Some form of compromise and standardization have to be reached for it all to function.

You're good, like really good...

I really hope your channel blows up big one soon

I watch a lot of video I essays and I can say this is some impressive work.

You need more subscribers! Great channel and very high quality stuff!

Woah, this is very well done. I found this while working on my first video essay, How do you make your visuals? They’re quite impressive.

Very well made video.

Praise the youtube algorithm for showing me this.