Chat with Teppy from ATiTD

[schild]

Citizens of Egypt,

  Two weeks ago I attended "Ludium I", a most fascinating game conference.
Though the conference was tiny - about 40 participants - it included
designers of many top MMORPGs, far-thinking academics, and industry
veterans. One revolutionary aspect was this: The conference itself *was* a
game. We were divided into five teams, each charged with coming up with "an
avatar-mediated virtual world that could be used for research." Judges
awarded points for various aspects of the designs we came up with. Those
scores were modified by mini-games that we played during the conference,
also having to do with game design.
  One of my teammates specialized in an obscure field called "evolutionary
psychology." This field attempts to explain certain human behaviors in
evolutionary terms, and his specialty is evolutionary reasons for why we
play games.
  Using the evolutionary psychology of play as a framework, we designed a
set of three games that are unlike any computer game that I know of. We
offended at least one judge. We described these as an "add-on" to ATITD 3.
  I thought that some of you might share my fascination with the topic, so
I've invited my teammates into ATITD to describe our design, and chat about
the thought process behind it. We'll be doing this chat event:

    Saturday, 10/15/2005, at 12:00 Noon EST (GMT-0500)
   
  I'd like to invite everyone to join in. One thing first though...
  Evolutionary Psychology presents some hypotheses that a lot of people
find offensive, and we're going to be digging right in to those during this
chat.  So if you do choose to participate, I ask that you do so with a
certain emotional detachment.
  I'm looking forward to this very different sort of event.

On the Nile,
Teppy (Pharaoh) 

That's a good email. Could someone with a sub attend? 

[tazelbain]

Glad to see Teppy is doing his part to piss off the religous right.

[Alkiera]

Glad to see Teppy is doing his part to piss off the religous right.

Given the nature of the material, I'd more expect a feminist, homosexual, or other liberal person whose beliefs are incompatible with EP's drive of 'psychological change caused by improved reproduction'.  Evolution is just powergaming principles applied to life, really.  Stuff like captor-bonding theory just really irks a lot of people.

I'd be interested in what they came up with, it's just a shame he chose such an inaccessible forum to hold it in.

I find it hard to believe they'd have had a hard-core religious person at a game developer conferance as a judge, personally.

Alkiera

[Evangolis]

The evolution of behavior can seem pretty creepy, particularly if not delicately presented, no matter what your perspective.  When it comes to explaining why we act the way we do, it seems like all of us have a sacred cow that gets gored in the process.  My first exposure was to the breeding habits of ducks (explaining that gang rape of paired females is one breeding strategy) by a rather awkward biology TA, which let me with uneasy feelings about both grad students and waterfowl, both of which have been disturbingly accurate.

On the other hand, the landmark study of reciprical altruism in the food sharing habits of vampire bats turns out to be rather hopeful, despite being just as intrinsically gross as you'd expect.

On the talk, if I had know about it before 1pm Central, I'd have joined just to hear the chat.  I'd love to see a transcript.

[Xanthippe]

[Edited for coherency and grammar; forgive me, not enough coffee infused yet this morning]

Is a transcript available of the chat event for those of us not subscribed to ATITD?