I never play video games and so I knew I was going to be bad at the Millennium Village Simulation before I started playing. I had trouble playing the game because the help button sent me to an error page. But because it was a video game, I did think it is really interested that it exists. I had not thought about video games being about this kind of thing, so I found that interesting.
I really appreciated Dr. Bezio’s metaphor for systemic issues as nerves. It was a great way to talk about how complex they are and how much they intertwine in people’s lives. A couple of her best points were that when she said one’s nervous system gets messed up it either shuts down or fights back through pain. This is synonymous with systemic issues in the US because oftentimes people feel so defeated by the systems in place they just shut down, and other times they have the energy to fight back but it does not end well for them. The podcast obviously made me think of the University of Richmond’s current situation because she addressed how humans feel threatened by change. And I think that more than actually thinking it is the correct decision to keep the names our Board of trustees believes change is unnecessary and feels threatened by the idea of it. But change is necessary and without change, we would not be the evolved society we are today. One thing that stood out to me in the reading was when Dorner said that we fail because we make lots of small mistakes that add up. Therefore, the little things do matter, which sometimes we all struggle to understand.
The video game genre is surprisingly diverse. I remember playing leap frog and typing games as a kid on the computer and I think of the simulation as a more adult version of those. Its purpose (besides the phycology study part) is to teach. For sure some video games are only about fun, but many have a teaching aspect associated.
I think your second paragraph brings up great issues! It is very easy to see how these systemic issues result in the isolation of individuals as many shut down or continue to fight like you said. Particularly in the US, people are simply expected to fight and are viewed as lazy if they don’t put up a good enough fight. But like in the game, it is very easy to see how quickly you can get frustrated as you are having to choose between one person’s health/disease and another person’s food for the day.
I also liked Bezio’s point about how a nervous system is either going to fight back or just shut down. That reminded me a lot about the sentiment across the nation regarding the BLM movement, especially as the pandemic layered on top of it. I think many people even believed that people that were continuing to fight would eventually tire out with everything going on in the world. They wouldn’t have to worry about paying attention to BLM because of the scale of the fight, of course they would have to stop. But obviously that isn’t the case. The “nervous system” the BLM movement has created is not one to tire easy on a large scale. When individuals or groups at the micro scale begin to waver, the larger support system picks up their slack until they’re ready to fight again. It is an incredible system to witness.
I agree with change being needed for building names. It is disheartening to hear that they are not taking action to help create an inclusive environment, and remain as an institution that is a leader. This lack of leadership and action is causing the University to fall behind and create this division on campus.
I agree with your comparisson between the podcast and what is going on at UR right now. I am in full agreement that the names of the buildings should be changed. My next question is if the university changes the names, what comes next? I am very curious how much change is possible.