Should we play the game of life? | Philosopher Slavoj Žižek and gamer Destiny take on gamification

Philosopher Slavoj Žižek and gamer ‘Destiny’ Steven Bonnell give their hot takes on society's increasing levels of gamification. Should it be stopped?

Watch the full debate at https://iai.tv/video/the-game-of-life...

Games are everywhere. And not just on the football field. Workplaces, dating lives, education and even friendships are being packaged as games. Tinder makes love a swiping game of snap, AI claims to have solved long-standing scientific problems by ‘converting them into games’. But critics argue games distort life and empty it of meaning. And games can be dangerous. QAnon was created initially as an alternative reality game, and the world is not made safer by understanding military build up as 'an arms race'.

Do we need to eradicate the relentless gamification of life? Should we recognise life has no clear goal, no way to win, no measures of success, no extra lives or second chances? Should we see games as furthering inequality - creating winners and losers? Or have games always been with us, from the system of money to the hierarchies of education, and for the very good reason that they are a remarkably powerful motivator for action?

#StevenDestinyBonnell #Gamification #SlavojZizek

Slavoj Žižek is a globally renowned philosopher and cultural critic. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana's Department of Philosophy. He is the author of several books, including The Sublime Object of Ideology, The Parallax View, Living in the End Times and Heaven in Disorder.

Steven Bonnell, also known by his online name as 'Destiny', is a famous prolific Twitch streamers and internet personality. Being one of the first people to stream video games online, full-time, he is now considered a pioneer of the industry. Since 2016, Bonnell has made the transition to political commentary, live-streaming political debates and with other internet personalities.

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