Would You Like…To Play…A Game?

Without a doubt, games are awesome.  Not only are games entertaining and fun, but we learn from games as both children and adults.  Games are emerging in adult/professional/serious venues.  The value of games and what makes a game of good educational value, is hotly debated.  However, I don’t think there is any doubt that games can be used to teach problem solving.

If you are a child of the 80s, like me, you most certainly remember the oh-so poignant moment at the end of the 1983 movie “War Games” when the computer “learns” that it can’t win at “Global Thermal Nuclear War”, any more than it can win at “Tic-Tac-Toe.” 

Remember the trailer tag line?...“Where the only winning move is NOT TO PLAY.”

Just as in the movie “Wargames” we have to learn that sometimes, the only way to win is not to play.

I love this scene:

Stephen Falken: Now, children, come on over here. I'm going to tell you a bedtime story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. Once upon a time, there lived a magnificent race of animals that dominated the world through age after age. They ran, they swam, and they fought and they flew, until suddenly, quite recently, they disappeared. Nature just gave up and started again. We weren't even apes then. We were just these smart little rodents hiding in the rocks. And when we go, nature will start again. With the bees, probably. Nature knows when to give up, David.

Humans apparently lack this simple understanding; not due to our instinct to fight for survival, but due to our most human, and most arrogant, need to be right.

I read a blog post by Denny Coates recently that put it very simply – “The truth is impotent when it contradicts someone’s beliefs.”

There is a reason why the previous generation rarely discussed politics “in polite company”; why there is no talking to the Tea Partiers when they equate facts with opinions.  It was very sadly and blatantly put in a conversation I had recently with a family member, when faced with a “fact” and his response was “and that’s your opinion.” Stunning. Mind blowing.

Why keep banging your head against a wall?  Why argue with someone who is not going to see things differently, who does not have the capacity to see things from another point of view?

Futility. That there's a time when you should just give up.

Why fight a fight that has no winner or a fight that is long since passed its time? Sometimes the only way to win is not to play – said another way; never wrestle with a pig, you’ll both get dirty and only the pig will enjoy it.