Gamin' It

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Back in the nineties, we used to play a computer game based on RMS Titanic, which consisted of solving a series of problems/challenges before the inevitable happened. It was one of the first immersive games I remember and was actually quite impressive technically, given the state of the tech in those days: and it was fun and instructive to play. We could have navigated our way around the real ship, it was that accurate and detailed.

Like most such simulations, once you've cracked the game, the shine goes off the experience: like noughts and crosses, it soon becomes pointless, as in the eighties film 'War Games', where 'Tic-Tac-Toe' taught the war computer 'WOPR' the futility of Global Thermonuclear War. If only things were so simple now. We're are all tied up in knots by algorithms that most people are still truly unaware of and it seems uncaring about. But life carries on: the rich become richer and the rest struggle: the only option seems to be 'gaming the system' - Gen Z think they invented the concept, but I can only say that there's an awful lot of us Boomers (the ones without the silver spoons) out there who have been doing it for years - catch up, folks...

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