Topics

31

Or Kill Me / My Hate - Part 1 - Homelessness

« on: November 07, 2013, 04:54:37 pm »

Some things have been really fucking bothering me lately.

It may be because I've moved to a town that makes my stomach turn regularly. It may be because the homelessness problem here seems much more pronounced than my last stay.

On a purely personal level, I despise the concept of homelessness. I live in a country where a significant number of people own second (Or third, or X) homes. I routinely drive past boarded up and derelict premises. For a living, I tell people how to destroy these buildings. As far as I have been able to establish, there is no actual shortage of living space in the UK. The problem seems to be is that a lot of that potential living space is worth more empty and derelict. Tax breaks, Tax write-off, offsetting profits and all other manner of interesting financial tricks can turn a shit-heap into a goldmine. As long as no humans live there.

Winter started here pretty much overnight. The general temperatures have gone from 7-8C to -1 -3C. Every fucking day I drive past people huddled in shop entrances and less windy spots. The sheer number of them has increased dramatically. I'd like to look further than "Austerity" but this seems to be the answer I keep getting.

Realistically, there is little I can do to help. When I can, I buy a guy a burger and spend some time just talking. I don't do this often. The level of thanks I get seems to be placing me into some unjustified sainthood. I'm just a human that sees another cold and hungry and being ignored and want to show a little fucking compassion for a few seconds. This does not mean I'm Christ reborn.

The reactions(and non-reactions) of others to people in this situation stuns me. It's shows something about the times we live in. It's easier to ignore them than it is to help, regardless of the way. This could say something about how we act as a society at large. Is the problem easy to ignore? Yes? What fucking problem?

I really don't know how to process much of this yet, but all I know is that I'm angry. I'm driving past people who will literally freeze to death in the coming months because the support to prevent this happening simply isn't there. To say this bothers me is an understatement.

I'm acutely aware that there tends to be a "story" with homelessness. The vast majority of these tales could have easily been me for a minor quirk of fate. But I'm inside and warm, looking out on misery and death.

Fuck this place, I should never have returned.

32

Aneristic Illusions / NO POTENTIAL PROBLEMS HERE

« on: November 07, 2013, 04:26:09 pm »

Srsly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24823846

Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and believes it could obtain atomic bombs at will, a variety of sources have told BBC Newsnight.

While the kingdom's quest has often been set in the context of countering Iran's atomic programme, it is now possible that the Saudis might be able to deploy such devices more quickly than the Islamic republic.

Earlier this year, a senior Nato decision maker told me that he had seen intelligence reporting that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan on behalf of Saudi Arabia are now sitting ready for delivery.

Last month Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, "the Saudis will not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring."

Newsnight contacted both the Pakistani and Saudi governments. The Pakistan Foreign Ministry has described our story as "speculative, mischievous and baseless".

It adds: "Pakistan is a responsible nuclear weapon state with robust command and control structures and comprehensive export controls."

The Saudi embassy in London has also issued a statement pointing out that the Kingdom is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and has worked for a nuclear free Middle East.

But it also points out that the UN's "failure to make the Middle East a nuclear free zone is one of the reasons the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia rejected the offer of a seat on the UN Security Council".

It says the Saudi Foreign Minister has stressed that this lack of international action "has put the region under the threat of a time bomb that cannot easily be defused by manoeuvring around it".

The article is rather good with general background to the region.

What this seems to be though, is confirmation that Saudi Arabia may not be a nuclear power, but they can be at any time they so choose.

Peace in the middle east? Fucking terrible for profits and this will keep money moving around nicely.

33

Apple Talk / That Belief you have is wrong and upsets me

« on: October 25, 2013, 11:37:37 am »

Hi. Take a seat.

I'm going to try and be as nice about this as I can be, but I just don't see you in the same way any more. You actually make me a little sick just to think about you.

The problem, you see, is that belief of yours. I know and understand that you believe THAT, but I believe THIS. Now we both know THIS and THAT can't possibly be compatible. I'm certain that THAT is wrong and THIS is right. It's unfortunate, because I used to respect you a lot. Now that I know about THAT, we can no longer be friends. Hell, I can't even talk to you civilly, I'm holding it all in right now because really? THAT is DUMB and THIS is clearly right. Every idiot knows THIS is right.

So I'll still be here, I just won't respond to you or consider you as important as before because a single belief is literally all I can see in you now. I know we agree about THEM and THOSE and THINGS. It's just because you believe THAT that I can't ever take you seriously ever again.

Now you might be quite happy about this, but really, fuck you. Thinking THAT instead of THIS is just fucking unacceptable. Obviously you are just this belief alone and so I can just comfortably ignore any future contribution you make. All because of THAT. You might have been able to save this, but I'm just too self righteous to care.

If you ever change your mind and see how THIS is clearly right, I'll try and not be too smug.

34

Aneristic Illusions / Unlimited Egypt Thread

« on: September 24, 2013, 09:13:11 am »

To try and keep it in one place because this isn't calming down anytime soon.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24208933

A court in Egypt has banned "all activities" by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Cairo Court for Urgent Matters said the ruling applied to the Islamist movement, its non-governmental organisation and any affiliated groups.

It also ordered the interim government to seize the Brotherhood's funds and form a panel to administer its frozen assets until any appeal had been heard.

The military authorities have launched a crackdown on the group since ousting President Mohammed Morsi on 3 July.

Dozens of senior figures, including its general guide Mohammed Badie, have been detained on suspicion of inciting violence and murder.

Hundreds of people demanding Mr Morsi's reinstatement, most of them Brotherhood members, have also been killed in clashes with security forces, who portray the crackdown as a struggle against "terrorism".

While somewhat inevitable, it's practically guaranteed to cause a lot of death in the foreseeable future.

35

Apple Talk / How to overthrow the Illuminati (SRSBSNS)

« on: August 28, 2013, 10:40:02 am »

http://overthrowingilluminati.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/how-to-overthrow-the-illuminati/

Everyone talks about the Illuminati. You may have heard Jay Z and Beyonce are members of the Illuminati, and channel demons when they perform. You may have heard Obama is a member of the Illuminati, and plans to implant microchips in all U.S. citizens, to prepare for martial law. You may have heard the dollar bill contains secret symbols, which reveal the U.S. has been controlled by the Illuminati for hundreds of years.

Illuminati theory helps oppressed people to explain our experiences in the hood. Society throws horrible stuff in our faces: our family members get locked up for bullshit. Our friends kill each other over beefs, money or turf. Our future is full of dead-end jobs that don’t pay shit. We struggle to pay bills while others live in luxury. On TV, we see people all over the world dying in poverty, even though we live in the most materially abundant society in history. Most people act like none of these terrible things are happening. Why does this occur? We start looking for answers, and Illuminati theory provides one.

We believe Illuminati theory is wrong, and we wrote this pamphlet to offer a different answer. We wrote this pamphlet because we know people who think about the Illuminati usually want to stop oppression and exploitation. They’re some of the smartest people in the hood today. Forty years ago, Illuminati theorists would’ve been in the Black Panther Party. Today most of them sit around and talk endlessly about conspiracies. This is a waste of talent. The world is in a deep crisis, and big protests, rebellions and revolutions are happening. In Egypt, South Africa, Turkey–and even in the U.S.–these movements are already taking 

place. 

People who 

say 

we can’t 

do 

anything because no 

one 

else 

is 

fighting are simply refusing to join the fight themselves. With the right tools, we can participate in these actions, and make history with millions of others.

I've not read the whole thing yet, but that 3rd paragraph caught my eye. May be something of quality here.

36

Aneristic Illusions / UK Internet Porn Ban.

« on: July 22, 2013, 08:00:58 pm »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23401076

Most households in the UK will have pornography blocked by their internet provider unless they choose to receive it, David Cameron has announced.

In addition, the prime minister said possessing online pornography depicting rape would become illegal in England and Wales - in line with Scotland.

Mr Cameron warned in a speech that access to online pornography was "corroding childhood".

The new measures will apply to both existing and new customers.

This is going to get hilarious.

Mr Cameron also called for some "horrific" internet search terms to be "blacklisted", meaning they would automatically bring up no results on websites such as Google or Bing.

He told the BBC he expected a "row" with service providers who, he said in his speech, were "not doing enough to take responsibility" despite having a "moral duty" to do so.

He also warned he could have to "force action" by changing the law and that, if there were "technical obstacles", firms should use their "greatest brains" to overcome them.

This is from the people that could find an effective way to block YO HO HO .com

He said: "I want to talk about the internet, the impact it is having on the innocence of our children, how online pornography is corroding childhood.

"And how, in the darkest corners of the internet, there are things going on that are a direct danger to our children, and that must be stamped out.

I'm not making this speech because I want to moralise or scaremonger, but because I feel profoundly as a politician, and as a father, that the time for action has come. This is, quite simply, about how we protect our children and their innocence."

But former Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre boss Jim Gamble told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was important to "get to the root cause" of illegal pornography, by catching those responsible for creating it.

He added: "You need a real deterrent, not a pop-up that paedophiles will laugh at."

But Ms Perry argued filters would make a difference, saying that the killers of schoolgirls April Jones and Tia Sharp had accessed legal pornography before moving on to images of child abuse.

She added: "It's impossible to buy this material in a sex shop... but it's possible to have it served up on a computer every day."

In his speech, Mr Cameron said possession of online pornography depicting rape would be made illegal.

The reaction I've seen to this so far would be pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Conservatives smug, Liberals screeching and very little attention paid to the fact that Cameron has refused to publicly condemn page 3(some tabloids tradition to show topless woman on, page 3.)

The whole thing is a fucking joke. Aside from the censorship issues and lists due to opt-in, it seems totally and utterly unworkable.

So come world, and laugh at the UK. Our PM is actually trying to block boobs from the internet. On the plus side, Tons of MP's are about to have their porn habits exposed.

37

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Redemption 2 - Electric Boogaloo, Or, On Corporations and groups

« on: June 24, 2013, 08:26:21 pm »

The redemption thread made me start thinking about the concept as applied to groups. This is pretty broad and can include: Governments, Corporations, Charities, faith groups, you get the idea I hope.

All entities like this are, and frequently have done some horrific shit. It's not a challenge to name any number of examples. What I am considering here is how these often faceless things can earn redemption in the eyes of society.

You could say that in capitalist culture, any "group" still "trading" (Churches peddle their wares just as much, though not as efficiently as, say, Pepsi) has no need or desire for redemption. If the profit margins (Note, all of these things rely on consistent profit.) are constant or rising, this would indicate that their actions are viewed as acceptable for the majority of the public. Any positive actions by them must then be viewed as suspect as it would point to desire for increased profit.

Most of these groups have a hierarchy within them that would indicate those closer to the top are more responsible for any actions taken by the group. Here we may encounter individuals seeking redemption, but it is much more common to stick with the group. Pack mentality, it's core to the Police, Military, Wall Street, The Vatican and many more. It's them against US. This helps me see why there is so much attention when a member breaks ranks and denounces the group.

So how do you go about redeeming groups exhibiting societally perceived negative behaviours? I'd suggest 3 main methods are used: Regulation, De-regulation and self-regulation.

Regulation is almost always touted as being "bad" for the group. It will hurt it and therefore you in some way. So don't do it.

De-Regulation is "good" and opens up opportunities to be exploited. Many people have become very, very wealthy from de-regulation (And the other 2, but especially this one)

Self regulation lets all the groups kind of like you create your rules. Corruption all the way down.

With all 3 avenues leading to much the same place, i.e - The group continues as it was, it seems to place the responsibility on to society to correct negative behaviours. As noted, some boycotts and protests have had successes, though these are the exception more than the norm. How's Occupy doing? Yeah.

Maybe a page needs to be taken from FOX news. Sensationalise the shit out of every group fuck-up, no matter how minor or petty. Create a huge stinking target for worldwide disdain with every single slip. Embarrass the fucks into acting in a more socially responsible way. Treble all fines and use them to run adverts with the CEO's face crudely photo shopped onto faeces. At Prime-time. All year. With Full name, occupation and reason. After a year they go onto the reel that shows 24/7 on it's own channel. Or something. We need to be more creative than we are now.

What I'm getting at here, is that fines and jail are not enough for those who commit the greatest evils. I'm not saying gladiatorial arena, but I won't make a sad face if you do.

More seriously, measures need to be vastly more punitive and public.

Somewhat rambling, but I hope that's a starting point for something

38

Aneristic Illusions / Prism and Verizon surveillance discussion thread

« on: June 06, 2013, 02:19:29 pm »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22793851

The US National Security Agency (NSA) is collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans, according to the Guardian newspaper.

The British paper published what it said was a secret court order directing the Verizon company to hand over electronic data on all its customers on an "ongoing daily basis".

Civil liberties groups said the details of the report were "stunning".

The US government, security agencies and Verizon have not commented.

The US Center for Constitutional Rights said it appeared to be "the broadest surveillance order to ever have been issued".

Former Vice President Al Gore said in a tweet: "In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?"

Two Democrat senators have been pressing the Obama administration to be clear about the scope of its public surveillance.

Last year, Mark Udall and Ron Wyden wrote to US Attorney General Eric Holder saying they believed "most Americans would be stunned" by the government's "secret legal interpretations" of the Patriot Act.

The White House came under heavy criticism last month after papers were leaked showing it had gathered the phone records of journalists at the Associated Press.

Nixon was truly ahead of his time, he just thought too small.

If you do it to everyone it's normal and ergo "Fair". Why these people are not funding googleglass and the inevitable competitors is beyond me. I would have thought such a device to be like all their birthdays, Christmases and various similar holidays come at once for them.

39

Aneristic Illusions / White House spying on Associated Press

« on: May 14, 2013, 10:33:41 am »

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/ap-phone-records-government-intrusion-unprecedented_n_3268569.html?utm_hp_ref=media

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.

The UK still can't get it's shit together over the Leveson Report yet the US seems to be having much better success with press control.

40

Apple Talk / ITT - OFFICIAL VOTING FOR NEW MEXICO

« on: April 21, 2013, 09:04:33 am »

Friends!

It is time for the ruling council to formally pass the buck to a new MEXICO. We have plundered all we can from this position, and are quite frankly, bored.

Thus we now open nominations for the new MEXICO.

So far the candidates are:

Known self confessed lizard person TGGR - He has made claims that he will deliver the second part of the joke. His is a Known and self confessed lizard person. These factors must surely weigh upon your decision.

Deposed Mexico EOC - No second part of the joke. Claimed you would come crawling back to him. Will you?

The Current interim ruling Junta - We never wanted this. But we have gifted all we could while we got it. BORED NOW.

New candidates may apply now.

Standard voting rules for new MEXICOS apply. All decisions ultimately arbitrary and final. No arguments.


So rejoice, a new MEXICO will soon be upon us.

41

Apple Talk / On Games and the Communities they create

« on: April 18, 2013, 01:21:18 pm »

Well this is probably going to get very, very messy. I'll try to keep this coherent but shout if there's anything that needs more detail.

In this post(s?), I am going to try and provide a short version of the nature of Game Theory and Mechanism Design and how these relate to online and offline communities.

What is Game theory? Wikipedia tells us that :

Game theory is a study of strategic decision making. More formally, it is "the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers."[1] An alternative term suggested "as a more descriptive name for the discipline" is interactive decision theory.[2] Game theory is mainly used in economics, political science, and psychology, as well as logic and biology.

Let's simplify that a touch. Any situation where your decisions are based upon the decisions of another person can be classed as a game. Anything Single player does not count. We are looking at why you make certain choices based on the actions of others. There is an built in assumption that everyone will act both Rationally and with their own self interest in mind.

Lets define some terms:

Game - For our purposes here a "game" will require
1-More than 1 person
2 - Interactions are possible beween players
3 - There must be some kind of decision
4 - There must be some kind of payoff/reward

Utility - This is what you are playing the game for. In a FPS the utility is to get the most kills. In a race the utility would be to come first. Game theory assumes that all people involved will have the same utility in mind. When players choose to follow a separate utility, griefing or trolling is soon to follow.

Payoff - Highly changable depending on the game. This could be a high score, Gold Medal, social approval. Think of this as what you "win"

Decision - The game must allow for players to make choices. Snakes and Ladders technically isn't a game under this definition. You just roll dice. The same could be said for athletic sports like running, you only have the choice of one strategy, Run Fast. Any other strategy is irrational.

Strategy - Think of every move you can make in a game of chess from start to end. That is one strategy.

Tactics - Think of an individual move in a game of chess. That is one tactic (This is sloppy but will do for the moment).

Perfect Information - This is where you have knowledge of everything that has taken place in the game. There are no hidden variables and win states are clear from both sides. Consider a RTS game with and without the "fog of War". Without the fog of war, you have a perfect information game. With the fog of war, you do not.

Pareto Efficiency/Frontier - I've seen this called both. Think of a fighting game with 3 guys. You have the stong guy, the fast guy and the medium guy. The idea here essentially is "Give something to get something". If Strong guy is stronger and just as fast as Fast guy, it would be irrational to ever pick Fast or medium guy. Many games have balancing problems and it can often be down to this. You'll never pick option X as option Y is always there and is simply better. Think of an FPS where a player is unstoppable with a certain weapon and others are never seen. That's bad Pareto Efficiency.

Solvable/Random/Arbitrary - Games can generally be broken into these 3 catergories. Solvable games are things like Draughts and Tic-tac-toe. There is a clear set path to win. Random games are much more difficult to create effective strategies for. Arbitrary games can only be won by either not playing or acting as randomly as possible (Think rock-paper-scissors)

What is Mechanism Design?

Mechanism design is the set of ideas that the way the game is played can influence those playing it. By choosing (Or omitting) certain game mechanics, game developers directly indirectly influence the end game in various ways. Take the most obvious for a moment, Monetization. I'll get to that. A key point here is that most developers will use various mechanics, little consideration is given to the impact on the rest of the game and player base.

More to come.

42

Apple Talk / ATTN - EOC - FINAL DEMANDS

« on: April 09, 2013, 09:06:12 am »

Mexico,

It has been several weeks now. We are still lacking the second part of the joke.

Failure to produce the joke, or at the least a plan of the joke, will result in your MEXICO status being revoked post-haste.

Open elections will then run in the glorious peoples republic of Mexico to find new MEXICO and you remember what happened to the last MEXICO who didn't produce the joke? That will happen to YOU.

You were warned. You ignored us.

All are encouraged to hound MEXICO until the joke appears or he admits the truth of his false election. He's still not even shown his sombrero.

The 13/14thesthses

43

Aneristic Illusions / O HAPPY DAY

« on: April 08, 2013, 01:09:45 pm »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155

THATCHER DEAD.

44

Apple Talk / Spot the creepy

« on: January 15, 2013, 03:42:52 pm »

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4742299/Girl-called-Jennifer-Lopez-gets-boost-to-bum-and-boobs.html

Yes, it's the sun. It's ALL creepy, but in this "article" there's some crackers.

The stand out for me was this:

Jennifer’s surgery at 15 saw her boobs increase two cup sizes to a 36C. Fat removed from her body was pumped into her buttocks. Karen started at 14 with a £2,000 nose job. That was followed by a boob job a year later.
She said: “I had a 21-year-old boyfriend but I was really skinny with tiny boobs.
“All his ex-girlfriends had big boobs so I felt really insecure. It took me months to persuade my mum but eventually she let me.”

Yes, That does appear to be The Sun (Who above all remember, remind us that paedophiles must be hung drawn and quatered on live TV) endorsing a 14/15 year old to have plastic surgery to please someone at least 6 years senior.

The flip-flop at the end also amuses me.






Ah Humanity. The asteroid can't hit soon enough.

45

Techmology and Scientism / Why your favourite video game sucks, Game mechanics and other stuff

« on: March 19, 2012, 01:28:43 am »

This is(will) be a lot longer than my previous posts. It may(will) be disjointed, raise more questions than answers will my Layman(total belming fool) take on some things. I'll try and shove in a few funnies. Remember to laugh politely at the appropriate times.
(If this is in the wrong place or would suit another section better, please move it or take it up with someone who can.)
(There will also be parenthesis) (There's a TL;DR if you are now thinking "Fuck you") (Fuck you too)

Disclaimer over, Lets get into this.

Firstly, Relevant background. I have played A LOT of games. I probably have saved games older than some of you. I could tell you scary amounts of detail about more than a few dozen. What I'm saying here is I've broken my share of Mice, Keyboards, consoles, gamepads, joysticks and any other gear that you'd care to name. I also haven't really bothered playing any for a fair few years.

The reason is, pretty much all of them fucking sucked.

Harsh conclusion, and I came to this by learning a great deal more about Game theory. No, we're not talking about PUA bullshit, we can snigger about that later. I'm thinking more along the lines of this

(Educational break, this is about an hour, but does cover the subject pretty well so at least we're all kind of thinking about the same Kinda thing here. Or look around and read up on wikipedia or something if this stuff means nothing to you.) (I told you there would be brackets)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXdfU2DoF8o&feature=BFa&list=PLD03FB084B11A0454&lf=plcp


That's the more technical side. When you start to break down the games you play directly in terms of the mechanics, they seem to become a totally different experience. Take Diablo 2. I FUCKING LOVED D2. I played that game a horrendous amount. Don't even try and say you did worse, I've probably got the saves somewhere to prove it. When you view it as an exercise in the skinner box mechanic applied to my psyche(And judging from the size of the player base it had and WOW has,) it's an incredible achievement. Never got Sucked into WOW thank gods, I was self aware enough to know that if I even touched that I may as well go and buy a big sack o' crack.

Anyway, point being, look at your favourite game, in terms of pure mechanics. What are you actually doing and WHY does it give you enjoyment? Why do we not consider our entertainment more frequently? As I understand it, to tackle our reality properly, do we not have to examine these things as critically if not moreso than political/social phenomena? I would place it at a similar importance as we choose to consume these media of our own volition. No one made me play any of these games. If you've never had the "I'll go to bed in a minute" then play for 3 more hours, say "fuck it" then playing for another few days" moment or similar then you're probably more interested in the next thing.

Another reason that pretty much all of these games sucked, would be for the same reason a lot of films or books sucked. There's just no emotional engagement.
Other thing,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnCpSMlUEpo


Lots of good points in here again. Take the Zombie game he came up with. 2 Parents, 2 kids, each has a specific strength, a relatively easy to manage praeto frontier. If you kept the difficulty options open and allowed people to dick about with what the characters look like, this would sell millions.

Out of all the games I've played, I can narrow down the ones that actually had something that touched me on an emotional level down to about a dozen. While I would argue any of those to be amazing games, is this not an unusually low number compared to how many pieces of music/art/film/etc would be considered to be emotionally moving? 

Look at the motherfucking adverts for the New Deus Ex. Those adverts have asked better questions about transhumanism than the vast majority of blogs devoted to the subject. For a term that is only likely to be more widespread and relevant over the next few hundred years, why not push the boundaries in terms of plot? With video games now protected by the 1st amendment, should and/or could this then not become a pseudo political platform? It seems possible to engineer a game towards a mindset that would allow the player to empathise more with a presented choice. Consider the potential that this is already the case with the spate of FPS derivates.

Marine Vs (ethnic minority here) in (get the idea?)

I recall hearing something along the lines of similar reflexes being shared between helicopter pilots and top fps players. I doubt the fitness level matches, but a way to utilise that same basic reflex... Drones? They've been getting popular.

Final point before the wonderful TL;DR
Have a final video for getting down here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM&feature=related
20 mins. Made me chuckle. 

If you've got this far, then blessings on your hide my child. May the sun gods wake you gently. For everyone else......

TL:DR

1- Look at your favourite game/s. Identify the key mechanic/s. What does this say about you? If it's something like farmville consider thy life. Does this information/perspective change your feeling toward the game?

2 - Emotional engagement in games, Have you had any and should this be pursued? Why the fuck are people not more interested in this? A way to create genuinely unique experiences could be the potential here?

3 - People are stupid part MMDII part 16c. Modern games spoonfed people.

4-Make what you want of that, Just wanted to get a few ideas out of my head and see if they clicked with anyone.