While the perps express shock at how much collateral damage their greed is doing (rather like termites in a collapsing house), let’s all take a calming minute to honor the heroes of this crisis – the people who did what they could to actively counter the devastation. Who are they, you might ask?
Bailout-resistant
The people who ride bicycles. The people who take transit. The people who bought more fuel-efficient vehicles. The people who drive the speed limit or less. The hypermilers. The people who plant gardens. The people who localize their food and energy. The people who invest time in their communities. The people that took staycations. The people, in short, who did their own math, gauged the weather for themselves, and took positive action ahead of the crisis. The very things prescribed by the World Without Oil game (and taken to heart by many of our players).
How did they help? Quite simple. By reducing our demand for oil, these people have helped to drop the price of oil and thus ameliorate this year’s fuel price hike. The fuel price hike, of course, is part and parcel of the foreclosure crisis: it wasn’t just that people couldn’t afford their ballooning mortgages, it was the three-punch combo of mortgage + fuel prices + food prices that really knocked ‘em down and out.
Plus of course, by adapting in a socially conscious way, these people have made their lives bailout-resistant. Individually, each contribution is small, but collectively they are quite significant. Large enough, anyway, to fill up our transit systems, calm our highways and empty our greenhouses.
The self-reliant individual used to be a proud model of American citizenship, good stewardship the epitome, and self-sufficient independence the backbone of the American character. When was it exactly that that model was replaced by the lowest-cost-at-any-price consumer, and the drill-anywhere bail-me-out spirit became our national standard? Photo by Pandiyan via Flickr.
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September 24, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Tom
Tonight I went out to get some take-out food and bring it back home, and I made this trip by bicycle. Just a few years ago, the idea of doing that wouldn’t have even crossed my mind. I would have gotten into the car, because that’s just “how it’s done.” Why did I change my ways? Mostly because of WWO. Of course, real world gas prices also helped me see the folly of relying on driving for every errand. But the major change in mindset came from WWO.
September 25, 2008 at 3:18 pm
WriTerGuy
Well put. Something I wrestle with: what is it about the WWO game format that helped people change their mindsets about stuff like this? A year and a half later, I still don’t know how to verbalize it well.
(I drove to get my takeout – but ONLY because it was dark and I don’t have a bike light yet!)
September 26, 2008 at 9:30 am
Tom
That’s a good question. I’m not sure, but some of the factors that I think contributed were: 1. WWO had a role-playing structure where I as a player had to imagine myself confronting these issues and finding things that I could do. Visualizing yourself in a situation is more powerful than just talking about an issue abstractly. 2. WWO emphasized actually doing real world things and documenting it, rather than just debating opinions online. 3. There was something great about the sense of community in WWO and the chance to be inspired by other players.
September 28, 2008 at 7:25 am
WriTerGuy
Again, well put. I think I would add, channeling Jane McGonigal perhaps, (4): it was a social game. In some sense, every time I take the bike out of the garage, I am back in the WWO community again, and thinking about the WWO people such as yourself. Thanks to the game, I remember that I am not alone in embracing change, that I am part of something big and significant.
So here’s a game design question: in WWO, the gamemasters were not particularly knowledgeable; they were not “experts.” Did that have a positive effect on players? Did that contribute to that sense of community in the game?
September 30, 2008 at 9:40 am
Tom
I think that did help – it made the game feel more approachable. It was good to see from the very beginning that many different types of people were involved.
On one extreme Net groups can revolve around expert/veteran/insider types and be sort of unwelcoming to newbies, and then on the other extreme groups can be uninformed people shouting nonsense at each other, and then the experts don’t want to get involved
WWO struck a great balance between these poles, and produced some really high-quality material. The emphasis on telling personal stories from one’s own location helped, I think.