Trading Games, Science Fiction, and Knowledge Technology
July 17, 2007 – 7:29 pmI took a longer break from blogging here than I’d anticipated, but I’m cranking back up again.
Recently I noticed that Pieter Spronk, the author of my favorite PalmOS game, Space Trader, is the Director of Studies of Knowledge Technology at Universiteit Maastricht. He also teaches Logic and Games & AI and guides students in related studies. This intersection of interests makes a lot of sense to me; more work is being done these days in what games have to teach us about learning, and implementing these lessons depend in some degree to the capabilities of the knowledge technology infrastructure involved. Spronk has also written about various issues with knowledge-related technology (e.g., his short analysis of the trouble with USB sticks).
Space Trader is a single-player game (turn-based), with pirates, police, special missions, and, of course, trading. In this game, the only trading involves material goods (from water to robots). There is no trading of information or knowledge, though one can buy a newspaper or pass on warnings to others. On the other hand, I remember that CJ Cherryh’s Tripoint features Merchanter ships, and one of them makes a bundle by (spoiler below the cut) a particular information run (being the first ship to show up with a lot of new news and entertainment downloads at a remote location).
Cherryh has written directly and indirectly about the implications of technology (effects on society) in many of her novels. She made the point at a WorldCon years ago that as we have more and more information overload to deal with, more and more of us are going to rely on our friends to filter our information for us. This has benefits and drawbacks. I’m using this approach increasingly, and I’m seeing the pros (as discussed in the Penguicon blogging panel, I don’t have time to read all the news and blogs that I’d like, but I have a number of friends who blog the most interesting science news, for instance) and cons (e.g., risk of groupthink) myself.