This post was originally published on the Our World blog on 8th January 2018:
Greetings Friends,
Ernest Cline's second novel Armada is yet another EPIC amazing Sci-Fi novel following in the success of his first best selling book Ready Player One.
SPOILER ALERT
The book involves a young man who grew up believing his father was dead only to discover he was actually alive and recruited by the US Military serving in a top secret department called the EDA (Earth Defense Alliance).
They were recruited because they were identified as top drone pilots whilst playing a video game called Armada.
The game was based on what they thought was a fictional alien invasion where they needed to fly star fighters to take down the enemy aircraft. Later they found out that the alien threat was very real and that the US Military created the game to find and recruit the best pilots out there...
END SPOILER ALERT
Well the big news is that the actual US Military in real life do the same, they use flight simulator and war games to find and recruit the best pilots to control their drones. They also use games such as Call of Duty to train and recruit marines. These games are also used as a form of brainwashing to desensitize people to war and violence making it easier to recruit the youth.
What makes this even worst is that kids as young as 5 are also playing games like these, which is totally unacceptable.
Kids today are playing very violent games such as Call Of Duty which are used as brainwashing techniques to desensitise us to violence and also act as a training and recruitment tool for the military (which they have now admitted). The same goes for flight simulators being used to train and recruit drone pilots.
We hope you will agree this is totally unacceptable and is part of why there is so much war, violence, etc in today’s world. It is time we start using technology to teach people the correct life lessons. Our World acts as a simulation for the real world and teaches them how to create a better world in the simulation and then shows how they can then implement these important lessons in real life.
People say that violent does not effect them, well I am sorry to say it does, even if you are not aware of it at the time. They are still programming you and desensitizing you to violence so you more readily accept the violence and wars so pervasive in our modern society. The violence in games is effect our sub-conscious and kids are even more vulnerable to this due to their brains still being in development. Do you really want your kids to be programmed with violence, drugs, stealing, crime, sex gambling etc in this manner?
Even one of the developers of COD admits this:
An exert from the above link:
"WE ESSENTIALLY BRAINWASH THEM INTO LIKING IT."
An exert from the above link:
"“For decades the military has been using video-game technology,” says Nina Huntemann, associate professor of communication and journalism at Suffolk University in Boston and a computer games specialist. “Every branch of the US armed forces and many, many police departments are using retooled video games to train their personnel.” "
Now lets be clear, we deeply respect the brave men and women who lay down their life's to protect their country but we believe these methods of recruitment are deeply unethical and immoral.
We also strongly believe that games, films, etc should not be glorifying violence, killing and wars. If humanity is to survive we need to move away from wars and violence of all kinds We need to instead start promoting peace and better ways of negotiating without having to resort to violence, a hang up from the medieval dark ages.
With what has been going on in the Middle East (creating terrorists that did not exist before) and now with the threats from North Korea it should be clear that war is not the answer. We need to disarm the entire world of ALL nuclear warheads immediately, everyone knows it will be the end of us so why keep them? It is insanity!
Anyway, back to Armada, the book references an old arcade game called Polybius that was the 1st generator of games the Military used to recruit pilots. Well once again this is actually real and did appear for a month in Portland, Oregon in 1981. It was yet another US Military experiment to test various psychoactive effects, which men in black visited to collect the results from the machines. It also had a number of negative side effects such as amnesia, insomnia, night terrors and hallucinations.
Read more here:
Now its easier for the Government to track the high scores thanks to the internet.
The book also references Phaeton created by Chaos Terrain, well again this was REAL and you can even play the game here:
Make sure to watch the unaired trailer for it too:
Some other quotes from the book that ring true:
"Everything I had been told about the state of the world, had been a lie."
"The Universe has given you a chance to use your gifts to help save the world."
The Armada story also states how the Government was contacted by aliens but because they thought the public could not handle this information, it was covered up. Well maybe this isn't that too far from the truth either.... ;-) Time will tell...
The book also references a number of my other favorite games and movies such as Doom, Wing Commander, Star Wars TieFighter, XWing vs Tie Fighter, The Last Star Fighter, War Games, Close Encounters, Space Odysey, Enders Game, Stargate, Contact, Independence Day, Starship Troopers.
In the book in the fathers notes he mentions a shadow organisation or US Military tracking high scores and were involved in the video game industry. Again this may not be far from the truth...
Chaos Terrain (the games company featured in the book) was formed from the best of the best in 2010 to create the next generation of multiplayer VR games. Well guess what? NextGen Software was also created in 2010 and is creating the next generation of multiplayer VR games such as Our World/OASIS. Coincidence or not? ;-)
We also intend to recruit the best of the best, on top of Ernest am also reaching out to John Carmack (another one of my heroes) who I want to lead the Our World Engine (OASIS - Open Advanced Sensory Inversion System) Team. We will also be reaching out to Will Wheaton (also a big fan off and will always be Wesley Crusher to me), who I know Ernest is close to and has done the audio version of his Ready Player One book… 😊
In Armada they have a base on the dark side of the moon, again could there be a base hidden on the dark side of the mood we do not know about? ;-)
What were Pink Floyd trying to warn us about with their album The Dark Side Of The Moon?
Finally, you may want to check out some fan made sites:
THE SOLUTION
We are pleased to say that Our World will be teaching kids and anyone who plays the right life lessons to help create a better world where we honor and respect each other and the beautiful planet that sustains us.
It is time to reject violence of every form. Period.
The software industry has the power to transform lives through engaging people with innovative products that help them to grow and develop. Recent popular examples include health apps, mindfulness apps and mind training games.
We wish to take this to the next level and help make the world a better place by using technology for good, by bringing people together and to support, guide and educate everyone on how we can all live happier, fulfilling lives and at the same time how we can help save our planet.
We will do this by creating a suite of next gen apps & games using the latest cutting edge technology such as Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Real-time emotional feedback, face/voice recognition, motion detection and so much more.
People learn at a young age how to act and behave and this shapes the future generations and the world they will create. Due to the majority of games these days involving violence, sex, gambling, drugs & crime, this is conditioning the youth of today to the sort of world they will create tomorrow.
With the advent of Virtual Reality now making these violent games even more immersive and realistic where the boundaries between games and reality is shrinking by the day, it is imperative we take some social and moral responsibility and start using technology to help create a better world by improving people’s life’s as well as respecting the environment and planet that sustains us.
Gambling is being forced onto kids more and more in the form of loot boxes where real money is asked for to receive a random prize and now its got so bad that money is actually needed to progress within the game. Everything seems to be geared around how much people can be exploited and how much money can be sucked out of them, this is even more wrong for kids. Read more on our previous post about this here.
We wish to bring people together, build online communities, encourage people to reach out and help strangers for the greater good of all. To encourage people to come and work together and to show how everyone benefits if they put their differences aside and start all rowing together. It will model the real world and also act as a simulation and training environment for how to make the real world a better place.
We wish to reach the kids who are glued to their phones and consoles and never go outside, this game will encourage them to get out into parks and interact with people in fun creative ways face to face instead of through their phones.
