Resource management games (part 2) : On advancing technology

I'm back... Now time to talk about my second favorite mechanic of resource management games. The progression of the technology tree. While the new units for war that comes as a result of technology is the most fun part, i feel that the more interesting part to explore is the increased speed of extraction of resources the farther up the tech tree one goes.

A little bit like real life, the more adept man gets with his tools, the faster and greater he is able to affect his environment around him.

Obtained from Civlization V

In the game, resource tiles grow in value as you discover newer technologies. this is a result of technologies which allow nations to extract more from the earth compared to before.

Similarly, richer more developed countries have the ability to affect change on an extremely large scale. Where the use of technology determines how much you can extract from the environment.

This mechanic has always been something fascinating for me, as i hope it will be for you too.

Video game creatures in the real world?: The Story of the Plastic shelled crab

I saw something incredible on the web that i wanted to share with you guys today. The incredibly cute "Toothpaste Cap Hermit Crab" equipping his plastic shell in an almost video-game like manner.

(photo 1: A hermit crab using a toothpaste crab as a shell)

While it is a bit of a departure from my usual content, i felt that the significance and implications of this picture is too great to ignore.

We have always viewed plastics as rubbish, something of a hindrance to animals around us. Its negative effects on the ecosystem especially in coastal bird populations have been extensively documented and with no uncertainty, we know that plastics is bad for ecosystem and the earth.

(Fig 2: plastic pollution in the gut of birds)

However, i have never stopped to think about how much plastic can affect animal behavior. Will animals in the future be able to adapt to the amount of pollution we humans produce everyday? I doubt so but i truly think that this is a question we should ponder on. Even if the answer to that is yes, it doesn't mean that we should continue plastic pollution.

Animals living within anthropogenic structures is not a phenomena of course. We see animals of all kinds from bird, bats adapt to urban environment as well as sea creatures using shipwrecks as a structure in which they grow in (the effects of which in the ecosystem is still being debated).

(fig 3: Bats in anthropogenic structures)

(Fig 4: Fish living in shipwrecks)

This particular photo grabbed my attention in a different way. I felt both sad and happy at the issue. Happy because it seems that the hermit crab is alive and is able to use the plastic as a self-defence mechanism. At the sad time, this photo is depressing because it shows us just how much of an impact that we have on the environment. It also suggest to us how polluted the beach must be such that the hermit crab would resort to using the toothpaste cap as a shell rather than using natural shells from its predecessor. To add to that, if this hermit crab were to be eaten by prey, it would be certainly the case that the plastic might be consumed by its predator thus leading to more damage to the ecosystem.

I hope that this photo provides us ample reason to act upon reducing plastic pollution in our environment

Resource management game(part 1): On 'Banished' and resource management

One of my favorite genre of games is the 'city builder' where you have to obtain and manage you resources from the land in order to build structures and units of increasingly higher technological tiers. One such game is 'Banished'. 'Banished' is particularly unique compared to the other games i have played so far because the players are set in a situation where they are suppose to build a city in a fairly hostile location in the forest with a limited access to technology. I felt that this game is useful in helping us discuss the issue of management of our limited resource as well as environmental determinism.

On resource management

I think that one of the most interesting things i have learnt so far was the idea that we can view resources from perspectives other than through the extraction of raw materials. The idea of 'ecosystem services' come to mind. For those who do no know, ecosystem services refers to the direct and indirect ways in which the ecosystem can be beneficial to us humans. There are 4 main ways in which the ecosystem can provide us resources (Geury et. al, 2015):

1. provisioning
2. support
3. regulating
4. cultural

For resource management games, they mainly focus on the provisioning service; what the environment can provide us. For example, in the game of 'Banished', the forest provides the wood for resources as well fish to sustain your villages. However this comes at a price as the population of deer in the forest that you could hunt for food would also decrease as more and more trees are chopped down. Another thing the forest may provide is finding the cure to an ailment affecting your village but only old ancient forest provide it and not secondary forests that the player could build.

I think no game better captures the feel of having to 'trade off' one resource for another, as we see in the real world. When we have to trade of vast ancient forests in order to build farms, as seen in place like Indonesia and Brazil, are we losing something in process? Are there more far reaching implications such as the impact of burning on climate change and drought? (Lindsey, 2004) Our primary rain forests houses some of the most important natural resources to man. How we use it is a responsibility that we share as a species.

On wastage of our resources

In my studies as an undergraduate, one of the most interesting ideas that i was informed on was the issue of pollution. Its highlighted to me by my professor that pollution is a 'wasteful approach towards management of our resources'. I found this idea particularly interesting. Why? because you don't really think of pollution issues through the lens of wastage of our natural resources. However, upon deeper introspection, it makes sense. I mean after all if we kill off all our marine life through things like oil spills (Graham, 2003), or introduce toxic chemical like mercury into soil which results in our food becoming potentially toxic to human (Zhao, 2014) , or as i have explored in my previous post the pollution that comes from mining activities, then we are simply wasting everything that mother Gaia provides for us. This is clearly a problem we need to fix. 

I am fairly disappointed that more games do not explore the issue of pollution as wastage of natural resources issue. The only game that i have played so far that came close was the game 'Civilization V' wherein tiles that have nuclear radiation as a result of nuclear war could not be use. While radiation is an important an important issue to look at and a fairly big pollution issue, i wish more focus was given to everyday pollution such as that of plastics in our ocean, heavy metal pollution of our soil or even air pollution (something i am facing as i write this post)

The bigger picture

Indeed, humans society has always been managing what limited resources that they have since the inception of civilization. Modern humans have such a global reach onto resources that they can access from the environment. It is our duty to ensure that the the way we use of resources is sustainable for the sake of our future generations.

Minecraft: Wonders at the expense of gaia?

(image taken from http://wallpapergal.com/2015/08/13/minecraft-wallpaper-56a/minecraft-wallpaper-56a/)

Minecraft, a game touted as one of the best sandbox to create and share your creations to the world. At its most basic, this game involves mining for various resources from the world, using these resources to make tools to make things of increasing complexity, rinse and repeat.

Does the game remind you of something? 

In the real world, we humans extract various minerals from the earth, similar to the game albeit, i would argue, in a far more destructive manner.

For instance, we mine the earth for rare earth metals in order to make most of our modern structures. Rare earth metals are even an important component in some clean technologies such as in the creation of solar panels.

(Taken from http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/a-visit-to-the-only-american-mine-for-rare-earth-metals/253372/ which provide us an insight in America's only rare earth metal mine)

Mining can be extremely toxic to the environment. Pollution comes from 3 processes in rare earth metal mining, extraction of ore (which cause destruction of the land), refining of ore (which often produces toxic air pollutants) and the disposal of waste (if done improperly can result in toxins seeping into soil and water )

In the chinese Xinguang No.1 Village, it has been noted that the water is extremely polluted due to leakages as a result of improper waste management of the ore. A byproduct of Rare Earth Metal mining is also thorium, which is radioactive. As a result, the incidences of cancer within the population working and living near the mines are much higher than the average population.

Unlike mining in the real world, there is always the option for a player to restart in the case that one dislike the state the world is in. Pollution also does not occur in the game byond the misplaced player creation.

We have only one earth, resources are not limitless like that of mine craft and the way we obtain and extract resources can pose severe long term risk on to our environment.

Perhaps for the sake of future generations, we should pay more heed to the pollution cause by our modern consumerist culture. We can still build magnificent structure for ourselves like those built within the world of minecraft, but we need to make sure that they way we do it does not come at the price of our future.