Present day global politics

Stellan and I have been playing this iPhone game from a Chinese developer — it’s this rival-feudal-kingdoms multiplayer thing; they’ve built google translate into the in-game chat so everyone can sort of communicate, but the gameplay tends to break down into rivalries based more on peoples’ language and time zone than on the terms the game tries to set.

I tell you what boys and girls, this game is doing nothing but reinforce every nationalistic stereotype I’ve ever heard of.

The Chinese players speak mostly in cryptic metaphor (or else google translate is just terrible at Chinese) (or else the one causes the other) and they are organized, coordinated, and implacable once crossed. The Russian players are cheerfully uninterested in keeping to the terms of any alliance or treaty and spend most of their time undermining one another. The American players are obnoxious when they’re winning, complain when they’re losing, and are generally ineffective in causing either one.

It’s the strangest little window into present day global politics I tell you what boys and girls