Ted Castronova
The boss cleans up after, the boss is always the last one to turn out the lights and lock the door, which means the boss is the last one to look for spills and messes and things-out-of-place that will be a nuisance tomorrow. A good boss does that, anyway. She’d worked for jerks who left clean-up for others, went off …
Ted Castronova On page 189 of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, the orphan Selena describes the oath she was forced to take every day. Part of it reads: I understand that I have not been placed on Earth to be happy. I am here to be tested. If I am to pass the test, I must be always unselfish, …
Ted Castronova Whatever anyone knows is known by no one. —Emerson Scott Boolard *** This does not reflect the actual opinions of its author. *** Stave I I am a professor. I had a thought to write an essay. It was to be about Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. I was walking across campus thinking about my essay. Some students …
Ted Castronova In Mother Night Vonnegut finally unleashes a long-held rage directly at its target: The Second World War. Many people see WWII as horrible because of what Germans did. They tend to overlook what Russians, English, and Americans did. Vonnegut can’t, because he was witness to what American and British bombs did to German civilians. As an American POW, …
Ted Castronova Who’s in charge, anyway? We believe that we have free will, but perhaps we are under the control of a higher being. What if that being is under the control of another being? Who is under the control of another, and so on and so on? Andrew Dabrowski of Indiana University’s mathematics department has developed a metaphysical theory …
A reflection on Vonnegut’s Player Piano Ted Castronova The Greek god Proteus changes like the sea. He can tell the future, but only if you can capture him. This is hard to do, because Proteus can change form at will, water to serpent to tree to lion to water. Changing with context: something we all do. Game researchers talk about …
