Games and the Future of Man. Gamification as a Transhumanist Program

Article
Open Access
by Kamil Kleszczynski1
1 University of Zielona Góra (Zielona Góra, Poland)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29202/fhi/12/4
Received: September 19, 2019 / Accepted: October 22, 2019 / Published: November 10, 2019

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Abstract

This article deals with the question of how games can affect people’s future. The author claims that the main mechanism of this influence is gamification. The features of this process make it a way of preparing people to function in reality created as a result of the development of digital technologies. It is possible to indicate three main areas of the realization of this function of gamification. The first one is progressive virtualization, resulting in the disappearance of reality and multiplication of man’s ways of existence. Gamification teaches how to function in these conditions. The second is the need for constant auto-creation, resulting from the rapidly changing economic and social conditions. Gamification works well here, which can be seen, for example, when it connects with self-tracking. The third is the disappearance of the meaning of life, which is the result of devaluation of various activities in the world of constant change and technical progress satisfying more and more human needs. Here gamification works as a meaning generator, a kind of prosthesis for activities, the performance of which has already lost its external justification. These three aspects form the basis for the recognition that gamification is a kind of transhumanist program that binds human development to technological development.

Keywords: transhumanism, gamification, virtualization, auto-creation, utopia, video games

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Kleszczynski, Kamil (2019) Games and the Future of Man. Gamification as a Transhumanist Program. Future Human Image, Volume 12, 53-63. https://doi.org/10.29202/fhi/12/4
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