Books Are Good, But People Watch Movies

The libertarian world has been doing a good job writing and publishing in economics, history, and philosophy. But to reach a wider audience, we need to go where the people are. For one thing, people read much more fiction than nonfiction. J. Neil Schulman’s Alongside Night is an excellent example of the possibilities for libertarian fiction. And now there’s a move to get his book adapted into a motion picture. Fiction writing and the movies are two areas where we are getting killed. We’re not even putting up a fight. A project like this can change that.

Alongside Night, with major endorsements from Ron Paul and Milton Friedman, its libertarian awards and rave reviews, and the intention of Free to Choose media to use the film in its teaching modules distributed to high schools, is an extremely rare opportunity to make inroads into the mass entertainment media. It would be great to see people of means get behind this important project.

Jim

While I am not a “person of means” I thank you for pointing out this book. I’ll do what I can to help get it to film. I actually had not heard of it before. I am a Heinlein fan so I think I’ll enjoy this book as well since it seems to be in the same vein. Thanks for making me aware of it and the potential for a film.
Dr. E

People also play videogames! Here’s a videogame whose title was inspired by Richard Weaver: SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CREATING EXALTED VIDEO GAMES AND VIRTUAL REALITIES WHEREIN IDEAS HAVE –and the Gold 45 Revolver is emblazoned with Ludwig von Mises’s favorite quote from Virgil:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DrElliotMcGucken/20090708/2305/The_Gold_45_Revolver__Ideas_Have_Consequences__Moral_Premise_InnovationsTechnologyGames.php

http://www.google.com/patents?id=aAuzAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

libertariangames.blogspot.com/

onelastcontinue.com/9136/vampire-zombie-communist-hookers-patent-it/

“McGucken’s philosophical core seems to support a mix of (sometimes contradicting) ethical and metaphysical systems, favoring our Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, Jesus Christ, Ron Paul, Ayn Rand, Homer, Socrates, and anyone who can take a magic golden .45 to the head of a Marxist Undead and pull the trigger.

What’s scary, for me, is that this might be exactly what gamers want. A blend of Neo-Classicism, Objectivism, Libertarianism, Christianity, and red-blooded vigilantism is at the core of plenty of the games that McGucken says we should move away from. Kratos, the protagonist of God of War, is damned near the embodiment of “No Gods or Kings, only Man.” Red Faction: Guerrilla seems to draw more on McGucken’s mix of ideas than on Marx’s. Resurrection fantasies run throughout gaming genres, from FPSes like Painkiller to RPGs like Xenogears (which, on second thought, Dr. McGucken must have written.)

While I feel trepidation in calling out a guy from Princeton who is curing blindness with virtual reality I have to say, there are a few holes here. Look, over and over it seems like what you’re saying is “Do what I feel is right and just or else lose the game.” Turning games into morality plays is a flame that developers Bethesda and BioWare have danced around without burning their wings, allowing for varied ethical systems to come into play and allowing the player to make their own judgments. Ideas of euthanasia, security vs freedom, centralized power, and eugenics are at the core of countless “choice” driven games, and what makes them great is the fact that neither path ends in denial.”

Abstract:
A video game method and system for creating games where ideas have consequences, incorporating branching paths that correspond to a player’s choices, wherein paths correspond to decisions founded upon ideals, resulting in exalted games with deeper soul and story, enhanced characters and meanings, and exalted gameplay. The classical hero’s journey may be rendered, as the journey hinges on choices pivoting on classical ideals. Ideas that are rendered in word and deed will have consequences in the gameworld. Historical events such as The American Revolution may be brought to life, as players listen to famous speeches and choose sides. As great works of literature and dramatic art center around characters rendering ideals real, both internally and externally, in word and deed, in love and war, the present invention will afford video games that exalt the classical soul, as well as the great books, classics, and epic films–past, present, and future.
Claims:
1. A method for creating video games and virtual realities wherein ideas have consequences.

2. The method in claim 1 where said ideas are rooted in classical, epic precepts such as those found in the Great Books and Classics, and exalted at the pinnacles of Western culture and history.

3. The method in claim 1 where said ideas are manifested in the words the player or non-player characters, write, speak, read, disseminate, congregate about, fight for, and/or associate with.

4. The method in claim 1 where said ideas are manifested in the actions the player, non-player characters, and/or monsters act out.

5. The method in claim 1 where said ideas spread like viruses, by being spoken, written, or disseminated in some other manner, transforming characters who come in contact with said ideas into vampires, zombies, or other forms of monsters.

6. The method in claim 1 where said ideas spread like viruses, by being spoken, written, or disseminated in some other manner, transforming characters who come in contact with said ideas into vampires, zombies, or other forms of monsters, and where said vampires, zombies, and monsters may be saved or converted back to normal by coming in contact with ideas that oppose the ideas that made them vampires, zombies, and other forms of monsters.

7. The method in claim 1 where said ideas must be fought for via words and dialogue, before they have exalted consequences.

8. The method in claim 1 where said ideas must be fought for via deeds and actions, before they have exalted consequences.

9. The method in claim 1 where the player can fight for said ideas in word and deed, and witness the exalted consequences of those ideals, including liberty, freedom, and justice, when they succeed, and the dire consequences of tyranny, domination, and intimidation, when they fail to render exalted ideas, as ideas have consequences.

10. The method in claim 1 where the character can fight for said ideas such as marriage, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and right to life in word and deed, and witness the exalted consequences of those ideals, including a stable and enduring society should they succeed, and a declining, bankrupt civilization, should they fail.

11. The method in claim 1 where the character can battle for said ideas that are based upon classical moral and economic principles of famous philosophers, prophets, poets, statesmen, and economists including Plato, Moses, Jesus, Gandhi Sun Tzu, Buda, Jefferson, Aristotle, F. A. Hayek, Martin Luther King Jr., Homer, Ludwig Von Mises, Adam Smith, and others, and witness the consequences of both their success and failure of their battle, as the consequences are rendered in the game’s physical world.

12. The method in claim 1 where the character can battle for said ideas via both word and deed, using a combination of words and action, witnessing the consequences of their balance between word and deed, between reasoning and partaking in violence, thusly bringing to life epic classical works of film and literature wherein the hero must balance word and deed.

13. The method in claim 1 where fighting for said ideas in word and/or deed will have consequences regarding the operation of a weapon, which will operate at its full potential for the players and characters who are the most successful in serving ideals and ideas, and rendering them in word and deed.

14. The method in claim 1 wherein said ideas may be based upon Constitutional ideals and ideas underlying the American Founding, including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, sound currency, the right to bear arms, the freedom of speech, the right of the artist, author, and inventor to own their creations and inventions; and wherein the player could fight for sound money in word and deed and witness the consequences of their successes and failures, including liberty, wealth creation, capitalism, freedom, private property, peace, and prosperity or rapid inflation, deflation, theft via the inflation tax, massive debt, empire, long lines, wealth transfer to the rich, depressions, corruption, and war.

15. The method in claim 1 where the said ideas will be supported or opposed by in-game characters, and the player will have to choose how to interact with the said in-game characters, based on their ideas, including but not limited to whether or not to befriend them, agree with them, disagree with them, ignore them, recruit them, shoot them, save them, judge them, or forgive them.

16. The method in claim 1 where the said ideas are based upon the pivotal plot points of the great books and classics.

17. The method in claim 1 where said ideas spread like viruses, by being spoken, written, or disseminated in some other manner, transforming characters who come in contact with said ideas into vampires, zombies, or other forms of monsters; and when bad ideas have infected too many in-game characters, the consequences are dire, including the loss of life, liberty, happiness, freedom, and security.

18. The method in claim 1 wherein said ideas may be related to economics and monetary policy, and wherein the player could fight for sound money in words echoing the classical economists and deed and witness the consequences of their successes and failures, including liberty, freedom, peace and prosperity or rapid inflation, deflation, theft via the inflation tax, massive debt, empire, long lines, depressions, corruption, and war.

19. The method in claim 1 wherein moral ideas have moral consequences in the evolution of the gameworld.

20. The method in claim 1 where said ideas in the video game world are founded upon the natural ideas and ideals occurring at the plot points in great works of literature and film where a character must choose whether to serve an ideal or not serve an ideal, thusly rendering or not rendering ideals real by their actions, and influencing the greater outcome and state of the game world, as ideas have consequences.

21. The method in claim 1 where said ideas in the video game world are used to exalt the classic hero’s journey, and where a player’s success and progress at every stage or step or plot point of said hero’s journey is defined by said player’s service or disservice to said ideas and ideals, and where by said player’s serving said ideas and classical ideals, said hero’s journey advances towards ultimate victory and triumph, while by said character’s failing to serve said ideas and classical ideals, progress in said hero’s journey is retarded or reversed.

Read more: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090017886#ixzz15qnP0HXr
Dr. E

^^^ the title of the patent was truncated–it should read:

System and method for creating exalted video games and virtual realities wherein ideas have consequences.

Read more: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090017886#ixzz15rLTChaS “As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.” Thomas Jefferson

The American Revolution as Epic Narrative & a Video Game!
Can anyone think of reasons why a major publisher would be opposed to such games?

The American Revolution is a classic case of freedom–rebel forces uniting around freedom’s classical ideals and overthrowing the tyrant King George and his well-trained army of redcoats. The same theme played itself out in Star Wars, with the rebels facing off against the Empire’s superior, well-armored storm troopers. And the theme also played itself out in The Matrix and The Lord of The Rings. Now also, all of these examples are classical cases of the epic hero’s journey, whence the protagonists unite around common ideals and together face a much larger army for the sake of liberty and freedom.

Benjamin Franklin stated, “we must all hang together, or we will most certainly hang apart,” and this theme also played itself out in The Matrix where Morpheus risks his life for Neo who risks his life for Trinity who risks her life for Neo who risks his life for Morpheus.

At any rate, why not open a game version of the American Revolution with the player walking the streets, seeking out speeches exalting classical, epic, exalted ideals? This could easily be done with current game engines! To the degree they are successful in rounding up fellow countrymen and patriots, they will succeed in forming an entire army, as those that they round up in the beginning will be sent forth to round up the army, recruiting freedom-fighters with their exalted words!

There exists a plethora of exalted quotes in the public domain from the likes of Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, Locke, Smith, Cicero, Sydney, Plato, and Aristotle–why not exalt a game with such quotes; and weave them into the AI so that the more classical souls one recruits, the more successful their campaign. We can still have EA’s Dante’s Inferno and its giant vaginas and boobies and “visceral” baby-killing for the fanboys, but now and then, when one wants to man up and play a game with banned, soulful, revolutionary ideals; one can exalt The American Revolution as Epic Narrative & a Video Game!

The same such Gold 45 Revolver / Ideas Have Consequences / Moral Premise technologies could be applied to games based on Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm as well as The Matrix and Lord of The Rings, and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

I imagine we will see such games soon, as why not?
http://libertariangames.blogspot.com/
Neil

If you are looking for good libertarian fiction, check out this new release:

http://windswift.net/
Kieran

Dr. Woods,

Thank you for making this post. I was glad to read it because I am currently writing a novel with the goal of presenting a foundation of the philosophy of liberty and sound economics by presenting the fallacies of statism in addition to creating a dystopian setting with a utopian tone. However, I do not believe that writing any kind of fiction will work; instead, the writing must be highly satirical and comical for people to both enjoy it and transmit it. I figure that humor will sell the book.

What makes this incredibly easy for me to write is that all I have to do is read a major newspaper to find all the sources of hilarity that I need to supply my novel with ideas. I believe now all I need is to begin submitting chapters to people like Lew Rockwell (or you) to ideally get a fanbase going. I intend to post the first two (of four) sections to my book online for free, so that I might establish a readership. And, like any good capitalist, pursue publication, so that readers ideally buy it to finish the last two sections.

What do you think of my idea? I would appreciate any feedback you have to offer.

Respectfully,

Kieran
http://unproducedscreenplay.net/ My Screenplay

Hey Thomas, funny you say this because I’m a screenwriter myself and have written, Liberty, for just this reason. Liberty is my second screenplay. It’s a bit Brave Heart and a bit of The Postman, but in a good way. My first screenplay is on the verge of being bought and produced, but this one is more of my passion.

I wrote Liberty to illustrate (in an entertaining way) the future I fear lays ahead for us if we don’t change course. I believe it has a good story that will touch and excite people. I took Obama’s, “civilian police force” comment and ended up creating the antagonist for this film from it.

Here’s a synopsis; After multiple nuclear terrorist attacks and U.S. dollar destruction, America has become a tyrannical police state. Most liberties have been suspended and the civilian police force is created to control the population and seek out terrorists. A well known militia, named Liberty, led by their gifted warrior Alexander fight for a day when America can return to liberty.

You can actually read the entire thing here at my site below. I love your books and speeches. Thanks for all you do.

http://unproducedscreenplay.net