Comments

Citzalia — 23 Comments

  1. First Farmville and now this!
    I always thought that we were headed towards an Orwellian existence but with this it seems that Aldous Huxley’s vision of the future is the clear winner.

  2. Oh fucking beam me up Scotty, NOW! This blog peice has been sent up to virtual reality land, aka it has been Twittered and Facebooked.
    Scotty, I’m still FUCKING WAITING!

  3. Robert – I don’t think the wildest imagination could have foretold the current mess.  Stop the world!  I want to get off.

    BigYin – Is this really going on?  Are they so fucking thick that they think this will make us happy, and educate us?  Please someone tell me it’s a joke?

  4. Grandad I don’t really understand what is going on in this world anymore, I really don’t. What is fact and what is fiction has now merged into Faction.
    Now I’m of for my meds, a cold beer, a smoke of some substance that’s deadlier than all the ‘prohibited’ drugs put together, tobacco, (not sure whether to light a pipe or roll a ciggy but as sure as hell is hell I’ll probably go from one to the other to boost my ‘what the fuck’ musings under their trance,) and a stand up slanging match with Mrs. Yin.
    The slanging match is optional by the way but I wouldn’t feel married without it!

  5. BigYin – When I think back to the world that existed a mere fifty or sixty years ago, that is when I get really frightened.  I really do think that the lunatics have taken over the asylum, and noone seems to have noticed.

    One thing that does cheer me though – I now seem to rank #1 in Google for “Citzalia”  Heh!

  6. “I now seem to rank #1 in Google for “Citzalia”  Heh!”
    Grandad I always knew, from the first time I came on this site, that you were a ranker.
    It is now my goal in life to be an ever bigger ‘ranker’ than thou…I’m getting there, slowly, the slower the better, but I am getting there!

  7. BigYin – I am a ranker of the highest order.  You’ll have to go a long way to catch me.  😉

    Haddock – “Doctor, Doctor!! I’m oozing from every oriface.  Please tell me it isn’t Citzalia!!”

  8. You clearly did not read the small print on the box. “Suitable for 2 through 7 year olds.”

  9. TT – “whether you are a student, a journalist, or even an MEP“.  Hmmmmm.  Yes.  You’re right.

  10. I don’t really know why they bothered tbh, I think most people find NationStates to be much better…

  11. TheChrisD – I don’t know NationStates [I lead a sheltered life].  All I can say is that from the screenshots I have seen so far, it reminds me of the games on the good old Sinclair Spectrum.

  12. “Yup.  Citzalia is a role playing computer game. ”
    NOPE! Citzalia is NOT a role playing game, but it is more a Social Network. The word game is used the wrong way i guess for this Website. As far as i understood, the site aim to link directly the citizen to the MEP’s, and vice versa.

  13. Well, I’d rather discuss eu politics on a “virtual” world than play “iraq invasion” in real life …
    Sure that finding proofs of WMD existence in order to justify this total mess was a real act of democracy  and a good usage of tax payer’s money and blood.
    @tt : was was stated on the “operation freedom” wargame box again ? Er yes, “suitable to die between 18 and 20”
    @TheBigYin : Sorry, haven’t used the F word once, hope you don’t find this too rude …
     

  14. Welcome, YesWeCITZ.  Correct me if I am wrong, but if this site is to link the citizen to the MEP, then by implication, the MEP has to sit all day playing the game at their end?  This is either patent nonsense, or else the vast budgets that the EU consumes is going to be wasted even more [if possible], paying MEPs to sit in front of their computers all day playing games.

  15. Welcome BunnyHop.  Quite honestly, I would be much happier if both the Iraq ‘War’ and the EU vanished from the pages of history.  Both are a fiasco.  Of course, the two have a few things in common – the public didn’t ask for either yet Joe Public has to fork out massive taxes to fund them.

  16. @Grandad, you should know that an MEP has assistants, Spoke persons, and other ppl around to help him in the daily work. Of course it will be not the MEP in person, but a spokesman, that eventually will call the MEP to answer where he/she can’t. Again, it is not a game, it is more like a social network. We won’t see MEPs playing (or their representatives), but debating issues.

  17. YesWeCITZ – So I would be talking to some faceless bureaucrat and not my MEP?  Do you honestly expect me to believe that any MEP is going to take this game seriously?  Are they and their staff seriously going to go through all the suggestions and maybe even act on them?  No.  I’m sorry but I see this as a very cynical exercise in trying to convince the citizens of Europe that the EU is a democratic organisation, and that we all have a ‘voice’.
    Incidentally, you say this isn’t a role playing game, yet the Citzalia blog clearly uses the words “there is a role for you to play in this virtual version of the European Parliament“.  Role?  Play?  Not role playing?

  18. Lol, I have yet to find a fat joke that doesn’t make me laugh…esp when it concerns Harney.

  19. @grandad, a “role game” is something different than ‘there is a role to play’. in the common role game you are either a dragon, or a masked rider fighting other players. Here the ROLE you PLAY is YOURSELF in the virtual parliament. And you do not ride horses, but you debate issues, real issues…
    “Are they and their staff seriously going to go through all the suggestions and maybe even act on them?” well… yes… this is the purpose…

  20. Its a colossal joke … the idea that a citizen of Europe has a say in the running of the European Institutions is  a major laugh so they’ve done the obvious thing and made it into a  role playing game.

    Helps to add to the idea that one is involved. I’d like to see a game that is based around ‘Finding Your MEP In Brussels or Starsbourg Once They’ve Clocked In On A Friday Morning’.

    That’d be a toughie on so many levels.

  21. YesWeCITZ – Leaving aside the semantics of ‘role playing’, I now find the whole concept even more disturbing.  This is wrong on so many levels, that I don’t honestly know where to start.  I’m not knocking the game itself [I gather you work in ESN?], but the whole idea of speanding at least a quarter of a million on something that is fundamentally useless is repugnent to me.

    Recently the UK government launched a website asking people what laws they would like to see repealed/amended.  There were hundreds of suggestion, yet the UK government have admitted that they are not going to repeal or amend a single law.  I can see Citzalia ending up as an equally disfuncional monument to token democracy.

  22. @Grandad, probably it will ends up like many experimental websites that have been published on the net the last years. Probably it will be another example of lost opportunity to do something constructive. i can write another hundreds pessimistic ‘probably’.
    But… probably not!
    And i think ESN team believes in this. So let’s see what they will come out with.

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