Whining douchebags have their way in the not-so-real world too.

Yeah, so I play Warcraft. What's your game? I've been playing off and on for a few years now. Some of you may wonder why a grown man like Jonesy would waste his time immersed in an imaginary world. Well, somedays it beats the hell out of the real one. Where else can one antagonize others weaker than himself only to beat the ever living shit out of the target and loot his corpse - without ever having to move to Sudan or seek employment at a Human Rights Commission?

For those of you who have no idea what Warcraft is, I'll give you the Readers Digest version - it's like Dungeons and Dragons on LSD. In the World (and it is a world...with continents complete with local economies and stuff) of Warcraft, there are essentially two styles of play. The first style requires players to successfully complete various quests throughout the land in return for experience, gold and gear. The second method is called Player versus Player (PvP). Like any other nerdy imaginary world, Warcraft has a good side (Alliance) and a bad one (Horde). PvP requires players from each side within comparable level brackets to team up and beat the ever living crap out of each other. Can you figure what style of play Jonesy digs? Here's an example from YouTube:



Long ago, when Jonesy went to school I understood that even though my class mates and I were all more or less equal with respect to age, size and life experiences, there were always one or two kids in the schoolyard that I absolutely did not screw with. It just didn't matter what the hell I did, they were much better than me at anything because they possessed some sort of attribute that I did not. These were the kids who ran the yard, that was the reality and nobody argued it. When I got a little older I discovered that hard work and determination were the only means to achieve the attributes I needed in order to separate myself from the rest of the sheep.

I am reminded of a time a few years ago when my son was having issues with an asshole kid in his class. Dinnertime conversation always wound up being about what the little bugger had done to my son that day and ended with tears and my wife's nugget of wisdom - tell the teacher. Most days, the asshole kid would torment my son, my son would tell the teacher and the teacher would inform the kid's parents who ultimately did nothing because the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. After a few months of that bullshit, I had enough.

Let me tell you that my kid's a fair size and not that much of a slouch. The problem was the programming he had received from his teachers and my wife (another teacher by trade) had panzified my son to the point of blubbering helplessness. I felt that it was time to do my part as a father so I taught my son a very important life lesson about dealing with assholes...it sort of went like this:



Yep, some people you just can't reach. The little bastard that was tormenting my kid was one of them, in spite of the vigorous panzification agenda by the school board. It was also clear that the school was either ill-equipped or unwilling to rectify the situation. Swift and blinding violence was in order and I helped my son discover the tools of the trade. I also made sure that he understood his right to defend himself and exactly what is an appropriate level of violence - in other words, I clearly defined his boundaries.

It was not long before the asshole kid accosted my son in the hallway at school. After striking my son from behind and having grabbed him by his collar, my son administered swift blunt force trauma to the asshole's testicles which left the little bugger sucking wind on the hallway floor. Aside from a phone call from an apoplectic principal, that was the last we ever heard about that kid.

The point I'm making is that one should understand their boundaries so that they can be best exploited in order for one to achieve the best possible outcome within any given situation. If one cannot maximize their potential within their boundaries, they must first identify their shortcomings and then work toward improving their attributes in order to increase their potential. The designers of Warcraft had this concept down pat. With a lot of determination and hard work at the game, one could develop a character that kicks serious ass when compared to a character of the same level belonging to a casual player. Maybe that's why I dug PvP so much - it reminded me of my schoolyard days and a time when being better, stronger and faster than others was an important value.

Unfortunately, for people like me, the game's designers have recently gotten more in touch with their pansy side. As a result, they have modified the game parameters so that tweaked out players who have worked hard at building their toons are now more equal to the scrubs who have not made any investment. My bet is that they were tired of hearing scrubs whine about how they were continually outclassed and subsequently pwn'ed in the battlegrounds so the company decided the best solution would be to make everyone more or less equal.

Does that ring a bell with anyone? Nobody fails in my kids' school. Hell, I've recently had my university programmes dumbed down in the middle of a semester just to improve the curve because the majority of the students had no business being there in the first place. I can't wait to work with some of these morons. The sad thing is that economically, redistribution of wealth ensures that nobody fails in the real world either.

Yep, this is the new world order and it even applies to the imaginary ones as well. Success and betterment is frowned upon and now it seems that, in the real world at least, it is punishable. Determination and hard work is irrelevant. There is no longer any point in being better than your peers, since the playing field gets levelled anyway. Instead of encouraging the individual to work hard we instead make it easier for everyone by changing the rules.