Friday, May 27, 2005

More Village Sim

Already more than 130 villagers have lived on my little island, half of them are still alive and working. Most that have died lived to ripe old ages of 70-80. Unfortunately, I have maxed out my population so any new births are just replacements for the old folks as they die.
They have completed 11 out of the 12 challenges set before them, although two of the challenges grate against my own Christian worldview. They took time to carve an idol and then there was the birth of the "Golden Child". The Golden Child is perpetually a child of 5 and has magical powers. The magical powers allowed the child to remove a boulder to an artifact cave that the entire village had been trying to move since the beginning.
Besides the mindless escapism of running my own world, it does get me to think about the parallels to our real world. It is definitely demotivating to hardwork when all your physical needs are abundantly supplied and you are limited by the size of your community. Now that nearly all the challenges are gone, the villagers stand around doing nothing but eating, procreating and burying the dead. Even their religious practice is empty and meaningless since they replace worship of the true God with worship of a rock they themselves have labored to carve. How much is this like our own society. How dreary.