Free

Edward Castronova

It's official: Starting Fall 04, I'll be moving to the Telecommunications Department at Indiana University.

The job title is Associate Professor of Telecommunications, making it the fourth different professorial title I've had since grad school (after Public Policy, Political Science, and most recently Economics). Duties: do research on virtual worlds; give presentations on virtual worlds; hold classes on virtual worlds. You can imagine how I feel about that. :)

I'll update contact info when I move, which should be in June. My current addresses will forward for some time.

Some news for students: At IU I'll be able to mentor graduate students (at last!). If you're in a position to go to grad school and you want to make virtual worlds and games part of your professional life, you might want to think about applying to IU Telecomm's grad programs. They offer MA, MS, JD/MA or JD/MS (with the IU Law School), and PhD degrees. Worth special mention: There's a Master's level program, MIME, devoted specifically to game design. I'd be happy to give you advice about your plans; just ask.

Hoosier undergrads: The Telecommunications Department offers a certificate in "New Media and Interactive Storytelling" (that's code language for 'videogame design'), for non-TC majors. Also, this fall I'll be teaching a no-pre-req course, Telecomm 101 "Living in the Information Age;" I'll give it a heavy new media and interactive storytelling focus (lots of stuff on games). I'll also make it really hard, FYI. No free lunches. Hopefully, I'll be giving that course every semester. This fall I'll also be giving an upperclass seminar-style course in Virtual Worlds, but only for Telecomm majors and grad students. I think that one is already full, however.

Finally, I'll be trying to schedule a PhD Seminar course in Virtual Worlds ASAP. Through a consortium agreement, grad students at any Big Ten campus or the University of Chicago could visit Bloomington for one semester to take it. Let me know if you are interested and I'll keep you on a notification list.

OK, so why is the headline 'Free'? Because this job also marks my entry into tenured status. That means intellectual freedom and job security, two things that remain scarce despite the onward march of technology and civilization.

Here's what I would like to say with my first breath of free air:

MATH IS BORING AND STUPID AND HAS ONLY A LIMITED PLACE IN THE DISCUSSION OF HUMAN AFFAIRS. PEOPLE ARE NOT NEUTRONS. HUMAN RATIONALITY IS AN EVOLUTIONARY AFTERTHOUGHT, SOMETHING THAT DOES LITTLE MORE THAN OCCASIONALLY MODIFY BEHAVIORS THAT STEM FROM UNCONSCIOUS AND ALOGICAL IMPULSES. THE TIME I SPENT LEARNING ALL THOSE MATHEMATICAL/ECONOMIC MODELS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR HAS HAD SUCH A LOW PAYOFF IN TERMS OF GENERAL UNDERSTANDING THAT, WELL, UNTIL I GET A REFUND, I AM GOING TO REMAIN PISSED OFF.

Whew! That felt great. I've been wanting to say that since the second day of grad school, back in August 1986.

OK, look, I'm into games and human behavior; I thought economics was cool because it offered these simple abstractions that aided communication of ideas. But that's basically Economics and Game Theory 101; the cathedral of wierdness that's been piled up on that foundation is just not interesting to me.

I'm also not interested in using my alleged expertise in online economics and business to earn millions running virtual stock markets.

Nope, from now on, I just want to talk about games qua games and how they affect what we do and how we feel. And my dream is to energize a whole community of like-minded people, at IU and beyond, starting this fall.