{"id":62756,"date":"2015-08-24T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=62756"},"modified":"2015-08-22T14:16:13","modified_gmt":"2015-08-22T13:16:13","slug":"most-disgusting-game-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/08\/most-disgusting-game-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Most Disgusting Game Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No, I\u2019m not referring to the U.S. election. I\u2019m referring to \u201cBycatch.\u201d The name refers not to fish accidentally caught and killed while trying to catch and kill other fish, but to humans murdered in a game in which the player hopes to murder certain other humans but knows that he or she stands a good chance of murdering some bycatch.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bycatch-swanson-pentagon-drones-usa-collateral.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-62757\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bycatch-swanson-pentagon-drones-usa-collateral.jpg\" alt=\"bycatch swanson pentagon drones usa collateral\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>The Nazis never reached this height of banality in the general German public, but had they done so it would be a sinister feature of tens of thousands of Hollywood movies. If Russians sat around playing a board game that involved blowing up Ukrainian children, the <em>Washington Post<\/em> would have already published several front-page articles.<\/p>\n<p>This is a game that puts you in the shoes of one particular human being, thus far, but imagines several engaging in the same activity in competition. In Bycatch you become Barack Obama going through his Tuesday murder list. But Bycatch imagines as many nations as people playing the game, each engaging in a drone murder spree against the others. Here\u2019s an excerpt from the rules:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow to strike<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSuspects hiding in other nations can be eliminated by means of a strike. You choose the opponent you wish to target and go through these steps:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDiscard two identical citizens who are not suspects from your hand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRemove three consecutive citizens from your chosen opponent\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShow these cards to the other players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlace them face down in front of you.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFailed Strike: If none of the eliminated citizens are suspects, they are all collateral damage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSuccessful Strike: If at least one eliminated citizen is a suspect, do the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Place the current intelligence card face \u2028down on top of the eliminated citizens.<\/li>\n<li>Reveal a new intelligence card.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThe remaining citizens are collateral damage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thrilling! I wonder how one wins such a game of easy murder?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAdd 100 points for each suspect eliminated by a strike. Use the intelligence cards to identify eliminated suspects.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCollateral Damage: Detract 10 points for each citizen in a strike who was not a suspect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bycatch-swanson-pentagon-drones-usa-collateral2.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-62758\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bycatch-swanson-pentagon-drones-usa-collateral2.jpg\" alt=\"bycatch swanson pentagon drones usa collateral2\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>So, if you casually murder three \u201cwrong\u201d people, you lose 30 points. But if you only murder two \u201cwrong\u201d people and murder one \u201cright\u201d person, you gain 80 points. I wonder what people will do?<\/p>\n<p>This is a game to be played by well-off people who can afford to purchase such crap and to sit around playing with it. And it\u2019s being marketed to them with a wink by people who know better. The game\u2019s would-be profiteers have this to say about it:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAppealing artwork helps you empathize with your citizens and the horrors of drone strikes and collateral damage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Right. Because tossing lives around on playing cards and making more points the more you murder is a well-established path to empathy.<\/p>\n<p>I thought I couldn\u2019t grow any more disgusted with the human race. I was wrong.<\/p>\n<p>________________________________<\/p>\n<p><em>David Swanson is the author of <\/em>War Is A Lie<em> and <\/em>Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union<em>. He holds a master&#8217;s degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia and has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich&#8217;s 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/acorn.org\" >ACORN<\/a>. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/davidswanson.org\" >http:\/\/davidswanson.org<\/a> <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/warisacrime.org\" >http:\/\/warisacrime.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Nazis never reached this height of banality in the general German public, but had they done so it would be a sinister feature of tens of thousands of Hollywood movies. If Russians sat around playing a board game that involved blowing up Ukrainian children, the Washington Post would have already published several front-page articles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}