How games can make the world a better place - Jane McGonigal

Berkeley grad (Go Bears!) Jane McGonical mentions four characteristics of gamers that she believes make a case for designing games that will save the world. These are: 

• urgent optimism - You act on an obstacle you believe has a reasonable chance of success of completion.
• tight social fabric - We like people better after we play with them because we can trust them to follow the rules and know that we have the same goals. 
• blissful productivity - people prefer to work over relaxing and hanging out when they're doing something that they like.
• epic meaning - Gamers love saving the galaxy from the dragon or what have you.

McGonigal mentions how, during a famine, the ancient Lydians decided to play a game one day and eat another day. She said they did this for 18 years until the king decided to play one final game, split the kingdom in half and send the loser of this game somewhere else so the rest could eat. The losers eventually became the Romans.

I share McGonigal's goal of wanting to save the world, but I don't like that the four characteristics she mentions are limited to the game world, probably because I'm not a gamer like she is. So what about we non-gamers? We want to save the world too! I think we should harness those four characteristics (urgent optimism, tight social fabric, blissful productivity, and epic meaning) in other social environments like education and local politics. Serious problems don't have to be serious. Breaking down the problems we have and putting the pieces together in a larger context by asking "Does this work for everybody, not just for us?" can be fun. We just have to find out how.