We might end up with new concrete objects to think with, but the real prize, in the end, is how we rethink the world.

The contingent and representational nature of the modeling act is elided,

Bruce Horn, one of the precocious teens recruited to test Smalltalk, would go on to join the LRG staff, where he contributed to Smalltalk. He later joined Apple and helped design the original Macintosh.109 By describing kids like Horn as a “‘hacker phenomenon,’”110 Kay inadvertently points to another impediment: their designs targeted an idealized

this chapter examines SimCity’s holding power using four play frames: playmate, toy, construction set, and game.

“America: Alternative Futures,” a two-hour documentary

This book uses SimCity to ask a question: How do people put the world in a machine?

The principal critique of SimCity is that it harbors a “‘hidden curriculum.’”5 In this appraisal, players unconsciously naturalize invisible assumptions, many of which are problematic. Which assumptions are nefarious depends, of course, on one’s own worldview, which is the sharp point of this critique: simulations ought to make their inner workings

who wanted unpredictable complexity to emerge from precisely crafted rules.

Translating one domain into another, finding the analogy that snugly fits both, and highlighting the appropriate concepts is a profoundly creative process.