EP40: War Games (ft. Tanner Mirrlees)

11/12/21 • 50 min

Why are there so many war games? They exploded in popularity post 9/11. Maybe you’ve played some of them. Or all of them. SOCOM: US Navy Seals. Call of Duty. Battlefield. Splinter Cell—and the entire deep library of Tom Clancy games. There’s plenty more, too. This ain’t just a story about the free market and our own proclivities—it’s the state. Games have a long history of being developed by, with, and for the military. From the earliest DARPA-funded projects at public universities, to today’s DOD-subsidized military/corporate partnerships. This week on Darts and Letters, Tanner Mirrlees, associate professor in the Communication and Digital Media Studies Program at Ontario Tech University and author of Hearts and Mines: The US Empire’s Culture Industry, joins us as we plunge headlong into the history of the militainment industrial complex, to understand the militarization of gaming and the gamification of war.

——————-FURTHER READING AND LISTENING——————

Visit Tanner Mirrlees’ academic page and scroll through his research, including his piece on Medal of Honor, his article on Socom: Navy Seals, and his look at the depiction of Muslims in post-9/11 wargames. Also, check out his 2013 book Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization.
For more, see his work for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on Power, Privilege and Resistance in the Digital Age.

——————-SUPPORT THE SHOW————————-

We need your support. If you like what you hear, chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. Patreon subscribers usually get the episode a day early, and sometimes will also receive bonus content.

Don’t have the money to chip in this week? Not to fear, you can help in other ways. For one: subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. It helps other people find our work.

—————————-CONTACT US————————-

To stay up to date, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Also, we have a new YouTube channel, where some videos of these interviews will be available next week.

If you’d like to write to us, email [email protected] or tweet Gordon directly.

—————————-CREDITS—————————-

Darts and Letters is hosted and edited by Gordon Katic. Our lead producer is Jay Cockburn. Our managing producer is Marc Apollonio. David Moscrop is our research assistant and wrote the show notes.

Our theme song and music was created by Mike Barber, our graphic design was created by Dakota Koop, and our marketing was done by Ian Sowden.

This is a production of Cited Media. And we are backed by academic grants that support mobilizing research and democratizing the concept of public intellectualism. The founding academic advisor of the program is Professor Allen Sens at the University of British Columbia. This episode was also part of a wider series looking at the politics of video games, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and housed at the University of British Columbia and Waterloo University.

Darts and Letters is produced in Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples.

——————-FURTHER READING AND LISTENING——————

Visit Tanner Mirrlees’ academic page and scroll through his research, including his piece on Medal of Honor, his article on Socom: Navy Seals, and his look at the depiction of Muslims in post-9/11 wargames. Also, check out his 2013 book Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization.
For more, see his work for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on Power, Privilege and Resistance in the Digital Age.

——————-SUPPORT THE SHOW————————-

Don’t have the money to chip in this week? Not to fear, you can help in other ways. For one: subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. It helps other people find our work.

—————————-CONTACT US————————-

To stay up to date, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Also, we have a new YouTube channel, where some videos of these interviews will be available next week.

If you’d like to write to us, email [email protected] or tweet Gordon directly.

—————————-CREDITS—————————-

Darts and Letters is hosted and edited by Gordon Katic. Our lead producer is Jay Cockburn. Our managing producer is Marc Apollonio. David Moscrop is our research assistant and wrote the show notes.

Our theme song and music was created by Mike Barber, our graphic design was created by Dakota Koop, and our marketing was done by Ian Sowden.

Darts and Letters is produced in Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples.

Previous Episode

EP39: Three Corporations in a Trenchcoat (ft. Matt Stoller & Dwayne Winseck)

If you eat, use a cell phone, connect to the internet, open a bank account, down a pint, or pick up a prescription in Canada, you’re probably experiencing the country’s familiar brand of oligopoly and monopoly. It’s arguably worse than the US. We’re basically three corporations in a trenchcoat. This arrangement means we unfortunately have to follow the moves of our corporate overlords–because really, these folks run the joint. Recently, the Succession-style drama surrounding the Rogers family, owners of one of the country’s major telecom companies, has at least provided us all some entertainment. This week on Darts and Letters, we look at monopoly and anti-monopoly, how corporate concentration affects Canada’s communications system, the global supply chain, and politics on both sides of the border.

First (@7:23), Canada does capitalism old school–neo-feudal style, led by dynastic families. Dwayne Winseck is Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University and the director of the Canadian Media Concentration Project. He takes us through the Rogers family kerfuffle, the autocracy of our corporate governance structures, the researchers/hired guns who fill our public policy space with nonsense, and the absurdity of oligarchical capitalism dominating our gutless politics.
Then (@33:02) what do broken McDonald’s ice cream machines tell us about monopoly? A lot, in fact. Matt Stoller is the author of the Substack Big and the book Goliath: The 100–Year War Between Monopoly, Power, and Democracy. Stoller also explains how monopolies exacerbate global supply chain crises, discusses Biden’s legislative agenda, and tells us about the history of monopoly-friendly intellectuals (on the right and the left).

——————-FURTHER READING AND LISTENING——————

Visit Dwayne Winseck’s Canadian Media Concentration Project and his blog, For more, see his academic page.
Go deeper into the proposed Rogers-Shaw merger with Winseck’s co–written piece with Ben Klass and Bianca Wylie. Also, read Winseck and Klass’s argument against the merger submitted to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, The Great Reversal: Why the Rogers–Shaw Merger is a Raw Deal and Regulators Should Deny It.
Read more on the Rogers family drama here and peruse the CRTC submissions on the Shaw-Rogers merger from Bell and Rogers.
Sign up for Matt Stoller’s Substack, Big and read his entry on counterfeit capitalism and his ShortageWatch. Also, be sure to check out his book Goliath: The 100–Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. And for more, head over to his webpage for more articles, videos, and plenty of other stuff. For more still, read “America Faces Supply–Chain Disruption and Shortages: Here’s Why.”
Listen to Stoller’s Radio Open Source appearances “Five Stones for Goliath” and “Monopoly vs. Democracy.” Plus, check out his article for The Chronicle “It’s Time to Break Up the Ivy League Cartel.”

——————-SUPPORT THE SHOW————————-

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Next Episode

EP24: Darts and Lasers (ft. Cory Doctorow, Nalo Hopkinson, & Batya Weinbaum) [Rebroadcast]

Note: Hey all, We’re on break this week as we rest up and prepare for more top-notch programming, so this week’s episode is a rebroadcast of one of our favourites.

It’s stardate 99040.01 and lead producer Jay Cockburn is temporarily taking over command of Darts and Letters for an episode. This week we enter the world of science fiction, revealing how it’s long been a vehicle for radical thought We dig into post-scarcity, Afrofuturism, and feminist speculative fiction as we set our phasers to fun and go where no podcast has gone before.

First (@11:37), Cory Doctorow is a journalist, activist, blogger, and author of many books including the post-scarcity speculative fiction novel Walkaway. He takes us through the idea of a post-scarcity world as he breaks down the idea of abundance and what we might do with it, or not.
Then, (@34:44), Nalo Hopkinson is a science fiction writer, editor, professor, and author of Brown Girl in the Ring. She talks to us about Afrofuturism as a critical lens and different ways of seeing the future for different communities — and re-imagining the present. Plus, be sure to read her own recommendation: Sister Mine.
Finally, (@50:27), Batya Weinbaum is a poet, artist, professor, and the editor of FemSpec, an academic journal of feminist speculative fiction. She charts the history of feminism in science fiction and how art, including novels, helps drive social, political, and economic change.

——————-FURTHER READING AND LISTENING——————-

Check out Cory Doctorow’s blog site Craphound, including the shop where you can buy his books, including Walkaway, which is featured in this episode. Also have a look at this latest book, Attack Surface.
Visit Nalo Hopkinson’s homepage, including the list of her books and her Patreon. You can pick up Brown Girl in the Ring through her publisher’s site or wherever books are sold.
Dig into the interdisciplinary feminist journal FemSpec, edited by Batya Weinbaum and visit her Google Scholar page to peruse her many academic articles.
We mentioned a number of books in this episode you may want to check out, including Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Iain M. Banks’ the Culture series.

—————————-CONTACT US————————-

To stay up to date, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. If you’d like to write to us, email [email protected] or tweet Gordon directly.

——————-SUPPORT THE SHOW——————-

We need your support. If you like what you hear, chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters.

—————————-CREDITS—————————-

Darts and Letters is hosted and edited by Gordon Katic; this week our guest host and lead producer is Jay Cockburn. Gordon Katic is our editor. Our managing producer is Marc Apollonio. Our research assistants this week are Addye Susnick and David Moscrop. Our theme song was created by Mike Barber. Our graphic design was created by Da...