The Philosophy of No Man's Sky

For starter's it feels great to be contributing to this budding new platform. I hope to contribute to it's ongoing success and to really shape the world that I hope to one day see! A little bio about myself, I'm a contractor for Hewlett Packard, and a 3rd year computer engineering students at the University of New Mexico. I have a vested interest in the philosophy and integration of technology forward in the lives of human beings.

So, with the same sort of sentiment lets go over the philosophy of No Man's Sky. This game was one of the most anticipated science-fiction exploration action type games of 2016. In fact many were regarding it as the quintessential game that will change gaming forever and ever and that procedural generation in games would be the new business model. While it is quite amusing to think of that game being so important to the industry now that it is released to... well... probably one of the worst received games in recent years. From the questionable business practices of Hello Games, to the missing online mode that everyone was hoping would be in the final product, No Man's Sky is in some deep shit at the moment. However, there may be some saving graces from the game that might vary well be the spark to ignite an entire generation of explorers, and I mean the "We come in peace!" type of explorer.

No Man's Sky in reality is about a lost astronaut, who doesn't seem to remember where they came from or who they are. We the player's explore the universe (hopping planet to planet) searching for artifacts dating back millions of years, in hopes that we find clues as to what civilization we belong to and maybe even reunite back home. There is resource monitoring, engineering, maintaining good relations for economic success, and good old fashion exploration.

One of the startling realities of No Man's Sky is how empty it all feels. A lot of gamer's were upset at the lack of life in the game and that it all just felt empty, boring, and rather uninteresting. The vary reality of space exploration in our universe is vary much the same thing. As of right now we human beings are alone as a dominant civilization in our vary small universe (basically what we've explored thus far). When we embark on expeditions to other worlds we are going to begin feeling the sense that life really is rare in the universe, compared to non-habitable planets that is. And when we finally do make our first contact, who's to say it isn't some early amphibian that just left water 4 earth days ago just on the brink of flourishing life. We will be alone, we will be alone for a vary long time moving forward as well, and until we meet a civilization similar or a level up on us we will feel pretty isolated as an intelligent species.

No Man's Sky teaches us that in the wild throws of space, that managing life sustaining resources is a must. I argue that this can be applied to life on earth today as well. In deep space you have absolutely no one to rely on other than yourself and how resourceful you are. The old saying of "don't put all your eggs in one basket" still holding true. In the event of a true disaster from hostile ships attacking you while you mine asteroids to the vary real volatility of the stock market. Whole business models on untested mediums that fail all the time, we rely on retail markets to supply our food, we rely quite heavily on other people and devices without batting an eye at the real inner workings of our vary own lives. This is a disaster in terms of an educated society, would you be able to survive, and not only survive but thrive in a world after global markets crash? How are you preparing to rebuild society if you have to? How are you preparing to thrive on nothing but your own resourcefulness? If your having a hard time coming up with plausible answers to those questions your in real trouble. Better to have and not need, than need and not have.

Finally, my favorite topic, engineering. In No Man's Sky we see some uncommon phyics concepts being introduced to a relatively large population. I commend Hello Games for this feat, and I hope more games follow suite. The crafting system may be simplistic in terms of what actually happens at the subatomic level for some of the substances and technologies players can build but it does start a dialog. How do we jump from one star system to another? What happens when we find antimatter? How do we maintain a research colony on planets? How do we manage resource responsibly to not harm life on that planet? If these questions begin to enter young gamer's minds who knows how bright our future could be?

To Long Didn't Read (TLDR); Basically the philosophy of No Man's Sky is that of vast insignificance of humans in our modern universe. We as a civilization could be wiped out in one go, we need to spread our civilization across the stars, and hope that one day our children don't suffer from forever exploring our milky way in hopes of finding their heritage and never finding an ounce of human history. We need to be forward thinkers now more than ever. We need to adopt new technologies with open arms and use those tools to build up on our selves, and our ambitions. In the, how will we leave our mark on the universe? No Man's Sky is a shoddy reminder that we need to up or scientific and civilization game. If we hope to avert certain annihilation we have to colonize new worlds, we have to go on adventures out in deep space. To traverse the unknown, but with tools that can help us survive, and we can start today by adopting a scientific philosophy. We as a species need to invest in new useful technologies, new paradigms in communication, and broaden the horizon for our children. As our knowledge of our universe bubble grows, the diameter of what we are about to discover grows, and we realize we didn't know as much as we once thought.