A computer game that models \ the budget's tough decisions is serious fun: an exercise in participatory democracy

Can find a 20-year-old a way out of America 's budget impasse? When a new game, which recently debuted online is any indication, the answer is yes. The solution tiring fighting and posturing about the debt crisis may lie in part with an unexpected source: a computer game.

Budget Hero 2.0 - the new national budget feature - launched just over a week with a cross-party seal of approval from Senator Jeff Sessions (Republican, Alabama) and Senator Mark Udall (Democrat, Colorado).

The front end of the game is fun, but the backend is deadly serious. The game, which is a nonprofit project as a collaboration between the science and technology innovation program at the Wilson Center, where I work, and Public Insight Network of American Public Media (APM) is developed based on the economic model and data from basis, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). It contains more than 100 policy options to combine the players to support programs that increase revenue or set limits on future spending. Players earn "badge" to their political priorities (eg to pursue energy independence, strengthen national security and increase economic competitiveness). For each policy, the game offers the advantages and disadvantages, and the sources of all supporting data and opinions.

The game turns, each player in a home gate. Players can wade through the budget with the air of a hammer-wielding leader, destroy everything that the government pork.

But the experiment goes beyond fun. People to actually learn new things, how the government spends money and the relationship between budget and policies. "The complexity of the problems was much more obvious," said a player from San Antonio, Texas. "I realized that the decision process much more extensive than in black and white values."

Players also get to the ideological stance and self-interest to achieve a balanced budget. The Liberals look at the complete absence of government-sponsored health care for more modest programs. A defense contractor who played the game even said that "cutting the defense budget was the best decision I made." The Americans do recognize the need for compromise much better than their political leaders who are bent on re-election under any circumstances , especially as the campaign intensifies.

Politics can learn from citizen-players (assuming they want to hear)? Although the game is not multiplayer, it contains a function that let players compare their results with other users on demographic variables such as age, education, gender, income and political party affiliation. These findings for policy-makers are free, sitting in a spreadsheet. Budget Hero turns the equation around completely. The cost for the game, how many software applications, front-end loaded, so the cost for people engaged in a steady decline.

With Budget Hero, the reality is turned on its head. While politicians in the federal budget, like a game that continue to treat any distance away from reality, by playing budget hero 2,0, are ordinary citizens have a budget of reality, what it is. The citizens have greater capacity to budgetary issues as their representatives in Congress often give them credit for understanding. If they the real numbers and information that they are willing to make compromises - even if they do contradict their own interests.

What 's more, the budget is about the most boring topic one could, in comparison to Lost, Heroes, World of Warcraft, or play Moto Racer on iPhone. If you wrap a game around a complex issue such as the State budget and 25,000 people a day, we should be able to do the same with other major policy issues, from climate change to health care.

Serious games are an example of what might look like participatory democracy. Some of them dissect complex issues, from food crises in war zones such as the UN humanitarian video game Food Force, the dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians in the ambitious game Peacemaker. Thanks to a joint learning process, in which players confront their political perspectives, they must justify their decisions, their colleagues. Collective advice leads to individual responsibility as participants realize that their decisions are, and that no one is forcing their hand.

The beauty of serious games is that they are new, 2,500 years after the Athenian democracy, the conditions for direct citizen 's participation in the 21st America Century and beyond.

As our government borrows at a rate of more than $ 40,000 per second waiting for the policy makers agree on a budget deal is a luxury the country can no longer afford. In the long run collective problem-solving are just a way of separating the political controversy. Just a brainstorming session on any number of topical issues: the financial crisis and its social impact, nuclear crises and revolutions erupt in North Africa. The information revolution has handed us tools to re-organize, govern and how we think - we should use them.