【Native Speaker每日训练计划】No.2879文史哲

verapancake

内容：Inge Zhou 编辑: Vera Pan

Wechat ID: NativeStudy / Weibo: http://weibo.com/u/3476904471

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Part I: Speaker

Why domestic violence victims don't leave
Leslie Morgan Steiner, November 2012

Leslie Morgan Steiner was in "crazy love" -- that is, madly in love with a man who routinely abused her and threatened her life. Steiner tells the story of her relationship, correcting misconceptions many people hold about victims of domestic violence, and explaining how we can all help break the silence.

Source: TED
https://www.ted.com/talks/leslie_morgan_steiner_why_domestic_violence_victims_don_t_leave?referrer=playlist-let_s_end_the_silence_around_a
[Rephrase 15:59]

Part II: Speed

The Computer Game That Led to Enlightenment
Peter Bebergal, August 19th 2020

[Time 2]
After a fierce battle with an evil wizard and his skeleton minions, I found rest at an abbey. I had spent an excessive amount of time lost in the wilds of Britannia—a kingdom ruled by the benevolent monarch Lord British—trying to find the town of Yew, where I might be able to locate a relic known as the Rune of Justice. At the abbey, I visited the local healer, who patched me up, and the hope of completing my quest to excel in eight virtues—honesty, compassion, valor, justice, sacrifice, honor, spirituality, and humility—was restored. So, too, was my hope of “winning” the game by becoming the Avatar, an enlightened beacon for all of Britannia.

The healer, as well as the sorcerer and his legion of resurrected bones, were little more than four-color graphics, crudely animated against the simple playing screen of the computer game Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, which is turning thirty-five this year. Compared with contemporary games, this two-dimensional adventure is an anachronism. From an aesthetic point of view, there is little to recommend it, save for the invigorating nostalgia that it induces in those old enough to remember the original. Nevertheless, the journey to fulfill my character’s spiritual destiny was starting to feel a little personal. Over video chat, the game’s developer, Richard Garriott, explained that this feeling was exactly what he wanted players to experience. “You yourself are the character—it is not an alter ego,” Garriott said. “It is your moral compass guiding their actions.”
[255 words]

[Time 3]
Garriott’s first role-playing games were written when he was a teen-ager, in basic, on a teletype, which used paper tape spools, while connected to a mainframe computer. There were no graphics: asterisks were used for walls and letters for various monsters. Eventually, Garriott acquired an Apple II, one of the first home computers with color-graphic capabilities. In his bedroom, Garriott wrote a game called Akalabeth: World of Doom. His mother, an artist, helped him think about perspective and other visual elements. Garriott packed the computer disks for Akalabeth in a ziplock bag and sold them at a local computer store. They were discovered by a national game distributor, who offered to repackage the game and raise the price from twenty dollars to thirty-five dollars. In the summer before he left for college, Garriott—then nineteen—made a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, triple his father’s salary as a nasa astronaut.

Garriott was an avid player of Dungeons & Dragons and a compulsive reader of J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy; he wanted his next game to feel like a living world with its own mythos and history. To this end, he developed Ultima I and Ultima II, with user manuals written as if they were pieces of fiction, describing the world of Britannia and Lord British in intricate detail. Ultima II contained a delightful cloth map with the names of the kingdom’s cities spelled out in runes. A series of conflicts over money and management led Garriott to break with the national game distributor, so he and an older brother started a company called Origin Systems to publish Ultima III: Exodus. Ultima III was the crucible out of which Ultima IV would arise. By the mid-eighties, the phenomenon known as the Satanic Panic was reaching its peak, with many conservative and religious leaders viewing role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons as corrupting influences, turning young people toward witchcraft and violence. The mother of one Ultima player was so horrified by the image of a demon on the cover art for Ultima III—which Garriott told me is based on the devil Chernabog from the Walt Disney film “Fantasia”—that she sent a letter to Garriott, who was twenty-two, calling him “the Satanic perverter of America’s youth.”
[380 words]

[Time 4]
It was the fan mail that set Garriott on a path toward reimagining what a computer role-playing game (C.R.P.G.) could do. In these letters, people described how they played the first three Ultimas, which were open-world games that did not require a linear path to complete, giving players the freedom to steal from shops or kill townsfolk. The letter writers explained, according to Garriott, that “the easiest way to gain power was not to play as a good guy.” He was despondent. “I inadvertently made games that drove the players to act dishonorably, as this was the path of least resistance.” What if, he wondered, there were a game in which your moral choices had consequences? He wanted the next installment of Ultima to reward honor and courage, and to penalize players for casual depravity. Garriott’s family and colleagues warned him that players might feel as if they were being punished for having admitted to enjoying robbing and murdering, but Garriott ignored them. “This was the art I was compelled to make,” he said.

Where would these moral ideas come from? Garriott studied Christian theology, Greek philosophy, and Arthurian codes of conduct, but none felt applicable enough for all people. He was attracted to Buddhist and Hindu thought, but these traditions didn’t seem to offer a framework for a game. The plan for Ultima IV coalesced for Garriott after repeatedly watching his favorite movie, “The Wizard of Oz.” Garriott had been ruminating on the essential ideals of truth, love, and courage and realized that the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion, respectively, embodied these concepts. With these three ideals, Garriott created a schema of relational virtues through which a player would develop a hero.
[284 words]

[Time 5]
Ultima IV begins with a small experiment in personal ethics. Your character enters a Renaissance fair where a fortune teller invites you into her covered wagon. There, using cards reminiscent of those from the tarot, she presents a series of questions. For example: You are told by your king to evict a poor serf from the land. Do you honorably uphold your duty to your liege, or do you show compassion by refusing the order, thereby suffering dishonor? When the fortune teller finishes the reading, a strange portal in a stone circle opens and you step through to Britannia. The game play in Ultima IV was similar to that of many of its competitors: visit cities and towns; talk with residents to find clues on various quests; buy and sell food, weapons, and armor; explore dungeons; solve puzzles; wield magic; and, of course, fight monsters. But, in Ultima IV, chasing and slaughtering a creature that is fleeing from battle would be considered cowardly. Giving your hard-won gold pieces to a starving beggar will help you along the path of compassion.

The mail for Ultima IV poured into the Origin Systems office. One woman wrote to Garriott that her daughter, who had begun shoplifting, played Ultima IV and mended her ways. Even more remarkable were the emotional letters from Christian gamers who claimed that trying to become the Avatar had helped them feel closer to God. One player wrote to say that Garriott taught him “almost everything I know about morality and ethics.” People felt deeply connected to a game in which winning was not just about the most kills but behavior. Garriott discovered that even though he couldn’t possibly program Ultima IV to respond to every action, people played as if the game could. “It didn’t matter if there was really a virtue test,” Garriott said. “It mattered if the player believed there was a test.”

Often when I should be doing something else—writing, reading, cooking dinner—I play a present-day descendent of Ultima IV, Skyrim, and wander its open world, which is vast. The technical details, range of quests, and story lines are extraordinary—few games have offered this level of freedom. I can be whomever I choose, good or bad, and, although I might be arrested for stealing and spend some time in virtual jail, I could depart from the game’s main story line to try killing all of a town’s guards and fleeing with their weapons. The game doesn’t care that, instead, I choose to kill only “evil” enemies and not take items from graves or temples. Yet, ever since playing Ultima IV all those decades ago, I can’t shake the feeling that the integrity of my actions in a C.R.P.G. matters.
[456 words]

[Time 6]
Although Skyrim may not hold players to a code of conduct, the influence of Ultima IV can be found in the moral choices that have become an essential part of many video games. In the decaying steampunk city of the game BioShock, your power level is dependent on whether you save the lives of or “harvest” a group of genetically enhanced orphaned girls. The immensely popular Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is equal parts combat and moral quandary—often having to do with killing or sparing the life of someone who may have committed crimes. The decision a player makes can open up entirely new plot paths.

After Ultima IV, Garriott explored different kinds of ethical dilemmas, often with unexpected results. In the multiplayer version of the Ultima franchise, Ultima Online, Garriott introduced a self-populating ecology by using an algorithm that balanced the number of herbivores—along with their food supply—and carnivores. Garriott assumed that players would leave the herbivores alone and hunt only creatures like bears and wolves when a quest-line prompted them. Instead, players killed every animal as soon as it showed up on the map, destroying the ecology and prompting Garriott to simply remove the code from the game. Throughout his career as a game designer, Garriott, who is fifty-nine, has never given up on the idea that you could lead players toward ethical remedies to in-game situations. His latest game, Shroud of the Avatar, continues the theme of building virtue. But he believes that the parables and quandaries of Ultima IV constitute his greatest artistic achievement. “I would like to improve on those qualities in future games,” he said, “but I don’t think I can.”
[279 words]

Source: New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-computer-game-that-led-to-enlightenment

Part III: Obstacle

My Colleagues Have Great Work-Life Balance (Thanks to Childless Me)
Roxane Gay, Aug 21st 2020

[Paraphrase 7]
This Bridge Called My Back
I work for a successful, fast-growing technology company. There are times when some corporate “crisis” requires that a number of us lean in more in terms of office hours. My married, straight co-workers with children can easily bow out — while as a gay, single and child-free person, I get left with extra work because I am seen as not having responsibilities at home. I’m not unsympathetic to the difficulties my co-workers have in balancing work and life, but why does it have to be balanced on my back?

— Anonymous

Everyone has difficulties with work/life balance. Marriage and children, which are not solely heterosexual conditions, are not the only responsibilities people have in their personal lives. Being single and/or child-free does not mean that your primary commitment is to your career. You have every right to push back when you are imposed upon like this. Either everyone is responsible for extra work, or no one is. Your co-workers do not get to categorically decide that you have the time to handle the company’s crises because your life is arranged differently than theirs.

You don’t even need to offer an explanation. Maybe you’re taking care of older parents. Maybe you have a new puppy. Maybe you just want to sit on your couch and stare into the void. What you do with your free time is your business. You are your own family, and your responsibilities to yourself matter. The next time you’re asked to take on responsibilities that should be shared among the entire staff, bring up this issue. You can explain that you’re willing to be a team player but that you cannot be the only person on the team. Boundaries, my friend. Develop boundaries and enforce them.

Am I the Worst?
I work as a product manager at a small start-up. I’m only two years out of college, and recently, I was thrust into a new role. I’m excited. However, I’ve been dropping several balls. I’ve failed to communicate with my internal teammates about a new project’s timeline. I also haven’t done a great job figuring out how to scope this project. On top of all this, my boss told me I need to be able to confidently do this job by January — which would give me a senior title and big raise — or will need to find a new role, probably at a different company. I’m proud of how I’ve been able to work with our external customers, but I can’t help but feel awful for how much I’ve let down my co-workers and been unable to do basic project management. My boss is superbusy with another project so I have limited support and direction.

Should I just quit? I have constant stress headaches and don’t have any brain energy to find a new company.

— Anonymous

You’re being too hard on yourself. It is challenging and, perhaps, intimidating to take on new responsibilities. It is normal to be overwhelmed as you adapt and learn new skills. With little direction and so many new tasks, of course you’re making mistakes. It is unrealistic to expect that you would instantly be perfect in your new role. I would be worried if you didn’t possess so much self-awareness, if you thought everything was going great, if you didn’t care about how your performance is affecting your colleagues. You’re clear on where you need to improve and that’s important. You can solve a problem only if you are aware a problem exists.

Set aside some time to identify what it will take to bridge the distance between where you are and where you need to be. Develop a plan for doing that work. Though your boss is busy, schedule some time to sit down with him or her and discuss your concerns, and ask for support. Project management and communication strategies can be learned, and you are more than capable.

Now, I get the impression that your boss expects you to thrive despite being thrown into the deep end. He may not be willing to do his job in providing mentorship, so I would also identify other colleagues who can support you in this new role. You shouldn’t quit your job unless that is, in fact, what you really want. The stress headaches and negative feelings will dissipate as you improve in your role. You’re actually doing great. I would worry less about the ways in which you are falling short, because you can and will address those issues. At least some of your time and energy are better spent acknowledging what you’re doing well, what you did to merit the expanded role and your willingness to rise to the challenge.

No One Is Fireproof
I’m a chief of staff at a start-up. One of my team members is a chronic underperformer. He’s not only a bad fit for this job but the role in general.

Coaching has not been successful; he thinks our expectations are too high. I can assure you they are not. His principals and I put him on an improvement plan just before the pandemic. In ordinary times, I would have recommended letting him go. But none of us can stomach firing him during a time of massive unemployment. The current plan is to transition him to another role, but the budget is tight and I don’t see that happening until next year at the earliest.

Managing complaints from colleagues and coaching him through fires (often preventable) is really wearing me down. Since it’s not possible to move him, fire him or hire someone else, what can I do to keep this situation from taking over my work hours?

— Anonymous

This chronic underperformer is so very lucky, and this situation is ridiculous.

Come on! I never want to see anyone lose their job. I believe people should be given the time, space and mentoring to improve when they fall short. But you and your colleagues have given this man these tools, he has failed to use them, and now you’re giving him carte blanche to remain mediocre. That is neither realistic nor sustainable. It is not fair to his colleagues that he is being held to no standard. What’s worse is that you’re not asking how to hold him accountable or create actionable consequences for his failures. Instead, you’re asking how you can further contort yourself to keep the chronic underperformer in his cosseted bubble of mediocrity.

It is possible to move him, fire him or hire someone else. Figure out how to make it possible, rather than how to minimize the damage of his incompetence. You’re literally asking how you can change your behavior rather than his. Stop that!

Severance exists for a reason. He will cost your company more in the long run if you keep him around and continue to allow him to perform poorly, making messes you and others have to clean up. You’re already paying him to do nothing useful, so give him a year’s salary and send him on his way. You’ll be free to do your job and live your best professional life.
[1187 words]

Source: the New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/21/business/should-i-quit-my-job.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage

はな

OB:7:24

vivi16_Yu

OB：10’11[1187W]

Tiffany-wq

OB 5'55

BUBU6523

Third try!!!

Timer 2 01:20
games -> game can lead to people to have a personal feeling



Timer 3 02:20
playing games in teen time -> create game -> connect with national company -> break -> create own company -> 80th a peak-> criticism: teen violence when they playing games



Timer 04 02:09
a letter from a fan wrote the feeling about when he played the game. -> moral ideas -> 3 elemets



Timer 05   02: 45
compared with other games, this game has another playstyles -> negative consequences -> freedom to play this game



Timer 06   01:41
moral choices in games





Obstacle 05:37
1. it is not responsible for people who do not have children to do more work. People should have right to control their private time
2. Make time and plan to be familiar with the new position.
3. fire people who under-performed.

驱动力

OBSTACLE:10.13
我的同事有了很好的生活与工作间的平衡（要多谢没有孩子的我）
引用一位同性恋的工作经历，说明即使单身或没有孩子也有权利去拒绝多余的工作。引用一位毕业生工作不顺利想要退出的例子，作者首先表示肩负新责任肯定会犯错。给出了定计划和挤时间请教领导或同事的建议。引用一位管理者对一位表现不佳员工处理方式的纠结，给出了尝试调岗，开除或雇佣其他人的建议，给出了公司不能长期有表现不佳员工，要采取措施的结论。

AlisiaL

OB：
My married, straight co-workers with children can easily bow out
stare into the void
wear me down
in his cosseted bubble of mediocrity：care for and protect in an overindulgent way.

はな

T2:1:12
T3:2:18
T4:2:02

HelenXian

Speed 第一篇 12‘43’
The passage describes the process of how a game designer had combined the moral choices with the game design.

hollyball

# 2186 why domestic violence victims don’t leave?
Disturbing question. Why does she stay?
She was experiencing domestic violence by her lover so many times more than she can even remember.
She wants to tell a true story about a psychological trap disguised as love.
It is not just women issues, over 85% abusers are men through a long relationships.
She was a very typical victim at her age of 22.  In the u.s women age between 16 and 24 are three time to be likely to be domestic violence victims as women at other ages. Over 500 were killed by abuser partners every year.
She didn’t know anything about domestic violence, the warning signs etc.
Coner create a 100% trust environment atmosphere between them by confessing his own secret, which was he had been savagely and repeatedly physically abused by his stepfather. He had to drop school at 8 grade and spend 20 years to rebuild his life.
He was so perfect with bright future and there is no hint at all he will become an abuser later.
Stage1: seduce and charm the victim
Stage2: isolate the victim.
One day Conor came home said he had quit his dream job because of the victim. Because the victim made him feel so safe and loved. He didn’t need to prove himself in wall street anymore. He wanted to leave the city, far away from his abusive dysfunctional family.
She sacrificed her dream job and her life for her soulmate and moved with him. She had no idea that she was falling in the crazy love.
She was walking headfirst into a carefully laid physical, financial and psychological trap
Stage3: introduce the threat of violence and see how she reacts
Conor bought 3 guns, kept on in the car glove compartment, kept on under the pillow on the bed, and the third one he kept in his pocket at all times. He said he needed the guns to feel protective.
Then he first physically attacked victim 5 days before their wedding. 5 days later, 10 bruises faded and she put on her mother’s wedding dress and married him.
Despite what happed, she was still sure about the happy life ever after because they both love each other so much. The excuse for him was that he was very very sorry and he had been really stressed out by wedding, and he was never going to hurt her again.
It happened twice in the honeymoon.
Then Coner proceeded to beat her once or twice a week for the next two and a half years of their marriage.
She was mistaken in thinking that she was unique and alone in this situation.
1/3 American women experienced domestic violence or stalking at some point in her life. CDC reported 15 million children are abused every year.
Back to the question. Why did she stay?
Answer is easy. She didn’t know he was abusing her. She thought that she was a very strong woman in love with a deeply troubled man and she is the only person on the earth who can help him face his demons.
Why didn’t you leave? For her, it is the one of the saddest and most painful question that people asked. Victims know something other people usually don’t. it’s incredibly dangerous to leave an abuser.
Final steps: Kill her
70% murder happened after the victim has ended the relationship. After she had gotten out, the abuser had nothing left to lose. Other outcomes including long-time stalking even after abuser remarries. Denial of financial resources and manipulation of the family court system to terrify the victim and her children.
She was able to leave because of one final sadistic beating that broke through her denial. Breaking the silence!
She told the secret to every one including policeman, friends, strangers and she got helped by all the others
The question of “Why does she stay?”  is code some people for, “ it is her fault for staying”.
She also a typical domestic violence survivor as well for having a happy, zero violence life after she left the first marriage.
Abuse thrives only in silence. You have the power to end domestic violence