Goverment and gaming are what we do together that we can’t do alone.

In a talk at TED.com, Jennifer Pahlka discussed the ways that government is thought of, the challenges these conceptions create, and the way that it needs to change. Palka begins by recounting her project which puts coders and designers out of the comfort zone, working to help benefit the government by designing apps. These apps are often small bits of social networking yet they can still have large impacts through weaving in game elements and making us feel connected and competitive.

“There’s a generation out there that’s grown up on the Internet and they know that it’s not that hard to do things together, you just have to architect the systems the right way.”

The programmers of Code for America show the power of technology and social networking, two things that have become intergral to gaming. In games we are given the opportunity to be weak and vulnerable alone but also to be strong and capable together. We can work together, showing each other different strategies, striving for success against all difficutly and even making changes that can save the digital world, an ethic that can be translated into the real world and change things as large and looming as the structure of our government.