The gradual perversion and mutation of Folding@home didn't take very long for me. At first, I thought the initiative was a remarkable way for a little son of a bitch such as myself to make a big difference.
Participation didn't require doing anything unreasonable, like leaving my home, talking to people, or donating my curly locks of love. No, Folding didn't require doing anything more than pressing a series of buttons, and it was a virtuous undertaking I was heroically prepared to commit myself wholeheartedly. Five minutes into my first work unit, a malignant, festering selfishness that grew like a tumor underneath a Soviet x-ray machine replaced the rapidly shrinking altruistic charm of contributing to a greater good.
It was harmless enough at first. Folding became a delightful visualizer for me. Every tender nudge of the analog stick endlessly entertained me with seizure-like dances of strange molecules and the cute marimba sounds they made.
I also spent hours looking at the world map; I scoured continents for small, isolated beacons, which represented fellow "folders." These miniature lighthouses really told you a lot about the economic standing of a country (i.e., the few beacons in Africa were located in the southern regions). They also prompted questions as much as they provided answers: Who is that lonely dot out in the middle of the ocean? Is he some outlaw living on a houseboat along the boundaries of international waters? Is he L. Ron Hubbard? Perhaps the dot is some mysterious electrical anomaly emanating from the sunken city of Atlantis, which teases us with her existence and hidden majesty.
But two pinpricks of light on this map — two lonely nodes lost among the aurora glow of the East Coast — would keep their virtual fires burning; stewards preoccupied with a custodial maintenance of folding — not out of a philanthropic spirit but a competitive one.
The sinister enterprise began when my friend, Ben, noticed the number of work units I had accumulated. His voice held the most subtle and indifferent tone of awe; actually, it was more a distant cousin of awe, but it was a relative of awe nonetheless. That was more than enough of a spark to light this cataclysmic powder keg.
Before long, I went to his house and noticed that he had surpassed me in the war on cancer. This was unacceptable. This newcomer — this mere protein private — would trounce my polyp-pounding high score of 10 work units? Not on my watch. So, the unspoken duel of wits, work units, and energy consumption commenced.
The competition seems so ridiculous now, but it made perfect sense at the time. We felt a sense of accomplishment not from the bigger picture: the knowledge that our dedicated participation was potentially of some medical significance. Instead, our satisfaction came from a series of numbers, which we earned by not using our brand-new PlayStation 3s to play games. We effectively got stronger for our PS3s being weaker, which we reduced to a dormant, vegetative coma of perpetual folding and overstressed cooling fans. If purgatory does exist, it's most likely being a ventilator in my PS3 for the duration of this feud.
The contentious bout reached its apex when a new and unexpected contender entered. Ben and I noticed that beneath our friend Reid's PSN ID, it constantly stated — day or night — that he was folding. Naturally, we had to investigate this potential threat. We invited ourselves over his house under the artificial pretense of wanting to hang out, but for all intents and purposes this was a recon mission. What we discovered destroyed us.
We descended into his dank, musty, spider-infested basement, a bunker where we routinely slept, drank, served in the virtual armed services together, and struggled to chase out the slimmest beam of invading sunlight with our Rickets-riddled bodies. As soon as we passed the sink filled with coke cans and rounded the corner, the T.V. was already ablaze with dancing proteins. I'm sure part of the disfigured burn-in brand that exists on the screen today belongs to an atomic shadow of those folding molecules.
That pocket of the room was distinctly warmer; the PS3 and T.V. had now become spaceheaters, but no heat distortion could obscure the number of work units we saw on the hardworking, light-blanched screen. We spied some dead pixels now visible like tiny marytyrs who dedicated their little lives to the cancer war. Reid's number of work units far surpassed ours.
Ben and I forged a temporary alliance to tackle this greater foe. In the face of defeat and swelling protein envy, we even contemplated enacting a scorched-earth policy to attain victory: to erase Reid's hard drive and possibly the cure for cancer buried deep within it. We settled for unplugging and powering down Reid's PS3 surreptitiously.
After some time, he would invariably notice, and — in his passive aggressive way — he would let out a great sigh and say, "Don't touch my PS3." Then he would boot it back up and resume his interrupted work unit.
Folding became our favorite game, but it wasn't a game at all…maybe it was some sort of a metagame. Halo, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Mary-Kate and Ashley: Magical Mystery Mall, and so on: We ignored all of these games that we played competitively with each other. We replaced them with Folding, the game that didn't require you to do much of anything besides dedicate time and energy in the most literal sense.
Things escalated to the point where it would require much deliberation and subterfuge to coordinate at whose house we would spend the night, since none of us wanted to fall prey to sneak attacks on our PS3s. Over the course of several nights, someone unplugged and hid my system's power cord; Ben's entire console disappeared for some time, which he later found in a linen closet; and Reid had become so wary and vigilant that his PS3 barely left his gaze while we were in its presence. After too many setbacks, double-crosses, and easter-egg hunts for console parts, we abandoned the blood feud.
Once the blinding haze of debilitating anger and dismay had subsided, it wasn't very difficult to pinpoint the origins of these absurd emotions. The series of numbers that constituted my completed work units wasn't unlike other numbers that wrapped me in a similar fervor in the past. Frags, headshots, flags captured, weasel pelts collected, and fake currency amassed are examples of just a few dominant game mechanics — namely, defining proficiency and aptitude in terms of numerical value — that are tried-and-true methods of getting people invested in a narrow task. Developers quantify players's dedication, skill, and involvement with their games.
You can't even play a leisurely song in Rock Band without receiving a post-song analysis of completion percentages and subtly condemning adjectives (I'm looking at you, "Spirited Survivor") that declare who was the weakest rhythmic key-pusher and who was the strongest. I also don't think that having a tense band meeting after someone misses an ending bonus is particularly enjoyable or team-building.
Competition has always encompassed games: contests with yourself, against the rigid confines of the game, or in opposition to someone else. Only fairly recently have some titles proved otherwise or at least made competition optional or subtle. But largely, it seems that the vengeful flames of kill counts and post-mortem teabaggings have tempered us.
If a game presents a clear and immediately visible metric of how good one is at something or how much of it they do (no matter how mundane the task) that also involves bragging rights, then we'll quickly convert controllers into triggers — people will no doubt be gettin' the "C.R.E.A.M." (dolla, dolla bill, ya'll). We can even pervert a noble, philanthropic venture such as Folding into a pride-extinguishing weapon — all in the timeless tradition of competition. Although, I can't argue that this isn't an effective tool to temporarily possess someone into action. Perhaps the Folding team should consider adding leaderboards, robust friend features, and unlockable trophies (e.g., Folding Under Pressure: Folded for 72 hours straight!).
Whether it was by design or accident, the work unit metric in Folding gave rise to selfish extrinsic motivations for undertaking what was to be a selfless act. Maybe that's the secret recipe behind most successful charities. Some people genuinely want to make a difference, but the majority of others take an egocentric stake in it — like some wealthy philanthropists who dedicate wings to hospitals provided that their names are in clear view on a shining plaque and a statue of their likeness, a bronze avatar that gives off a carefully detailed smile of generosity, is visible nearby.
A lesser evil for the greater good, I suppose.
If you're interested in philanthropic apps/games, check out Folding@home and Free Rice.