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The Vape-o-Gotchi: When Play Meets Health

In 2022, I wrote a piece for The Prindle Post about Palmer Luckey’s insta-kill VR headset. What made Luckey’s custom-made gaming hardware unique from all others currently available on the market was that if you died while playing a game, three explosives embedded within the headset would detonate, destroying your brain and killing you instantly. Thus, the headset bridged the gap between fictional and actual consequences — you die in a game, you die in real life. However, the idea was not for the headset to ever be used, at least not in its current format. Instead, it was more of an object designed to get people thinking. As Luckey noted, “At this point, it is just a piece of office art, a thought-provoking reminder of unexplored avenues in game design.” So, while the headset might invoke echoes of Sword Art Online, in reality, Luckey’s motivations were far less sinister.

In the 2022 piece, I said I might return to some of the questions around consent and Luckey’s legal culpability if someone dies while using his killer headgear; I may still do that, but not here. What I want to do here is look at another unique piece of technology that embodies, in a somewhat troubling way, the intersection between play and, via the intermediary of health, mortality. And while the threat to life and limb is nowhere as immediate as it was with Luckey’s headset, I think this new object’s existence is just as fascinating. I’m talking about the Vape-o-Gotchi.

For those too young to remember, Tamagotchi was a digital pet that took the world by storm in the late 90s/early 00s. The idea was that, within a small, egg-shaped device, you had a little digital animal to raise from an egg to adulthood and eventual death. While the specifics regarding what activities you had to do to keep the critter alive varied depending on the type of creature and what model of Tamagotchi you had, some generic tasks include feeding, watering, playing, cleaning its litter tray, and offering it medicine if it got sick. I cannot explain how popular these things were, how much time they consumed, and how often I had to restart mine because I wouldn’t leave it alone and the thing died of exhaustion.

What makes the Vape-o-Gotchi distinct, however, is that rather than having multiple welfare bars that you need to monitor to ensure your pet is healthy and happy (hunger, thirst, etc.), the Vape-o-Gotchi has only one, its need for vape clouds. The way to meet this need is to use the vape. So, to maintain the Vape-o-Gotchi’s health, you must damage yours.

This absurd creation came into being as part of a New York University “stupid hackathon,” which invites participants to, rather unsurprisingly, make something stupid. As Futurism reports, Rebecca Xun and Lucia Camacho, the people behind the Vape-o-Gotchi’s creation, thought that the idea – which initially made its appearance on Twitter many years ago – fulfilled this criterion and so took it upon themselves to bring the illogical digital pet into being. So, using their respective skills in software and engineering, they set out to bring the oddity into being.

As with Luckey’s VR headset, Xun and Camacho’s bizarre creation raises many philosophical questions, most of which might not be immediately apparent when we think of this object as merely a curiosity; after all, it’s not like they’re selling them in stores. What I want to think about here, however, is not simply an issue inherent in the Vape-o-Gotchi’s existence, but rather, a broader problem for which the Vape-o-Gotchi’s is a solution (or more accurately, represents a broader method of response). That is, by solving the problem of motivation via gamification.

We are all familiar with the problem of motivation. There are a whole host of things that we should do, but we don’t because, well, to put it simply, we cannot be bothered. Think of how often you should have cooked yourself a proper meal but ate junk food instead. How many times you should have sat down to revise a paper but scrolled on your phone. How many times you should have gone to the gym but ended up watching TV. Examples like these ring true for all of us, but such a lack of get-up-and-go isn’t just of interest to us in retrospect (i.e., looking back on an extra hour in bed rather than jogging) but is also of concern for philosophy, specifically in the realm of ethics.

Think about the last time you gave blood. It might be relatively recent (in the past month), longer back (last couple of years), or maybe never. What I think I would be safe in assuming is that you don’t give blood as often as you could. I also think you are probably aware that you should give blood as it is a vital resource used to save lives across the world. You might also be aware (although this isn’t a given) that not enough people give blood, with healthcare providers across the globe suffering blood shortages (see the NHS, for example). These three things together paint the picture of you knowing you should do something, being aware of the impacts of not doing that thing, and yet still not doing it. This example captures a basic fact of morality: knowledge about the good doesn’t always translate into good actions. This problem, the gap between knowing what we should do and doing what we should do, is typically referred to as Akrasia (from the ancient Greek word akrasia), or the weakness of will.

The question, then, is how we solve this weakness. How do we not only provide people with the information needed to make moral judgments but also the psychological tools to motivate the necessary actions that such judgments require? Using the examples above, how do we encourage people to give blood, to go to the gym, or to give up harmful habits like vaping?

There are several options considered by corporations, institutions, and governments alike. One of the most talked about is nudging, where you alter the context in which a person decides so they are more likely to pick the desirable option (i.e., placing hand sanitizers in places of prominence near hospital entrances. Another method, that draws us back to the Vape-o-Gotchi, is gamification. The idea is relatively simple. People tend to enjoy games. Whether it’s solitaire, chess, or Grand Theft Auto, there’s something about the challenge, the problem-solving, and the competitiveness that draws us in. This is despite, from a dispassionate view, that actions we take to play such games are dull. It’s putting a card down, moving a piece from one square to another, or simply pushing a joystick and some buttons. Yet, games are engaging, and gamification is the process of integrating game-like elements into non-game contexts to increase engagement, motivation, and user participation. Via things like badges, point scoring, leaderboards, and rewards, tasks that might initially seem dull or a chore can become a challenge to overcome, with a reward at the end. The most obvious example that comes to mind is learning a language via Duolingo, which uses points, streaks, and rewards.

The Vape-o-Gotchi takes gamification to a strange new place. It transforms vaping from merely an addictive habit to play, for which you’re rewarded by the continued existence of your smoke-dependent digital pet. While the exact mechanics of the Vape-o-Gotchi escape me (i.e., how often do you need to vape to keep it alive?), the idea that one must vape to feed their habit and their companion is undoubtedly interesting.

Yet, despite this interest, I know what you’re thinking: how is this good? People don’t need to be encouraged to vape. It’s addictive enough as is. You’d be right on that count. Indeed, Xun and Camacho originally wanted to create the inverse. They wanted to design a Vape-o-Gotchi that encouraged you not to use it by damaging the digital pet every time you took a hit. The gamification aspect was the same; it was just set in reverse. This idea of encouraging users to disengage from their habit by engaging with their digital pet seems far less objectionable. The reason they chose to make the “evil” version was, as they put it, “it’d be kind of funnier to be evil.” I don’t disagree, but I think there’s something to be said for creating a good version also. And they have said they still plan on doing this.

So, while the Vape-o-Gotchi may not be as immediately fatal as Luckey’s VR headset, there’s much to be said, good and bad, about its use of gamification. Whether the fate of one’s digital pet is enough to halt its owner from using their vape, however, is something about which I’m less convinced. But as a symbol, I think Vape-o-Gotchi is wonderfully imaginative, kind of instructive, and, obviously, so, so stupid.

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The Desire for Moral Impotence

photograph of hands tied behind man's back

This article has a set of discussion questions tailored for classroom use. Click here to download them. To see a full list of articles with discussion questions and other resources, visit our “Educational Resources” page.

Richard Gibson and Nicholas Kreuder recently wrote about humans’ morally troublesome desire for control. The prospect of control is, Gibson notes, “intrinsically appealing” to humans, an “incredible common desire,” concurs Kreuder. Both writers also agree we should be wary of this desire for control. Gibson argues that this desire negatively influences our relationship with nature, while Kreuder argues that it “may leave our interactions with others feeling impoverished and hollow.” I largely agree, but I think there is another equally universal and deep-seated desire that also deserves some consideration — the desire to lack control.

An oft-repeated saying in philosophical ethics is “‘ought’ implies ‘can’.” In other words, if you can’t do something, then there’s no question of whether you ought to do it. Our moral responsibilities only extend as far as our abilities.

Because of this important link between what we ought to do and what we can do, being reminded that something is under our control often also serves as a reminder that it is also our responsibility.

The discovery that one has control is often not as joyous and anxiety-relieving an experience as you might expect given the universal human desire for control Gibson and Kreuder describe. In fact, anger, resentment, and bitterness are all common reactions to being reminded that we are in control of something. We often don’t want control. We yearn for it to be nothing to do with us — someone else’s problem.

Many of our responsibilities are, of course, distinctly moral ones. The world is an imperfect place, and we all have the capacity to make it better to some degree. In fact, many of us have the power to make it significantly better. In other words, most of us actually have a morally significant level of control over how the future unfolds.

Let’s take an example. It costs significantly more than most people think to save a life by donating to the most effective charities — about $2,300. But that’s still only about half as much as the average American spends at restaurants each year.

Ask yourself honestly; could you make a few lifestyle changes and afford the $2,300 needed to save a life? If so, how often? Once in your lifetime? Once a decade? Once a year? More?

How does this make you feel? Are you excited to learn or be reminded of your morally significant amount of control over the world? To discover that you (probably) have the radical power to give another human, a person just like you, the gift of life? Speaking for myself, far from feeling elated, I feel guilty and ashamed. My conscience would be clearer if highly cost-effective charities like this simply did not exist — if they did not grant me this ability to meaningfully reshape the world (at least for that one person and their family). Because having that ability means I have that moral responsibility. In my ordinary life, I act in bad faith. I think and act as though I don’t have the power to save lives with moderate charitable donations. For self-serving reasons, I think and act as though I lack control over the world that I actually possess.

In his discussion of Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal, Kreuder points out the attractiveness of having more control over our interactions with others. Imagine having more ability to decide how people will respond, being sure that you’re not going to say the “wrong thing.” He suggests this kind of control would provide relief for those “wrecked with anxiety and marred with feelings of powerlessness.” This is certainly a desire I can recognize.

But I can also see the inverse: the desire of having less control in our interactions with others, in many cases.

Imagine your younger sibling is going off the rails – drinking too much and partying too hard. Their grades are suffering. Your sibling doesn’t listen to your parents but they look up to you; you know they will listen in the end. So you know that you, and only you, can intervene and make them get back on track. You can sit them down and have the difficult conversation that neither of you want to have. In other words, you have a great degree of control over your sibling.

How would you feel about having this kind of interpersonal control? Far from relieving your anxiety, you might feel deeply burdened by it, and the significant responsibility that it entails. It would be understandable to wish that you weren’t in such a potent position, and that someone else was instead. You might even be tempted to deny to yourself that you have such control over your sibling to avoid having to deal with the moral burden.

Rather than the risks that accompany greater interpersonal control, Gibson is concerned primarily with the negative effect that our desire for (often illusory) control has on our relationship with nature. It influences how we approach debates about “designer babies, personalized medicine, cloning, synthetic biology” and his focus, “gene drives.”

Gibson contends that humans actually have much less control than we like to think. In a cosmic sense, I think he is right. But, at least as a collective, humanity is surely in firm control over much of nature, perhaps even too much. Unfortunately, we control the global climate via our CO2 emissions. We control global fish stocks via modern fishing practices. And now, as Gibson explains, we also control which species we want to continue living and which we want to drive to extinction via the emerging technology of gene drives.

With respect to nature, at least the biosphere of Earth, humanity surely has much more control than most of us would think is desirable.

Our catastrophic relationship to nature seems to me less a symptom of our desire to control nature, and more a symptom of our being in a blissful state of denial about just how much control we have.

To be clear, I think Gibson is right to warn against an excessively domineering attitude toward nature, and Kreuder is right to warn against having too much control over our interactions with others. But we should also be on guard against the equally human tendency to find narratives that absolve us of our burdensome responsibilities. If Gibson is right that, fundamentally, “we’re subject to, rather than the wielders of power,” if we can’t really exercise control over the world, then there’s no reason to ask ourselves the tough question — what should we do? Avoiding this question may feel good, but it would be morally disastrous.

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Debunking the Marshmallow Myth: Rationality in Scarcity

photograph of several marshmallows, the largest in the center standing upright

On May 25th, researchers published findings that altered our understanding of a classic psychological study, the marshmallow test. In the famous test, young children are offered a marshmallow now, or two marshmallows later. Then, researchers follow up with the children, and supposedly those that delayed gratification for more marshmallows did better in terms of standardized tests and other measures of success. Continue reading “Debunking the Marshmallow Myth: Rationality in Scarcity”