It is in details like this, whether in the construction of a technical artifact like the French public transit system at the heart of Latour’s Aramis or a strategy game from the 1990s, that we see the texture of how people and machines produce everything around us. It reminds us not just that the world is human-made, but also that specific historical and technical contexts opened imaginations or constrained possibilities.

‘Most gamification sucks because it breaks down our humanity like it is no more than a computer program that needs to be understood and then rewritten for maximum reward—reward for the company behind it, rather than for the player. That's how gamification is disrespectful: because it no longer treats us like people.’