6 Reasons Why Computer Gamers Should Join Peace Corps

Okay, I'll start. I'm Jessie and for most of my adolescence and sparingly, reluctantly, still now in "adulthood" was and am hooked on games, specifically MMOs. But until I scored a rooftop solar panel recently, for the first nine (definitely not incubative, I might add) months of my Peace Corps service I had access to a crappy computer maybe an hour a week. So why....???

1. At least half of the challenge of early PC service is finding stuff. I don't know about all these post-WoW hand-holding MMOs developed with what's always seemed to me to be the psychological equivalent of some really anal engineering field, like a nineteen y/o's impetus for life progress as timing mechanism instead of a spark-plug. But back in my day you had to work to find what towns had quests, where the exactly linguistically modified monster type you needed was, and where the hell you were in the world. So okay really this point only applies to people who have ever made a /location macro. A vast amount of any early PCVolunteer's time is spent seeking around some horribly designed areas that all look the same, following inept directions, and calculating the benefits from your time since doing anything takes twelve times as long as it would in America. If you can get to cap level in an MMO that has only four building models you can find where to buy yogurt in a third world country.
2. You're kickass at jumping into a new world. Another big part of PC's early challenge is maintaining enthusiasm and flexibility in the face of some drastic cultural shifts. Going to a country where noone's heard of the Superbowl isn't so psychically different from projecting yourself into a world where the Superbowl doesn't exist. You're also obviously fine with taking on a new name, meeting new people, and having basic things in the world done differently.
3. Your health is fairly pristine. If you've spent a large portion of your life indoors, sitting, doing non-strenuous activity, I'd wager you're probably more fit for PC service than the average blue collar. Living in a developing country takes moderate strength but vast endurance. Having an unscarred duodenum and a weirdly youthful gait is more important than being able to lift XX (I don't even know) pounds.
   And as far as mental health, I'm having a hard time thinking of a better training regimen for the physical solitude and ennui of rural poverty than game binging.
4. You probably hate your life right now anyway. For various reasons that I've decided to inappropriately expand on here, MMO binging is arguably more painful and despair-inducing than what I conceive to be the reality of plain old drink/drug addiction. First, it's uncool. Definitely uncooler than drinks/drugs. Your skin is awful. You can't get laid. You can't connect with most people, even when you really want to, while hiding such a enormous, embarrassing side of your life. You (probably) have friends who MMO as hard as you do, who you can gleefully chat up all day, but you constantly, inescapably realize how immature and lazy and selfish they are, as you are. Second, binging drugs for 95% of a human being's waking life, for years on end, simply isn't possible. But it is with MMO. Sure, you're free from the dopamine crashes and collapsed veins, but there is nothing, nothing, nothing in your life but this stupid adolescent compulsion that morphs from a childhood flower dream to a yawning skull day in, day out. And third, while it seems to me that a lot of traditionally enslaved junkies do their thing to get a groove, to unlock potential, to loosen up, MMO (especially latter-day hand-holders) just takes, takes, takes. Your creativity, standards, aspirations, passions all get squashed to perpetuate exactly one purpose.
   So but PC service is a magic pill for most of that. It's cool as hell, it'll force you to diversify your life when your battery goes dead after an hour, and it will open opportunities for you to remake yourself when you pop over onto the other side of the planet.
5. You might be sick of capitalism right now. One of the nice things about MMO is the equality it lays out for people, and the contrast that that offers to current America. Post-WoW pay-to-win scourges aside, everyone starts at level 1 and is given the same opportunities. Countries that invite PC often technically have (sometimes enormously) steeper inequality than America, but you'll never see it. Everyone in your village will be exactly as dirt poor as everyone else. And if you think combat-role-based teamwork is cool, impoverished collectivism is calling...
   I mean if you're choosing to log out of America for most of your waking life then there's probably a lot more you can fill in here for yourself.
6. You have ascetic tendencies anyway. Staying hooked on MMO is very difficult in some senses; not all its entailed sacrifices are easy or involuntary. A lot of MMOers I know have a big idealist streak that would prove a boon in PC, getting back to the endurance thing. Proclivity to self-sacrifice is actually probably the only facet of idealism that I'd recommend taking into PC service in any case.