LogFAQs > #955549798

Ninja4820 posted...

Someone mentioned alcohol. I can't imagine much of a correlation between video games and avoiding alcohol. Anecdotally, some kids I knew in high school who drank played video games, some didn't. Of those who didn't drink, some played games, some didn't. I couldn't say it was really skewed in any direction, but I'm almost certainly sure that games never factored into anyone's decision to drink or not to drink.

You literally argued for games as a deliberate form of escapism. Alcohol is another deliberate form of escapism. If somebody couldn't get their mind off the world through games when they wanted to think about something else, alcohol would be on the table.

Do people get loaded unrelated to that? Of course, but that's a separate discussion.

Ninja4820 posted...

They'd obviously be doing something else, but whether it's worse is a bit hard to imagine.

It doesn't have to be "worse", it just has to be on par. Granted, there are certainly a lot of things worse than video games, and I'd be surprised if you can't imagine them.

Ninja4820 posted...

Finally, there's the idea that, if someone weren't playing video games, they'd be doing something equally worthless, which is something I don't necessarily buy. I think for most people you basically run out of worthless time sinks after video games, TV, and web surfing, before you're almost forced to do something moderately better, like read a book.

You should be old enough to know better than that. You likely grew up at a time when you had other leisure activities that eventually got replaced by gaming. And you might even be at the point in your life when you've moved on from gaming to something equally worthless.

And the idea that books are inherently better is just stupid. A lot of books, like most other things, are trash.

Otherwise there are an unlimited number of time sinks now. And the things people will watch is staggering, like reaction videos -- videos of people (generally mugging for the camera) reacting to content.

Ninja4820 posted...

What did our grandparents do, at a time before endless TV channels and entertainment? A lot of them belonged to clubs. There's a great book called Bowling Alone, which really goes into how much American social life has deteriorated. I suspect, if people didn't have those three things (games, tv, internet), they would be much more active or involved with other people.

That's a fallacious argument since so much gaming is communal. It's basically just a different venue for interaction. And there are certainly a lot of games now that foster communities -- and, to some extent, we're kinda on one now.

Otherwise people still belong to clubs nowadays and a lot of people back when didn't belong to clubs. And things like clubs arguably only existed to ease a social disconnect people experienced when they moved from towns (where everybody knew everybody) to cities.

Ninja4820 posted...

That said, the real point here is that, if you're going to allot some segment of your life to entertainment, there's certainly better/worse ways to do it. Shooting heroin? Probably quite a bit worse unless you go on to be Lou Reed. Learning a new language, joining a club, building something, carving something, etc. -- are probably better ways to spend your time. The argument that "it could be worse," is not a compelling one!

Not for nothing, but it kinda feels like you're chasing a sense of productivity rather than looking for actual productivity. Besides the fact that learning a new language isn't most peoples' idea of fun, if you're not adding value you're not necessarily gaining productivity.

I can understand why you think like that -- because I'm guilty of doing that as well at times -- but there's really no way of knowing what will or won't prove useful to you in the long-run. A lot of activities I've pursued with a perceived overt value turned out to be useless to me (both personally and professionally) where activities with no discernible overt value turned out to have either a personal or professional benefit.

People get addicted to the idea of skill trees, but real life doesn't work like that.

And on a much larger level, there have been sustained attempts to preserve certain elements and aspects of culture that haven't been relevant in hundreds of years. Even now you have people learning things for the sake of learning things so the knowledge doesn't vanish, which doesn't actually contribute anything. At the end of the day, you're just having people do something useless for the sake of doing something. At the end of the day, ask yourself there: What's the intrinsic value to learning a language that only a small number of people speak vs playing a game a large number of people play? If you're arguing for social benefits, obviously the game wins out in that context.

Ultimately when it comes to productivity, the question for me is always material benefit. If there's no material benefit between the two things, I see them as being roughly equal. However, you don't always know where the material benefit is going to come from. Hell, you don't even know where the social benefit might come from. Will knowing a language engender you to a boss? Will seeing a popular film help you connect with a co-worker? Will knowing about an obscure tv show find you a friend or romantic partner who loved that show? All of that is impossible to predict.

But yes, I still view video games as a net negative, just like I view a lot of other entertainment -- and most things -- as a net negative.

And, quite frankly, the fact that the world still has thousands of languages is stupid as fuck. Instead of focusing on having everybody learn multiple languages, we should be moving towards having just one or two languages. Now that would be *actual* productivity, instead of trying to get each person to learn ten to twenty languages.


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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.