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10/20/2010 04:37:22 PM · #201 |
Originally posted by Strikeslip:
 DrAchoo, you're just getting old & grumpy. |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Well, that just goes without saying... |
Pshaw! He's just a pup!
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10/20/2010 04:43:31 PM · #202 |
Originally posted by johnnyphoto:
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
You DO realize that you continued participation in DPC, and in these rant threads, is not really qualitatively different than participation in Second Life, to name one example? If you try to argue that we are "real" people debating, and Second Life doesn't involve "real people", you're gonna slide down that slippery slope so fast it'll scorch your behind.
R. |
I never said that Second Life doesn't involve real people. My point was that you will develop more social skills when you interact with people in person that you will interacting in some virtual world. |
No, your point is that there is zero creativity (or perhaps now just a smidgen, a stretch...) on the part of gamers in games. Everything else since has been a defense of that position. Conversations don't start at the statement you're responding to in the moment.
You said people create nothing in games outside a profile.
Some respond "Wrong, you can create useful social skills and teamwork that extends beyond even the game itself."
You reply that you can learn these skills better in person. (Debatable, trust me. We're debating it now.)
Unfortunately for you, that doesn't mean you can't do it in a game. The original assertion stands. Games bleed into the real world. However, instead of just conceding that you can in fact create stuff in games, you've pivoted to an irrelevant statement about the relative ease of the two approaches. And ignored that it's not mutually exclusive, and ignored that the people playing video games together are often the ones throwing pots together, and that it all brings them closer.
(But really, that's just my investment in video games talking.)
Some of us are able to follow threads pretty well, you know. Please don't take your own words out of context.
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10/20/2010 04:45:33 PM · #203 |
I worry my question got lost in the flood.
DrAchoo...
Do you like chess? |
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10/20/2010 05:12:00 PM · #204 |
Originally posted by Mousie:
I worry my question got lost in the flood.
DrAchoo...
Do you like chess? |
Hehe. That's one of those questions you look shiftily around the room and wonder what's up.
No? I'd rather play Scrabble or Settlers of Catan.
Message edited by author 2010-10-20 17:12:40. |
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10/20/2010 05:44:54 PM · #205 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by Mousie:
I worry my question got lost in the flood.
DrAchoo...
Do you like chess? |
Hehe. That's one of those questions you look shiftily around the room and wonder what's up. |
Historically Chess and Go are war games used to teach battle tactics and strategy.
I like Scrabble, but I never do that well because I'm always creating interesting words rather than high-scoring ones ... hmmm, a lot like the way I take pictures too. ;-) |
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10/20/2010 06:08:29 PM · #206 |
Originally posted by Mousie:
No, your point is that there is zero creativity (or perhaps now just a smidgen, a stretch...) on the part of gamers in games. Everything else since has been a defense of that position. Conversations don't start at the statement you're responding to in the moment. |
No, that is not my point. Sorry if I've been confusing, but I'm trying to argue that gamers do not creating anything more than the virtual creations that are built into the game. I am not at all arguing that gamers are not creative, or that creativeness is not required to play games.
You proved me wrong with the people that make those avatar statues from Second Life, but I doubt that there are millions of people who do that. Again, I'm not "pissing" on the creativeness of gamers as you say. I'm just arguing that nothing tangible is created by those games.
Originally posted by Mousie:
You said people create nothing in games outside a profile.
Some respond "Wrong, you can create useful social skills and teamwork that extends beyond even the game itself."
You reply that you can learn these skills better in person. (Debatable, trust me. We're debating it now.)
Unfortunately for you, that doesn't mean you can't do it in a game. The original assertion stands. Games bleed into the real world. However, instead of just conceding that you can in fact create stuff in games, you've pivoted to an irrelevant statement about the relative ease of the two approaches. And ignored that it's not mutually exclusive, and ignored that the people playing video games together are often the ones throwing pots together, and that it all brings them closer.
(But really, that's just my investment in video games talking.)
Some of us are able to follow threads pretty well, you know. Please don't take your own words out of context. |
I have conceding that you can create stuff. Apparently not everyone follows threads well... |
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10/20/2010 06:29:11 PM · #207 |
DrAchoo,
I ask because I consider chess a violent game.
You kill people, but it's very abstract. Regardless, it's a war. You sacrifice pawns. Yet nobody complains about chess.
What I'm getting at is the idea that almost all 'violent' games are an abstraction... they're not actually violent at all. They're an abstraction that only refers to real world violence. Sports are actually much more violent. (And that's what people are suggesting kids do instead of play games!)
I'm curious where you draw the line, basically.
Does chess make kids more violent?
Does computer chess make kids more violent?
How about computer chess where the kills are animated?
How about the same where the animated deaths are really graphic?
How about games along the lines of Archon, where it's basically chess, but with real-time battles when pieces encounter each other on the board?
After that, it's not much of a leap to dump the chess game mechanic entirely and go straight to the real-time battles.
This is basically the genealogy of shooter games! They evolved, step by step, from games like chess, as computers became more capable.
On the other hand, most conventional kids' sports (football, soccer, hockey, lacrosse) are practically combat... played by a bunch of violent, delusional, bullying jocks. Attracts the wrong crowd, I say. Whips up a lot of animosity, and inculcates an Us vs. Them mentality. Even the non-combat team sports like cheer leading are rife with injury... cheer leading is one of the most dangerous sports there is! If you want to horrify yourself, go look up the legal maelstrom around the safety of that sport these days. Cheerleaders and their parents also have the uncanny knack for stabbing each other. Search for "cheerleader stabbing" and you get 1,570,000 hits.
As has been mentioned... the people playing games are often geeky/nerdy or meek/wussy/shy. It's partly because sports don't have an appeal for people like this that they turn to other forms of less directly confrontational entertainment to fill their time. I know that's what happened in my case.
Gamers tend to be less violent on average than society as a whole, in my experience! How would you explain that?
Message edited by author 2010-10-20 18:29:51. |
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10/20/2010 06:32:47 PM · #208 |
Originally posted by Mousie:
As has been mentioned... the people playing games are often geeky/nerdy or meek/wussy/shy. It's partly because sports don't have an appeal for people like this that they turn to other forms of less directly confrontational entertainment to fill their time. |
I sprint swim. shrug |
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10/20/2010 06:46:49 PM · #209 |
| A bit lost on the Johnny-Mousie discussion. Is it being put forth that gaming is "bad" because nothing is created by the player? If so, then reading is bad, too? |
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10/20/2010 06:51:48 PM · #210 |
Originally posted by Melethia:
A bit lost on the Johnny-Mousie discussion. Is it being put forth that gaming is "bad" because nothing is created by the player? If so, then reading is bad, too? |
Johnny seems to be saying that if an activity has tangible product connected with pursuing it, it's inherently "better" than activities that produce "virtual" products. He may be backing down from this stance though, that's not clear at the moment. I, too was wondering how he feels about reading, especially reading fiction...
R. |
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10/20/2010 07:37:05 PM · #211 |
johnnyphoto,
Security in Virtual Worlds: Blurring the Borders
"The effect of these economies permeate beyond the the virtual world. Linden Lab, the publisher of Second Life, provides an online market exchange (Lindex) where Second Life currency (Linden dollars) can be bought, sold or exchanged into more traditional, non-game currencies."
As I touched on earlier, there are gamers in China abusing this right now, manipulating real world stock exchanges by playing with the poorly regulated economies and exchange rates of in-game currencies... to boost/reduce the value of certain companies, influence politicians, or take a percentage.
Then there's the gold farmers... who spend all day in-game making fake money for real pay.
Oh man, another specific media reference to tangible, real world effects caused by people in video games! Not just the rapid prototyping of in-game objects... now I've pointed out how people in video games can make cold hard cash for their creative and criminal efforts! And in regard to the more creative side of this, somebody obviously thinks their efforts are valuable, or nobody would be paying into the economies.
No matter how many times you try to minimize the scope of games' influence on the real world, I can come up with something you're either ignoring or have not considered. This was direct, tangible effect number two.
Here's what might (might) get me to shut up. How about you just, you know, say that if you could be wrong about two, you could be wrong about many of them... and maybe I'm not stretching so much as you say?
I can research and post links for all the other types of bleed-over I've already listed, or come up with even more examples, with ease... if that's really what it takes to ratchet you back from your untenable position. Wouldn't it just be easier to concede wholesale?
Here's a freebie, check it out:
Real-Life Fugitive Captured Thanks to World of Warcraft
An 'out-of-state' subpoena to track a criminal known to reside in a game! Not just across international borders, but across the border between the real and the virtual!
"It's an interesting situation, and the legal questions cut both ways. A virtual world proved instrumental in bringing a drug dealer to justice even across international borders, but also raised questions about how much Blizzard is willing to voluntarily provide out-of-state law enforcement officials."
I can do this all day. I follow these things. |
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10/20/2010 07:39:42 PM · #212 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by Mousie:
As has been mentioned... the people playing games are often geeky/nerdy or meek/wussy/shy. It's partly because sports don't have an appeal for people like this that they turn to other forms of less directly confrontational entertainment to fill their time. |
I sprint swim. shrug |
I cross-train. Neither's exactly what I call confrontational. You must play video games! :) |
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10/20/2010 07:47:31 PM · #213 |
Originally posted by Melethia:
A bit lost on the Johnny-Mousie discussion. Is it being put forth that gaming is "bad" because nothing is created by the player? If so, then reading is bad, too? |
This is how I see it.
Johnny's basically said that nothing of creative value can be created in a video game. At all.
He suggests that games are inherently non-creative environments, populated by passive consumers. Mere recreators. You only do what's been scripted for you to do by the game's creators.
To support this, he's offered the unrelated argument that nothing tangible has ever come from video games. I think part of why you're lost is that he keeps changing the terms of what supposedly defines creativity in a game.
I'm patiently dismantling these misunderstandings.
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10/20/2010 07:49:14 PM · #214 |
Originally posted by Mousie:
DrAchoo,
I ask because I consider chess a violent game.
You kill people, but it's very abstract. Regardless, it's a war. You sacrifice pawns. Yet nobody complains about chess.
What I'm getting at is the idea that almost all 'violent' games are an abstraction... they're not actually violent at all. They're an abstraction that only refers to real world violence. Sports are actually much more violent. (And that's what people are suggesting kids do instead of play games!)
I'm curious where you draw the line, basically.
Does chess make kids more violent?
Does computer chess make kids more violent?
How about computer chess where the kills are animated?
How about the same where the animated deaths are really graphic?
How about games along the lines of Archon, where it's basically chess, but with real-time battles when pieces encounter each other on the board?
After that, it's not much of a leap to dump the chess game mechanic entirely and go straight to the real-time battles.
This is basically the genealogy of shooter games! They evolved, step by step, from games like chess, as computers became more capable.
On the other hand, most conventional kids' sports (football, soccer, hockey, lacrosse) are practically combat... played by a bunch of violent, delusional, bullying jocks. Attracts the wrong crowd, I say. Whips up a lot of animosity, and inculcates an Us vs. Them mentality. Even the non-combat team sports like cheer leading are rife with injury... cheer leading is one of the most dangerous sports there is! If you want to horrify yourself, go look up the legal maelstrom around the safety of that sport these days. Cheerleaders and their parents also have the uncanny knack for stabbing each other. Search for "cheerleader stabbing" and you get 1,570,000 hits.
As has been mentioned... the people playing games are often geeky/nerdy or meek/wussy/shy. It's partly because sports don't have an appeal for people like this that they turn to other forms of less directly confrontational entertainment to fill their time. I know that's what happened in my case.
Gamers tend to be less violent on average than society as a whole, in my experience! How would you explain that? |
I think your definition of violence is not inline with what gets typically used for these discussions. Chess is so abstracted that the "violence" is likely to be benign. At least I've seen no study linking chess to anything. I sensed that was your angle, but I think it's just a red herring. Valentines Day is brutally violent because it celebrates the martyrdom and beheading of St. Valentine? Is that right?
The question becomes whether a game that encourages you to invoke brutal violence upon another "human" and are rewarded for doing so changes you at all. We know it leads to short term aggression, what we speculate (but don't really know) is whether it leads to long term changes. I'll grant Tycho that this stuff is "soft science" because it's difficult to set up a blinded, placebo-controlled study.
Anyway, I'm not too worried about chess. And if you view that as a double standard, well, I can live with that. |
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10/20/2010 07:49:15 PM · #215 |
Oh and just so I'm clear here... at no point have I suggested that any of you actually play Second Life.
It's a steaming pile of crap.
It's just such an excellent example, sitting right at the intersection of the real and virtual. |
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10/20/2010 07:55:13 PM · #216 |
| Does anybody remember the classic story of kids getting all crazy and riled up Saturday morning while watching cartoons? We always blamed the sugar cereals, but studies have shown that behavior actually doesn't change with sugar ingestion. I wonder if it was the Loony Tunes? |
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10/20/2010 07:58:43 PM · #217 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Does anybody remember the classic story of kids getting all crazy and riled up Saturday morning while watching cartoons? We always blamed the sugar cereals, but studies have shown that behavior actually doesn't change with sugar ingestion. I wonder if it was the Loony Tunes? |
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH.
Right.
Ingestion of sugar certainly changes the behavior of children, because it happens consistently without any outside media influence at all in our household. Take 3 perfectly regularly behaved children, put them down to play with stuffed dolls or crayons and blank paper and feed them a box of donut holes. Between 30 minutes - 2 hours later, there is a whirlwind of crazed-eyed hyper-fests hitting full throttle.
So you can keep your precious "studies". I'll go on personal experience. |
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10/20/2010 08:00:28 PM · #218 |
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Does anybody remember the classic story of kids getting all crazy and riled up Saturday morning while watching cartoons? We always blamed the sugar cereals, but studies have shown that behavior actually doesn't change with sugar ingestion. I wonder if it was the Loony Tunes? |
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH.
Right.
Ingestion of sugar certainly changes the behavior of children, because it happens consistently without any outside media influence at all in our household. Take 3 perfectly regularly behaved children, put them down to play with stuffed dolls or crayons and blank paper and feed them a box of donut holes. Between 30 minutes - 2 hours later, there is a whirlwind of crazed-eyed hyper-fests hitting full throttle.
So you can keep your precious "studies". I'll go on personal experience. |
Hehe. Anecdotal evidence is the worst kind K. The worst kind. I'll have to dig those studies up. It's been a long time since I've read them. |
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10/20/2010 08:01:01 PM · #219 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I think your definition of violence is not inline with what gets typically used for these discussions. Chess is so abstracted that the "violence" is likely to be benign. At least I've seen no study linking chess to anything. I sensed that was your angle, but I think it's just a red herring. Valentines Day is brutally violent because it celebrates the martyrdom and beheading of St. Valentine? Is that right?
The question becomes whether a game that encourages you to invoke brutal violence upon another "human" and are rewarded for doing so changes you at all. We know it leads to short term aggression, what we speculate (but don't really know) is whether it leads to long term changes. I'll grant Tycho that this stuff is "soft science" because it's difficult to set up a blinded, placebo-controlled study.
Anyway, I'm not too worried about chess. And if you view that as a double standard, well, I can live with that. |
But where in the list I provided does the abstraction become 'too real'? That's what I'm asking.
Or how about this: In Germany you can't (or couldn't, haven't checked in a while) use red blood. Crazy, I know. But green blood in exactly the same game, otherwise? GO FOR IT. Spray buckets.
Where is the line between proxy and human?
There's a new Modern Warfare coming out. People are totally flipping because, unusually, you don't shoot at (or play as) arabs, asians, soviets (no longer around), or the citizens of some made-up country/organization/coalition, but at a very specific 'Al-Qaeda'. It's just the name that's different. A freakin' string resource replacing 'them' with something specific.
Is the color? Is it the name?
I'd suggest that all 'people' in games are actually abstractions... and weep for the children who's parents can't clear this up for them.
So, when do I go form shooting avatars to pretending I'm actually killing people?
Message edited by author 2010-10-20 20:03:41. |
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10/20/2010 08:02:44 PM · #220 |
Here you go. This was from the JAMA (The Journal of American Medical Association). Probably the second most widely read journal in the US after the New England Journal.
Objective.
—To examine the effects of sugar on the behavior or cognition of children by using meta-analytic techniques on reported studies.
Data Sources.
—Studies were identified through a literature search of the MEDLINE and PsychINFO databases and the authors' files using sugar, sucrose, and attention deficit disorder as the search terms.
Study Selection.
—Studies were required to (1) intervene by having the subjects consume a known quantity of sugar; (2) use a placebo (artificial sweetener) condition; (3) blind the subjects, parents, and research staff to the conditions; and (4) report statistics that could be used to compute the dependent measures effect sizes.
Data Extraction.
—Variables included publication year, study setting, subject type and number, gender, age, sugar and placebo type and dose, prior dietary condition, measurement construct, means and SDs for the sugar and placebo conditions, and direction of effect.
Data Synthesis.
—Sixteen reports met the inclusion criteria for a total of 23 within-subject design studies. The weighted mean effect size and related statistics for each of the 14 measurement constructs revealed that although the range for these means was from -0.14 for direct observations and up to +0.30 for academic tests, the 95% confidence interval for all 14 mean effect sizes included 0.
Conclusion.
—The meta-analytic synthesis of the studies to date found that sugar does not affect the behavior or cognitive performance of children. The strong belief of parents may be due to expectancy and common association. However, a small effect of sugar or effects on subsets of children cannot be ruled out.
What can I say?
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10/20/2010 08:02:48 PM · #221 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Does anybody remember the classic story of kids getting all crazy and riled up Saturday morning while watching cartoons? We always blamed the sugar cereals, but studies have shown that behavior actually doesn't change with sugar ingestion. I wonder if it was the Loony Tunes? |
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH.
Right.
Ingestion of sugar certainly changes the behavior of children, because it happens consistently without any outside media influence at all in our household. Take 3 perfectly regularly behaved children, put them down to play with stuffed dolls or crayons and blank paper and feed them a box of donut holes. Between 30 minutes - 2 hours later, there is a whirlwind of crazed-eyed hyper-fests hitting full throttle.
So you can keep your precious "studies". I'll go on personal experience. |
Hehe. Anecdotal evidence is the worst kind K. The worst kind. I'll have to dig those studies up. It's been a long time since I've read them. |
Studies are actually meaningless to me. Especially in this day and age, where even the side we AGREE with are usually so laden with corporate sponsorship (either above or below board), or personal biases, that the end results mean nothing. For every study that produces one result, there's one that produces the exact opposite. Whether it's behavior or global warming, it all means basically nothing. NOTHING. Anecdotal evidence and personal experience and basically just following instinct? That's what I'll stick with. Thank you very much.
*ETA* oh, and believe it or not, I'm not disagreeing that Looney Tunes doesn't have any effect either. I certainly know that my brother and I lost a couple of teeth because of the hour after a WWF viewing.
Message edited by author 2010-10-20 20:04:21. |
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10/20/2010 08:04:17 PM · #222 |
| I don't have those answers for you Mousie. Not in any scientific way at least. Nobody knows. It doesn't mean there isn't a difference between the ends of the continuum though just because you can't draw a line somewhere. |
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10/20/2010 08:05:05 PM · #223 |
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Studies are actually meaningless to me. Especially in this day and age, where even the side we AGREE with are usually so laden with corporate sponsorship (either above or below board), or personal biases, that the end results mean nothing. For every study that produces one result, there's one that produces the exact opposite. Whether it's behavior or global warming, it all means basically nothing. NOTHING. Anecdotal evidence and personal experience and basically just following instinct? That's what I'll stick with. Thank you very much.
*ETA* oh, and believe it or not, I'm not disagreeing that Looney Tunes doesn't have any effect either. I certainly know that my brother and I lost a couple of teeth because of the hour after a WWF viewing. |
Okey-doke. I thought you were the one looking for less "superstition" in life, but I guess to each their own... |
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10/20/2010 08:08:14 PM · #224 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Studies are actually meaningless to me. Especially in this day and age, where even the side we AGREE with are usually so laden with corporate sponsorship (either above or below board), or personal biases, that the end results mean nothing. For every study that produces one result, there's one that produces the exact opposite. Whether it's behavior or global warming, it all means basically nothing. NOTHING. Anecdotal evidence and personal experience and basically just following instinct? That's what I'll stick with. Thank you very much.
*ETA* oh, and believe it or not, I'm not disagreeing that Looney Tunes doesn't have any effect either. I certainly know that my brother and I lost a couple of teeth because of the hour after a WWF viewing. |
Okey-doke. I thought you were the one looking for less "superstition" in life, but I guess to each their own... |
It's not superstition, it's cause and effect. Give donuts = a few hours of hell. Don't give donuts = not so much. If you WANT to pretend that something not based on ONE study is "superstition", that's your problem. lol. Not mine.
ETA: Besides, for a person so caught up on studies, how on earth do you believe in a god!? The mind boggles.
Message edited by author 2010-10-20 20:09:26. |
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10/20/2010 08:11:42 PM · #225 |
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Studies are actually meaningless to me. Especially in this day and age, where even the side we AGREE with are usually so laden with corporate sponsorship (either above or below board), or personal biases, that the end results mean nothing. For every study that produces one result, there's one that produces the exact opposite. Whether it's behavior or global warming, it all means basically nothing. NOTHING. Anecdotal evidence and personal experience and basically just following instinct? That's what I'll stick with. Thank you very much.
*ETA* oh, and believe it or not, I'm not disagreeing that Looney Tunes doesn't have any effect either. I certainly know that my brother and I lost a couple of teeth because of the hour after a WWF viewing. |
Wow, that's not very fair.
The doctor is right, anecdotal evidence is crap. There are any number of reasons your kids could start spazzing out... one of them is that you're expecting them to. That's what the blind does... it helps remove the influence of the observer on the experiment.
You might as well discount everything said by everyone! Who doesn't have an agenda?
My own anecdote: When I was a kid I'd drink six-packs of Jolt Cola in two hours, and never get hyper, despite the sugar AND caffeine. Does this prove you wrong? Hardly. |
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