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Gamers Divorced From Reality?
nd01 writes "According to Gamepolitics.com, Bill OReilly has a few choice words for gamers and computer geeks in general. The well-known conservative pundit has harsh words for iPod owners, gamers, the PS3, and all of us 'disconnected from reality' by modern technological contrivances."
From the article: "Basically what you have is a large portion of the population, mostly younger people under the age of 45, who don't deal with reality — ever. So they don't know what day it is; they don't know temperature it is; they don't know what their neighbor looks like. They don't know anything... because they are constantly diverted by a machine. Now what this does is it takes a person away from reality because they've created their own reality..."
Considering it's linking to O'Reilly, not surprising!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Well, O'Reilly is certainly an expert on creating your own reality...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Its Tuesday ... says so in the lower right hand corner of my screen!
Forecastfox has the weather for me, and as for what my neighbor looks like, thats what MySpace and Meetup.com are for!
What's reality, anyway?
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
O'Reilly went on to describe the new PS3 and Wii as "a series of tubes". Spokepeople from Nintendo responded angrily that this only applies to a small portion of their games.
I'm sick of gamers like me being accused of living in a fantasy world. This is the last straw! I'm sending out my long distance Firaga and Doom spells at the next person to make the accusation! I have powers, damn, you. POWERS!
but damn is the alimony a bitch!
Why just this morning I had to buy gas before work, so I jumped on a turtle and threw its shell at a brick. Unfortunately, no money came out of the brick this time. So I stole a police car and ran over a hooker to get some cash. I got shot by the pimp, but I picked up a backpack with a red cross on it, so it was all good. I did end up 10 mins late to work though.
-Now I may be an idiot, but there is one thing I am not sir, and that, sir, is an idiot.
Who cares what Bill O'Reilly really thinks? I thought slashdotters hated Fox News and stayed from their channel anyways. He baited you nerds, and you fell for it hook, line and sinker.
And besides, why is this filed under politics? According to the slashdot FAQ, this sections is for news related to US Government politics. The US government is not in play at all here.
Reality and I tried to make things work, but I guess we just weren't meant to be. It's a good thing we didn't have kids.
I don't really think that Bill O'Reilly is in any position to accuse someone else of being "divorced from reality."
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Bill makes a great point. Most hardcore gamers are not in touch with reality. I've had two roommates fail out of college because WoW consumed their lives and they forgot when class was; what tests were on; what time it was; how long its been since they last showered, ate, or slept. And I'm only in my 3rd semester. Let's face it, kids today would rather go fishing in a video game (see: Zelda for Wii) than in real life. They would rather farm gold for hours on end instead of make real money. It's too bad.
Doesn't that really depend on the "gamer" you're talking about?
Sure, there are some pasty-faced unwashed slobs out there who really think they live in Azeroth. But there are a ton of casual gamers who get out, have a real life, etc, etc. People who bring up arguments like this are similar to those that point out that drunks seem to be in taverns or their local liquor shops all the time and do nothing but drink, so therefore all drinkers are bad people.
Addiction to anything can be bad. But painting anyone who indulges in something with the same brush is just ignorant.
While Bill O'Reilly may not be divorced from reality himself, the relationship is definitely strained -- they're doing a trial separation right now.
I wonder if O'Reilley actually believes the things he says or if he understands them to be opinions manufactured for ratings and political results.
If television is what O'Reilly calls reality, then yes, I'm divorced from it, and happily so.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
"Basically what you have is a large portion of the population, mostly younger people under the age of 45, who don't deal with reality."
What you and people *over* the age of 45 call reality, I call senile dementia, Bill.
I can respond by saying that people of the age group you are talking about are entirely the problem. They're just as divorced from reality as anyone else...and the thing is, that although younger people might be divorced from reality as well, they're not able to take their delusion and from that perspective *enact laws.*
Also, if you really want to go there...younger people on average are a lot more intimate with technological developments, particularly where computers are concerned. We're a lot more likely to understand issues because unlike you and your geriatric peers, we actually have to live with said issues. Your generation aren't the ones who've had to die by the thousands in Iraq...many of you, when you *were* our age yourselves, dodged service...which makes you sending members of my generation off to die that much more disgusting. You're also not the ones who are going to have to deal with the real consequences of what your generation has done to the environment...you'll be dead in 20 years.
You are a sick, deeply degraded human being, Mr. O'Reilly...and you shame yourself on a continual basis with your entirely voluntary ignorance and rock stupidity. The only thing that keeps me from fervently wishing that you and other individuals like you did not exist is the realisation that in doing so, I would myself go down to your level.
Like it or not, hate O'Reilly or not, there is a piece of truth to what he's saying.
People now are more separated than they are connected. Through a combination of technology, and paranoia, we've started sealing ourselves off from the world around us. How often do you see kids playing in your neighborhood on a summer's day? I was visiting my folks this summer and I know for a fact the neighborhood they live in is filled with little kids. Not a single one went outside to play the several days I was there. This is pretty much the norm.
What were they doing instead? Video games, TV, movies etc.
Look around you at most of the people you may work with in IT. How many of them are social creatures, going out and partying on weekends etc? Yes, it's a bad stereotype, that computer geeks are antisocial misfits, but all stereotypes come from truth.
Look around a college campus during class change. How many of those people have a phone attached to their head, completely ignoring all the real people around them? Sure they're connected to another person at that moment, but they're cut off from the physical world they're walking through almost entirely.
Gamers, especially hardcore MMO players, are notorious for spending days if not weeks doing little more than playing their games. I've known several people to flunk out of college, lose jobs, lose significant others, over their singular obsession to their games.
None of this is the fault of technology, because technology is a neutral medium that people choose how to use. What it does do however is make it easier for people who would seal themselves off from the world, to do so. You can get groceries over the net, there are dating services to avoid having to pick people up in person, heck you don't even need to go to the video store anymore with services like NetFlix. Technology has made it increasingly easy to avoid interacting with other people. When was the last time you sat on your porch and chatted with a neigbor? Used to be that was the main form of evening entertainment, now it's becoming increasingly rare as people venture out of their house less and less.
This isn't a comment on "these people are lame!" because it's not one particular group that is falling victim to this. It's the "cool" kids too now that they're getting hooked on text messaging, IMs, console gaming etc. It's a growing problem that is hard for lots of people here to recognize because we're in the middle of it. We don't like to think that maybe we're less social or less connected with the outside world than we should be.
While poorly worded, O'Reilly actually has a point burried beneath his typical inflamatory rhetoric.
The last people who should say ANYTHING about anyone being divorced from reality, are Right Wing Republicans and ANYONE on FOX.
Whatever the merits of his point, I don't see how this incoherent, delusional response weakens it any...
I'm trying to figure out what "reality" people over 45 have ever dealt with. Sure sure, we still have a few depression era types around, they dealt with reality. But their kids? I don't THINK so.
Look at our current political mess, and think about what age group all those people belong to, and tell me that there is reality in there ANYWHERE!
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Will he go after monks and nuns next?
No, I suppose not.
Ah, nevermind... going back to my games again...
-gam
"In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not."
I guess the system administrator of the hosted site took Bill's advice, stepped away from his computers, and went out to meet his neighbor and check the weather, since the web server's going up in flames right now...
The "reality" of a family in a small town in Nebraska is quite different from the "reality" that a single person living in a major city experiences. Neither reality is better; they're just different ways of viewing life and its associated recreational or social priorities.
Folks who interact a lot with technology are no different -- they simply have a set of experiences and priorities that differs from other groups of people.
As long as it doesn't hurt other people, what's the big deal?
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Did anyone else miss the show where BIll Oriely says anyone with an iPod is helping the terrorists? I know I did but boy was I glad when I went on his website and found out I could download the official Baby Oriely PODCAST and listen to it on my iPod on the way to work.
No, they sound exactly like most hardcore gamers. But we need to distinguish most hardcore gamers from your run-of-the-mill gamer.
Ok, the Gaming site is DOA, Slashdotted to hell and back. Does anyone know where this quote is coming from? It's not "Talking points" I check the Fox News archive and there's nothing related to gaming on there going back at least 6 months. I don't know if this is in any of his books or not, as i don't own them. Did they interview OReilly? Where is this quote coming from?
I guess I'm jaded, but I want confirmation of a quote by ANYBODY before I go off half-cocked and getting all upset over what someone is purported to have said.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Even if this weren't Bill O'Reilly, it would be kind of silly for some multi-millionaire radio/TV personality to claim that normal schmucks (by comparison) don't deal with reality. I may play games, but I still have to worry about paying the bills, where dinner is going to come from, and how I'm going to get to work.
I don't know anything about Bill O'Reilly's origins, since I only watch him for a laugh now and then, but if he were ever part of reality he left it long ago for the greener pastures of celebrity, albeit minor celebrity.
Game... blouses.
I know what my neighbor looks like. That's what peepholes are for. Viewing real reality from a distance with a barrier between you and it. I ain't no dummy.
Swi
The news media has made parents more aware of child molesters, and many parents have become so phobic about them that they don't take their kids to the park anymore.
But is he 100% wrong? I dunno. I don't enter Bill's reality, but that doesn't mean I haven't done exactly what hes talking about before.
I don't do what hes complaining about now, but I remember a time when I did.
Sadly, despite being as full of it as any political commentator is (at least Jon Stewart, etc make it obvious when they are kidding), He isn't always wrong.
Sleep is for the weak.
Ehh, I thought video games were training grounds for terrorists and school shooters. People are scared of terrorists. Bill is just inconsistant. He's right to an extent though. Video games are fine if you can handle them. but if you have to much invested in them, you can loose track of reality. But then again, books are good if you can handle them, TV news is good in moderation, alcohol is good in moderation. Food is good in moderation. He's just stating the obvious. Now excuse me while I go back to rotting my brain out with the internet. And what's that damned yellow thing outside the window?
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
What does this have to do with gaming? Tuck Fexas! Oh, wait... my anus is a flexin'... giving birth to another Texan.
This reminds me of something that happened last week. I've been spending a few hours a week (really, that's all!) playing Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Anyhow, I was at work Saturday, and most of the building lights were off. I came to a corner in the corridor, and when I turned, there was a treasure chest sitting atop a row of filing cabinets. It was the "traditional" design, wider at the top, rounded lid, metal banding, even a padlock.
For an instant, I found myself wondering if I had any lockpicks -- then reality took back over. But for a brief instant, in that dark hall, seeing a treasure chest (it was there because another department was doing some United Way deal) I wasn't sure where I was.
Has anybody else ever had something like this happen?
So they don't know what day it is; they don't know temperature it is; they don't know what their neighbor looks like. They don't know anything
;)
I think I'm better informed about a raft of things, thanks to modern technology (i.e. the world wide web). I not only know what day it is, I have access to news weather forecasts for the next five days for my local area and technology allows me to keep in touch with my extended family in different countries at little cost, exchanging not only text, but photos and videos too.
My iPod allows me access to music I just would never has been exposed to using the traditional channels and I've sworn off games until Duke Nukem 4Ever is released.
BTW My neighbour is a 5'9" tall male, has sandy hair, blue eyes and dresses like an off duty polo player. His girlfriend is a hot...er that's enough there. Anyway, I know all of this because I see them frequently. When he or she gets an IM client, I'll find out their names...
Freedom is a state of mind. A mind is a state of being. Stay the fuck out of my mind and my being. - Corporate Avenger
Odd that he is so against video games, watch him here in his earlier days on an indepth expose of the Super Mario Bros. http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=2 0016
"They said we drink horse urine and sleep with our own kin. You say it's comedy, but how can someone laugh at that?"
"Now you have the "knows" and the "know-nots", because if you spend all your youth being prisoners of machines..... you're not going to know anything.... You're gonna fail."
Yuh huh. I'm 26 and I've been playing video games for 20 years. I recently completed a post-graduate program in technical writing (top of my class with high honours) and am employed as a tech writer and sys admin. I also fix PCs on the side.
Video games are the foundation of my full time employment which I enjoy very much. I put up with the drudgery of learning batch files, composing multi-config.sys boot environments, configuring IRQ/DMA/IO ports, memory management, hardware installation, and troubleshooting because the payoff of exciting games was worth the trouble. Games are the gateway to technology because they put a human face on computers.
Does O'Reilly claim that playfighting lion cubs are out of touch with reality? Doesn't play prepare us for real challenges?
Whenever somebody says something along the lines of "all gamers are evil", I just point them to http://www.childsplaycharity.org/
Who is Bill O'Reilly and why the hell should I care about what he has got to say?
From the article he doesn't appear to have an academic or industry credentials on the subject to his name so why has he got any more insight than anyone else on the street?
Surely researchers who study the issue would be a better source of information.
Funny that he makes these remarks on television, the medium responsible for "reality" tv, and for Fox, no less, the corporation responsible for the worst of it. I read an article last year in the "Life, etc." section of my local paper that talked about how Americans go out and mingle with their friends disturbingly less often than in the past. After reading this well-thought out piece, my eyes wandered to the bottom of the page, where I saw an infobox entitled What to Watch, which listed the latest in reality tv. We sit at home on our fat asses watching other people live lives that we wish we could have... if only we'd get up and leave the couch. I've posted a long tirade about it here.
"Tu fui, ego eris" - Virgil
If we stop being the "prisoners of machines", we're going to be able to realize ourselves in society, which of course is absolutely free-minded and in no way controlled by, for instance, a government, the media or single, rich and powerful persons.
In the 18th century, many people in Europe were hooked to going to the theatre and watching plays of great writers trying to express themselves. Those were mostly young men and women and a lot of privileged people were against that new, emotion-centered kind of lifestyle, which they hadn't thought of being possible until then. (But it ultimately led to the French Revolution.) Young people in the 20th century devoted their lives to, for instance, cars and motorcycles or Elvis or whatever. And again, many people were against it. In my personal opinion, the whole thing's a kind of necessity, only evolving a little in appearance.
That's right, just because I play video games, everything that I do is defined by that one activity. I have no life, I don't live in the reality.
I wonder what Bill O'Reilly would think, if everyone defined everything that he does now, in the past or in the future by his actions towards his female staff members. He'd probably accuse such persons of being in the liberal conspiracy against him.
What a goddamn idiot.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Bill might have a point here to an extent but, he makes this statement in only the 3rd paragraph of the article:
American society is changing for the worse because of the machines... In the past to flee the real world people usually chose drugs or alcohol... now you don't have to do that, Now all you have to do is have enough money to buy a machine...
So drugs and alcohol are better?
He also equates standing on line for several "hours" (guess he missed all the news about lines piling up two weeks ahead of time) as being a drug addict/junkie and exhibiting addiction symptoms. So I guess all those kids in the 60's standing on line just to get a glimpse of The Beatles getting off an airplane are addicts in that respect too? Or maybe all those people who stood on line to get Led Zepplin or Madonna tickets were crazed by addiction too? Or what about all those moms and dads who stood on line at the silliest hours just to get a Tickle Me Elmo are all crazed by addiction too? He's equating a behavior of a drug addict to peple seizing an opportunity to get a limited number of an item so then can have one. I highly doubt any parent out there relishes thier Tickle Me Elmo so much that they are unwilling to part with it in the same vein as a drug addict.
But then he not only goes on to further insult all gamers, not just the ones who are detached from reality but he then slams every "computer geek" out there and insinuates an intelligence deficit in those "geeks" by asking if you ever tried to talk to them.
It seems Mr. O'Reilly is the one out of touch with reality. If it wasn't for those "computer geeks" he likely would not have the facilities and resources he has available to him to not only have a TV show but a radio show, a podcast, a website, a blog and pretty much every other media outlet he uses. Does this guy ever think before he speaks anymore?
He destroyed any credibility in his point before he ever even got around to making it.
What is it lately with all these celebrities seemingly afflicted with constipation of the brain and diarrhea of the mouth?
Reality got the house, the kids, and I have to pay alimony. Damn reality!
So, that bitch got us ALL? She must be stinky filthy rich!
Bill O'Reilly's reality is having phone sex with one of his terrified female associate producers.
Windows, Screen saver, 3D Pipes (OpenGL)
.. are disconnected from reality by at least one level. They come in with their parents looking to buy a computer so they can see and speak to their friends two streets away over the webcam. What's wrong with going round to someone's house and asking if someone can out to play, as I did when I was a kid?
Then again, the Bush admin could be videogamers.
He's whining about how young people are turning to get their op-ed info from Jon Stewart and Keith Olbermann and everybody else who isn't Bill O'Reilly. So now he's accusing people who don't buy into his world view of being divorced from reality. Whatever, Falafel Bill.
If O'Reilly wants to go after jihadists, he ought to do so in Counterstrike. It'll get him a lot closer to the "action" than being a member of the whining 101st chairborne.
Well, at least I know the difference between a loofah and a falafel...
"I don't know anything about Bill O'Reilly's origins, since I only watch him for a laugh now and then, but if he were ever part of reality he left it long ago for the greener pastures of celebrity, albeit minor celebrity."
I think the word you were searching for was "infamy".
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
O'Reilly went on to complain that kids today were rude, listened to awful "music" that doesn't even have good lyrics, and often dressed in an inappropriate manner. He then exhorted the youth of America to "get off my damn lawn, you punks."
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
I would say cell phones have a far greater impact on disconnecting people from reality than all of the games and computers put together.
"Now what this does is it takes a person away from reality because they've created their own reality"
Funny, because thats what games are designed to do.
when everyone's constantly moving in and out of the area over the last couple of years? Used to be where I come from people stay in one place forever ... Not sure that trend is here anymore. Whether that's bad or good, is debatable. Lives change, and you don't know where you'll be going next.... whether due to a job or something else.
This is slightly on topic, but when talking about neighbors.. I haven't known mine real well in the US at all, and I've lived here for 14 years.
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
Has that effect too, Billy-O.
I know what day it is (Tuesday November 21, 2006; my mother's 62nd birthday)
I know what the temperature is: 61 degrees Fahrenheit (Thank you NOAA)
I know what my neighbor looks like and I need to wash THAT mental image out of my head!
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
O'Rielly also bashed people with iPods, practically saying that owning one is a personal character flaw.
He has downloadable podcasts for his paid website subscribers. Whoops.
Seriously, O'Rielly is a self absorbed idiot who believes anyone that disagrees with him is 'one of them'.
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
Bill O'Reilly Wants to Ban Horror Movies (and is a Moron)
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Why is this on Slashdot? A pundit makes some commentary about video games...so? He bloviates about stuff every night, and has for 8+ years. He's in no position to craft laws, no position to do anything about it. This is on Slashdot for two reasons:
1) He mentioned games
2) He's considered right-wing by the decidedly left-wing crowd here, and that's bad.
If Bill Maher/Michael Moore/Robert Greenwald come out for/against video games, should that make news on here?
--trb
The article should read, "Please stop living in a fantasy game reality and watch the fantasy reality cable TV is offering..."
I buy PS3/Xbox360/Wii/iPod (my money) that I have to work for (and pay taxes). Those items consume my time and hence have less time to devote to things like the complete failure in the Middle East.
Enough off-topic, the guy is a moron. If you take an iPod and consider it not real life then your a moron! It is a real person recording their real voice (sometimes) onto a medium that can be duplicated and distributed to as many people that are willing to buy it, which is another real life shite experience...shopping...(thank the lord for Internet shopping). Oh, and I still have my little boy, wife and 9-6 job...My life is just the way I like it thank you very much.
I suppose you wish cars, guns, hell even aquaducts to be gone? Hey, let's go back to the time of disciples and prostitutes...Now there's a good idea! Not!
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Bill OReilly's reality is stuck somewhere in 1955. I still like Foxnews thou :-D
Awesome!
In the case of the hardcore gamers who drop out of college, etc. then you've got a plausible case of addiction or at any rate a probable failure of rational choice, but I wonder how well that generalises to the broader social changes the parent mentioned. If 'technology is a neutral medium that people choose how to use [and it makes] it easier for people who would seal themselves off from the world, to do so', that looks like expansion of freedom and autonomy, and I'm not sure how that squares with 'falling victim'. If you get to make choices, you get to make mistakes; you also get the chance to find out whether given modes of living actually suit you.
Though it would be nasty to be the sole, eccentric neighbourhood extrovert, fruitlessly seeking company.
Anyone notice that when people start picking on others for no apparent reason, it deteriorates their own credibility? It's something politicians and spin doctors haven't all grasped. I'm looking for people who critique others constructively, and who don't take time out of their day to bash others.
Kerry's failed joke last month was a prime example. If he weren't trying to be mean in such a juvenile fashion, he might not have put his foot in his mouth so far. If he'd just critiqued Bush without attempting poor wit, which is something I can see Kerry doing and actually making low-rent fun is something he seems odd attempting, he would be fine.
I would if I had mod points, even though it's probably a bit off-topic. I agree 100%.
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
The Big O's comments seem more an indictment of 'real' reality than of the people who avoid it. What does it say about life that some people would prefer to spend it pretending to be a brightly-colored cartoon than a stocker at Wal-Mart?
Where are the ads for gyms, adventure travel, hiking gear, and "cut your own Xmas tree" places? This guy is selling the stuff he preaches against.
The color of the pot has no bearing on that of the kettle.
I refuse to read the negative political spin on something that is a hobby for some of us. Just as hunting, sports, bikes, photography, music, etc. are hobbies for others. I have a full time job in I.T., am a member of the US Air Force Reserve, am enrolled half time at an online university in a programming degree, and have 4 great children that I have visitation with every other weekend. Yeah, I guess he's right, I have no life! Maybe politicians should start taking a stand on issues that need to be taken care of in our country. Things like...oh, I don't know... homelessness, hunger, crime, etc. Politicians that take these types of platforms need to be pushed off by Mario! I bet if Washington could find a way to lobby for a federal tax or fee on software they would shut their yaps!
I Reject your reality and submit my own.
In other words, it is not a defense against the original charge, but a claim that the accuser is hypocritical.
If I created my own reality, my brain must have been spinning the day I put Bill O'Reilly in it.
While there are some unusual and sad individuals that might (more or less) be described by O'Reilly, he's painting with a pretty broad brush. If he wants to find individuals who really are divorced from reality, he should talk to politicos. Does he really think a governor or senator has any idea how much a gallon of milk costs? How much is rent for an apartment in his/her constituency? Do they have any idea how far $30k per year will get you? For an awful lot of people, this is reality - I doubt many of the policymakers are actually in touch with it.
If gamers are divorced from reality? Unlike other means of reality distortion (drugs, and the subsequent gangs and violence associated with drugs), gaming hardly has any negative contribution to society. A gamer that engulfed in a gaming world takes very little from society other than bandwidth. I don't really see it being a bad thing for anyone other than the individual. And that if that individual chooses to live that way, no one really has the right judge it.
>> So they don't know what day it is; they don't know temperature it is
HA!
What he doesn't know is that I have date and time widgets running on my screen 24/7!
So there O'Reilly!
It's 21 Nov 2006, 10:55 ummm, am! and looking at my weather widget I can see that it is 50 degrees F and mostly sunny outside!
Let's see here: Lives in a neocon fantasy world all his own? Check. Pretentious self important blow hard? Check. Total hypocrite? Check. Makes a living off the very technology that he bashes, yet it keeps this idiot employed? Check. Yup that about covers it all and Bill should really take a look in the mirror before pointing the finger at anyone. To to Bill and those of his ilk I'd like to introduce you Mr. Pot. Mr. Pot, this is Mr. Kettle.
I'm not really a gamer but self righteous assholes like o'reilly that some how think they have the both the authority and "duty" to save us poor uninformed peons from ourselves really need to back up and keep their moronic views to themselves. If he thinks that he is some how more "connected" to the general population that everyone else then he really needs to be checked into a psychiatric ward because he is extremely delusional. What would be nice is to have him live luddite life for a while and then get back to us on how evil technology is. Then again given the source this statement from him comes as no surprise at all. What we need to do is just ignore the little troll and eventually he will go away.
"Try a Tube Shot!"
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Here's the story covering it, with a partial playlist. I wonder if he remembered that, and when it's pointed out to him, how he will spin this to be the left's fault? :)
If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Angry Dome.
Didn't Bill O'Reilly get accused of unwanted phone sex with an intern? Or are phone exempt from his reasoning?
...American society is changing for the worse because of the machines... In the past to flee the real world people usually chose drugs or alcohol... now you don't have to do that, Now all you have to do is have enough money to buy a machine...
Yeah it's really changing for the worse... what don't we go back to good ol' drugs and alcohol instead if those... those... machines.. !!
"Basically what you have is a large portion of the population, mostly younger people under the age of 45, who don't deal with reality -- ever."
When the reality is that life in 21st century America has sucked royally so far (lion's share of the blame for which falls at the feet of Republicans who've been running things during that time), is it really any wonder that people are tuning out with the help of high-tech gadgetry?
I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I'd rather listen to music my iPod than, say, people screaming, skyscrapers collapsing, and a lackwit President or sycophantic radio commentators speaking.
DeAr MoMmY,
i WaNT 2 Be MaRiO wHEN i Grow UP. i Want tO eAt sHroOms and gEt HiGH iN CLoUDS.
bYe NoW i HaVE to KiLL GaNoN and finD PrinCESS.
oH aND thE Old MaN saYS "Dodongo dislikes smoke."
yOuR SoN,
LiNK
If people like him hadn't messed up this reality so much, perhaps young people wouldn't feel the need to escape from it.
It is reality that computers and computer games exist. So has "reality" as written by the guy been supressed as well? I'm not going to give you an explanation. Figer it out.
That's it Bill O'Reilly! -1 Flamebait for you!
While we're at it, -50DKP!
Ya Rly.
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
As much as fun as O'Rielly is to kick around, he's not wrong, and we all know it.
Folks aren't "creating their own" reality, they are just living in one created by Blizzard or someone else. Gaming, almost by definition, is about escaping, and MMOs are the ultimate in escape: an entire world that you can spend your entire waking life in, if you want.
As awesome as the South Park episode was about World of Warcraft, alot of of my "under-employed" wow-playing friends who saw the episode commented with a grunt that it was funny, "...but it kinda hit close to home."
Part of the reason MMOs are so popular, especially for males, is because they satisfy some very basic needs. People like to feel like they have some control over their destiny. They like to be confronted with problems they can solve. They like to feel like they are making measurable progress. They like to feel productive. They like to feel important.
All of this is much more easily attained via an MMO than in the real world. So is it any wonder that a lot of people "opt out" of a world filled with non-stop news about a solution-less Iraq, a no-win Israeli conflict, and the "inconvienent truth" about impending world disaster?
It's enough to make a guy want to roll a human hunter and be just done with all.
assclown... Yet another face to add to the definition.
That would be your pet Chocobo. It's how you get around, duh.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
Big deal...
Reality is for people that can't handle drugs.
I've never seen the O'Reilly Factor, but I know John Cleese (from Monty Python obviously) has basically said the same thing about "kids today." In that they don't get out enough and that they're losing a natural part of socialization because of email, online gaming and the likes.
I'd just like to know the slashdot reaction had the article posted been referring to John Cleese's statements rather than Bill O'Reilly's.
It is ironic for someone on television to be accusing computer people of being divorced from reality.
This exact same complaint has been made about people who watch television -- people separated from their community and life by sitting in front of the tube.
These days, though, our tube has a network connection out the back.
. . . and your point is?
...is actually a political act, because, as we all know, reality has a well-known liberal bias.
... for us :
going to work, working hard, coming back, tending kids, spending crapload of money in order to be able to send them to college for spending more crapload of money for college fees so that they can work hard like crap and restart the cycle again, paying crapload of taxes and insurance, fees and stamps so that the government which is populated by your generation can use it in greasing the palms of the 'supporters' in the big-money circles, who are, not surprisingly, again are from your generation, wars, international struggles and issues, degradation of individual rights and free speech, police abuse, harrassment and so on, and only to die in a hospital bed after the hospital investors have exploited our hard-earned-and-paid health funds ?
yea. we should have stuck to this 'reality' and worked like slaves so all could be better. and the crappy generation that you are a member of, a generation which have created this modern slavery system surprisingly under seemingly democratic laws and constitutions which seem to be based on 'equality' and anything free.
fuck your reality. we are inventing our own.
Read radical news here
Dirty talk to interns regarding loufa sponges & sex toys Was that a fantasy or reality fvck face?
He's so right. I paid for my Wii, DS, and PDA with Experience Points. I mean, that's what they give you for each hour of grinding ... err, work... right?
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
For starters I feel that I have enough friends. I live with my fiancé, have about 6 reliable friends I can depend on for anything and our chinchilla. As for my neighbors, why would I want to know them? As I said I have enough friends and don't want anymore. However I can tell you their names and even how much their home costs thanks to sites like Google and Zillow.
If I want to know what the temperature is like outside I open my dashboard on my Mac, but really who cares because I have central air and can adjust the temperature in my home to the degree I feel is perfect for me.
As far as the socializing goes, well, although my circle may play MMO's together we also get together to play P&P type games. Why do I need to go outside to a bar or club again? Oh yeah that's right, I'm supposed to be a consumer whore like good old BO.
Ave Molech Setting
Why would you go outside? There are bears out there.
What's this 'Reality,' and when's it coming out? Will it be for the Wii or PS3?
"This thing does science so hard, you say, 'I've never seen that much science.'" -Sam
WOW! And I thought slashdotters would be open minded about this attack on their addiction...
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA
You know he secretly plays a female Night Elf hunter...
OK, so I don't know what temperature it is. Who cares? If I feel cold enough, I'll put on a jacket. If it feels warm enough, I don't. I dont' need to decide that jackets go on at 67farenheight and jackets go off at 66farenheight, and have some scale to make my decision for me.
And as for what time it is, I don't need to care about that either. I eat when I'm hungry, not by what time of day it is. I sleep when I'm tired, not because of where the hands on my clock point. I go to work when I wake up in the morning and leave when stuff is done or I can't concentrate anymore. I don't participate in the semi-annual time-change for daylight savings because I think it's a dirt stupid idea. I stay on daylight savings time of summer because I like that better that "real" time during the winter. Been doing this for 5 or 6 years now and haven't felt any ill effects because of it. And since I got a Tivo, what my clock tells me no longer has any bearing on my watching what shows I like.
OK, so he's right that I don't know some things about reality, but I dont' see any motivating reasons to care or change my ways. I've got more interesting things to do than stare at clocks and thermometers all day like he must do. Cavemen didn't know what temperature it was or what time it was, and yet humans still exist so I don't consider such things as important to survival. Really, why should I know these things?
I mean, seriously, the guy calls gamers out of touch and he was caught in some freaky phone sex harassing, thinks the War in Iraq is being won, and was convinced that the GOP would win the 2006 elections?
It's like saying Saddam is a winner cause Bush lost the war. In reality, they're both losers.
Now, I'll admit, gaming can be an addiction. There are some people who need to get out more.
But there are a lot more drugged-up drunken neocons that need a swift kick of reality to their heads than there are gamers who need to pull the plug.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Next on Fox News, war is peace! Ignorance is strength! Freedom is slavery!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Reality, and sanity, are related to "common sense", or how the common person would interpret issues.
Choice quotes (such as the one in the summary) sound a lot like, "I'm not crazy, everyone else is."
For example:
If a single person were to yell out some random word (and do so frequently), we'd suspect that there was something mentally wrong with them, since few of us act that way. Conversely, if everyone were acting that way, then no one would suspect anything. Also, by consensus, not doing so would be a symptom of some affliction, possibly rooted in insanity!
In the context of this article: the more of us that exist leads to the more Bill OReilly becomes completely insane.
Perception of reality changes . Adapt, or risk being labeled insane.
The reality is that I like my media whores fair and balanced. Reality is subjective... subject to the decisions I make as to what matters to me. Bill needs to realize that there are people in this world that are just waiting for the mothership to come back.
Bill is most likely insane. This is no different than any of the other crap he comes up with. The following is a letter I recently sent him regarding another of his many screw ups:
Mr. O'Reilly,
The amount of swill that comes out of your mouth is rarely less than mind blowing, but recently you accused Randi Rhodes of being a terrorist sympathizer. I realize everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the very words you quoted her as saying actually came out of Tony Snow's "fair and balanced" mouth. Randi was quoting Tony, get it? So I guess what you meant to say was Tony Snow is a despicable terrorist lover since the words were all his, not Randi's. If Faux News can afford to send Faux Security after anyone who mentions the name of a certain reporter one would think they could hire a fact checker because you desperately need one. You're so delusional and biased you make the rest of Faux News look good, which isn't easy, so kudos for that I guess. Most people would be fired if they did as bad a job as you. If that ever happens at least you have your soft porn writing to fall back on. The world needs more books about perverts molesting underage crackheads, that's for sure.
I know in your make believe world the right is always right but the truth is that you and your ilk are in the minority. Deal with it.
Sincerely,
Keenan XXXXXXX
Now since most of you are detached from reality and mesmerized by your machines I'll briefly explain for those who don't know that Randi is a talk show host on AirAmerica, and although she's fairly obnoxious to listen to she does report some pretty good news. What prompted the letter is that she quoted Tony Snow (former Fox News guy, current Whitehouse spokesperson) and O'Reilly jumped all over her and made it sound like SHE said it, and not that she was merely quoting Snow. She also frequently plays excerpts from one of O'Reilly's perverted audio books, which does in fact contain O'Reilly himself reading through his marvelous tale of drug dealers sexually exploiting minors. You can love the right all you want but O'Reilly is probably not one to watch for news. Entertainment maybe, but mostly he's full of hot air and delusions. "No Spin Zone!"...lmao. The irony of that self proclamation is not wasted on me.
Just because ones life is spent fixing and playing on computers doesn't make them detached from reality. In-fact, every computer nerd I've met has been VERY active in "reality". Besides, what is reality to Bill O'fuckhead anyways? He's seems to have himself wrapped up in a life of lies and deceit. "GO AMURKIA, DOWN WITH FAGS, ATHEISTS ARE LESS THAN OTHER PEOPLE" Yes Bill, WE'RE the ones living in a fantasy land. We NEVER go outside, we NEVER have sex with our girlfriends/wifes, we nneeeevvveeerr vote, we never watch the news, and we never go walk next door when we move to say "hello" to our new neighbors. I bet this man has never gone to the Boundary Waters in northern MN to just live for 2 weeks. I bet he hasn't sat outside during a thunderstorm just because you love nature that much. I bet he has like, three SUV's.
Don't listen to this douche, fellow nerds. He's a dirty pig dog.
You know, like phones, loofahs, and flafels....
of his money and time, and perhaps even his wife with all these new consoles and games coming out!
I think I'm going to buy a wii so at least I can play with my 3 yr old and get in that quality time.
It's especially funny because it's O'Reilly in his characteristic hypocrtical form. ;) Reminds me of all of the times he's denounced Fox programs (esp. when he thought they weren't Fox programs).
"Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
Not really. The discussion is about Bill O' Reilly talking about technology damaging social networks.
If I want to see gamers being slandered on TV I think South Park did a far better job.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Please. We had this same discussion in the 70's when people were playing D&D "too much". It was every much as much BS then as it is now.
I'd like to disagree, as you did.
Except, I happened to be an AD&D player in the late 70's and I did drop out (1980) from Simon Fraser University because I played too many games and didn't go to classes.
I eventually went to another college, went in the Army, got rapid promotions, got multiple degrees in college/uni, and now work in research at one of the top universities, but it was a problem.
Just because O'Reilly has more problems than the people he's hating on, doesn't mean there isn't a grain of truth to the problem.
But people who drank too much or did drugs had way more problems than gamers, even then.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
...says some guy on a TV show. Give me a break.
[javac] 100 errors
Seriously, if this was an Ask Slashdot, "Do video games, ipods and technology destroy social networks?" and some person said, "Well, that's what O'Reilly thinks and he's a frothing right-wing nutjob," you'd have a point.
However, I'd argue that this is much more about Bill O'Reilly than it is about his rant. Of course, I've probably just been successfully trolled, because who's going to say that an informal Slashdot discussion about something Bill O'Reilly said isn't allowed bring up the dubious authority of the man himself?
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
LOAD "SIG",8,1
O'Reilly is really a troll!
Addiction to technology? It happens all the time. And not just with Johnny come lately PS3 and the internet. No, sir! Take the telephone. A useful tool. No one would argue that it by itself could hurt you. But taken to extremes, it can consume your life, and you wind up making obscene phone calls and engaging in telephone sex with an underling, leading to an embarrassing public lawsuit that undermines your holier-than-thou morality crap you like to push as your public persona. I tell you, it's just not worth it. So, just stay away.
Like my comments? Try my podcast: http://www.baldmove.com
What a giant turd this guy is. Really, I'm so sick of *insert celebrity name here* opening their fat pieholes to air absurd, ridiculous, malformed comments for the media to perpetuate. I mean really, who here cares what this joker has to say about video games or anything else for that mattter? It's a sign of our times I guess that anyone can air their opinion, no matter how far off base and the more assinine or audacious, the more exposure it receives. It's no wonder people don't care or seek other avenues for entertainment or try to avoid having to deal with people like this guy.
Gaming for over 25 years
Reality... is the agreed upon consensus of the majority that defines what is "normal". If he's right and the average age of death is 75... his reality is on its last leg. I don't need to know what temp it is outside (although, I do because its on the thermostat i have on the counter-- high tech one too, syncs with time and temp etc.) Honestly, I know 2 of my neighbors and I don't WANT to know the rest, because so far as I can see... they're fooktards.
"Reality" and "Normal" are terms that change in meaning as times advance, I'm sure there were extreme right wingers in the middle ages who said people were disconnected from reality.
Shadus
Bill O'Reilly Slams PS3 Launch, Gamers, iPods, Digital Tech (not in that order)
...I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They're not playing the video games. They're killing real people over there.
Apparently sparked by the PlayStation 3 launch, conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly took off after video game culture and digital technology generally in yesterday's Radio Factor.
The controversial talk show host, who advertises his program as a "no spin zone" offered the following spin on gamers and much of their favorite gear:
American society is changing for the worse because of the machines... In the past to flee the real world people usually chose drugs or alcohol... now you don't have to do that, Now all you have to do is have enough money to buy a machine...
Basically what you have is a large portion of the population, mostly younger people under the age of 45, who don't deal with reality - ever. So they don't know what day it is; they don't know temperature it is; they don't know what their neighbor looks like. They don't know anything... because they are constantly diverted by a machine. Now what this does is it takes a person away from reality because they've created their own reality...
Here comes the PS3 rant:
The newest thing is the PlayStation 3. Now this is a machine that allows you to play games in hi-def and all this other stuff... It's the newest state of the art system from Sony.... It has a video game console, plays DVDs, connects you to the Internet, tells you how handsome you are. It's six-hundred bucks. Now people lined up for hours to get this thing. Hours!
Next, O'Reilly recounts some of the various, well-publicized incidents that took place on PS3 lines around the country.
The problem with this stuff is that some people can deal with it constructively... but other people get addicted to it, just like opium, just like drugs and alcohol... So this is a big, big problem. It's going to change every single thing in this country.
At about this point, O'Reilly has Blois Olson of the National Institute on Media & the Family on as a guest. Olson talked about some issues regarding video game addiction, but was quite reasonable. As for O'Reilly? He thinks your video gaming may well doom you to a life of poverty:
The have-nots are growing. Why are they growing? Because the skill set that is necessary to earn a decent living is being deemphasized in a fantasy world of football games and shooting zombies and all that.... Now you have the "knows" and the "know-nots", because if you spend all your youth being prisoners of machines..... you're not going to know anything.... You're gonna fail.
And, even though O'Reilly's pay site offers a podcast, the pundit rather curiously disses the iPod and seems to equate video gaming with national collapse:
I don't own an iPod. I would never wear an iPod... If this is your primary focus in life - the machines... it's going to have a staggeringly negative effect, all of this, for America... did you ever talk to these computer geeks? I mean, can you carry on a conversation with them?
GP: A big, huge shout-out to reader Jim for the tip... Even if GP did have to shell out $4.95 in order to listen to O'Reilly's rant. Hey, we spare no expense for our readers.
Isn't that a little redundant?
This is reality. Welcome to the present. And this reality has plenty of advantages: - the sociable nature of the internet (see slashdot, myspace, youtube) over passive television watching - the rapid flow of information on the net that makes people more informed and up-to-date than they used to be - portable music players make public transport/airports etc much less unpleasant than they were before - playing games all day is far more fun than collecting stamps or whatever geeks used to do before The reason that this has become our reality is its superiority over what was (boring) reality before.
i've been saying this shit for years!
now somebody agrees, finally.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
I believe that the problems have always been there, they're just being reported on more. Areas of crime shift - an area that was safe 30 years ago may not be safe today, but that's mean every location is unsafe.
When I was growing up in the late 70s/early 80s, I rememeber playing in my neighborhood and a couple guys drove up and asked if I wanted some jelly beans. I ran home as fast as I could and they drove away, but what would've happened if I had taken them up on that offer? And more importantly, would it have made national news? No.
My parents were advised to stop their children from reading and get them out into the fresh air to play. Reading is unhealthy, you understand (;-))
Mind you, they had to read that advice in a newspaper, requiring them to be readers.
Eventually they heard the same thing about television, both from the newspapers and while sitting on the couch watching the nightly news.
And this week it's games... I wonder if they'll hear about them by email?
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
You attention, 1+1 now equals 3. Please adjust your equipment accordingly.
This quote is incomplete and misconstrues what he was trying to say. I saw the episode where O'Reilly said this and he went on to imply that technology hurts the ability for people to interact with one another face to face. I think this is absolutely true. I'm a computer programmer by day, gamer at night just like many here are and I realize the side effects of being wired in like I am. I'm smarter for it, no doubt, but I also forgo meeting more people in real life. O'Reilly later predicted serious problems down the road. Will it? I don't know, maybe. Maybe not. O'Reilly just sees a generation drastically different from his own and he doesn't understand. He fears the side effects will result in problems and it would be foolish to not consider what he's saying.
I go to a technical school and get called a nerd by the Liberal Arts majors. They still use a Dell Inspiron 8100 to type up their thesis.
And populate myspace, but thats it. Not all of America is addicted to the computer. Just like our generation is less addicted to coffee and alcoholism (heh)... And there's a lot to be said about coffee ruining one's grip on reality.
There is no higher honor than earing the scorn of Bill O.
What's wrong with young people?
You suxorz are just pissed because you got pwned by Bill. His l33t Network Anchor skilz are no match for your n00b whining. His is the h8xor of the airwavz! You want the truth? You can't handle the truth! Of course, he isn't talking about anybody who playz "Gears of War". I am creating a new XBOX Live name now, "boreilly", and will take on all suxorz!
It's especially apropos to discuss O'Reilly becuase he's probably never played a videogame in his life. So, its not like he said "I've played games, they're bad" instead he just spouted off like some sad old guy... a sad old guy who's himself totally out of touch with reality.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
because "sexual relations" was re-defined by him
Sexual relations was defined by the judge! <snark>Maybe you should stop playing games and watching Bill O'Really...</snark>
Oh yeah? Well it seems that older American adults over 45 seem to be hooked on their own electronic devices
Can you say Pacemaker? Wheelchair? Scooter? PLUS AARP to pay for it. LawL
Okay, O'Reilly is a boob. I think that is pretty much well-established. And if he told me the sky was blue, I would tell him he's full of s--t. Because he has been every other time I've ever heard him say anything.
But I did notice last time I was in a coffeeshop to meet a client that every other table was filled (30+), and every other table either had a person on a cell phone or a laptop or listening to an iPod. This coffeehouse has been in my neighborhood for twenty years, and used to be where people went to talk to each other. I was struck by how deathly quiet it was for the number of people there -- there was no interaction happening. Of course, it's a coffeehouse that now offers free wifi, so you can argue that they kind of encourage it, too. I would imagine I drink more coffee if I'm cranking away at work than I do if I'm gabbing with friends (free wifi brought with it the end of free refills), so I'm sure they're happy to make it as easy as possible to work in their establishment.
Don't know if that's good or bad, but I do think technology really has allowed us to build social walls around ourselves. And I think a lot of people tend to shy away from people by default (even if you like people, it's typically easier to be alone than to interact), so having a tool that allows us to visibly be inaccessible to others is quite comforting.
But I must be wrong if O'Reilly agrees with me. So I apologize.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The definition of irony: having a conversation with other people on the Internet about how technology isolates people.
I work at a software company. My friends and co-workers routinely go out to movies, dinner, etc together. We coordinate with cell phones and IMs, get directions from Google Maps, smooth over the process of deciding who gets the check with Billmonk. In off hours, I'm active on a community website whose members often hold real-world meetings. I have at least eight friends from there who I would likely never have met in meatspace first, and some I still haven't met in person yet consider good friends.
So you will excuse me if I don't exactly buy the "isolating influence of technology" line.
I guess there are two discussions. One, as you mentioned, is about Bill O'Reilly. The other is about technology and its effect on the social fabric. One of these discussions is a pointless ad hominem attack on an easy target. The other discussion is actually worth having.
Getting a lecture about reality from Bill O'Reilly is like getting a lecture on abstinence from Jenna Jamison.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
O'Reilly is complaining about people being "diverted by a machine."
For those unfamiliar with O'Reilly, he makes his living diverting people with machines, in his case televisions and radios.
Pot. Kettle.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
-> first i didn't even know, what reality was, ... and of course lots more stuff, that doesn't quite fit into the category of reality. i was torn back out of my bloody fantasy worlds by my occasional girlfriends, math teachers and trash "deliveries".
-> then i was read bed time stories i believed, then i believed in an angle, that brings me presents at the 24th of december if i just wrote a letter (yes, actually our culture didn't have santa clause until that damn tv flooded us with HIS reality); not to forget about lego,
-> after that i started to play ninja and cops and robbers (uhhh the reality),
-> books
-> rpgs, lots of them,
-> more books
-> my first pc
-> alcohol
-> my second pc
-> more alcohol
-> my third pc
i've yet to find a reason, to do reality or like it. it's full of misery, death, old people, stupid people and prejudices. take you're reality and shove it somewhere warm!
I never thought I'd even be remotely close to agreeing with that lying sack of shit. Don't get me wrong peoples. I love the machine. I am plugged into them about 80% of the day in one fashion or another. But this is ONLY when I'm doing something that relates:
1. Watching TV (Seeing as I do it with a Linux based PVR, I'm plugged into a computer to watch TV any time that I have time to do so) I do so on a very nice widescreen 37" LCD monitor, so it's not the shitty PC experience. It rivals standard television.
2. Posting on Slashdot
3. Doing serious research on the web
4. Doing silly research on the web
5. Watching YouTube
6. Reading electronic books
7. Creating original music
8. Editing original video (I produce TV ad parodies for fun)
9. Talking on the phone with my Bluetooth set
10. Compiling software in Linux for whatever my current pet project is
11. Downloading music from eMusic.com or ripping CDs I ordered from Amazon
12. Transferring music to my Rio Karma
13. Helping friends and family with various computer issues
14. Designing custom circuitry and assembling it for custom modifications and devices
15. Editing photos that I've taken with my digital camera
16. Taking photos in various settings with my digital camera (outdoor, nature, family, vacation, etc...)
17. Watching DVDs (I've never once bought a dedicated DVD player. I've always used computers)
18. Playing the occasional game or listening to a song on the computer itself
That's just a smidgin of what I do with electronic technology. You'll notice that office functions are missing. This is because I have no need for an Office suite in my day-to-day life. Even at work I never write things, waste time graphing worthless information, or do stupid presentations (which typically indicates the presenter has nothing to say). But, I spend every free minute I've got (when I'm not working and when everyone else I know is not asleep) spending time with the people who matter: wife, daughter, extended family and close friends. So I'd say Mr. O'Reilly has it right as long as we're talking people who are anti-social. Some "geeks" are like that. But not all. Of course, I would say I'm not a geek since I tend to dislike a lot of what geeks are actively into...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Know why this view is always the case? Because "computer nerds" or technology geeks in general are always criticized for being disconnected from reality. Technology is our hobby, and most people have lives outside of their hobby.
Why is it that you don't hear about NBA stars disconnected from reality? All they do is live in their celebrity. They live, breathe, and eat basketball. When the day is done, they go out to clubs in expensive cars and live the life of a celebrity. Are these people just as disconnected from reality? Absolutely. Are all NBA stars like this? Nope, because its a generalization.
I'm sure there are some computer geeks disconnected from reality, but so are plenty of other people, who are into plenty of other things.
It all comes down to O'Reilly being an idiot and looking to generate some publicity with off-the-wall statements.
I got nothin'
I'm not wasting time with that shit.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
..... Quoting Jack Thompson or recycling the arguments that people made about D&D players. Either way, the best thing that we can do is to IGNORE HIM. Responding to it in any way shape or form (like here on /.) only gives his arguments credibility (or at least a few more minutes of airplay).
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Where am I? Why am I wearing this chicken suit? The exuberance is insubstantial!
Bad assumption there. Are your lack of social skills caused by your gaming, or is your attraction to gaming a side effect of having poor interpersonal skills? The reason a lot of people got into gaming was BECAUSE the lack of social interaction with large groups of people they didn't want to interact with. The jocks didn't game. The preps didn't game. The teachers didn't game. The fucking pundits didn't game.
He's like my great grandfather bitching about my grandpa and those other kids spending all their time working on their hotrods and watching TV rather than going to the icecream social down at the VFW. Societies change. Bill can get a grip. If my kids are acting like me when they grow up I'll be damn scared for society then.
Dear Bill,
I worked a full day and had dinner with my family. Last night I attended a class on building a picture frame with a dozen other people, helped four new immigrants, listened to a nice girl give a live concert to more than 20 people, and went dancing with another 15 people.
Each of these were real events, with real people, but everything happened in the virtual world called Second Life on the computer.
So, outside of work, how many people did you interact with socially yesterday?
BTW, does anyone know why it's so hot in here?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I think anyone who talks about reality,like "who's in reality and out of reality" really should do a reality check. I hope it's understood that everyone create their own reality? Of course that sounds a bit 'spiritual' but who is to judge who is in and who is out ? And most of all, what a waste of time...
Orlly?
I agree. Attacking Bill O'Reilly is a worthy discussion.
I don't agree with BO most of the time, but he DOES state on numerous occasions that it's HIS show, it's HIS opinion, it's a free country and he can say whatever he wants.
If you don't like it, don't watch it.
If you are concerned about other people being swayed by his opinion, then state your own. And if you want people to listen and believe YOU over BO, the first thing you should keep in mind is that ad-homimem attacks play into the other person's hands. State your opinion not in terms of emotional vitrol about the sender, but make logical arguments tearing up the other side, backing up your statements.
One of the courses I am taking through the military covers lectures from a professor of the University of Toronto. Ursula Franklin has a lot of say about how technology has changed society, removed authority from the common individual, stripped communication of reciprocity and led us to viewing the world through virtual realities.
Personally, I see it as a matter of choice on the matter, but the 'The Real World of Technology' likes to paint these technologies as existing to enslave us. Really has a tin foil hat type of view of the world, saying that new technologies such as the Signer sewing machine were created to force women to work in sweat shops and all that.
Nonetheless, the concept of a virtual reality for those bound by technology is nothing new at all.
Here you go bill a nice dose of reality http://www.billoreilly.com/ Welcome to the slashdot effect
So he thinks people should what? Watch more TV? Bill's just a generation or 2 behind. TV was his generation's idiot box. Game systems are today's. I suppose he's just pissed that many of his idiots will all be dead in a few more years.
Discussing O'Reilly makes the thread a troll.
Ad hominem attacks are every bit as fallacious as appeals to authority. His authority, or (obvious) lack of it, is completely irrevelant. His point is what needs refuting, not his character.
I know it's tempting to dismiss serial abusers of logic out-of-hand, but doing so just lowers us to the same level.the typo is purposeful, he's not even worthy of a correct spelling of his name
this man is the POSTER CHILD for experiencing a whacked out reality
so is this like the kettle calling the other kettle a kettle?
I took a look at reality once...
I prefer my own.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Is that he settled out of court for sexual harrasment charges. "You want a piece of the factor?"
Oh the Irony
they don't know temperature it is
:)
The helpful bot on an IRC channel tells it to me when I ask
I'm sorry, who's Bill O'Rieley? Is he, like, the president or something?
The one thing that really sucks about Christianity 3.2, is how much latitude the dungeon masters have. I stopped playing when I realized that each DM kept intrepreting the rulebook differently.
Sometimes my +3 holy water worked on demons, sometimes it was outlawed. When I was playing in Utah and used my Healing Kit, I was kicked out of the game for using the kit instead of using a priest spell. What finally did it though, was when I was rolling to determine attack strength and lost 3 turns for gambling. What a bother...like a Half Elf Archer can use a priest spell in the first place...
Maybe the MMORPG version will be better.
No, what this really is is a plea by him to put down your other technological distractions and watch his show. As his followers age off and either die or get committed to the rest/nursing homes his ratings will drop and Fox will drop him unless he can get new viewers. Since many video gaming, iPod wearing, geeks don't watch TV he feels this is his largest potential source of new viewers, even if they just watch him for laughs.
Considering how closely the Bush administration and Fox News have buddied up, it DOES potentially belong in the politics section.
/.ers that hate Fox News, it's all people who care about actual, you know, newsy things, like facts.
And it's not
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Huh? I don't underst-
You mean,
this isn't ... real?
Noooooo!
Mirror here.. someone mentioned they saw a CPU quota limit exceeded or something
http://loki.ws/~josh/oriley_slam.html
Yeah, well they're just divorced from virtual reality.
I wonder if Cowboy Bill's under-45, game-loving, Ipod carrying, PS3 Camping IT 'nerd' reads Slashdot. If so, perhaps a little payback is in order. Wouldn't it be funny if a few System32 files suddenly disappeared right before his broadcast?
Word of advice, Bill. Don't piss off the people you need. They can make your job really difficult and the most inopportune moment.
Reality is of relativity, the kind that is inferior to the supreme by being centered to evends as scrutinzed as important and not someone-else's. When more than one reality blends together, then the people muster enough chaggrin to draw the supreme by the mode of their superiority in number to agree on behalf and with respectful Tresspass to a reality that neighbours. The product of today's marketers is selling a Copy of their title to Reality; complete with script for the actor presuming his disability and accompanied by the euphoria that draws from the deep that drains time into the performance.
When reality is in question, the lawful (not legal) procedure is to ascertain if anyone is interested and whether that is a controlling interest or done on their behalf with or without Authority.
Bill O'Reilly is a non-negotiable transmitting utility, already decided and scripted to be echoed in a theatre of feigned discussion. Bill O'Reilly, like every sociopath, is determined to steer someone from one evidence and motion to another; this process is known as religion (to turn one subject to pledge loyalty to another). Without evidence, most transmissions succeed as nothing more than the acceptance of commercial speach. As with all intentions, it is a libel that would lawfully be brought into a district Court but doesn't qualify because it is commercial at the beginning.
Bill O'Reilly is just as much a parent to adulteries as is anyone else. Commerce is that level of reality that cloaks the children. A boat for sale is obedient to its master that holds the wind.
without prejudice
I can just picture Troy McClure saying it.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
I thought you guys were MILF hunters...
An interesting attempt to frame the discussion in favorable terms, but you fail to consider the weight Bill O'Reilly's words have with a significant portion of Fox's viewing audience, which is not an insignificant number of people. Whether you agree that Bill O'Reilly is frequently nuttier than a Snickers bar, Bill O'Reilly and his comments are worthy of discussion simply because people listen to him.
The argument that a person is being entirely irrational and should therefore simply be ignored only works when the topic under discussion is a matter of purely logical calculation. For example, when an individual is spouting a string of lies about a scientific topic such as evolution, it behooves those who understand to ignore the person and to focus instead on simply educating people with the actual facts. If it's a matter of basic deduction, there is no real value in arguing with a person who's entire argument is flawed from the base because simply educating others on the actual facts will allow them to see such errors on their own.
However, this discussion is not purely logical, it is a rational discourse, and, as such, there is a significant weight hanging on the argument in the form of perception. Regardless of the level of ignorance displayed by O'Reilly in making this tirade, he does still retain a significant force in the form of his viewers' perception of him, and that alone is enough to warrant discussing him.
As such, the actual discussion that should be occurring should revolve both around the facts of the social impact of technology, and the impact Bill O'Reilly has on viewers' beliefs, regardless of his accuracy, as a matter of his celebrity status. That is the discussion I'm seeing, therefore, I see the discussion as both relevant and valuable.
Good question, my answer is: because people are normally afraid of what they don't understand. Sports are easy to understand, every idiot can understand sports. But looking at strange code on a computer screen or playing games is not familiar to older generations and they react accordingly with fear and accusations of witchcraft.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own." If ever there was a test case for this, it has to be Bill O'Reilly. That guy has been living in a dreamland for years.
Right now FFXII mob fight strategies for farming are sort of robbing my brain of awareness during the morning commute. Yesterday I found myself thinking about lane changes in terms of pathfinding. (eeesh)
Then again, it's a miracle I make it to work in one piece most days anyway, I'm still asleep walking through the door.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Of course we're divorced from reality... it was schtooping the milkman!
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
So now we programmers have to fear being burned at the stake? Great...
I got nothin'
In Soviet Russia reality doesn't deal with Bill OReilly
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Bill is a great expert in people creating their own realities and then not being able to understand actual reality. He is so out of touch with reality that he has no idea what he is talking about...
I'd like to see what he'd have to say about Japan and their choice of comic books, music and the lyrics they allow, and the video games they have there. Yet they have much lower crime rates.
I would contend that Bill O'Reilly is trying to define "normal societal interactions" much like most conservatives are in a bid to restrict the freedom of normal people. They begin by saying "normal people interact with others" and they are then given the right to criticize anything that distracts from social interaction? I mean, I'm not advocating being anti-social (I'm a CS major, but I have friends, romantic relationships, attend parties, participate in social groups...), but on the other hand I think it's a bit ballsy for Billy boy to say "this is how society is" when the rest of his reporting suggests that he's so completely disconnected with reality and gamer society that he isn't the least bit aware of what society is. All he knows is what he thinks it's supposed to be and tries to force his opinions on others; this is the problem with modern conservatism.
Also, lol, Bill is a better troll than me.
+5, Truth
In other news, Bill O'Reilly is a miserable old twat who opens every other sentence woith "back in my day..." Film at 11.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Jesus. I play a lot of games (mostly shooters like Touhou, Nanostray, Donpachi, ESP.Ra.De, and the likes; action games like Devil May Cry, Armored Core, Chaos Legion...and some JCRPGs like Super Robot Wars (Alpha 3 and OG2 are sweet IMO), pokémon (Dungeon is like cute Nethack) and roguelikes), but I am far more into reality than I wish I could be.
I mean...I spend most of my days working, dealing with life every single minute without being able to escape from it. Not even when I sleep, as all my dreams are stupidly mundane. I must deal with my family, friends and customers normally, as an Average Joe, even if I play some games here and there and I am a geek.
I am far more stuck into reality than I'd like, specially in stressful days. I wish I could divert and forget everything for five minutes, but I could never do such a thing. A shame, actually.
I sort of envy those those people FTA mentions...
He says what to do, but not as he does.
He presses the transmit button. (although most people have 104 of those).
He claims to be Christian, of which all in Christ do not bear self-witness that they are Christian, yet he does. Stemming from this claim, He claims to uphold the Law of Moses, but has not the mind to move any remedy that exists in the Law; whereas most transmittals of his person eventually retourn to their revolution of "kill them" (violation of Law) and "{I am the host, this is my show, I will make inferior/limit/interrupt motions and admittance of evidence.}"
He looks sincere, because he's not young and has kept his ol' aging self in attractive mannerisms as blinking the eyes and fragrant discussion (at the end of the show)of five or so Selected electronic mail messages (out of hundreds of thousands), et al.
He is quick witted, perhaps from his training as a disc-jockey at a prior station.
He also looks at you that way, you know... like someone that wants to be your master or trustee -- like Rosey O'Donnel, George Bush senior, Fred Savage/Winnie Cooper, Al-CIAeda, Hillary Clinton, Charlton Heston, John Ridge, Tracy Lords, Ted Kennedy, Sun Yung Moon/Jerry Fallwell/John Haggee, Ron Jeremy.
There is nothing new under the Son.
without prejudice
Here's an example: What is an iPod? It's basically a high tech Walkman. We've had lower tech versions of Walkmans for years, both radios, cassette players, and CD players. People have always been able to carry a music collection with them to listen to, or listen to the radio for hours if they wanted to. The iPod offers only convenience and storage. So why single out the iPod? Answer: Future Shock on O'Reilly's part.
Oh, and it would be disingenuous to believe that O'Reilly meant old fashioned Walkmans when he says iPods. He wasn't making a point about all technology but just about hip, trendy technology. I think it just doesn't register with him that an iPod is just an improved version of the Walkman. (I really don't think he's very bright.)
If we ignore the fact that he lumps iPods, video games etc. together and just focus on video games, then we aren't debating what he actually said, we're debating a point that was brought up by O'Reilly's point. Not off topic exactly, but certainly not the main topic of the article.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
What I don't like is that not being social means you must be a "antisocial misfit". I held a full-day presentation today for about a dozen people, that's hardly introvert. I do get along just fine when I'm out socializing. At the same time, I'm perfectly happy in my own company. There's a certain group of people I would call social addicts, which can't seem to go any significant time without social interaction, which leads them to believe that those that go without are simply misfits who are unable to.
Part of being social is to seclude into the confines of one's quarters to prepare one's thoughts for benefice towards the society. Those that don't study and ponder on one's orientation tend to be quite aggressive to no end of tresspass. Long hours of emulation at a computer console are quite beneficial for the well-being of fellow socialists.
Just be aware that all murderers and thieves are quite social; How else to prepare a respectable place for them, than good providence and diligent in one's faith to carry the Day?
without prejudice
Could we all just accept the notion that anything Bill O'nutcase spews forth is the opposite of news? Whoever submitted this article should be banned and the Slashot person who approved it should be fired. Seriously.
Terrible karma and aiming lower, which in this environment of one-sided reason, is higher.
Bill is an asshole...'nuf said....
I remember the commentators of the 60's and 70's said the same thing about television that it will warp our minds and we will be disconnected from reality since we will be watching spoon fed information from the evil television producers and not go out and experience the real world. Well Mr. Bill Reilly on television now who is calling the kettle black? Every generation has it "diversion" and as long as one doesn't use one type of media to get information and go out and look at the real world in relation to what you get then you will be divorced from really no matter what the media happens to be. This "diversion" help us understand nature and help us create things make use what we are today including press, radio, television and the internet.
"The jocks didn't game. The preps didn't game. The teachers didn't game. The fucking pundits didn't game."
wtf are you talking about? I don't know any pundits, but the other three certainly do game. Why do you think there is a new version of each sports game every year? BECAUSE THEY SELL TO THE JOCKS and everyone else.
I once went for a vacation in reality. It looked better in the brochure. The weather was up and down, people were rude, the service sucked, and the activities planner should be shot. The scenery was nice enough though.
Reality, its a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Did he also say that interacting face to face all the time hurts the ability for people to interact via technology...and that there would be serious problems down the road for old Luddites?
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
Still waiting on the paperwork to go through for the divorce to finalize. Then, and only then, can I live in sweet, sweet reality freedom. Unfortunately, reality kept the house, the car, and half of my possessions.
O'Reilly has lived in his own reality for so long that he doesn't realize how disconnected he is. He's probably that last person short of Rush Limbaugh who can safely accuse any group of people of being divorced from reality. And for that matter, who's reality is he talking about? His Neo-Con, GOP Cheerleader, Reality? Gimme a break.
That's right everyone. Bill O'Reilly is absolutely right. We are divorced from reality. In fact, we should give up all of our computers, computer games, iPods, and anything else electronic, and instead watch Bill O'Reilly's television show- Because obviously, people who watch television seem to somehow get outside more than people who use computers. I hate Bill O'Reilly.
I think he's only partly right, but he's damn well interesting!
I realized that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction *before* the US invasion. O'Reilly gave complete credence to the lies of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and Blair. So now, *who* is the one divorced from reality?
Talking head makes obvious flamebait remarks in ratings grab. Full story at 11!
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
People haven't "always" been able to carry a music collection with them to listen to, say, while walking down the street. At least, they haven't always been able to do it very easily. They gained this ability with walkman-like devices a few decades ago. This might seem like "always" to you, but O'Reilly is probably a lot older than you are. In fact, recorded music isn't really all that old itself. One might argue that recorded music has diminished the significance of live music performance; after all, how often do you hear a piece of music performed for the first time live? At the same time, it's also lowered the threshold for enjoying music in terms of cost, social class and location (you don't have to live near Chicago to hear the CSO, and if your favorite band won't come to your town you can still buy their CD). And the iPod, after all, is just another way for people to pipe recorded music into their heads, sans-performer. It's just an improved phonograph.
Maybe it never registered with O'Reilly that an iPod is an improved Walkman. I'd say it probably did, because to a non-user of such devices they all look the same: a set of headphones connected into a little piece of plastic. The connection would be hard to miss. But iPods and other modern portables have done something distinctive (that is, in addition to their technical distinctions such as increased storage space, ease of putting together custom playlists, and the single-oriented online music stores): they've made portable music popular to the point of ubiquity among young people. And they have, more than any previous portable player, become a status symbol among the young hip crowd. People have been able to walk down the street, disengaged from their immediate reality, with headphones in, for several years now. But the coming of the iPod has made it not only much more common, but also made it the cool thing to do.
This is just a case of mixed up values.
O'Reilly values things like knowing what day it is. Why does he value you that? Because in his lifetime, he couldn't function without that kind of information.
People who can function without this information obviously don't need it. This has nothing to do with "reality" or not. In times gone by, you couldn't function very well if you didn't know the current phase of the moon (because that's how people organized time). That's reality, but I bet old Bill has no idea what phase the moon is, nor does he care. In his own way, he's disconnected from reality, but he made that sacrifice so he could devote his attention to connecting to things that matter to him.
Now, he notices that lots of other people are now connecting to things that don't matter to him. Furthermore, they're not connected to things that matter to him. This is okay because, frankly, they're not him, and he's not them. He has a problem with this, probably for a number of reasons, but I can't help but thing his interpretation is a little bit egocentric.
That's not to say that his criticisms are invalid. It is sometimes hard to get by in life without knowing the date, but if someone can do it, then hey... as long as it works.
Um.
Not considering what O'Reilly is saying is not foolish. His well, in an argumentative sense, is poisoned. As in, "Killed Entire Cultures," poisoned. He is not rational, therefore paying heed to his advice is extraneous.
I wish he were a hardcore gamer so I could both blow him up AND not have to exist in a world where his drivel was mass-distributed.
My little site.
The young people that O'Reilly says are divorced from reality turned out in record numbers to vote a couple of Tuesdays back, and, horror of horrors, in a stinging rebuff to the current president and his administration, they voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, returning them to power in the congress and in a majority of state legislatures and governorships. You could only possibly do something like this if you're divorced from reality, in Bill's mind, anyway. Because, reality is, terrorists are around every single corner, and only George W. and the GOP can protect you from them.
And of course, in Bill's head, the technology is to blame, because all of these crazy kids with their iPods and Nintendo DSs and the like got their political info from websites, horrible, liberal, progressive, blogspherical, divorced-from-reality websites.
I guess O'Reilly hasn't heard about reality's well known liberal bias.
my pet machine
Nice nitpick on the always, but O'Reilly wasn't talking about 20 year old technology, and you know it.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Have a read over this article in The Atlantic. It pretty much describes me to a T, and it's reassuring to know I'm not the only one :).
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago. Wheaties: Breakfast of Champions.
... are all disconnected from reality. Get it through your heads! TV = Reality! Anything else is just escapism.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Really? I sleep in every one of my classes, barely pay attention, piss off teachers, and spend most of those waking hours playing video games.
I'm passing, with 90% in most of my classes. Perhaps some of us are just bored with your unstimulating reality of constant repetitivness that is school and work.
1 4/\/\ 1337
Sports are easy to understand, every idiot can understand sports.
I don't. I mean, I understand playing sports; that's fun, but I don't get sports fandom. It's one thing to cheer for a friend or family that's playing a game but to be emotionally involved with a bunch of rich guys playing a game with a ball is just weird.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Imagine, if you will, a fellow by the name of Larry.
Larry telecommutes. He converses with coworkers via teleconference, and he does his job well. His employers are completely happy with his productivity, and he is happy with his privacy. Larry gets paid by direct deposit. He pays his bills online, and never has a need of services that require him to visit a bank.
When it comes to food, Larry likes variety. He prepares a list from an online product catalog, and four hours later the food arrives, delivered by a local company that specializes in this type of transaction. They also deliver household consumables, such as bathroom supplies. Sometimes Larry wants something ready to eat, though, and of course companies have been delivering pizza, oriental food, indeed most kinds of meals, for decades. He orders clothes, gadgets, and computer equipment online, and the courier companies beat a path to his door.
Larry likes to keep fit, and to that end he has a treadmill, a set of weights and a stair climber, all within his home. He works out six days a week, and never strays from his routine. His health is excellent.
When it comes to socialization, Larry is an online kind of guy. He plays MMORPGs - Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games - and is active in video game player guilds, spending upwards of fifty hours per week interacting with other people in a virtual world. He uses a microphone to talk to players from all over the planet, and is well known in the circles of elite gamers. He even has virtual girlfriends. He is popular with people he has never met in his alternate reality, "real life".
Larry never goes out. He never really physically interacts with anybody. In fact, he hasn't left his home in months.
The question is: can Larry be happy?
For a long time I would have thought that no, Larry couldn't really be happy. After all, man is a social being by nature. From birth, we respond to touch, and to the presence of those around us. We have a need of sex, and possibly of love.
But what is really missing from Larry's life? He has food, shelter, clothing, work, entertainment, physical exercise, a social network, and sex by proxy (through "cybering" with his online girlfriends). He has a full life by his standards.
Many people would look down on his life, but Larry is part of a different scene. He grew up in a world that could be fully realized in isolation, and it is one that most people don't understand. But it is a life that has all of the trappings of a normal one, save for some small variances. Larry may be perfectly suited to his life, and consequently he may be very happy and well-adjusted.
Just because somebody makes lifestyle choices that we don't understand is no reason to conclude that their life is somehow lacking depth or value. The world is changing, and lives are changing with it.
Larry may be normal in the future.
(Taken from my blog, July 18, 2006)
I was about to write an answer to the interesting points you raised, but then I read the last sentence you wrote and figured out that you were probably just trolling. Good luck with your ad-hominem attacks, and good night.
Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are the parents to all that receive their transmittals. The adulterous children of those transmitting utilities would unconditionally agree and unconditionally accept the non-negotiable solicitations and treatise with a satisfaction without empirical evidence: rather than study the 1st-edition Black's Law Dictionary, the 1st-edition Bouvier's Law Dictionary, the 1st Webster's and American Heritage Dictionaries, the Holy Bible, the 1st Magna Charta, the original unanimous Declaration and Constitution for their state (as originally writ in German by popular necessity at the time), all in such a manner that is mindlessly inconsistent even with a shadow of Robert's Rules Of Order (Court hygiene/principles).
We don't have much to expect from chattel (personal property). If one causes a libel, then pull them into district Court. If one limits motion or testimony or evidence, then acknowledge their inferior Court and refuse for cause the matter by upholind copyright and trademark to disuade their commercial speach.
Consider one foreign DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, its officer emit the mission statement is to limit the teaching of knowledge for the preparation of children to be educated in all matter of factory labor allthewhile the factories are moved to foreign countries. I'm not to say there is a vacancy of a million minds, because they are to say the same of me; I only intend to be not dependent on any one, respectably.
without prejudice
Basically what you have is a large portion of the population, mostly older people over the age of 45, who don't deal with reality -- ever. So they don't know what day the next blockbuster console will be released; they don't know what temperature it is on a half-hour basis, refreshed automatically in their browser via a forecast plugin; they don't know what their neighbor's avatar looks like. They don't know anything... because they are constantly diverted by a physical mass media. Now what this does is it takes a person away from reality because a reality of fake authenticity has been manufactured for them...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
He has a point. Be it that he's a bigot prick and addicted to technology himself (i.e. telefones and telefone-sex with minors ... so I've heard) but he has a point nevertheless.
/. would like to admit.
The media technology that surrounds us and engulfs us more and more is nothing short of pure cyberpunk fast-forward simulated/emulated alternate reality and all-out escapisim. Social skills at low-levels, ADS, people taking longer and longer to grow up and get a grip of their life - rant all you want, but there *are* significant side effects to this tech-craze that are not desirable.
A healthy enviroment in which self-confident individuals can deal with all the habits modern media imposes on us is an ideal - but far more rarely the reality than most people here on
I basically agree with his point of view (Sidenote: I also agree that he may have prime asshole qualities).
As a result I'm exposing my daughter to media-technology less than I was exposed to it in the 80s and 90s. She's 9 years old, get's to see a DVD or two a month (we've got no TV, it's all crap) and may toy around with Photoshop once in a while.
Most of the time we see to it that she play's outside, learns the guitar, draws, knitts, reads books and plays regular childplay in her spare time. As a result I have a daugther that is healthy, self-confident, well-mannered with a healthy slice of disobedience, has no ADS, no over-exposure to media, no concentration problems and will probably grow up and get a grip on life notably faster than I did. I could still smack my parents for taking me to the movies at the age of three(!).
Of course she'll also learn to handle IT and technology from her geek daddy. When the age is there. Which I can safely say is definitely not earlyer than 14.
Bottom line: The guy may be a dick, but he's telling the truth.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Technically, the soldiers are sending themselves off to be killed in Iraq. That's what "all-volunteer" army means.
No, it doesn't mean that. You volunteer to serve your country. Your elected politicians decide where to send you, and you do not disobey lawful orders given on their behalf. Crucial difference.
Logic. It'll save us all. One day.
Social Services wants you to donate a PC to the nearest dis-enfranchised mis-treated nerd orphan. I suggest your bring a mirror with you, to show that you are such creature. They wouldn't help anyone lift a finger, save they paper and a copy-machine to send their requests to everyone else and take the credit for themselves.
The problem with the argument you make is that there aren't hundreds of thousands of NBA players.
;-)
Not that I disagree or want to argue with you, but perhaps a better thing to say would be:
"Why is it that you don't hear about Bill O'Reilly disconnected from reality? All he does is live his celebrity. The lives, breathes, and eats The O'Reilly Factor. When the day is done, he goes out to expensive country clubs in expensive cars and lives the life of a celebrity. Is he just as disconnected from reality? Absolutely. Are all media personalities like this? Nope, because it is a generalization."
Just thought I'd spin it in the right direction
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Funny how one guy, a "tech writer", and the other, a decidedly NON tech writer, can both use the same technique to call attention to themselves.
.... all the same thing really. Just different ways to dodge reality for a while.
Write a load of opinionated FUD and enjoy the fallout.
*Everyone* enjoys diversion from "reality". Movie fans, sports fans, computer gamers, opera fans
Pot. Kettle.
Mauve?
I drank what? -- Socrates
>Just thought I'd spin it in the right direction ;-)
Slashdot is a no spin zone, you are suppose to flip instead of spin here.
In his response to Marconni winning the Nobel Prize, he immediatly donned his robe and wizard hat, reached for his Pen of +2 Confidence and spelled; "You are a donkey."
without prejudice
I'm just happy someone still defines me as young.
I was starting to get worried about my constant fretting over my lawn and those damn kids.
I don't think it is wrong to create your own reality. I think it is perfectly normal. I think everyone one creates their own reality and geeks happen to create one via the computer.
Can't forget that video when O'Reilly was reporting on the Nintendo revolution, back in '88. Granted, it's probably someone else's words in his mouth, but still effin' funny.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yGFRi_ueq-M
But Bill, I thought Mario and Luigi were made up of the best things inside each and every one of us.
In Bill O'Reilley's reality:
/. waste time on this blowhard?
we found WMDs in Iraq;
we're winning in Iraq;
the world was created by God approximately 7,500 years ago;
evolution is a liberal fabrication designed to undermine the true faith;
global warming isn't happening, and if it is then it is good for you;
lying about an extra-marital affair is a greater crime than torture, agressive wars, or illegal spying;
any fact can be refuted by yelling !!SHUT-UP!! really loudly; AND...
people who get their news online are more detached from reality than people who watch Fox news.
I think he's just cranky because so many of those people "who don't deal with reality -- ever" booted his party out of power in congress with a fraud-proof landslide!
Why would
-- QED
We're paying for your Social Security and paying your salary with all those 'out of touch' gadgets that get advertised during your broadcast, you crotchety motherfucker.
Dear Maul "Darth" Brooks,
We are in need of contact for the services of your grandfather. As we understand, his skills to hunt for Jedi are unparalleled. Tell him the price is "Schedule A".
Thankyou,
Bob McGufferson
Right. A man who misrepresents his political affiliations, his awards, and even his place of BIRTH, is far more in touch with reality than a video game fan.
Shame on fucking me.
In part I agree with him (probably for the first time ever) I am a geek but I think it portends ill for society when so many of us spend so long sat behind our laptops/consoles playing games or hanging out in second life instead of being outside connecting with real people. When we are outside even in the countryside I see idiots with ipods dangling from their ears.
Horseshit.
A raving lunatic doesn't need to have every utterance individually refuted in order for someone to know that such ravings aren't likely to be of much value.
Taking every possible point of view solely on its own merits is fine if you have nothing but time, and don't value it. For everyone else, it's reasonable to require some level of positive reputation behind a point before investing any time into considering it.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
I spend about 4 hours DAILY playing computer games. I graduated college in 2004. Started working soon there after, making 45,000(USD). I am now making 76,000(USD). Oh and by the way you can thank me any time you want for making your country safer, ass. You forget that our entire country runs on machines and someone out there has to have a clue in how to deal with them...its obvious that O'Reilly doesnt have the brain capacity to deal with machines and people at the same time. Can he even chew gum and walk at the same time? I used to be a pretty big fan of his show, not anymore.
O'Reilly is a good 10 years older than I am.
When I was growing up....
No cell phones (invented in my 20's- below "brick" size in my 30's).
No walkmen (invented in my 20's).
No COLOR TV until I was in my Teens.
No cable TV (came around in my 20's).
SIX Stations. ONE station after midnight.
So Bill was in his 30's before any of these things came along.
OTH.
I recently cracked a joke from "Airplane" with a fellow gamer. They didn't get it. They'd never seen "Airplane." BARELY heard of it.
I know a bit about what's going on with folks down to about 30 and have no clue before that age.
Stuff like Youtube and Myspace just blows up out of nowhere to me.
And I do a reasonable amount of spidering out from references here on slashdot and other boards to stay culturally aware. All I have to do is spot one Blockbuster video (now almost defunct) before it gets going and I can retire rich in under five years (BBV gave a 131 to 1 return on investment-- $1,000 -> $131,000 in under 5 years). That and it lets me relate to my daughter.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
he isnt wrong all the way either. When you are listening to an iPod or whatever on a bus, you are putting a barrier up between you and people who you may have met otherwise. Being people, a lot of the time thats what we want, but it says somthing none the less. Good or bad who cares.. should be always be closing ourself off from anyone outside of our comfort zone?
I didnt get an iPod for a long time because of this.. and now that i have one, i really notice how much i am missing riding the bus to school every morning.
To some extent, I struggle to see why disconnecting from reality is a bad thing. Reality is pretty shoddy in a lot of ways - you can't fly, you can't summon demons, you can't fight dragons, you can't change your physical appearance at whim etc. etc.
Why is attaching to a different reality, or interacting with the same reality through other means, in itself a bad thing? Bill, for all that he is a consumate arse, is probably right about the younger generation disconnecting from reality. So what? We have better alternatives.
At present access to those alternatives generally requires some connection to 'real' reality. They cost money, and most people don't make money doing them. Yet.
Call me when Second Life has haptics and taste/smell. Once that happens, we might start to have serious issues with people reallyreally disconnecting from real reality.
Even then.. would that be a bad thing?
fortune -o
Totally off topic... But thank you for the lime project link
One feeds off the other, so O'Reilly and his audience are both, at the same time, the symptom and the problem.
It's how we got Bush whom, I maintain, no one in touch with reality would have supported in either '00 or '04.
Has anyone tried to subscribe to your newsletter lately? I would like to.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
We actually worried about the terrorism angle when I lived in Chicago. We were worried because after 9/11 showed the advantage of the wet-ware guided winged bomb, someone realized that Microsoft Flight Simulator teaches you how to take off at Meigs Field, and head straight for the Sears Tower. Until Daley sent the bulldozers just before rush hour to Meigs to forcibly convert it to a park, that would have been a risk since it would have been take off, level off, count to 60, say Hello to the Afterlife.
Besides, have you ever listened to him or read his column in the paper? I would really hate to be part of his reality, given the utter social collapse and hordes of barbarians at the gates. He sounds like he's living in some combination of "Mad Max" and "Brave New World".
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
"In the past to flee the real world people usually chose drugs or alcohol... now you don't have to do that, Now all you have to do is have enough money to buy a machine..."
Ummm...so playing video games in the desolation of your house is somehow worse than drugs, which generally leads to robberies to support the expensive habit?
Even if his gross generalizations were correct, I'd say not knowing your neighbors is far better than robbing them to support a drug habit. What is O'Reilly smoking?
Sports are easy to understand, every idiot can understand sports.
I strongly disagree. If one knows the difference between a Strong Safety and a Free Safety and can understand the alternate strategies of slot coverage with a pass rush on 3rd and short versus the effect of route interruption from the Cornerbacks in a 3rd and long situation, as well as be able to explain these concepts to the average "idiot", then I will concur that sports are easy to understand. This example of strategy and play can be applied to many other sports as well
** Share what you know, learn what you do not **
This guy is SUCH a douche. Why does ANYBODY listen to idiots like this? It just makes me ashamed of our species, and living organisms as a whole perhaps.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I too am somewhat concerned about all the people walking down the street with their earplugs, oblivious to their surroundings. In O'Reilly's sense, they are partly disconnected from their surrounding human-scale reality. I have occasionally needed to get such people's attention, and it is a pain in the ass. I am implicitly being compelled to take a much more active part in a stranger's life to alert them of danger or of a lost possession, not because of something out of their control, but because they are reveling in their own personal pleasures. I'm not so empathetic about that.
Many have posted about what reality O'Reilly lives in, or what reality his "news" network presents to the world. O'Reilly would likely not accept as valid such questions, even though a cursory examination of his employer's broadcasts does yield quite a bit of information that is skewed, to say the least.
The question "what is reality?" is ages old and not answerable in any absolute sense. It is primarily fodder for interminable Philosophy 101 class discussions, and not always especially interesting or illuminating ones. It is relative to the observers and their shared frame of reference. Ultimately, O'Reilly may be jealous of frames of reference that people find much more interesting and compelling than his own.
...are we scared yet?
wouldn't make an error this big. It should read: Gamers divorced IN reality!
To believe that access to things on the net is equivalent or even comparable to actual physical experience is ludicrous. It is this adolescent gee-whiz cheesy-scifi mentality that permeates all too much of Slashdot discussions. Grow up, life and the world that surrounds us simply cannot be fully appreciated through a web browser, a game interface, a mobile phone, a digital music player, or even a combination of all of those things, as this Larry story appears to suggest. If you believe otherwise, boy are you in deep shit. Comparable, even, to O'Reilly's grouchy old fart attitude, albeit on the other end of the spectrum.
...are we scared yet?
Philosopher Bill to the rescue...it is my experience that people don't face reality anyway. Them younguns are tuned in to some reality, probably more deeply than Bill is tuned in to whatever he's calling reality. Sheesh, he's one to talk about being out of touch with what's really going on.
...someone who thinks that reality is something that you can be divorced from.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Abe Simpson: I used to be with it. But then they changed what "it" was. Now what I'm with isn't "it" and what's "it" seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you!
His comments reek of truthiness. I mod him -1 flamebait. Just saying that reality doesn't exist for situation or person A is extremely vague. One type of reality is social reality and it seems that the only way that Bill O'Reilly deals with anyone is through manipulation. I think he needs to take a look at his own reality. I think that one loses a grip on reality when one loses track of priorities. Also, some random guy on tv saying that "broad group of people" is not in touch with reality because I feel like they probably don't have a handle on reality doesn't really mean anything nor is it helpful.
lol
Some one far from qualified to define reality (a talk show host who deals with political issues, regardless of political bent, is well... dealing with spin therefore not reality)
One thing is for sure. My reality is better than his "reality".
I was playing Counterstrike killing terrorists when I heard about this story. So I turned on FOX News to find out what was going on in the world. Apparently, there's a war going on where we're killing terrorists. Now, how am I disconnected from the world?
Didn't RTFA because I'm not giving them a pagehit for "news" like this.
Do a barrel roll!
People here on Slashdot seem to overwhelmingly hate this guy, but the problem is that he's partly right. I live in a small university town, and the number of goo-heads is astonishing. The difference between the people I know who are "plugged in" versus those who are not, is quite pronounced.
I've seen guys who can't even stand properly, but who wobble back and forth like little kids with nervous conditions. --People who can barely make a plate of food for themselves, who have severely limited social skills, (and I'm not talking about getting a girlfriend or boyfriend; I'm talking about people who have a hard time even communicating at all; people who just don't seem to be really there when you look them in the eye.). --I've met videogame/anime/ipod junkies who I would have very honestly mistaken for being mentally disabled if they weren't enrolled in normal university courses. I don't know how the heck any of them are going to get jobs or lives after their parents stop paying their tuition bills.
Compared to those kids who avoid video games and television and ipods and such, the difference is night and day.
This is not to say that electronics are bad. I know a lot of very well socialized people who use Instant Messenger. But the trick is that such people are well-balanced. They don't JUST use computers. They also get outdoors and have real-time, face to face relations with real live people, they are active physically and they enjoy the raw adventure of life. Computers are, as many have pointed out, a part of life in today's culture, but like anything taken in isolation, they can seriously, and I mean seriously mess you up. Anybody who claims differently ought to visit a university campus sometime.
The good news is that it's really just a percentage; not everybody is a drooling pod person. People can choose and they do. Addiction can be actively chosen against.
-FL
Call me antisocial or whatever you want. I have never seen my neighbors and really don't care. I keep to my self, and I hope they do the same. I don't see how video games or other electronics are the cause to this.
I have quite a few friends, and we hang out all the time. Go to bars, hang out at each others house, etc. This is the same group of people I have known since I was 15. (Scary it was that long ago)
Anyway, I could care less what he says. Hes just another CNN nutjob. Along with that fake ass, over acting Nacy Grace.
I think we should launch these 2 and Dvorak into the sun. The world would be such a better place.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
What day is it? Who am I? What is the meaning of life? I play PC games a lot and listen to bad music on iTunes a lot too, so I don't know the answers to these questions sadly. All I know is, I enjoy being lost in my virtual worlds as often as possible and I get the news and stuff that matters right here. I see no problem with this myself. Oh, and I do not know what the temperature is outside but I do know its cold. I know oil costs too much money. I know we ought to be working a whole lot harder on energy alternatives and I know I don't agree with sending our kids to die so we can try to make sure that we get our share of what isn't ours to begin with. In fact I know plenty for a guy who spends a lot of time playing PC games, listening to iTunes and reading News for Nerds just like most of my contemporaries do. No wonder I like spending as much time as I can in virtual worlds. It's jerks like this guy that drive me to them. Now if only I could find him on some UT2k4 server and kill him over and over and over...
He who hesitates is lost.
And then of course there's TV -- as sick an addiction than games, with no interactivity.
But what talk radio has amplified greatly is the number of people addicted to hate, anger, and fear. I don't think it's any coincidence that a pill-head, Rush Limbaugh, helped spearhead this addiction's spread.
Credibility.
recently cracked a joke from "Airplane" with a fellow gamer. They didn't get it. They'd never seen "Airplane." BARELY heard of it.
Surely, you can't be serious!
Meh, so what if I did?
now a little to the left
"batch files"? "composing multi-config.sys boot environments"?
You've wasted your life as a Windows addict! You could have been a... programmer!
YAIE (yet another inflammatory extremist) said:
I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They're not playing the video games. They're killing real people over there
Funny. I guess Bill Oreilly's never heard of Special Force. Oh wait. That's right - he doesn't use the Internet. It might disconnect him from reality.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zz2U0_QCnOE
The ______ Agenda
So they don't know what day it is; they don't know temperature it is; they don't know what their neighbor looks like. They don't know anything... because they are constantly diverted by a machine. Now what this does is it takes a person away from reality because they've created their own reality...
To know the date, not just the day, I turn on my Nintendogs(TM)
To know the temperature, I visit a local weather website. (I do RC Planes also)
To know what my neighbor looks like, I hang my webcam outside my window for some bathroom windows slit peeping.
And to know my neighborhood, I google earth.
They don't know anything...
Quite the contrary, with search engines, I believe most people here knows almost everything. However, knowing the path is different from walking the path. Mr. O might know a lot, but what can you really DO? That's the key.
And yeah I am detached from reality that's why I am posting this from work. STFU.
All you have to do is listen to his show for 5 minutes to realize the Leprechaun is NOT conservative. He's an idiot and a scare-mongering media whore.
Like many of the politicians out there today he is a centrist dedicated to saying whatever the most amount of people want to hear in order to get more attention/ratings/dollars/etc.
Libertas in infinitum
You missed the past tense "didn't" I assume. They still aren't in the majority of MMORPG and FPS death match players. They certainly aren't in the majority in the big guilds on those types of games either because their out banging the cheerleaders and can't make molten core every fucking thursday evening.
as soon as Bill stops getting paid to be outrageous.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Yes he can, and don't call him Shirley.
My twitter
O'Reilly wasn't talking about any particular kind of technology. He was talking about the way people use and rely on the technology.
Now there's plenty of other technology he relies upon that fuddy-duddies 30 years older than him probably scoff at. But the point I'm making is that it's not a question of how advanced the technology is, it's a question of what it does and how it's used, for and by people.
Just a sidenote: SPIN - Society for the Protection of Innocent Nuclei
We all create our own realities all the time. What he really wants to say is that some realities are better than others. Mighty christian of you, Bill. Fucking nitwit.
Because they tend to get laid quite a bit on a regular basis.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This particular utterance made /. Whether or not that indicates "value" is neither here nor there, but it may make it worth refuting.
In other words, "I don't have time to refute him, I'll just call him a hypocrite and move on." Why bother? Seriously, I dislike Bill O'Reilly as much as the next guy because of his penchant for logical fallacies. Those fallacies stink, no matter which way they're pointed.
That sounds like a familiar system...
I have watched this guy on tv only once (Thank God!), and read this article.
I always get the impression that this guy is very very unhappy, and bitter.
Old age? or there is a cactus shoved on his ass?
this guy sits in a news room all day, I doubt if you asked him what the temp is out side he would know what it is and he feeds shity opinionated news try to force his version of reality to people.
from reality. Reality sux, to start with, so everyone tries to disconnect from it, one way or another. Watching TV citcoms or whatever is the most popular way. Don't blame the gamers, please.
Only if you do your programming on a Dell notebook.
Because they tend to get laid quite a bit on a regular basis.
Albeit not always with consent.
I only need the Preview button when I haven't used the Preview button.
"Why is it that you don't hear about NBA stars disconnected from reality?"
When was the last time you heard a NBA player say RTFM to a newbie? When was the last time a NBA player insisted that a CLI was the only way to interact with a computer? When was the last time an NBA player wrote a user-hostile GUI? When was the last time an NBA player called their fans idiots because they didn't know how to operate a basketball? When was the last time a NBA player got upset because the sport wasn't named after him?
If you believe that, then you really must be living out of reality!
Hahaha, Mr. Paris Business Review accusing others of being divorced from reality?!
Huh? O'Reilly isn't a conservative. He's a media savvy tabloid host and always has been. He just happens to pander to the crowd who watches the channel his show is on the most with topics that will get the most attention. If he thought he'd make more dough and get more reaction by pulling an Arianna Huffington tomorrow, he'd do it in a heartbeat.
Perhaps if you'd put down the controller and pick up a book or two, you'd rely less on sweeping generalizations and actually learn to think critically.
And yes, I was kidding, but seriously, put the controller down before you hurt yourself.
once i've attained my Ultra-Mecha, this Bill O'who-whats-his-name will be the first to feel my firey, gooey, fission blast!
HAVE AT YOU! f'tang! ole, biscuit barrel...
On the plus side
Yay! I'm young
You've obviously never witnessed a game of cricket.
Who cares whether you know about all that carp.
Just a bunch of mumbo jumbo for "Man-boy has ball. Man-boy want put ball over there. How man-boy going to do it? Man-boy watcher wishes he were man-boy earning untold millions while he eats his man-boy hot dogs and drinks his macho beer.."
: )
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
The next phase would be:plugging into an interconnected matrix of computer networks and connecting feeding tubes to your chamber. ,bots delivers them to other chambers where they live their happy virtual life.Life goes on.
Your spare brain capacity will be used for computing tasks designated by main computer.
After autocloning few copies of you
I never knew b/c of my age that I dont know what reality is.....pretty sure I do. Ive been up since almost 2am, fed the 6wk old. put her down for sleep, got myself ready for the day, went and filled my car with gas (WTFH is 5 gallons for 10 bucks anyways??), got coffee, came back, already had breakfast, waiting for lil one to wake again before her bath time and feeding, send her father off to work, get us organized to head to the doctors in the crudy rain. And between all this fun and working, I read this crap, wth, who is quoting Bill anyways? Like he knows wth reality is. :)
Who the hell is Bill OReilly? Someone tell me what zone he's in so I can go kick his ass.
Warning: May contain nuts
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
You don't cheer for the bunch of guys that are playing; you cheer because of what your team represents, its principles, history of your town etc.
... of reality because the society itself has bigger problems that contribute to people wanting to escape from it.
reality disconnects you!
Sports Fandom shares a lot in common with nationality - it appeals to a sense of geographical pride or some emotional attachment (usually a beer induced emotional attachment). There is also an appeal not unlike the lottery appeal in hoping your team will win - that's what aggravates me in sports - someone always asks me who I'm cheering for, and I never know because I have no sports pride - and I don't know their odds well enough to correlate the most likely outcome. Fandom makes no sense to me, sports however do - specifically ones I play because I have some familiarity with the level of expertise it would take to do what the professional (or the avid enthusiast) just did. I can watch snowboarding and skiing competitions enthusiastically for this reason, I can watch video game replays for the same exact reason - skill is admirable, and if you understand the level of skill someone possesses through watching them it's easy to admire and envy their ability. I can watch CPL replays or PvP videos and be impressed or unimpressed not by the score but by the performance of the player - that's what's really admirable. This is my long way of winding back through things I know and perhaps things others here are more familiar with to say that perhaps the nationality of sports fandom is just the longstanding admiration of a particular teams percieved skill and the desire to see that skill induce victory. Then there are always the ones who are in it for some vicarious victory by cheering for the team who always wins, and others who cheer for the team that always loses for the exxagerated vicarious victory when they finally do beat someone skilled.
As for the OP, Bill is an asshat and a pundit unworthy of air and seeking only to cause controversy. Giving him the time of day would be only a precursor to allowing my fist to approach his hideous face. His understanding of technology is laughable, even archaic on a par of the first age of ancient Egypt. He is so out of tune with the reality he attacks it's surprising people give his remarks airtime - even despite the anthing-goes, 10 000 channel televisions the majority of the western world are really glued to. Video games are a tailor made reality we choose to play and critic actively amongst peers - we play, we evaluate, and we praise or disregard as appropriate - that's a level of critical thinking I'd be hard pressed to find in any other form of entertainment today. What's truly ironic about Bill is that if people actually took him seriously, they'd stop watching TV, and the O'Rly? Factor, iPods dangling on the ears of his subjugated would stop podcasting his hipocrisy, and Slashdot would stop reminding us of the baffling idiocy he spews forth like so much vomit. He's a moron, a hypocrite, and an antagonist (an agonist?) who should die of old age or terminal brain damage from forcing his mouth muscles to form such incongrous sentences.
So gamers are disconnected from reality because their attention is constantly diverted by a machine? How about all those people who wear wrist-watches or use wall clocks?
"...I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They're not playing the video games. They're killing real people over there."
Perhaps we should give a free PS3 to every Iraqi male under 45. If Bill O'Reilly's right, it would help us win the war. It would be cheaper than the conventional military solution, too.
I seriously doubt that Bill O'Reilly understands these things, but he does understand that if his "team" (assuming he has a team) scores more points than the opposition then his team wins and he feels good about having bragging rights. See, easy.
You know, Custer had a plan.
"You must be the same sort of idiot that is upset when the minimum wage guy at McDonalds kisses your ass less than the department store salesman who relies on commission.."
No worse an idiot than the one that believes that there's no skill to sports, or over inflates the geeks ability to play with ones and zeros (see I can trivalize too). Anyway as usual you missed the point. Geeks in the majority are disconnected from reality. That's why I chose the examples I did. The fact that one's a hobby, while the other's a sport has no bearing on the issue.
Remember those ridiculous tabloid shows, "Hard Copy" and "A Current Affair"... I can't remember which one (does it matter?), but that is Bill's origin. Speaks volumes about his character...
dont you mean accusations of warcraft?
I bet your Puritan ancestors loved bashing the papist English back in the day before they got kicked the fuck out of the country! Hell, even the DUTCH wouldn't take the Christers because those Christers didn't just want to worship in their own way...they wanted EVERYONE to worship in the that way.
So yeah, it's been cool to Bash Xians since 2000+ years ago. Fucking asshole cultists, the lot of you.
Blar.
O'Reilly must have missed what he was saying. Reality is a point of view we accept. Granted there are some realities that are universal and accepted as fact, O'Reilly I guess wants us to share his reality. That reality being the days of Little House on the Prairie. If your reality is to be a normal Joe/Joel from 9 -5 then be a Elf Paladin from 5 till midnight then that is your choice, not O'Reilly's.
What I am trying to say is that O'Reilly must have missed the bus that would have brought him into the 21st century. We live in a high tech world and we want entertainment and social structure. The internet has helped people that were once socially inept gain confidence through anonymity. I am one. I think O'Reilly needs to understand that you shouldn't shoot your mouth off about something you have no understanding of.
_____
"If I had any real choice, do you really think we would be in this predicament now?!"
*sigh* I knew I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
Wow. That's an even more retarded explanation than I could have thought of. This is why we were supposed to cheer at pep rallies at school too? They were fucking stupid.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I used to believe that too until my mid 20s. I enjoyed sports (swam, baseball, tennis), went to a damn good college (U of Chicago, where I was considered a jock because I was on a varsity team, despite double honoring (the College, bio major), etc.), but didn't get the vested interest in watching some guys play. Except maybe college basketball, I didn't get sports as a spectator and the fandom.
/. re tech) with sports analysts that I can say clearly I've grown from.
Then I got quite a bit less serious with my life started having fun. I started watch more and more sports. Reading up on the sport teams, etc. And let me tell you, it can be as fun and complex as you want it to be. Sports fandom is much like console gaming; you can spend and invest as much time with a community as you so choose. People get involved because, frankly, it's fun and something involved, even mental if you want it to be, to do.
In some ways, I still don't get certain aspects, like the rabid tailgating, dressing up, stupid signs, buying up too many jerseys, fat heads, yard team logos. But everything else, it can be completely fascinating. It's like a good reality show, except it IS reality. It has player selections, skills, economics, personalities. Intense training, politicking (McNabb, Owens). It can be complete off the field as on the field. Certain teams get good or bad reps, certain players as well, and who succeeds or fails (Peyton, Brady; is Vanderjack bonked and missed 2 field goals (does the FLCL 'how embarrassing')).
How do people match up? How will a team compensate for loss? Will they get new talent? Why is this game different than the last? Game strategies, clock management, it can be quite involved. You have an entire afternoon and networks and channels setup to talk sports too. I've actually learned quite a lot in how people perceive things (similar to reading comments on
For me, I like to have something in the background when I surf; usually there's a game on (otherwise it's CNN or CNBC). Similarly, I like to eat out occasionally esp. on weekends and going to a sports bar and just hanging out can be fun. They might not be the brightest people wrt our field, but many of the people are good people that you can hold a sport conversation with; many, many times, I'd rather do that than avoid a debate with some 11yo punk that I just railed in the ground for the 14th time on Xbox360 Live who's spewing vulgarities and still can't back up his talk.
Ok, I've always read Slashdot, and this one seems it's thrown out there to be tore apart. I'm the prototypical opensourced liberal slacker, but I can see some merrit here. Is this a broad generalization? Yes. At the same time I have found myself pissed off at the same sort of thing. I don't think it helps society to have some of the brightest and most logical confined to an apolitical, antisocial philosophy. I enjoy talking about the lastest microsoft scam or the funniest Wii injury as much as any of us, but I do get annoyed when I bring up whether raising the minimum wage is good or bad for society to blank stares. The thing I don't get is why Bill would want many of us paying more attention, cause I don't think there are many closetted right-wingers among us.
How about feeling emotions for a fictional character in a book or movie? It's similar. We can cheer for Frodo to destroy the ring, just like we cheer for the local hockey team to win the stanley cup.
I'm not a sports fan, but going to the odd game, especially during playoffs, is LOTS of fun!
how far back into the past are you going? I grew up with the first nintendo and everyone I know had one. Tecmo bowl was huge back then. Even going back to the atari, every kid I knew had one. Jocks included.
You heard it, folks. Stop having fun. Immediately.
Ah, I think I begin to see. I'm almost a total loaner (married w/child). I don't belong to any group, don't play online games, just stragtegy games against the computer, and make stuff in the shop. Sports fandom is some kind of belonging group thing. That's why I don't get it.
I drank what? -- Socrates
If he had a WoW account, I would so pwn him.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
B.O'Re. probably has a hard time double clicking. His concept of 'reality' and 'not reality' is his lack of seeing the dynamic of interpersonal/interbusiness relationships with technology. Hence we will not receive text messages or an email from Bill, ever (only the producers respond to emails -- they're not dealing with reality either). Antiquated ways of communicating are dead/dying and this is his way of making 'filler' news. I never watch his show because of his slated views and bashing of peoples opinions, not to mention it only shows a single (and often ignorant) opinion.
If by 'a large portion' he is referring to one in several thousand, then maybe. I play a lot of games, of varying genre and pace it's what I spend a lot of my time doing. Outside of that, I have a job, I have real life friends and I also keep myself informed of world events. A lot of the gaming people I know are also in the same situation. Making generalizations based on what a person wants to do with their free time is only going to lead to oppression, and i personally consider remarks like this, directed at me or not, insulting.
Maybe I'm spoiled living in a rustbelt city, but that kind of stuff wouldn't fly around here. I don't know if I could buy in such a restrictive place.
So he says technology hurts?
But if there were no technology, where would O'Reilly be today?
Milking horses in a Texas ranch?
In other news Bill O'Reilly divorced from intelligence.
I don't. I mean, I understand playing sports; that's fun, but I don't get sports fandom. It's one thing to cheer for a friend or family that's playing a game but to be emotionally involved with a bunch of rich guys playing a game with a ball is just weird.
I'm from Pittsburgh, I don't know how it is in other big cities but it's perfectly normal for a stranger to strike up a conversation with you by asking what you thought of the Steeler game. They look at me like I have two heads when I tell them that I hate football.
Guys at work will actually have their emotional states affected by the outcome of the previous week's Steeler game. Some employers will allow people to break the dress code so that they can wear the team's colors on the days of "important" games.
About 10 years ago, something like 30% of the local residents voted in favor of increasing the sales tax so that they could build a new stadium for the local sports teams.
But, WE'RE the ones who are disconnected from reality...
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
"Well, that's what O'Reilly thinks and he's a frothing right-wing nutjob,"
O'Reilly is just a nutjob, politics not withstanding.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano