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..."

Comments

Re:Pot? Kettle? - Logical Fallacies 101

[Soygen]

Not really. The discussion is about Bill O' Reilly talking about technology damaging social networks.

Re:Pot? Kettle?

[Nasarius]

I don't know anything about Bill O'Reilly's origins

Long Island suburbia. Wikipedia indicates that the only job outside of journalism he's ever held was high school teacher for two years. He went to Marist and Boston University, and has an M.A. in Broadcast Journalism. What a real, blue-collar working man he is.

Heed Bill's Warning!

[neolith]

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.

Re:Hey I know what day it is!

[NoisySplatter]

The problem is that people like you think going to iraq isnt serving your country, and chances certainly arent that you're going to die. When was the last time you went to iraq? I know i'm still alive after going there.

Re:Hey I know what day it is!

[toadlife]

"Seriously, can you come up with ONE activity that "conservatives"...want to ban unreasonably?"

sodomy, gay marriage, marijuana, alcohol, abortion, tinted car windows (well, for Mexicans at least), flag burning, homosexuality.

Do you live in a hole or something?

Re:Hypocracy?

[PsiPsiStar]

Do you know of any conservatives who are reccomending stoning women for adultery?
Just curious.

Jesus also had his desciples carry swords. Why? At one point he tells them to sell their cloak and buy a sword.

Bear in mind, the Jews couldn't exactly vote out Roman tax collectors. For more, see;
Regarding welfare and taxes (not my blog)

you may draw your own conclusions from the feeding of the 5,000.

Jesus the Bread of Life
25When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"

26Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."

28Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"

29Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

30So they asked him, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'[c]"

32Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

34"Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread."

35Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. 36But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

41At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"

43"Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. 44"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.'[d] Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

52Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who fe

Re:Hypocracy?

[PsiPsiStar]

I agree that a few conservatives are hypocritical on gender issues. Particuarly, I mean that the laws which compel men to support their children are so horribly enforced, both in the US and in other countries. (I have a friend in Canada whose dad has been horrid in this regard.) Personally, I don't want the government controlling people's medical choices. (My opinions about the morality of said choices are a different issue.) But are you sure that you're assigning their motivation correctly? The most common reason I've heard for being against abortion is believing (correctly or not) that a fetus is a full-blown child and has similar rights. The other explanations ususally come out of the mouths of people besides religious conservatives.

Not that I care what Jesus said, there's next to no historical evidence for his existence so what he said is of no consequence.

I figured that was your stance. (Assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that you were the OP.) But in history we have to use certain standards. If you take someone, who had as many first hand witnesses claiming to have seen him as Jesus did, and say that there isn't enough evidence to prove his existance, you erase quite a few other historical characters as well. Alexander the Great didn't have much first hand evidence to reccomend his existance. How do you know that his conquests weren't the result of several people, and attributed to a single man? Most historical figures were royalty. Whether or not you believe Jesus was a miracle worker or no, there are less than a handful of peasants in the ancient world who have more evidence for their existance than Jesus does. The evidence for his existance is about as strong as any figure, especially any peasant, in the ancient world.

Re:In O'Reilley's Reality...

[ukemike]

Well I stand corrected. I was painting him with the same broad (and maybe unfair) brush that he frequently paints others with.
Of course while the CIA was negligent in the lead up to war, we seem to have skipped over the whole issue (as a nation) of the manipulation of intelligence and recycling of discredited intelligence by the administration itself (in the Office of Special Plans in particular.)
As far as the shut up issue. Rent and watch the documentary "Outfoxed." There is a hilarious bit where they show him saying "I've never said 'shut up' on the air." Then they procede to show him saying and yelling it dozens of times.
I still say he is a blowhard and his opinion on youth culture (or online culture) carries no weight.

Re:Hypocracy?

[PsiPsiStar]

There are many ancient sources on the career of the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great: the Library of world history of Diodorus of Sicily, Quintus Curtius Rufus' History of Alexander the Great of Macedonia, a Life of Alexander by Plutarch of Chaeronea and the Anabasis by Arrian of Nicomedia are the best-known. All these authors lived more than three centuries after the events they described, but they used older, nearly contemporary sources, that are now lost.

(emphasis added)source, source

Alexander the Great didn't have much first hand evidence to reccomend his existance.

It's a bit silly to discuss history when you haven't a clue.

You're hardly in a place to lecture people on having a clue about history since you seem to know very little either about ancient Greek historiography or Greco-Roman historiography around the destruction of the second temple.

Most historians, even those who are atheists, believe that Jesus existed as an historical figure.

This is like saying the world is flat or that the moon is a liberal myth.

No, this is like saying that there are enough primary sources regarding Jesus that if you disqualify his existance based on a lack of first hand (not contemporaneous, but first hand) sources that you'd have to disqualify quite a few other historical figures as well.
Including Alexander the Great.