Slashdot Mirror
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..."
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
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.
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.
Ah, nevermind... going back to my games again...
-gam
"In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not."
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.
Yes, let's make a sweeping generalization about "kids these days". Because "oh so many" college students previous to the era of onling gaming didn't fall into other traps in college (negative addiction to drugs, general lazyness)? For those types of students, video games are simply an escape from the fact that they aren't motivated enough or aren't smart enough to get through college.
I note you apparently don't suffer from the same issue. And college graduation rates are up across the board (if not retention percentages).
I disagree with WoW being the cause of that. I've known people drop out at uni with the same disorganisation/lack of personal hygeine, but causes vary from drugs/booze/hating the course and not wanting to admit it, or just being a moron (ok, I made up that last one).
Still, I've seen exactly the same 'symptoms' that people ascribe to WoW existing before WoW ever turned up. In the eighties I knew people who neglected work and school for Pacman and Firebird.
When people don't want to do something, whether they admit it or not, they will distract themselves with something/anything, often becoming obsessed to the point of losing touch with reality. I knew one guy who got that way with scratchcards, he went without food to get them.
People don't change that fast, but maddeningly every knew 'fad' is touted as the cause of problems that have existed for millenia.
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.
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
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?
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.
My grandfather failed out of school because he preferred to go hunting over going to class.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
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.
.. 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?
"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'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
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...
The thing I often find while I grow older is that terms and definitions are having less distinction as time goes one. What's the difference between a gamer and a hardcore gamer or even a casual gamer? You ask 10 people and you'll get 10 different answers.
One persons definition of a hardcore gamer might not be the same as someone else's. I could play WoW 2-3 hours a night and be called hardcore by a person who plays 5 hours a week and 'casual' by someone who plays 8 hours a day and 15 hours on weekends/holidays. Yet, one could define someone with the same term depending not on the criteria of time spent playing but activities done during play. A person who spends 2-3 hours in a raid to get loot could be called 'hardcore' while a person who continues to create new characters and plays them solo all the time, could be considered 'casual'.
I find this is happening on many levels outside of gaming. I was just having a discussion with my fiancee where we where arguing over the same agreement but wanted to call it two different things until we reached a decision to clarify our points by created specific terms to distinguish what we where talking about, since we could not argue points since we were not arguing over the same (but similar) things. Or I could point out former President Bill Clinton's argument that "he did not have sexual relations with that woman" because "sexual relations" was re-defined by him.
Anyone else notice this? This (seemingly) transcendence into generalization or the definition of terms to suit our own points?
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
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
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.
You know he secretly plays a female Night Elf hunter...
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.
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! --
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
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
If video games allow the proletariat some measure of satisfaction and distraction from their otherwise bleak lives, then at least it isn't destroying their livers or arguably brain cells. We need people to be content doing mindless jobs and no human being with half a brain will tolerate that without some sort of anesthesia or escape. What scares the PTBs (powers that be) is how little they control the video game world. They have controlled the television and radio medias for so long now that they can easily achieve their desired effect if they can keep the people watching (and listening).
What probably bothers Mr. O'Reilly more is that while playing video games, the Television is not tuned to the force fed pablum it otherwise would be projecting. Far worse than any "mindless" video games is the truely mindless offerings of television. If you consider the whole, rather than any single program, it is obvious that the one and only intent of television is to seperate you from your money. Beyond the obvious commecials is the more insideous consumerism promoted by most other shows. Show you the lives of the wealthy and fabulous, then offer credit to allow you to purchase a shadow of that image.
There are many games (in fact some of the most involving) that engage the mind and may elnighten the player. Anyone who has ever seriously played a SimCity or Civilization game must have achieved a degree of understanding or insight into macro economics. I for one would like to see a candidates SimCity score published if they are running for city council or Mayor. If you can't beat the simulation, you probably shouldn't get the job.
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 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.
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'
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.
I agree. Attacking Bill O'Reilly is a worthy discussion.
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 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.
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
So now we programmers have to fear being burned at the stake? Great...
I got nothin'
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)
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.
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.
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
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)
>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.
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.
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
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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 **
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
Yes he can, and don't call him Shirley.
My twitter
Only if you do your programming on a Dell notebook.
You've obviously never witnessed a game of cricket.
You see, you just hit the nail on the head.
If you guys were playing D&D that long back then, then I would have to say you guys-at least somewhat-lost touch of the reality around you.
The reality around them at the time was D&D, so they obviously weren't out of touch.
People have this idea that there is one reality, and all things have to jive with that reality. In actuality, everyone has their own version of reality.
I agree that people need to eat, drink, sleep, and defecate, but that is where our common reality ends. "To each their own" is a powerful statement, and one that isn't understood by the masses. There is nothing wrong with playing WoW 15 hours a day. If you can pull off the "common reality" that I mentioned above, and ALL your other time is dedicated to WoW, then that is fine. Yes, you won't be aware of current events, and worldy things, but those aren't your realities. Those are the realities of the people that are partaking in them.
Sorry, I'm at work, so I don't have time to elaborate, but you can do that on your own - however you wish to.
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.