For adults this is fine, for kids they have less of a defense on walling off fantasy vs reality, in fact much of their learning is practicing with toys and play with friends.
Indeed, though with my other example, I played out violent fantasies with my action figures too. I guess the difference there is I only got out what I brought with me, rather than a game setting where they permit you to do things you may have never thought to do, but nevertheless, it's not as though I needed video games as a kid in order to have violent fantasies in play.
On the other hand, I'm not advocating that we have all of our kids play grand theft auto, either. I'm not crazy:)
It is not just a virutal world that is the problem, but the reward system build in that is not real, it has an agenda and we learn and adapt behavior while we play and there is not one area of our brain that is exclusively for fantasy play, not one area for logic or judgement. We are excesizing those in a protective envirionment but we are excersizing those. We can't see shifts in moral compass we can't feel them they are in the unconsious part of us. We can claim that we are in control and that the repeated play at killing and stealing is not affecting us but that is silly.
Not affecting us? As in, not affecting us in any way whatsoever? Typing this post affects me. Trivially, everything we do has some impact on us. But I'm unconcerned about it. I'm a less arrogant, more patient, more considerate, and more compassionate person than I was before I played my first Grand Theft Auto game. Related? I seriously doubt it. But if violent video games are extremely fun and entertaining and have had no discernible negative effect on my behavior or morality, color me unimpressed.
So I once had a credit card number taken by what I can only assume was a waiter at a restaurant, since I only ever used that card to pay for meals. There are other ways to have your card information stolen. With 77 million PSN users, the odds that a given identity theft victim also happens to be a PSN subscriber seem reasonable.
But at the same time you are practicing parts of your brain, Leaning what is valued and what is not. Too often the simulation has its own reality. Like the practice of Aikido which has its own build in dissonance where half the time you are practicing defending against unbalanced attacks and the other half you are practicing doing unbalanced attacks so your partner can practice. Here you are simuating a attack , another simuation, but prepares you for a real attack. Not only do you train your muscles but you train your perceptions and thought process on how to react. Those logic and moral circuits in your brain are not seperate from the ones you use in the real world. You may not know it but the game has its effect.
Except that I am aware that I'm playing a game. When I roleplay a character in a PnP roleplaying game, I do things I would not do in real life as though I were a different person. It is an opportunity to be something I am not, whether that is stronger, smarter, more desirable to women, or potentially more morally bankrupt. It is a safe sandbox in which to explore that fantasy without having to deal with any of the consequences of actually being that person. GTA is much the same. I am consciously applying a morality that is different from what I apply in the real world because I know that the reasons for applying my morality in the real world do not apply. I can use imagination and fantasize that it is real and that I am this other person, but there is always that metaknowledge that it is a fantasy.
Why do we like scary movies? Certainly the rush of the fantasy is nice, but who out there would want to actually be chased by a slasher? It's escapist entertainment, and the fact that there is always that firm lifeline back to the real world is what makes it safe and acceptable.
So no, I'm very consciously behaving according to a different moral framework.
I'm not even sure what makes GTA or video games in general so special. Long before GTA ever existed or video games were beyond the 8-bit era, I'd have the occasional violent fantasy regarding bullies or jerks. I don't see how it's fundamentally different from imagining that some school bully was an action figure I had and then having another of my action figures (who was supposed to be me) beat the everliving piss out of him.
Certainly I am not anti-video game. Maybe anti-morally bankrupt video game. You know "Grand Theft Auto" or any game that gives you 10 ways to kill and mame or steal or pillage, human or other species. I just think you have to overcome some natural prohibitions on killing in your intellectual side to actually do and enjoy those games.
I enjoy these games, have a "natural prohibition on killing" in real life, and have never really felt like it required much suppression. Has anyone ever pissed you off and you thought "I want to kill that jackass"? Presumably if it actually came to it, the reality of the situation would come crashing down and the fantasy would lose all of its appeal. Not so with a video game, where the entire scenario has only the veneer of reality. Murder is easy when you dehumanize your target, and dehumanization is easy (and guilt-free) when your target was never human to begin with.
I could be wrong, but I have a feeling a lot of current employees could be on really thin ice over this one. Heads could be rolling at any time. I don't think I'd want to distinguish myself by being the guy who essentially tried to extort a pay raise out of them.
I play games myself, but the theory of carthesis has been pretty much shown to be bull, and I still hear gamers say "it helps me relax." When hooked up to sensors, however, playing a game does anything but make a gamer relax (heightened blood pressure, pulse, release of adrenaline, etc.).
Relax is not the right word. It helps you escape. Your regular life may be full of worry, stress, and insecurity. Perhaps you have feelings of powerlessness and you're afraid to take action. A game is empowering and makes you feel good. After it's over you can ride that high and let your body cool down and relax and you'll feel more satisfied than you did before when you felt powerless and used by the system. In that sense, it does help you relax. You're not relaxing *while playing*, but it can help you to relax later since it took your mind off of all the things that were stressing you out.
I have a feeling that many people who react so strongly and shout "video games aren't related to ANY violence at all!" fear their favorite entertainment medium being threatened/regulated. Which is a reasonable fear, considering some countries, such as Australia's, stance on video games. However, it can be easily shown that some video games are related to the release of endorphins and adrenaline, which is why they are "fun." Guess what? Some of those chemicals released in the brain are related to violence.
Meh, it's trivial. Sure, I get excited when I play a game. I'm more aggressive. But I'm harmlessly aggressive. My aggression is directed at a fantasy. I'm more dangerous if I get a lecture from my boss that pisses me off, because at least then my aggression is targeted at a real person. Is it impossible that a person could commit a violent act in a moment of heightened aggression from playing a video game? I guess not.... but why single out video games? They are one of many, many activities that result in increased aggression, and they are generally played in a relatively safe and nonthreatening setting where a violent situation is unlikely to arise.
Also, is there a difference between violent and nonviolent games? That is, if you're playing Gears of War which has gore all over the place vs a platformer where you're getting frustrated by falling and dying repeatedly. I've noticed that a violent easy game tends to make me less agitated than a challenging (or worse, cheap) non-violent game. I've had moments where I really wanted Mario to die in a fucking fire.;)
I don't actually understand why insensitivity is so feared. Doctors are desensitized due to the way they have to essentially be biological mechanics for human beings. Hunters are desensitized by actually killing real living things and butchering them (the fact that human beings have analogous parts to such animals would be disquieting without at least some degree of desensitization). And of course, we actively encourage this in our military personnel and call them heroes rather than being terrified of the monsters we must have turned them into.
And do we really think violent video games desensitize to even near the degree that those things do? I find that extremely unlikely. I've played a lot of violent video games and I'm still sickened by stories of civilians being decapitated by militant extremists or of bodies being dragged through the streets.
There's a lot of horror in this world, and video games or no, I still find it horrifying.
Once they've made it out of school and into the workforce, they will be free to follow their motivation. You will see them advance in the office, in the community, in the criminal gang, or wherever they choose to go. The youngsters in school who are being told what to do and when to do it -- these are the ones whose level of motivation and ability you want to discover. Because if you don't show them how to harness their strengths to benefit society, they will harness them to the detriment of society, or simply fail to develop their skills, skating by on whatever minimum they can do.
That sounds more like the behavior of a gifted but lazy person. And maybe this study is off the mark and gifted lazy people do well on IQ tests, but in case it really is a test of motivation, I'd expect these kids would have a drive to excel in other tasks than just the IQ test.
And you could have, with a simple test, gained some insight into who was raring for greater challenges without them having to speak up and risk looking like a nerd or dork or whatever is your favorite word to describe the ostracism of one who goes well beyond his peers.
*shrug* You may have a point there. On the other hand, doing all of your schoolwork and getting good grades is not something that requires speaking up and looking like a nerd, either. If a school has a program for gifted and talented students, presumably it has some way of identifying them. If it's highly motivated students you're after, would the IQ test be better than just looking at their grades? If so, sure, I agree with you. I'm skeptical, though.
So IQ doesn't measure intelligence. So what? If IQ score is, as claimed, highly correlated with success in life, and if it's measuring motivation and determination rather than intelligence, and if it's motivation that determines success in life, doesn't that make the IQ test pretty damned useful?
Seems more like it would make it redundant. Motivated people are going to actively seek out opportunities for advancement. You don't need a test to identify them.
But he did it anonymously, so how will he receive the credit??
Re:The orc your man can smell like!
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Smell Like An Orc
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It's a parody of the Old Spice ads. I think it would have been better if he had made himself out to be an orc version of the Old Spice guy rather than the regular Old Spice guy. Maybe could change "I'm on a horse" to "I'm on a dire wolf" as a WoW reference. Oh well, missed opportunity:)
The real safety problem never was, and never will be, your speed. The real safety problem was the jerk behind you, who was using a two-ton mass of steel going 70+ mph to force you to move another two-ton mass of steel.
If you ask me, tailgaters should be arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
In the end, no matter what you decided on, the other driver's actions put you in a bad position. Unfortunately for you, the "less legal" action of exceeding the speed limit meant that you got nailed, instead of the guy putting everybody in danger. And that's the real problem, no?
No, you're right. I think tailgating is extremely dangerous, particularly at highway speeds. If I have to slam on my brakes for whatever reason, he's already hit me before he even notices that he needs to brake. If you're on the highway and you need to brake while you're being tailgated, you're screwed, basically. That's why I wanted to get out of that situation.
I drive a BMW 335i. I can stop faster than that. I can nearly accelerate that fast.
Also, 20-25 feet *is* insignificant.
Get off the road before you kill someone.
Ah, glad to see the quality of discourse is being kept high and we're keeping personal attacks out of this. And this from the guy wants to teach tailgaters a lesson.
As well as the increased stopping distance, greater speed increases the chance that a touch from that tailgater causes your car to spin and take out the car you are overtaking.
And until he speeds up too, he has a larger buffer before he hits me, and there's going to be less of an opportunity for this to happen, because I'm going to be out of his way sooner, and finally, the difference in speed is literally the velocity of a typical human *walking*.
And we might not be talking broken noses. We might be talking death.
It's only increased probability of harm. But it does indicate you chose the wrong option.
Whatever, buddy. Go judge someone else. I'm done with this bullshit.
I bet not one of the people here who say "Starcraft sucks" or "Starcraft is no fun" can beat the game on hard (never mind brutal) without cheats.
Well, that hardly seems profound. I mean, if a person doesn't think a game is fun, why would he attempt to master it? Does he have some kind of faith that if he sticks with it, he'll acquire a taste for it?
If it were as lucrative and easy as you say, everyone would do it. An engineer makes good money because the skill is marketable and not just anyone has the education and talent to do it. Competitive gaming isn't nearly as marketable (maybe you get some revenue from sponsorship and advertising?), so the market is *much* smaller, and anyone with 50 bucks and a computer can play Starcraft 2, so the barrier to entry is *much* lower than engineering. Consequently you have to be far more exceptional compared to your peers in order to make serious money at it, and you have to work *extremely* hard to keep your skills sharp enough to stay at the top. And after all that, as another poster mentioned, your skills will deteriorate enough after a few years that you can't stay at the top of the heap, and your skills will have taught you nothing useful for whatever new career you choose.
And all that is fine, really. I mean, it's true of most competitive sports. But I'll admit some prejudice. Competitive Starcraft playing just seems way lamer than, say, competitive snowboarding or surfing.
If your estimation of 70/73 mph is correct, then we're talking an increase in stopping distance of 20-25 feet. That's not insignificant.
That's mathematically dubious. 3 mph is 4.4 feet per second. To simplify the math, I'll assume constant deceleration from the braking. To increase your stopping distance by 20 feet, it'd have to take me about 4.5 seconds to stop. To increase your stopping distance by 25 feet, it'd be an extra second. My car takes only 6 seconds or so to *get* to 70 mph.
Also, 20-25 feet *is* insignificant. We're on a straight highway and no one is in front of me. If a deer jumps out ahead of me, I'm not slamming on my brakes and coming to a full stop anyway (particularly because I'm being tailgated, if you recall). I'm either hitting it or not, and the difference between 70 and 73 isn't going to be that noticeable when my car is totaled and my nose is broken by the airbag either way.
No, I said you shouldn't act to reward them. That's not the same as punishing them.
Slowing down would be the same as punishing them. Ignoring them, not so much. But the point is that you want to avoid an activity that gives them their way. Either way, it's not a safety consideration for me. But you do what you like.
If you give a dog scraps at the table, then he'll always be begging scraps at the table.
Except it's not my dog, it's not my table, I'm not going to eat there again, and the dog is growling at me. I don't give a flipping fuck if the dog does it again. I don't want him to bite me.
You decided that slowing down "wasn't an option" because you didn't want to, so you elected to speed up instead.
I should clarify. I decided that it was an inferior option. In the absence of police, it clearly is. Speeding up slightly carries with it no negative consequences, while slowing down stops up traffic until I can get over, and then leaves me in the same position I was in before I attempted to pass. Results in more total lane changes and increases congestion in the short term. Making traffic more dense makes the situation less predictable and more hazardous than just speeding up a few mph.
And then, you got a ticket. It's really rather simple.
So how much time and money did it cost you to speed up for that tailgater?
What, *counting* the time I lost in being pulled over and the money I lost in paying the ticket? You realize that's what I'm complaining about, right? I'm complaining that the ticket has nothing to do with safety, because, in the absence of police enforcement of speeding laws, I made the *safer* choice.
Was it worth the (perhaps) 30 seconds you might have saved if your decision to go faster had paid off?
Huh? It wasn't about getting to my destination faster. I was going to be going faster for a few seconds until I could get over into the right lane, at which point I'd return to my normal cruising velocity. But was the benefit I'd get from being tailgated for a shorter period of time worth the cost of time and money in getting a ticket? Of course not.... I'm confused. Did I imply that the outcome of this story was satisfactory to me?
Now, please realize: I don't believe you should have gotten a ticket. I do not believe that speed limits are, in most cases, reasonable. I simply believe that your method of dealing with a tailgater is wrong and that it can be handled more both more safely and while still remaining closer to the constraints of the law (as it stands).
Wait a minute. You don't think speed limits are reasonable, but you think that speeding up slightly decreases safety? I emphatically disagree that there is a safer way to handle it.... *unless* you account for the cost associated with getting pulled over and getting a ticket. But that's sort of my point. The ticket punishes a behavior that would otherwise be safer. What's your argument for another action, not considering police enforcement, being safer? Presumably you feel that speeding up 3 mph at highway speeds introduces a safety cost that more than offsets the benefit of spending perhaps a quarter of the time in the left lane being tailgated. I wonder how you arrive at that conclusion.
Even with your clarification, the GP is still right. Your options were to ignore him or to gently slow down. Increasing speed when you are "uncomfortable" is the wrong reaction.
What do either of those options accomplish? Ignoring him changes nothing at all, and "slowing down gently" stops up traffic in the left lane until such time as I fall behind any cars I've passed enough to slip back over into the right lane again, which is counterproductive, because I was in the left lane in order to pass in the first place. Speeding up slightly, on the other hand, allows me to let him pass much earlier (if, for example, I were going 1 mph faster than the car I was passing and accelerated 3 mph, it would only take 1/4 the time to pass, so I'd be tailgated for 1/4 the time in return for a trivial speed increase)
1) You increasing your own and his stopping distance, when having insufficient stopping distance is exactly what is dangerous about tailgating.
Oh yes, my stopping distance went up drastically when I accelerated a few mph while traveling at highway speeds.... If a guy is right on my bumper, it doesn't make a bit of difference whether I'm going 70 mph or 73 mph. If I have to brake hard, he's going to hit me. But if I speed up a bit, I spend significantly less time in that situation.
2) You are rewarding his tailgating by giving him exactly what he wants, thus encouraging him to tailgate more often.
Seriously? So I should be trying to teach him a lesson, then? Because punishing drivers for their unsafe driving is the mature choice and carries no negative consequences, like possibly irritating the other driver and inspiring him to drive even more recklessly. It's all upside. Punish him, and he'll learn his lesson and never exhibit the unsafe behavior again. Of course, even if that were true and not utter nonsense, it's not really any of my concern what he does in the future. I'm concerned about my safety *right now*.
I think you might have missed something about the circumstances. I was in the process of passing someone, so I was in the left lane. I wasn't going very much faster than the person I was passing, so it was going to happen slowly. I had a guy come up behind and start tailgating, so I sped up maybe 3 mph so I'd be able to pass more quickly and get over into the right lane so the tailgater could pass me.
So slowing down wasn't an option, because I actually wanted to maintain my cruising speed and pass the guy on my right, ignoring him would have been an option, but I would have spent more time passing with the guy 2 feet off my bumper, which was making me uncomfortable, and staying in the right-hand lane? Well that was exactly what I was trying to do by minimizing the time spent passing.
I once had a cop tell me "9, you're fine, 10, you're mine". So I drive 9 over the speed limit. If 10 over is what they're going to enforce, then 10 over is the de facto speed limit. At this point I think I have a reasonable expectation I won't be pulled over if I'm not going more than 10 over the speed limit. Sadly, I also don't have a defense, because they can still *choose* to enforce a lower speed if they wish. Personally, I wish they'd just choose reasonable numbers and then actually enforce them.
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For adults this is fine, for kids they have less of a defense on walling off fantasy vs reality, in fact much of their learning is practicing with toys and play with friends.
Indeed, though with my other example, I played out violent fantasies with my action figures too. I guess the difference there is I only got out what I brought with me, rather than a game setting where they permit you to do things you may have never thought to do, but nevertheless, it's not as though I needed video games as a kid in order to have violent fantasies in play.
On the other hand, I'm not advocating that we have all of our kids play grand theft auto, either. I'm not crazy :)
It is not just a virutal world that is the problem, but the reward system build in that is not real, it has an agenda and we learn and adapt behavior while we play and there is not one area of our brain that is exclusively for fantasy play, not one area for logic or judgement. We are excesizing those in a protective envirionment but we are excersizing those. We can't see shifts in moral compass we can't feel them they are in the unconsious part of us. We can claim that we are in control and that the repeated play at killing and stealing is not affecting us but that is silly.
Not affecting us? As in, not affecting us in any way whatsoever? Typing this post affects me. Trivially, everything we do has some impact on us. But I'm unconcerned about it. I'm a less arrogant, more patient, more considerate, and more compassionate person than I was before I played my first Grand Theft Auto game. Related? I seriously doubt it. But if violent video games are extremely fun and entertaining and have had no discernible negative effect on my behavior or morality, color me unimpressed.
So I once had a credit card number taken by what I can only assume was a waiter at a restaurant, since I only ever used that card to pay for meals. There are other ways to have your card information stolen. With 77 million PSN users, the odds that a given identity theft victim also happens to be a PSN subscriber seem reasonable.
But at the same time you are practicing parts of your brain, Leaning what is valued and what is not. Too often the simulation has its own reality. Like the practice of Aikido which has its own build in dissonance where half the time you are practicing defending against unbalanced attacks and the other half you are practicing doing unbalanced attacks so your partner can practice. Here you are simuating a attack , another simuation, but prepares you for a real attack. Not only do you train your muscles but you train your perceptions and thought process on how to react. Those logic and moral circuits in your brain are not seperate from the ones you use in the real world. You may not know it but the game has its effect.
Except that I am aware that I'm playing a game. When I roleplay a character in a PnP roleplaying game, I do things I would not do in real life as though I were a different person. It is an opportunity to be something I am not, whether that is stronger, smarter, more desirable to women, or potentially more morally bankrupt. It is a safe sandbox in which to explore that fantasy without having to deal with any of the consequences of actually being that person. GTA is much the same. I am consciously applying a morality that is different from what I apply in the real world because I know that the reasons for applying my morality in the real world do not apply. I can use imagination and fantasize that it is real and that I am this other person, but there is always that metaknowledge that it is a fantasy.
Why do we like scary movies? Certainly the rush of the fantasy is nice, but who out there would want to actually be chased by a slasher? It's escapist entertainment, and the fact that there is always that firm lifeline back to the real world is what makes it safe and acceptable.
So no, I'm very consciously behaving according to a different moral framework.
I'm not even sure what makes GTA or video games in general so special. Long before GTA ever existed or video games were beyond the 8-bit era, I'd have the occasional violent fantasy regarding bullies or jerks. I don't see how it's fundamentally different from imagining that some school bully was an action figure I had and then having another of my action figures (who was supposed to be me) beat the everliving piss out of him.
Certainly I am not anti-video game. Maybe anti-morally bankrupt video game. You know "Grand Theft Auto" or any game that gives you 10 ways to kill and mame or steal or pillage, human or other species. I just think you have to overcome some natural prohibitions on killing in your intellectual side to actually do and enjoy those games.
I enjoy these games, have a "natural prohibition on killing" in real life, and have never really felt like it required much suppression. Has anyone ever pissed you off and you thought "I want to kill that jackass"? Presumably if it actually came to it, the reality of the situation would come crashing down and the fantasy would lose all of its appeal. Not so with a video game, where the entire scenario has only the veneer of reality. Murder is easy when you dehumanize your target, and dehumanization is easy (and guilt-free) when your target was never human to begin with.
This should be +5 funny. Wish I had mod points. Rare genuine laugh out loud post! :)
Really? I mean, yeah, be pissed at Sony. They screwed up big time. I agree there, but you *disagree* that the hacker should go to jail?
I could be wrong, but I have a feeling a lot of current employees could be on really thin ice over this one. Heads could be rolling at any time. I don't think I'd want to distinguish myself by being the guy who essentially tried to extort a pay raise out of them.
I play games myself, but the theory of carthesis has been pretty much shown to be bull, and I still hear gamers say "it helps me relax." When hooked up to sensors, however, playing a game does anything but make a gamer relax (heightened blood pressure, pulse, release of adrenaline, etc.).
Relax is not the right word. It helps you escape. Your regular life may be full of worry, stress, and insecurity. Perhaps you have feelings of powerlessness and you're afraid to take action. A game is empowering and makes you feel good. After it's over you can ride that high and let your body cool down and relax and you'll feel more satisfied than you did before when you felt powerless and used by the system. In that sense, it does help you relax. You're not relaxing *while playing*, but it can help you to relax later since it took your mind off of all the things that were stressing you out.
I have a feeling that many people who react so strongly and shout "video games aren't related to ANY violence at all!" fear their favorite entertainment medium being threatened/regulated. Which is a reasonable fear, considering some countries, such as Australia's, stance on video games. However, it can be easily shown that some video games are related to the release of endorphins and adrenaline, which is why they are "fun." Guess what? Some of those chemicals released in the brain are related to violence.
Meh, it's trivial. Sure, I get excited when I play a game. I'm more aggressive. But I'm harmlessly aggressive. My aggression is directed at a fantasy. I'm more dangerous if I get a lecture from my boss that pisses me off, because at least then my aggression is targeted at a real person. Is it impossible that a person could commit a violent act in a moment of heightened aggression from playing a video game? I guess not.... but why single out video games? They are one of many, many activities that result in increased aggression, and they are generally played in a relatively safe and nonthreatening setting where a violent situation is unlikely to arise.
Also, is there a difference between violent and nonviolent games? That is, if you're playing Gears of War which has gore all over the place vs a platformer where you're getting frustrated by falling and dying repeatedly. I've noticed that a violent easy game tends to make me less agitated than a challenging (or worse, cheap) non-violent game. I've had moments where I really wanted Mario to die in a fucking fire. ;)
I don't actually understand why insensitivity is so feared. Doctors are desensitized due to the way they have to essentially be biological mechanics for human beings. Hunters are desensitized by actually killing real living things and butchering them (the fact that human beings have analogous parts to such animals would be disquieting without at least some degree of desensitization). And of course, we actively encourage this in our military personnel and call them heroes rather than being terrified of the monsters we must have turned them into.
And do we really think violent video games desensitize to even near the degree that those things do? I find that extremely unlikely. I've played a lot of violent video games and I'm still sickened by stories of civilians being decapitated by militant extremists or of bodies being dragged through the streets.
There's a lot of horror in this world, and video games or no, I still find it horrifying.
Once they've made it out of school and into the workforce, they will be free to follow their motivation. You will see them advance in the office, in the community, in the criminal gang, or wherever they choose to go. The youngsters in school who are being told what to do and when to do it -- these are the ones whose level of motivation and ability you want to discover. Because if you don't show them how to harness their strengths to benefit society, they will harness them to the detriment of society, or simply fail to develop their skills, skating by on whatever minimum they can do.
That sounds more like the behavior of a gifted but lazy person. And maybe this study is off the mark and gifted lazy people do well on IQ tests, but in case it really is a test of motivation, I'd expect these kids would have a drive to excel in other tasks than just the IQ test.
And you could have, with a simple test, gained some insight into who was raring for greater challenges without them having to speak up and risk looking like a nerd or dork or whatever is your favorite word to describe the ostracism of one who goes well beyond his peers.
*shrug* You may have a point there. On the other hand, doing all of your schoolwork and getting good grades is not something that requires speaking up and looking like a nerd, either. If a school has a program for gifted and talented students, presumably it has some way of identifying them. If it's highly motivated students you're after, would the IQ test be better than just looking at their grades? If so, sure, I agree with you. I'm skeptical, though.
Lemme be an iconoclast here for a moment.
So IQ doesn't measure intelligence. So what? If IQ score is, as claimed, highly correlated with success in life, and if it's measuring motivation and determination rather than intelligence, and if it's motivation that determines success in life, doesn't that make the IQ test pretty damned useful?
Seems more like it would make it redundant. Motivated people are going to actively seek out opportunities for advancement. You don't need a test to identify them.
Almost. It's the intelligence modifier, not the intelligence quotient that matters.
But he did it anonymously, so how will he receive the credit??
It's a parody of the Old Spice ads. I think it would have been better if he had made himself out to be an orc version of the Old Spice guy rather than the regular Old Spice guy. Maybe could change "I'm on a horse" to "I'm on a dire wolf" as a WoW reference. Oh well, missed opportunity :)
I wonder if Slashdot's Alexa rank is lower because Slashdot users tend to not want to have a damn spyware toolbar on their browser :)
I think you're arguing the wrong point.
The real safety problem never was, and never will be, your speed. The real safety problem was the jerk behind you, who was using a two-ton mass of steel going 70+ mph to force you to move another two-ton mass of steel.
If you ask me, tailgaters should be arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
In the end, no matter what you decided on, the other driver's actions put you in a bad position. Unfortunately for you, the "less legal" action of exceeding the speed limit meant that you got nailed, instead of the guy putting everybody in danger. And that's the real problem, no?
No, you're right. I think tailgating is extremely dangerous, particularly at highway speeds. If I have to slam on my brakes for whatever reason, he's already hit me before he even notices that he needs to brake. If you're on the highway and you need to brake while you're being tailgated, you're screwed, basically. That's why I wanted to get out of that situation.
That's mathematically dubious.
http://www.forensicdynamics.com/stopdistcalc http://www.csgnetwork.com/stopdistcalc.html
I drive a BMW 335i. I can stop faster than that. I can nearly accelerate that fast.
Also, 20-25 feet *is* insignificant.
Get off the road before you kill someone.
Ah, glad to see the quality of discourse is being kept high and we're keeping personal attacks out of this. And this from the guy wants to teach tailgaters a lesson.
As well as the increased stopping distance, greater speed increases the chance that a touch from that tailgater causes your car to spin and take out the car you are overtaking.
And until he speeds up too, he has a larger buffer before he hits me, and there's going to be less of an opportunity for this to happen, because I'm going to be out of his way sooner, and finally, the difference in speed is literally the velocity of a typical human *walking*.
And we might not be talking broken noses. We might be talking death.
It's only increased probability of harm. But it does indicate you chose the wrong option.
Whatever, buddy. Go judge someone else. I'm done with this bullshit.
I bet not one of the people here who say "Starcraft sucks" or "Starcraft is no fun" can beat the game on hard (never mind brutal) without cheats.
Well, that hardly seems profound. I mean, if a person doesn't think a game is fun, why would he attempt to master it? Does he have some kind of faith that if he sticks with it, he'll acquire a taste for it?
If it were as lucrative and easy as you say, everyone would do it. An engineer makes good money because the skill is marketable and not just anyone has the education and talent to do it. Competitive gaming isn't nearly as marketable (maybe you get some revenue from sponsorship and advertising?), so the market is *much* smaller, and anyone with 50 bucks and a computer can play Starcraft 2, so the barrier to entry is *much* lower than engineering. Consequently you have to be far more exceptional compared to your peers in order to make serious money at it, and you have to work *extremely* hard to keep your skills sharp enough to stay at the top. And after all that, as another poster mentioned, your skills will deteriorate enough after a few years that you can't stay at the top of the heap, and your skills will have taught you nothing useful for whatever new career you choose.
And all that is fine, really. I mean, it's true of most competitive sports. But I'll admit some prejudice. Competitive Starcraft playing just seems way lamer than, say, competitive snowboarding or surfing.
It's still a niche in the market. Roughly, if 10% of the market is made up of pro gamers, then shouldn't 10% of games be targeted at pro gamers?
If your estimation of 70/73 mph is correct, then we're talking an increase in stopping distance of 20-25 feet. That's not insignificant.
That's mathematically dubious. 3 mph is 4.4 feet per second. To simplify the math, I'll assume constant deceleration from the braking. To increase your stopping distance by 20 feet, it'd have to take me about 4.5 seconds to stop. To increase your stopping distance by 25 feet, it'd be an extra second. My car takes only 6 seconds or so to *get* to 70 mph.
Also, 20-25 feet *is* insignificant. We're on a straight highway and no one is in front of me. If a deer jumps out ahead of me, I'm not slamming on my brakes and coming to a full stop anyway (particularly because I'm being tailgated, if you recall). I'm either hitting it or not, and the difference between 70 and 73 isn't going to be that noticeable when my car is totaled and my nose is broken by the airbag either way.
No, I said you shouldn't act to reward them. That's not the same as punishing them.
Slowing down would be the same as punishing them. Ignoring them, not so much. But the point is that you want to avoid an activity that gives them their way. Either way, it's not a safety consideration for me. But you do what you like.
If you give a dog scraps at the table, then he'll always be begging scraps at the table.
Except it's not my dog, it's not my table, I'm not going to eat there again, and the dog is growling at me. I don't give a flipping fuck if the dog does it again. I don't want him to bite me.
I think I understand just fine:
You decided that slowing down "wasn't an option" because you didn't want to, so you elected to speed up instead.
I should clarify. I decided that it was an inferior option. In the absence of police, it clearly is. Speeding up slightly carries with it no negative consequences, while slowing down stops up traffic until I can get over, and then leaves me in the same position I was in before I attempted to pass. Results in more total lane changes and increases congestion in the short term. Making traffic more dense makes the situation less predictable and more hazardous than just speeding up a few mph.
And then, you got a ticket. It's really rather simple.
So how much time and money did it cost you to speed up for that tailgater?
What, *counting* the time I lost in being pulled over and the money I lost in paying the ticket? You realize that's what I'm complaining about, right? I'm complaining that the ticket has nothing to do with safety, because, in the absence of police enforcement of speeding laws, I made the *safer* choice.
Was it worth the (perhaps) 30 seconds you might have saved if your decision to go faster had paid off?
Huh? It wasn't about getting to my destination faster. I was going to be going faster for a few seconds until I could get over into the right lane, at which point I'd return to my normal cruising velocity. But was the benefit I'd get from being tailgated for a shorter period of time worth the cost of time and money in getting a ticket? Of course not.... I'm confused. Did I imply that the outcome of this story was satisfactory to me?
Now, please realize: I don't believe you should have gotten a ticket. I do not believe that speed limits are, in most cases, reasonable. I simply believe that your method of dealing with a tailgater is wrong and that it can be handled more both more safely and while still remaining closer to the constraints of the law (as it stands).
Wait a minute. You don't think speed limits are reasonable, but you think that speeding up slightly decreases safety? I emphatically disagree that there is a safer way to handle it.... *unless* you account for the cost associated with getting pulled over and getting a ticket. But that's sort of my point. The ticket punishes a behavior that would otherwise be safer. What's your argument for another action, not considering police enforcement, being safer? Presumably you feel that speeding up 3 mph at highway speeds introduces a safety cost that more than offsets the benefit of spending perhaps a quarter of the time in the left lane being tailgated. I wonder how you arrive at that conclusion.
Even with your clarification, the GP is still right. Your options were to ignore him or to gently slow down. Increasing speed when you are "uncomfortable" is the wrong reaction.
What do either of those options accomplish? Ignoring him changes nothing at all, and "slowing down gently" stops up traffic in the left lane until such time as I fall behind any cars I've passed enough to slip back over into the right lane again, which is counterproductive, because I was in the left lane in order to pass in the first place. Speeding up slightly, on the other hand, allows me to let him pass much earlier (if, for example, I were going 1 mph faster than the car I was passing and accelerated 3 mph, it would only take 1/4 the time to pass, so I'd be tailgated for 1/4 the time in return for a trivial speed increase)
1) You increasing your own and his stopping distance, when having insufficient stopping distance is exactly what is dangerous about tailgating.
Oh yes, my stopping distance went up drastically when I accelerated a few mph while traveling at highway speeds.... If a guy is right on my bumper, it doesn't make a bit of difference whether I'm going 70 mph or 73 mph. If I have to brake hard, he's going to hit me. But if I speed up a bit, I spend significantly less time in that situation.
2) You are rewarding his tailgating by giving him exactly what he wants, thus encouraging him to tailgate more often.
Seriously? So I should be trying to teach him a lesson, then? Because punishing drivers for their unsafe driving is the mature choice and carries no negative consequences, like possibly irritating the other driver and inspiring him to drive even more recklessly. It's all upside. Punish him, and he'll learn his lesson and never exhibit the unsafe behavior again. Of course, even if that were true and not utter nonsense, it's not really any of my concern what he does in the future. I'm concerned about my safety *right now*.
I think you might have missed something about the circumstances. I was in the process of passing someone, so I was in the left lane. I wasn't going very much faster than the person I was passing, so it was going to happen slowly. I had a guy come up behind and start tailgating, so I sped up maybe 3 mph so I'd be able to pass more quickly and get over into the right lane so the tailgater could pass me.
So slowing down wasn't an option, because I actually wanted to maintain my cruising speed and pass the guy on my right, ignoring him would have been an option, but I would have spent more time passing with the guy 2 feet off my bumper, which was making me uncomfortable, and staying in the right-hand lane? Well that was exactly what I was trying to do by minimizing the time spent passing.
I once had a cop tell me "9, you're fine, 10, you're mine". So I drive 9 over the speed limit. If 10 over is what they're going to enforce, then 10 over is the de facto speed limit. At this point I think I have a reasonable expectation I won't be pulled over if I'm not going more than 10 over the speed limit. Sadly, I also don't have a defense, because they can still *choose* to enforce a lower speed if they wish. Personally, I wish they'd just choose reasonable numbers and then actually enforce them.