User: sgarces

It's a simple psychological question

On: Combating Cheating In Online Games

There's another very interesting gamasutra article, titled Glory and Shame: Powerful Psychology in Multiplayer Online games, that states that these are the two emotions that control behaviour of online gamers.

As it stands, for your own glory (or for another's shame) you will go as far as it takes. And if you can take advantage cheating, you will.

Re:You can't "move beyond ease" everywhere

On: Are Computers Getting Too Easy To Use?

> Yet for some reason, we think they have the moral obligation to do more

The reason, most of the time, is that they are professionals. It's their job.

I don't feel that my mother should know how to program C, but I find unacceptable that somebody who works with computers 8 hours a day doesn't understand the file system.

Imagine a professional driver who only can handle the basic funcionality of a car, or a professional cook that only can prepare canned goods. Both should know more than that, and not stop at the very surface.

The same stands for computers. A computer user, obsessed with ease (because computers are so hard to use) can end up limited by laziness: "I already know how to do <simple thing>, why should I learn anything else? It's too hard. This is for nerds."

I think THAT is the whole problem of making things too easy and hiding what's underneath. Not the fact that more people will have access, but the fact that people will tire themselves and won't go deeper.