Although some red pixels are very far from violence in my opinion, I'll grant you: desensitization might occur from video games. But this begs the question: so what? I don't quite see how that creates any problems, unless taken to an extreme, ofcourse.
I think that it is a mamillian instinct to be curious towards things that are shocking and scary, for the simple reason that it WILL desensitize. Thus if the creature was put into a bad situation that is similar to what it curiously watched it would, a. understand it better, and b. not become stunned.
Now this understanding of horrible things is knowledge; knowledge is power; power can be misused just as it can be used. Thus, we cannot say that the knowledge of horrible situations will produce in the person a tendancy towards creating these situations.
Effectively, you lock a boy in a white room for his entire youth and keep him from being desensitized, you will create one scared, freaked out, and unfunctionable man.
Amen my brother, I learned to program the same way when I was about 13.
I didn't have a book, just the QBasic docs. Personally I think that was THE BEST way for me to learn to code, because it got me used to the idea of learning code by looking at the documentation.
When I think of it, programming "Advanced Pong" in QBasic having nothing but the standard docs and some example programs of monkeys throwing bananas, I did alright:)
Personally I think the biggest differences in a text MUD and a graphical MUD like Everquest parallels in the same differences between a book and a movie.
In a movie, like the graphical MUD, everything is drawn out for you. You get to gawk at pretty graphics and special effects, and you have a very good perspective of what exactly is going on. A book however, is much more developed in its ideas, because it doesn't have to spend time creating graphics and what not, it just gets to the core ideas that are inherit to the story. Thusly we always hear the phrase, "The movie wasn't as good as the book."
In short, a text MUD takes a lot more imagination, but it is many times more developed and coherent. When a character hugs another character in a text MUD, they hug; in a graphical MUD some 3d sprites perform a very unconvincing animation.
People don't realize that durring the explosion of radio the recording industry went nuts as well, citing bad sales and tried their best to destroy radio entirely. Once they embraced it, however, they got richer and richer and richer...
But the issue to them isn't really the money that they claim they lose; it's the control. You see the recording industry is trying their best to keep us all in a world dominated by the MTV, not the MP3. In the world of MTV they can rely on certain things that will sell, they can even go so far as to control fads to control what will sell. With the MP3, that's all out of their hands.
Ofcourse the first record company to figure this out gets the capitalist prize!
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I'm a vegitarian... But me smart.
Although some red pixels are very far from violence in my opinion, I'll grant you: desensitization might occur from video games. But this begs the question: so what? I don't quite see how that creates any problems, unless taken to an extreme, ofcourse. I think that it is a mamillian instinct to be curious towards things that are shocking and scary, for the simple reason that it WILL desensitize. Thus if the creature was put into a bad situation that is similar to what it curiously watched it would, a. understand it better, and b. not become stunned. Now this understanding of horrible things is knowledge; knowledge is power; power can be misused just as it can be used. Thus, we cannot say that the knowledge of horrible situations will produce in the person a tendancy towards creating these situations. Effectively, you lock a boy in a white room for his entire youth and keep him from being desensitized, you will create one scared, freaked out, and unfunctionable man.
Apperently capitalism likes it... Just ask Mr. Gillete.
Amen my brother, I learned to program the same way when I was about 13. I didn't have a book, just the QBasic docs. Personally I think that was THE BEST way for me to learn to code, because it got me used to the idea of learning code by looking at the documentation. When I think of it, programming "Advanced Pong" in QBasic having nothing but the standard docs and some example programs of monkeys throwing bananas, I did alright :)
Personally I think the biggest differences in a text MUD and a graphical MUD like Everquest parallels in the same differences between a book and a movie. In a movie, like the graphical MUD, everything is drawn out for you. You get to gawk at pretty graphics and special effects, and you have a very good perspective of what exactly is going on. A book however, is much more developed in its ideas, because it doesn't have to spend time creating graphics and what not, it just gets to the core ideas that are inherit to the story. Thusly we always hear the phrase, "The movie wasn't as good as the book." In short, a text MUD takes a lot more imagination, but it is many times more developed and coherent. When a character hugs another character in a text MUD, they hug; in a graphical MUD some 3d sprites perform a very unconvincing animation.
People don't realize that durring the explosion of radio the recording industry went nuts as well, citing bad sales and tried their best to destroy radio entirely. Once they embraced it, however, they got richer and richer and richer...
But the issue to them isn't really the money that they claim they lose; it's the control. You see the recording industry is trying their best to keep us all in a world dominated by the MTV, not the MP3. In the world of MTV they can rely on certain things that will sell, they can even go so far as to control fads to control what will sell. With the MP3, that's all out of their hands.
Ofcourse the first record company to figure this out gets the capitalist prize!