I think this thread brings up a new dimension to the argument: Gamer families are very different from non-gamer families, and how and when kids are introduced to videogames will (and should) vary between them.
As these posts have shown, when the whole family is doing it's a social activity. You can all participate, share stories, reenact bits, talk strategy, etc etc. It's more social than passively sitting around a TV together, that's for sure. A really small child participating in that is just participating in the family social structure.
For a family without gaming parents, though, I can understand why there might need to be different limits. If a 5-year-old is the only person in the family playing video games, it's going to be a more isolated activity. Time they could be spending playing with their parents will be spent alone, for all intents and purposes. Sure, the parents should try to be involved in *everything* their kid does - but if the parent doesn't really understand videogames and their social potential themself, they will have a very hard time getting involved in the same way a gamer parent would. They might hover around and watch to make sure Johnny doesn't play anything violent, they might even ask questions or try to help him solve puzzles. But I'm sure it would never occur to them that even in a one-player game, two people can act as a team with the second person providing feedback and suggestions, or that they might actually have fun if they get an account on the same site and play the game alongside their kid. So without the same social element, it makes sense to have different limits.
I notice that you are using "Democrat" as the opposite for "Conservative." I think part of the problem is people assuming/believing that Republicans are real Conservatives.
No, I wouldn't. Just like I don't get a discount this way. Any more easy questions?
Btw, it's not like I really begrudge them this fact. Obviously, I think the DVD-only service is worth what I pay for it, or I'd stop paying for it. But I do think that one of the reasons they've structured it the way they do is so that they don't have to deal with the question of whether or not a particular subscriber is "getting all the services they paid for."
They only include it "for free" so that they don't have to give a discount to those of us who can't use the streaming service b/c we're not using Windows.
How would you explain to a child the reason for Islamic terrorism without teaching the child about Islam? How would you explain the problems in and around Israel without explaining anything about either Judaism or Islam? How would you explain why some politicians want to ban abortion or institute school prayer without mentioning Christianity? And do you think that your explanation of those events would actually be more accurate and complete without any knowledge of those religions?
And, back to the original point, if your child had attended church with a friend and found the experience confusing and uncomfortable because they didn't know what it was all about, how would you resolve their confusion without actually explaining anything about Christianity?
Nobody says you have to have a part in any religion. But in today's world, to not know anything about several world religions, let alone know nothing about any religion, is to leave yourself very uninformed about the world in general. Like it or not, religion is a part of millions of people's lives and culture and is a factor in their decision-making. To understand those decisions, you have to have at least a rudimentary understanding of their religion.
Yeah, that's always amazed me, too. They'll pay for it and call it advertising if a major movie/TV/music studio is involved, but they'll fight against FREE advertising in other situations.
So in this case, would adding the words "This calendar not authorized by Ford Motor Company" to the ad (and maybe the cover of the calendar" fix #2? You see, for instance, plenty of books about the Harry Potter series that include such a disclaimer and seem to be getting away with it.
Yes, that is precisely what my argument implies. Congratulations! I also expect you to be able to tell me every detail of every culture currently on earth - what they wear, what they eat, their language (you better be fluent!), traditional social and leisure activities, marriage and childrearing customs, etc etc. Because if you don't know all that, then there's no point in knowing a damn thing about any culture except your own!
Oh, and you haven't been studying one branch of science without becoming an expert in all of them, have you? For shame, what good is one PhD if you don't collect the whole set?
Think about if instead of "religion," you inserted "American history" or "government" or "biology" into your post. As for "things that are real," religions are real. What they believe in may or may not be real, but the religions themselves are as real as capitalism or democracy or feudalism, and have a huge impact on our modern day-to-day world. Learning ABOUT religions is NOT the same thing as being indoctrinated INTO a religion.
It's actually pretty tough for our child sometimes, who we brought up to be caring and considerate of the feelings of others without the fear of a trip to hell if she isn't, when her friends invite her to go to Church with them. She goes along sometimes but afterwards, if there's a study group, she has to excuse herself because she doesn't know what to say or do. What to think even. She tells us that she pretends to pray so they other kids don't think she's a freak, but she really has no clue who she's meant to be praying to.
If this is truly causing your daughter difficulties, why haven't you taught her about religions? Or would you rather she grow up to be completely ignorant of them, so she doesn't even understand why she doesn't believe the things she doesn't believe? While I think it's fine to raise her with your beliefs (which is what you're doing, even if those beliefs are that all organized religions have got it wrong) but it sounds like you're doing her a disservice by not educating her about what beliefs are out there in the world, especially when she is having to face them head-on and is obviously confused by it.
If she weren't running against Obama, and had no other non-Caucasian contender, I'd throw ALL my weight behind her.
So if she had another non-Caucasian opponent, it doesn't matter what their politics or beliefs are? Minority/female status is seriously your MAIN (ONLY?) concern?
This doesn't strike you as a problem? If someone claimed they were NOT going to vote for either Clinton or Obama on that basis, you'd think they were an idiot, right? So why are you saying the same thing in the opposite direction?
If teachers should have no interest at all in their students beyond filling their heads with knowledge, why do we have teachers? Why aren't all students just learning from videos and books by now?
Very interesting on the hot sauce stuff. I like spiciness, but not "hot sauce" because it's always too vinegary. Maybe I should try some of those fancier ones, it never occurred to me that they might use less vinegar or different types of vinegar that aren't as "OMG VINEGAR" tasting. (I usually just wind up adding cut up fresh peppers or cayenne to everything.)
Also, everything Don Norman writes is great. (The Design of Everyday Things, Emotional Design: Why we Love (or Hate) Everyday Things, The Design of Future Things, etc.) Though I've been told by other people it was a little more academic and less "pop" than they were expecting. I guess compared to my usual reading it's pretty damn pop. Art of Innovation is definitely more pop than Norman's stuff. They're not necessarily on *innovative* design per se, but on the psychology behind why good designs work and bad ones don't.
I also *almost* bought Designing Interactions by Moggridge. Still undecided.
Man, if you came up with software that could do that accurately and consistently, you'd have a HUGE market in the social sciences. What you're talking about is coding data (when the raw data consists of, for example, transcripts of talk in a classroom).
They probably are fairly rare in real life - much like attachment-parenting nazis and childfree crazies, they're probably extremely overrepresented on the internet. But then, I was also roommates with someone who was borderline that fanatical.
My attitude for many years was, if God both exists AND cares whether or not I believe in him (and is omniscient as advertised), he'd know exactly what it would take to get me to believe in him. The fact that nothing in my life had ever led me to believe in him was reason to believe either he wasn't there or wasn't too worried about getting me to believe in him. Then something happened in my life that I realized was *exactly* that kind of thing, and I realized I needed to hold up my end of the bargain and be open-minded enough to believe that he might actually exist. So now I believe in God, though I still freely admit that I might be wrong and it very well might have all been coincidence.
Those who believe science can disprove God is as delusioned as the ID people who believe science can prove God.
Thank you. One of my pet peeves has always been the religious-nut atheists who won't admit that a fanatical belief that there is no possible way that there could be a God is just as much an act of faith as a fanatical belief that there has to be a God. They're the reason why I didn't call myself an atheist when I didn't believe in God - too many negative connotations.
If you don't believe in God, that's fine. You have your reasons. People who do believe in God have their reasons. Neither of you is ever going to prove your case. You can make arguments for your case, but you have to accept the fact that you'll never prove it.
Sorry you're getting so many idiotic responses. I think your wife is serving her students well by taking such a proactive approach. I remember when I was in high school, the science teachers avoided the subject altogether and the religious students banded together to wear shirts that said "I believe in the Big Bang... God said BANG and it was!" on the days we talked about evolution. These students just resolved ahead of time not to listen to anything about evolution and so didn't even know what they were arguing against.
When I talked to people individually, I was often able to convince them that at least some parts of evolution weren't necessarily contradictory to their beliefs. If the teachers hadn't been scared to address the issue in their classroom at all, it's possible that a lot of these students would have gone in with a more open mind and actually learned something in the first place - even knowing what it was they were against would have been a major improvement, IMO.
Ok, fine. You saw the bird of a known species, but with a color of plumage heretofore unseen. Again, you have a photo. You know personally that you didn't doctor the photo. But you can't prove to anyone that the photo is not doctored. So what do you believe, that you saw a random mutation, or that you hallucinated it, blacked out, and photoshopped the photo while you were out?
Between that and the Loch Ness Monster or an angel is only a matter of degree. No, you'll never be able to prove to anyone else that you saw any of them. And no, there's no reason they SHOULD believe you. But would you believe yourself? There might be some threshold at which you, personally, would stop trusting your senses, but that would differ for each person and no one threshold is really inherently correct or incorrect all else being equal. That's my point - what counts as evidence for a person to believe something individually does NOT always need to be the same as evidence to PROVE it to other people.
Religion, OTOH, rejects opposing criticisms, even if they are based on sound fact or logic. The argument gets ended with a "BIBLESAYSO". At that point, the debate ends because the starting premises differ. There is no way to argue with someone who believes that a book that contradicts reality is infallible, and that reality is the one that is wrong.
Glad to see that every person who believes in God also believes in the 100% literal infallibility of the Bible.
Oh wait, they don't. There are many, many people who, if presented with evidence that directly contradicts their religious beliefs, will seriously consider that evidence and possibly change their beliefs. In fact, that's how I wound up believing in God after being mostly-atheist. That's also who so many Christians actually *gasp* take parts of the bible metaphorically or mythologically and accept evolution and the big bang.
Luckily, I don't generally have to prove God's existence or my husband's love for me to anyone else. That's my POINT. An individual person (even a scientist) can believe something to be true even if they can't prove it to someone else, and that doesn't make them an idiot.
What the hell kind of scientist is that!? Seriously, good luck with your research with that attitude. I'm not trying to flame here, but I'm pretty disturbed by that remark.
If you can't separate your research/work from the rest of your life, you've got some problems. Being logical in my work doesn't mean that I have to logically work out, say, what I want for dinner tonight. Sometimes I think about the costs and benefits of various options, yes. Sometimes I say "Fuck it, I want a pizza."
So you are saying that in the example I gave, you would change your mind and decide that you had not actually seen the bird, because you did not have enough hard data to prove to another person that you had seen it or means to replicate the sighting? Or do you just feel like repeating random quotes about the superiority of the scientific method because you don't have any other argument? Personally, when one of my dogs shits on the floor, I see the poop and I smell the poop and that's enough evidence to convince me that there's poop that needs cleaning up. I don't feel the need to use the scientific method to prove that it is, in fact, poop, and not mud.
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Of COURSE! Santa is stockpiling so that he doesn't run into the same situation next Christmas with the iPhone that he had this year with the Wii!
As these posts have shown, when the whole family is doing it's a social activity. You can all participate, share stories, reenact bits, talk strategy, etc etc. It's more social than passively sitting around a TV together, that's for sure. A really small child participating in that is just participating in the family social structure.
For a family without gaming parents, though, I can understand why there might need to be different limits. If a 5-year-old is the only person in the family playing video games, it's going to be a more isolated activity. Time they could be spending playing with their parents will be spent alone, for all intents and purposes. Sure, the parents should try to be involved in *everything* their kid does - but if the parent doesn't really understand videogames and their social potential themself, they will have a very hard time getting involved in the same way a gamer parent would. They might hover around and watch to make sure Johnny doesn't play anything violent, they might even ask questions or try to help him solve puzzles. But I'm sure it would never occur to them that even in a one-player game, two people can act as a team with the second person providing feedback and suggestions, or that they might actually have fun if they get an account on the same site and play the game alongside their kid. So without the same social element, it makes sense to have different limits.
I notice that you are using "Democrat" as the opposite for "Conservative." I think part of the problem is people assuming/believing that Republicans are real Conservatives.
Btw, it's not like I really begrudge them this fact. Obviously, I think the DVD-only service is worth what I pay for it, or I'd stop paying for it. But I do think that one of the reasons they've structured it the way they do is so that they don't have to deal with the question of whether or not a particular subscriber is "getting all the services they paid for."
They only include it "for free" so that they don't have to give a discount to those of us who can't use the streaming service b/c we're not using Windows.
And, back to the original point, if your child had attended church with a friend and found the experience confusing and uncomfortable because they didn't know what it was all about, how would you resolve their confusion without actually explaining anything about Christianity?
Nobody says you have to have a part in any religion. But in today's world, to not know anything about several world religions, let alone know nothing about any religion, is to leave yourself very uninformed about the world in general. Like it or not, religion is a part of millions of people's lives and culture and is a factor in their decision-making. To understand those decisions, you have to have at least a rudimentary understanding of their religion.
Hm, the flash drive currently plugged into my keyboard begs to differ. I didn't know that some of them require power.
Yeah, that's always amazed me, too. They'll pay for it and call it advertising if a major movie/TV/music studio is involved, but they'll fight against FREE advertising in other situations.
So in this case, would adding the words "This calendar not authorized by Ford Motor Company" to the ad (and maybe the cover of the calendar" fix #2? You see, for instance, plenty of books about the Harry Potter series that include such a disclaimer and seem to be getting away with it.
Oh, and you haven't been studying one branch of science without becoming an expert in all of them, have you? For shame, what good is one PhD if you don't collect the whole set?
What a cute little semantic game.
Think about if instead of "religion," you inserted "American history" or "government" or "biology" into your post. As for "things that are real," religions are real. What they believe in may or may not be real, but the religions themselves are as real as capitalism or democracy or feudalism, and have a huge impact on our modern day-to-day world. Learning ABOUT religions is NOT the same thing as being indoctrinated INTO a religion.
If this is truly causing your daughter difficulties, why haven't you taught her about religions? Or would you rather she grow up to be completely ignorant of them, so she doesn't even understand why she doesn't believe the things she doesn't believe? While I think it's fine to raise her with your beliefs (which is what you're doing, even if those beliefs are that all organized religions have got it wrong) but it sounds like you're doing her a disservice by not educating her about what beliefs are out there in the world, especially when she is having to face them head-on and is obviously confused by it.
So if she had another non-Caucasian opponent, it doesn't matter what their politics or beliefs are? Minority/female status is seriously your MAIN (ONLY?) concern?
This doesn't strike you as a problem? If someone claimed they were NOT going to vote for either Clinton or Obama on that basis, you'd think they were an idiot, right? So why are you saying the same thing in the opposite direction?
If teachers should have no interest at all in their students beyond filling their heads with knowledge, why do we have teachers? Why aren't all students just learning from videos and books by now?
Very interesting on the hot sauce stuff. I like spiciness, but not "hot sauce" because it's always too vinegary. Maybe I should try some of those fancier ones, it never occurred to me that they might use less vinegar or different types of vinegar that aren't as "OMG VINEGAR" tasting. (I usually just wind up adding cut up fresh peppers or cayenne to everything.)
I also *almost* bought Designing Interactions by Moggridge. Still undecided.
Man, if you came up with software that could do that accurately and consistently, you'd have a HUGE market in the social sciences. What you're talking about is coding data (when the raw data consists of, for example, transcripts of talk in a classroom).
My attitude for many years was, if God both exists AND cares whether or not I believe in him (and is omniscient as advertised), he'd know exactly what it would take to get me to believe in him. The fact that nothing in my life had ever led me to believe in him was reason to believe either he wasn't there or wasn't too worried about getting me to believe in him. Then something happened in my life that I realized was *exactly* that kind of thing, and I realized I needed to hold up my end of the bargain and be open-minded enough to believe that he might actually exist. So now I believe in God, though I still freely admit that I might be wrong and it very well might have all been coincidence.
Thank you. One of my pet peeves has always been the religious-nut atheists who won't admit that a fanatical belief that there is no possible way that there could be a God is just as much an act of faith as a fanatical belief that there has to be a God. They're the reason why I didn't call myself an atheist when I didn't believe in God - too many negative connotations.
If you don't believe in God, that's fine. You have your reasons. People who do believe in God have their reasons. Neither of you is ever going to prove your case. You can make arguments for your case, but you have to accept the fact that you'll never prove it.
When I talked to people individually, I was often able to convince them that at least some parts of evolution weren't necessarily contradictory to their beliefs. If the teachers hadn't been scared to address the issue in their classroom at all, it's possible that a lot of these students would have gone in with a more open mind and actually learned something in the first place - even knowing what it was they were against would have been a major improvement, IMO.
Between that and the Loch Ness Monster or an angel is only a matter of degree. No, you'll never be able to prove to anyone else that you saw any of them. And no, there's no reason they SHOULD believe you. But would you believe yourself? There might be some threshold at which you, personally, would stop trusting your senses, but that would differ for each person and no one threshold is really inherently correct or incorrect all else being equal. That's my point - what counts as evidence for a person to believe something individually does NOT always need to be the same as evidence to PROVE it to other people.
Glad to see that every person who believes in God also believes in the 100% literal infallibility of the Bible.
Oh wait, they don't. There are many, many people who, if presented with evidence that directly contradicts their religious beliefs, will seriously consider that evidence and possibly change their beliefs. In fact, that's how I wound up believing in God after being mostly-atheist. That's also who so many Christians actually *gasp* take parts of the bible metaphorically or mythologically and accept evolution and the big bang.
What the hell kind of scientist is that!? Seriously, good luck with your research with that attitude. I'm not trying to flame here, but I'm pretty disturbed by that remark.
If you can't separate your research/work from the rest of your life, you've got some problems. Being logical in my work doesn't mean that I have to logically work out, say, what I want for dinner tonight. Sometimes I think about the costs and benefits of various options, yes. Sometimes I say "Fuck it, I want a pizza."
So you are saying that in the example I gave, you would change your mind and decide that you had not actually seen the bird, because you did not have enough hard data to prove to another person that you had seen it or means to replicate the sighting? Or do you just feel like repeating random quotes about the superiority of the scientific method because you don't have any other argument? Personally, when one of my dogs shits on the floor, I see the poop and I smell the poop and that's enough evidence to convince me that there's poop that needs cleaning up. I don't feel the need to use the scientific method to prove that it is, in fact, poop, and not mud.