I think this goes deeper than religious silliness - with facebook out of the way, the court/government has paved the way for a domestic competitor to take over pakistan's social networking needs! tinfoil hats, everyone!
so the general ridiculousness of adding an addiction to an activity to the DSM seems to be justifyable only in light of some mometary gain for someone. I cant help but wonder who has figured out a way to make an obnoxious amount of money "treating" internet addiction (or some similar nonsense) and is held back in his endeavor only by the fact that internet addiction is fictional. Once added to the DSM however, it becomes a legitimate disorder and thus a revenue stream for someone. I'm guessing that someone is behind these lobbying efforts to get internet addiction legitimized.
Imagine little 'live strong' bracelets supporting internet addiction recovery...marathons...etc etc. I mean cancer makes A LOT of money =P
I imagine that at some point in the past, the same analysis could have been applied to ADD/ADHD, and based on how much money the pharmaceutical companies make from these "disorders" it would have been an accurate analysis. Internet addiction might just be on a similar path, though not necessarily to the benefit of big pharma.
in light of some recent NJ events, this should be no surprise to anyone. Casinos are simply immune to any legislature. two examples come to mind: NJ passed a law forbidding smoking indoors (just like NY). Now according to this law, no smoking in any public indoor places...resteruants, bars, etc etc. Guess where this law does not apply? guess why?
Similarly, a while ago there was a budget mis-hap which put a hold on the operations of many state-run organizations. there was a deadline after which all non-essencial municipalities were to shut down untill budget aprooval. once again, casinos were immune. this time casino lobbyists bought something bigger. no surprise to NJ.
"the game needs to reward devotion more than skill."
i think that sums up the biggest problem right there, its the reason most people I used to play with have quit WoW. I dont want to seem niave, I mean, its a buisness and this is the strategy they chose to ensure future profits. Unfortunatly, it is what makes rationalizing non-play easiest./sigh
I manage a 'sales' department for a HR agency, and this site is a recruiter's wet dream.
Obviously this is no surprize, as such was the idea. I'm not sure if everyone knows (I imagine most people do) that its easy enough to get people's buisness contact info, even though most companies go through great lengths to hide the names of their employees from head hunters. The agency i work for, for example, has a databse of around 80k people. 80k is nothing compared to the ~4 million contacts already on that site, but the point is that recruitment agencies have been doing this for years - instead of buying contact info, they hire people to 'obtain' it. and instead of sharing that info w/ everyone, they each keep it in-house. Nothing revolutionary has been accomplished here, jigsaw has just opened up 'passive candidate sourcing' to the public (wiki-style) whereas it had previously been an isolated/privatized practice. Think of it this way: one recruitment agency has one database, another recruiter has another database, a 3rd agency has a 3rd database, etc etc...sure there might be some overlap (how much overlap would ofcourse depend on the agency's respective target industries) but all this information is already archived and searchable somewhere. Furthermore, the fact that jigsaw builds its database by 'buying' contact info is similarly meaningless. Recruitment agencies pay people to obtain contact info, jigsaw pays people to obtain contact info...the only difference is that jigsaw lets you do it 'freelance' lol.
...its hard to rate something like a customer service department because of the extreme range of possible outcomes regardless of actual problem. One person can call in with some issue or another and acomplish something like get a month of their cable bill credited, or a month of free HBO, or a grand total of nothing. So much depends on how you deal w/ those customer service basterds. If such a system were to exist, its benefit would be to inform would-be callers of possible call outcomes; if you know its possible to get part or all of your bill credited, you will certainly aproach a call to a customer service departmet apropriatly. Similarly, if you know that it is possible to get late charges and/or interest rates removed from your bill, this knowledge can influence what strategy you take when calling.
Slashdot Mirror
I think this goes deeper than religious silliness - with facebook out of the way, the court/government has paved the way for a domestic competitor to take over pakistan's social networking needs! tinfoil hats, everyone!
so the general ridiculousness of adding an addiction to an activity to the DSM seems to be justifyable only in light of some mometary gain for someone. I cant help but wonder who has figured out a way to make an obnoxious amount of money "treating" internet addiction (or some similar nonsense) and is held back in his endeavor only by the fact that internet addiction is fictional. Once added to the DSM however, it becomes a legitimate disorder and thus a revenue stream for someone. I'm guessing that someone is behind these lobbying efforts to get internet addiction legitimized.
Imagine little 'live strong' bracelets supporting internet addiction recovery...marathons...etc etc. I mean cancer makes A LOT of money =P
I imagine that at some point in the past, the same analysis could have been applied to ADD/ADHD, and based on how much money the pharmaceutical companies make from these "disorders" it would have been an accurate analysis. Internet addiction might just be on a similar path, though not necessarily to the benefit of big pharma.
in light of some recent NJ events, this should be no surprise to anyone. Casinos are simply immune to any legislature. two examples come to mind: NJ passed a law forbidding smoking indoors (just like NY). Now according to this law, no smoking in any public indoor places...resteruants, bars, etc etc. Guess where this law does not apply? guess why? Similarly, a while ago there was a budget mis-hap which put a hold on the operations of many state-run organizations. there was a deadline after which all non-essencial municipalities were to shut down untill budget aprooval. once again, casinos were immune. this time casino lobbyists bought something bigger. no surprise to NJ.
"the game needs to reward devotion more than skill."
/sigh
i think that sums up the biggest problem right there, its the reason most people I used to play with have quit WoW. I dont want to seem niave, I mean, its a buisness and this is the strategy they chose to ensure future profits. Unfortunatly, it is what makes rationalizing non-play easiest.
I manage a 'sales' department for a HR agency, and this site is a recruiter's wet dream. Obviously this is no surprize, as such was the idea. I'm not sure if everyone knows (I imagine most people do) that its easy enough to get people's buisness contact info, even though most companies go through great lengths to hide the names of their employees from head hunters. The agency i work for, for example, has a databse of around 80k people. 80k is nothing compared to the ~4 million contacts already on that site, but the point is that recruitment agencies have been doing this for years - instead of buying contact info, they hire people to 'obtain' it. and instead of sharing that info w/ everyone, they each keep it in-house. Nothing revolutionary has been accomplished here, jigsaw has just opened up 'passive candidate sourcing' to the public (wiki-style) whereas it had previously been an isolated/privatized practice. Think of it this way: one recruitment agency has one database, another recruiter has another database, a 3rd agency has a 3rd database, etc etc...sure there might be some overlap (how much overlap would ofcourse depend on the agency's respective target industries) but all this information is already archived and searchable somewhere. Furthermore, the fact that jigsaw builds its database by 'buying' contact info is similarly meaningless. Recruitment agencies pay people to obtain contact info, jigsaw pays people to obtain contact info...the only difference is that jigsaw lets you do it 'freelance' lol.
...its hard to rate something like a customer service department because of the extreme range of possible outcomes regardless of actual problem. One person can call in with some issue or another and acomplish something like get a month of their cable bill credited, or a month of free HBO, or a grand total of nothing. So much depends on how you deal w/ those customer service basterds. If such a system were to exist, its benefit would be to inform would-be callers of possible call outcomes; if you know its possible to get part or all of your bill credited, you will certainly aproach a call to a customer service departmet apropriatly. Similarly, if you know that it is possible to get late charges and/or interest rates removed from your bill, this knowledge can influence what strategy you take when calling.