Mindless prejudice...

[2fish]

There will always be these types of arguments and they will always be flawed. I am guilty of starting these with people that deserve it. Watching a bunch of overpaid people run around and play a sport does have its social stigma for American football I think of overweight men drinking beer and being stupid. I know that this is untrue, but it has been drilled into me by society, gamers also have our set of stigma to deal with. However the easiest way to deal with it seems to make an us vs them scenario, my hobby is better than yours because yours is childish, mine is manly.

Either way you are sitting on your ass looking at a TV/computer monitor. I see this as a way to try and justify ones actions as they are insecure about themselves and their hobbies. If your friends love sports enough to give you crap about video games do they play or just watch? You may find that they are afraid that they are not who they think they are, we all have an ego and we all see ourselves how we want to be. Finding out who we really are and shattering that image of who we want to be can be quite a shock for people to deal with.

-2fish

This isn't a "their hobbies vs mine" thread. It is about prejudice against gamimg. I have no problem with people enjoying whatever I don't. I do have a problem with being treated like an immature idiot by people who don't understand/don't want to understand what I enjoy and dismissing any of my arguments with "oh, you are just stupid, thats why". That is the reason the thread is called "Mindless prejudice"

I have found very few people hate without some underlying reason. That is why I brought up the other hobbies. Hate is an easy emotion to create; it is much easier than looking into why some topic makes you feel uncomfortable or even just trying to understand it. It is mindless as they are refusing to look at the picture and using hate as an excuse. When I started college I hated some people, however once I read their books I understood them, I still disliked them, but I no longer hated them.

This topic is not an easy one to discuss as it is an emotional topic, and emotions can run different for everyone. However prejudice against anything is a blanket statement covering a massive topic. If people give me crap will not even try to overcome their preconceptions I leave them behind. Prejudice is simply a case of blindness, a case that can be cured by the person if they are willing to try to understand those around them.

-2fish

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

watching utter crap reality TV shows like "Cheaters" and "Americas Got Tallent" and reading mind-numbing celebrity gossip in what is left of the once best newspaper in Lithuania (yeah, thats where I'm from, the land of homophobs and douchebags that try to hide behind former Lithuanian glory, that you find out wasn't that great if you actualy bother to read history...).

Yes, my mother is exactly like that. Ignore idiots such as that.

And I have a Lithuanian friend, and he has never once mentioned anything glorious about Lithuania. He says everyone likes Russia though. Most of the world is probably unaware of Lithuania.

And Lithuanian glory? I'd love to know some glorious things Lithuania has done, to add to my list of mindless trivia.

 

[Layz92]

I think it comes from not really getting what games are. A lot of people seemingly think of games like Gear of War etc are killing in the vein of Space Invaders. When really games are stories with immersion and atmosphere where you control the character (although some arn't... but some movies are rather thin on story too so it's hard to make that argument).

Also the hypocrisy of someone making all these sweeping statements about "mindless games" then going to watch big brother, big brother eviction, big brother uncut/up late, still gets me too.

 

[Yureina]

I think this fellow needs to find some new friends and people to hang around. I never get talked down to about my gaming habits. Granted, -very- few people even know I play games at all, but the few that do, who include such interests in reality TV or sports like the OP has described, are not stupid enough to rag on me about my interests. They at least understand that I can be much more vicious to them about their hobbies as they can with mine.

 

[zutagonecver]

watching utter crap reality TV shows like "Cheaters" and "Americas Got Tallent" and reading mind-numbing celebrity gossip in what is left of the once best newspaper in Lithuania (yeah, thats where I'm from, the land of homophobs and douchebags that try to hide behind former Lithuanian glory, that you find out wasn't that great if you actualy bother to read history...).

And Lithuanian glory? I'd love to know some glorious things Lithuania has done, to add to my list of mindless trivia.

There is none, that is the point of the last sentence =D. Honestly tho, most people get worked up about medevial teritorial conquests which I could care less, since they were more or less gigantic ego-fests for the rulers at that time (I love how people ignore/forget/don't care about the fact that our "national hero" Vytautas actualy fucked over our country twice and allied himself with the Teutonic order, which was on a firggin crusade to exterminate us as infidels. =D Popular belief triumphs over facts once again.) As you may have noticed, I'm very anti-patriotic.

Lets not go off-topic here. I wouldn't want to get my first thread locked.

 

[ShakesZX]

I've finally gotten my parents to accept the fact that games are not mind-numbing. It did take a little bit more work on my part considering that I am antisocial by nature, and my father grew up around games with an addictive personality. But continually pointing out the positive aspects of games, while working them into playing games (my mother especially) helped a lot.

 

[Raikov]

Oh, and don't forget that we are incredibly asocial creatures, that have more intelligent discussions daily, with people all around the world, then most 'normal' persons have in a month.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

It's gonna happen older people have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to games. They see us having fun and want to ruin that by talking down to it.

 

[Wildrow12]

Never had that problem before. The only time anyone has looked down on any hobby of mine was in the case of D&D.

Of course taking an elitest, high-handed attitude when someone does so doesn't help matters. Just shake your head and agree to disagree.

 

[zutagonecver]

I, to be honest, do think gaming is relatively mindless on the whole. That's precisely its attraction. It's an escape into a world where -- via the relatively simple arts of mastering of a few button patterns or figuring out online teamwork in an FPS or sussing out someone's take on a tech tree or learning how to micromanage a few simple commands in an RTS -- you're transformed for a little while from your ordinary schlubby self into Bruce Lee or a badass Navy SEAL or Augustus Caesar or Hannibal Barca. Yes, you're still thinking and concentrating... but unless you're playing an ultra-detailed NASA-style simulator, it's Thinking & Concentrating Lite, a hundred times the payoff for a hundredth of the effort. That's mostly why people play games. And there's nothing wrong with escapism. It can be a good thing.

I think you've mistaken "mindless" for "pointless".
I would agree, that games, as most things in life, are pointless. I think it is safe to assume, that everything that doesn't benefit the species is pointless, since every living thing has basicly one goal - reproduction.
But if this is your deffinition of mindless, that it is just as fair to say that high school physics, at least what they teach here, is mindless, as all you do is memorise different formulas and use them in assignments, mix and match some times, make one out of two, but the basic concept doesn't change.