Title thread is meant to be read in a cartoonish voice.
The White House's own William Bennett, in charge of drug policy (way to go!) and education (attaboy!) in the 80's, recently expressed on CNN that he thinks modern man just sucks (paraphrased), that women have better lives (if Hillary were to run against Obama in 2012, she could sure use that line), and that video games are to blame. I'm sourcing the IGN article and not directly to CNN because I fully agree with what the editor said here, most especially this:
"He is the worst kind of social critic; one who does not understand society."
http://games.ign.com/articles/119/1198484p1.html
This is coming from a person who thinks that too many young men, from 12-year-olds to 40-year-olds, spend too much time "socializing" online and not enough time out in the real world meeting people, making real friends, getting laid and networking and making connections that may help establish them in a career/lifestyle wherein they don't work in retail and have to live with their parents. I'm using extremes here to highlight the legitimacy of the issue; I don't think that all gamers have these problems. Hell, one of my best friends has 5 kids, is happily married, and works his ass off supervising dozens of people-and is damned well compensated for it. Why doesn't Mr. Bennett talk about people like my friend?
It is true that the internet has served at least as much to hinder progress as to promote it. Misinformation, and quite often disinformation, is disseminated far more often than any approximation of the truth, because of what appears to be willful, proud disregard for separating facts from rumors. But Hell, Facebook has been instrumental in the Arab Spring. Status update: just broke the camel's back with my nonviolent brothers and sisters, and gave our people our first taste of real freedom as our tyrant stepped down.
It would seem that cynicism in reaction to all of this negative information is the real problem, and not the fact that our pasttime is an interactive one and isn't as simplistic as spouting off about a ball player's stats. We don't show ourselves to be wooses when we're deathmatching our friends over a Call of Duty server. We show ourselves to be wooses when we play out Plato's cave allegory and shut down any information that we don't want to hear or dismiss it as something that always happens or will happen any way, as if that is any excuse not to do something about it.
So what do you think? Obviously precious few of us are going to think that games are the reason that "men are sissies," if we are at all, but do you think that we've become soft? If so, is that a bad thing? And what has caused this?
The White House's own William Bennett, in charge of drug policy (way to go!) and education (attaboy!) in the 80's, recently expressed on CNN that he thinks modern man just sucks (paraphrased), that women have better lives (if Hillary were to run against Obama in 2012, she could sure use that line), and that video games are to blame. I'm sourcing the IGN article and not directly to CNN because I fully agree with what the editor said here, most especially this:
"He is the worst kind of social critic; one who does not understand society."
http://games.ign.com/articles/119/1198484p1.html
This is coming from a person who thinks that too many young men, from 12-year-olds to 40-year-olds, spend too much time "socializing" online and not enough time out in the real world meeting people, making real friends, getting laid and networking and making connections that may help establish them in a career/lifestyle wherein they don't work in retail and have to live with their parents. I'm using extremes here to highlight the legitimacy of the issue; I don't think that all gamers have these problems. Hell, one of my best friends has 5 kids, is happily married, and works his ass off supervising dozens of people-and is damned well compensated for it. Why doesn't Mr. Bennett talk about people like my friend?
It is true that the internet has served at least as much to hinder progress as to promote it. Misinformation, and quite often disinformation, is disseminated far more often than any approximation of the truth, because of what appears to be willful, proud disregard for separating facts from rumors. But Hell, Facebook has been instrumental in the Arab Spring. Status update: just broke the camel's back with my nonviolent brothers and sisters, and gave our people our first taste of real freedom as our tyrant stepped down.
It would seem that cynicism in reaction to all of this negative information is the real problem, and not the fact that our pasttime is an interactive one and isn't as simplistic as spouting off about a ball player's stats. We don't show ourselves to be wooses when we're deathmatching our friends over a Call of Duty server. We show ourselves to be wooses when we play out Plato's cave allegory and shut down any information that we don't want to hear or dismiss it as something that always happens or will happen any way, as if that is any excuse not to do something about it.
So what do you think? Obviously precious few of us are going to think that games are the reason that "men are sissies," if we are at all, but do you think that we've become soft? If so, is that a bad thing? And what has caused this?
