Quoted from Vengeance

See that's the problem, you expect that it should be enough that they want to pass the course.

I never said that it should be enough for them.  BUT, it should be sufficient enough to motivate them for a finite amount of time.  You eat because you are motivated temporarily by hunger.  Even animals do that.  Anyone ( you included ) who as a high school student, was not able to make a connection between the long term gain of graduating and the temporary sacrifice of effort is being intentionally coy.

And at the risk of bursting your bubble, your personal experience in school is not relevant because guys like you and me are not who she is talking about.  You say that the co-op program offered you the relevance you were looking for and that your hobbies are relevant, etc.  Well, what good have you done for mankind ?  I know I've done nothing, and likely niether have you.  She's referring to some future where highly motivated people are tackling and solving important world issues.  

And that's what makes me laugh.  

She proposes that an increase in gaming activity might achieve this result.  Well, I don't care what argument anyone makes or doesn't make about how gaming improves critical thinking skills, or how it motivates or adds relevance.  The key factor missing is EMPATHY.   If gamers don't care about solving important issues, then it won't happen.  And that is where here utopian vision breaks down.  Gamers are not more empathetic than most people.  in fact, I would argue quite the opposite.  They tend to lack social skills to a greater degree than most other kids.  You are a self-admitted gamer from a young age, and you are also self-admittedly harsh in many of your interactions with people.  I have no problem believing you were unmotivated in school.  Withdrawing from the expectations of society in general is symptomatic behaviour of people who lack a strong empathetic nature.  They are confrontational and resistant to authority.   If this b*tch thinks that the world's ills are going to be remedied by an army of philanthropic gamers, she is sorely mistaken.  Perhaps scientists or sociologists with the aid of contemporary game theories can achieve some breakthroughs, but to suggest otherwise is ridiculous.

And if you think your job or your hobby is relevant, then we are clearly using the word in different ways, because I don't think either of mine are relevant...not in the way she wants them to be.
  

Quoted from mrniceguy

And at the risk of bursting your bubble, your personal experience in school is not relevant because guys like you and me are not who she is talking about.  You say that the co-op program offered you the relevance you were looking for and that your hobbies are relevant, etc.  Well, what good have you done for mankind ?  I know I've done nothing, and likely niether have you.  She's referring to some future where highly motivated people are tackling and solving important world issues.  

And that's what makes me laugh.  

She proposes that an increase in gaming activity might achieve this result.  Well, I don't care what argument anyone makes or doesn't make about how gaming improves critical thinking skills, or how it motivates or adds relevance.  The key factor missing is EMPATHY.   If gamers don't care about solving important issues, then it won't happen.  And that is where here utopian vision breaks down.  Gamers are not more empathetic than most people.  in fact, I would argue quite the opposite.  They tend to lack social skills to a greater degree than most other kids.  You are a self-admitted gamer from a young age, and you are also self-admittedly harsh in many of your interactions with people.  I have no problem believing you were unmotivated in school.  Withdrawing from the expectations of society in general is symptomatic behaviour of people who lack a strong empathetic nature.  They are confrontational and resistant to authority.   If this b*tch thinks that the world's ills are going to be remedied by an army of philanthropic gamers, she is sorely mistaken.  Perhaps scientists or sociologists with the aid of contemporary game theories can achieve some breakthroughs, but to suggest otherwise is ridiculous.

And if you think your job or your hobby is relevant, then we are clearly using the word in different ways, because I don't think either of mine are relevant...not in the way she wants them to be.
  

I'm going to stop debating this with you because you completely keep missing the point entirely.  I'm not sure why you keep going off on this tangent about how what we currently are spending our time is never going to affect change in the world.  I 100% agree with you on that fact, what we all spend our time on now will never change anything or make anything better for the most part.  

The point she was trying to make was that if you were able to take the same target audience (hardcore gamers) and get them to focus with the same drive and determination on a world issue that they have when it comes to WOW or any other game that it could prove to be a huge resource.  She is not saying at all that WOW is the cure to the worlds problems.  What she is saying is that if she could figure out a way to focus those players on world problems the same way that Blizzard has them focused on WOW it would be an incredible untapped resource.  

What we do now, what little affect we have on the world, our jobs and our hobbies are not what's at issue.  What her point is rather then having these players focus their time on WOW figure out a way to have them focus on world issues.  

Think of it like a a really large think tank.  

Her example of the game she created for peak oil scenario, I don't believe in doomsday theory but still it's an interesting concept.  Create a game that tackles the idea of how to survive in a world with a peak oil crisis then assuming it's a game that WOW players would want to play, have the millions of players play out any number of scenarios that deal with surviving in a peak oil situation.  The information you could get from that kind of simulation with that many people would be amazing.  

That is the point.  

Not that any existing gaming platform should be used currently to solve the worlds problems but that if you could find a way to focus that same drive and determination of gamers into something positive rather then something useless the possibilities are endless.  

Does anyone remember how unproductive it was considered to hang around in a "real" pool hall and play "real" games...ummm... like, gasp,  pinball?  

Reality and imagination are the same thing, don't kid yourself, we use this physical contracption called a brain to filter reality via biomechanical sensors called eyes, ears, nose, etc.  - it's all just about perspective, incentive and power.

I have to laugh when I think how much we try to "disengage" our kids from the vids and push them outside to play.  (Fine there is a definite health benefit there.)  But then I think, "hey, if the rest of society communicates via online forums and MMPOGs and Twitter and such...shouldn't my kid have the skills to navigate and conquer that realm too?"

The only absolute I've found is that direct, one on one engagement with your kids keeps them "real" - whether you're reading to/with them, playing a vid with them, tossing a ball, or exploring tide pools.  As soon as you slink off to your computer and are relieved that they are taking care of themselves.... they are disengged and you have no idea what they are learning (good, bad, or ugly).

The point here though is that better learning is acheived through experience.  When creating a model trainer, the more "realistic" it can be made, the better trained the trainees will be, and the greater contribution they will make to the advancement of whatever skills they are being trained for.  Take soldiers for example.  In a war the best training is acheived in the real world battle, but the casualties make the losses high at the expense of some highly trained professionals.  If you are able to use simulators to pre-train, then those same would-be soldiers have a much better chance at survival on the battlefield where the real rewards and punishments ("incentives") will push them to greater acheivements with less casualties.

WOuldn't it be the same in business or any other scenario?

Quoted from Vengeance

I'm going to stop debating this with you because you completely keep missing the point entirely.  I'm not sure why you keep going off on this tangent about how what we currently are spending our time is never going to affect change in the world.  I 100% agree with you on that fact, what we all spend our time on now will never change anything or make anything better for the most part.  

The point she was trying to make was that if you were able to take the same target audience (hardcore gamers) and get them to focus with the same drive and determination on a world issue that they have when it comes to WOW or any other game that it could prove to be a huge resource.  She is not saying at all that WOW is the cure to the worlds problems.  What she is saying is that if she could figure out a way to focus those players on world problems the same way that Blizzard has them focused on WOW it would be an incredible untapped resource.  

What we do now, what little affect we have on the world, our jobs and our hobbies are not what's at issue.  What her point is rather then having these players focus their time on WOW figure out a way to have them focus on world issues.  

Think of it like a a really large think tank.  

Her example of the game she created for peak oil scenario, I don't believe in doomsday theory but still it's an interesting concept.  Create a game that tackles the idea of how to survive in a world with a peak oil crisis then assuming it's a game that WOW players would want to play, have the millions of players play out any number of scenarios that deal with surviving in a peak oil situation.  The information you could get from that kind of simulation with that many people would be amazing.  

That is the point.  

Not that any existing gaming platform should be used currently to solve the worlds problems but that if you could find a way to focus that same drive and determination of gamers into something positive rather then something useless the possibilities are endless.  

Actually Adam, you are missing the point entirely.  I guess this type of thinking is new and interesting to you, or perhaps some other people, but it's not new to me...in fact, it is very, very old and tired.   The philiosophy of "gaming" wasn't invented with modern day gadgetry and the gamers who spend countless hours mastering them.  When I was doing my Master in Philosophy, I had to do my share of research in this field, so none of what this woman says is new nor innovative to me personally.   The seminar rooms were rife with pontificating windbags who would clutch onto the latest theory and try to make it their own.  Blah, blah, blah.  Very tiresome.

There's really no way you could know this, which is why you have to be courteous and cautious when you engage in a conversation with people, either face to face or online, because you don't really know what they know.  Why you think I embarked on a tangent is because I found your initial response so off the mark that I had to address that instead of the original thread.  You seem to default to a position that if someone doesn't agree with you, then they do not truly understand what is being said...that they somehow must be "missing the point entirely."  Does it seems likely that everyone except you and the people that agree with you are all "missing the point?"  I don't think so.  At least give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they might have good reason for disagreeing with your point of view.  A post-graduate degree doesn't make my interpretation of this woman's thesis correct, but it should help to convince you that I'm not prone to making superficial judgements of things I don't understand.  I understand it fully, I assure you.  It's just that I've heard it all before and it essentially means nothing.

When you say you are through debating with someone because they are clearly missing the point, you are essentially saying "I'm not wasting any more time on you, because you are obviously incapable of understanding what is really going on."  That is insulting in the extreme.  

I don't like anchovies and pineapple on my pizza at the same time. Although I do like a Hawaiian pizza sometimes. Bacon is my favourite.

Four toppings is the 'right' amount.

One of my favourite platitudes,  "Let's all agree to disagree" applies here. Just because someone does not agree, that does not mean they don't understand your point.


I personally believe gaming is a form of recreation. Not to be confused with humanitarianism or altruism. I cant do anything "recreational" that involves dealing with real human problems. It seems inappropriate.

I'll say this.

My intention was never to offend, my feeling was that your points were off base with what I was trying to get across and it really felt to me like they had nothing to do with the argument I was trying to present.  It's obvious that I'm either missing something in your argument Glenn or maybe it's just hard to debate an issue like this over the internet.

Either way I hope you didn't take my comment personally as that is not what I intended.  

So I'll agree with Warren on this one (I seem to be doing that allot lately ) and we can agree to disagree, or we can continue the debate in person over a beer at the next TOPL meeting   

So let's stop beating this dead horse and get back to what really matters anyway, Pinball!    

Quoted Text

  So let's stop beating this dead horse and get back to what really matters anyway, Pinball!    

AND beer.