Gamers Divorced From Reality? 654
nd01 writes "According to Gamepolitics.com, Bill OReilly has a few choice words for gamers and computer geeks in general. The well-known conservative pundit has harsh words for iPod owners, gamers, the PS3, and all of us 'disconnected from reality' by modern technological contrivances."
From the article: "Basically what you have is a large portion of the population, mostly younger people under the age of 45, who don't deal with reality — ever. So they don't know what day it is; they don't know temperature it is; they don't know what their neighbor looks like. They don't know anything... because they are constantly diverted by a machine. Now what this does is it takes a person away from reality because they've created their own reality..."
Yes, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
What you and people *over* the age of 45 call reality, I call senile dementia, Bill.
I can respond by saying that people of the age group you are talking about are entirely the problem. They're just as divorced from reality as anyone else...and the thing is, that although younger people might be divorced from reality as well, they're not able to take their delusion and from that perspective *enact laws.*
Also, if you really want to go there...younger people on average are a lot more intimate with technological developments, particularly where computers are concerned. We're a lot more likely to understand issues because unlike you and your geriatric peers, we actually have to live with said issues. Your generation aren't the ones who've had to die by the thousands in Iraq...many of you, when you *were* our age yourselves, dodged service...which makes you sending members of my generation off to die that much more disgusting. You're also not the ones who are going to have to deal with the real consequences of what your generation has done to the environment...you'll be dead in 20 years.
You are a sick, deeply degraded human being, Mr. O'Reilly...and you shame yourself on a continual basis with your entirely voluntary ignorance and rock stupidity. The only thing that keeps me from fervently wishing that you and other individuals like you did not exist is the realisation that in doing so, I would myself go down to your level.
cognitive dissonance (Score:1, Interesting)
For an instant, I found myself wondering if I had any lockpicks -- then reality took back over. But for a brief instant, in that dark hall, seeing a treasure chest (it was there because another department was doing some United Way deal) I wasn't sure where I was.
Has anybody else ever had something like this happen?
Re:Hey I know what day it is! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Some Truth to This (Score:3, Interesting)
Sadly, that's his M.O. - enveloping a micrsoscopic kernel of truth (although most often it's a "perceived truth" aka preconception and stereotype) in endless rhetoric about how he's right, everybody else is wrong and the world going to hell in a handbasket. How he built a little empire on that, I have no idea. IQs must have dropped sharply while I was away.
Who cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
1) He mentioned games
2) He's considered right-wing by the decidedly left-wing crowd here, and that's bad.
If Bill Maher/Michael Moore/Robert Greenwald come out for/against video games, should that make news on here?
--trb
Re:Hey I know what day it is! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hey I know what day it is! (Score:3, Interesting)
As a catholic, he's got his position on abortion of course.
The right is finally starting to disintegrate a bit and break back into it's pieces.
There are fiscal conservatives (quasi-libertarian), social conservatives (o'reilly), war-hawks, corporatists, and not a few fascists among them.
He's probably right about reality- but you know-- reality can SUCK pretty harshly for a lot of folks. For $12.99 a month, they can sink into a reality where they are rich and powerful. If they could just add decent sex to the mix (via a direct brain implant) i'd probably hook up as well.
I can't play mmorg's like i used to- the hands just hurt too much.
Now the irony...
Bill O'Reilly and Millions of conservatives are in their OWN made up reality. It's called christianity and it has it's own rules and mythos. The lore is pretty good but the graphics suck except when they make a big epic movie about them. Lots of people playing christianity 3.2
a) believe they will live after death (even tho their own rules can be interpreted to say that only personality less "soul" (i.e. NOT THEM- just some kinda godfuel) will survive).
b) believe evil forces literally possess people and influence *reality*.
c) believe in magical powers that can't be observed or proven to exist in anyway.
d) make themselves miserable following the "made up" rules about morality and secretly breaking them (swaggert, haggerd, the local deacon who was having a 10 year long affair)
---
Reality is
Sex is fun and with fertile people who don't take protection, it makes babies.
There is not enough good stuff to go around for everyone.
It's great to love and be loved back.
If you want to get rich, you have got to be lucky, a law-breaker (and lucky), or work *EXTREMELY* hard.
Abortion makes sense under some circumstances.
There will always be more humans.
Being evil is probably not good for your society (but sometimes it is).
Being immoral is not good if everyone does it- but it works out fine as long as only a few are.
Either we let folks live their own lives- or we get out the sharp knives and start killing each other.
A *SECULAR* society is required or religious people *will* start killing people sooner or later.
etc.
etc.
Bill O'Reilly doesn't live in reality any more than gamers do. He just is a member of a *very* popular game and so he thinks that is reality when- it's really not.
Re:Pot? Kettle? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Word. or can you play D&D too much? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd like to disagree, as you did.
Except, I happened to be an AD&D player in the late 70's and I did drop out (1980) from Simon Fraser University because I played too many games and didn't go to classes.
I eventually went to another college, went in the Army, got rapid promotions, got multiple degrees in college/uni, and now work in research at one of the top universities, but it was a problem.
Just because O'Reilly has more problems than the people he's hating on, doesn't mean there isn't a grain of truth to the problem.
But people who drank too much or did drugs had way more problems than gamers, even then.
Re:Some Truth to This (Score:2, Interesting)
I think increasingly younger generations will view these scenarios as respectable peers of more traditional interaction. It will be interesting to see if interpersonal communication skills weaken or change in light of new technological environments. For decades, there will be pundits on both sides of the debate, just as there are for "violence and video games" for example.
I myself believe that face-to-face communication is the only truly effective social paradigm. As technology continues to develop and change, beliefs like my own are continually challenged.
Re:How Is This About Politics??!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Word. (Score:2, Interesting)
If video games allow the proletariat some measure of satisfaction and distraction from their otherwise bleak lives, then at least it isn't destroying their livers or arguably brain cells. We need people to be content doing mindless jobs and no human being with half a brain will tolerate that without some sort of anesthesia or escape. What scares the PTBs (powers that be) is how little they control the video game world. They have controlled the television and radio medias for so long now that they can easily achieve their desired effect if they can keep the people watching (and listening).
What probably bothers Mr. O'Reilly more is that while playing video games, the Television is not tuned to the force fed pablum it otherwise would be projecting. Far worse than any "mindless" video games is the truely mindless offerings of television. If you consider the whole, rather than any single program, it is obvious that the one and only intent of television is to seperate you from your money. Beyond the obvious commecials is the more insideous consumerism promoted by most other shows. Show you the lives of the wealthy and fabulous, then offer credit to allow you to purchase a shadow of that image.
There are many games (in fact some of the most involving) that engage the mind and may elnighten the player. Anyone who has ever seriously played a SimCity or Civilization game must have achieved a degree of understanding or insight into macro economics. I for one would like to see a candidates SimCity score published if they are running for city council or Mayor. If you can't beat the simulation, you probably shouldn't get the job.
Re:Pot? Kettle? - Logical Fallacies 101 (Score:2, Interesting)
Discussing O'Reilly makes the thread a troll.
Ad hominem attacks are every bit as fallacious as appeals to authority. His authority, or (obvious) lack of it, is completely irrevelant. His point is what needs refuting, not his character.
I know it's tempting to dismiss serial abusers of logic out-of-hand, but doing so just lowers us to the same level.Re:Pot? Kettle? (Score:4, Interesting)
Did he also say that interacting face to face all the time hurts the ability for people to interact via technology...and that there would be serious problems down the road for old Luddites?
Re:Pot? Kettle? - Logical Fallacies 101 (Score:3, Interesting)
A raving lunatic doesn't need to have every utterance individually refuted in order for someone to know that such ravings aren't likely to be of much value.
Taking every possible point of view solely on its own merits is fine if you have nothing but time, and don't value it. For everyone else, it's reasonable to require some level of positive reputation behind a point before investing any time into considering it.
Re:Hey I know what day it is! (Score:3, Interesting)
Staying indoors and avoiding my neighbors has never made more sense. I don't even have the luxury of taking revenge on our HOA pres. because he works at my company and is more senior. The more you know the people who live near you, the more treating video-games as violence simulators actually starts to make sense.