Uh, yeah, they have. They've crashed several times.

Bitcoins are guaranteed by computer, while real currency is supported by people and resources--you know, real things.

Currency is a social phenomena. Machines really don't count.

er.. bawdier... damn you Slashdot, you make me think in BANDWIDTH!

Ha ha... and before that... well, read Plato's Republic. The youth of his day were being ruined by the pan pipes, and by the baudier passages of Homer! And some of the early Greeks claimed that literacy was ruining youth because they could write things down, rather than committing things to memory.

Face it, most gamers exchange television time for game time, because gaming is more engaging. The real divide is between active and passive--between television and other activities. It turns out that kids who play video games are as likely to go out and play other games. I love video games too, so much that I was a game developer for 15 years, but on a beautiful sunny day, I have to get out and cycle, run, walk, read a book under a tree, or if there's a lake nearby, swim, paddle a canoe, or sail. If I don't exercise at least an hour a day, I feel slovenly, and I can't sleep well.

But the main divide that Zimbardo and Duncan pay no attention to is between extraverts and introverts. Introverts are viewed with suspicion by our salesman society; we're pathetic broken losers. We should be out pressing the flesh, chatting people up, engaging in team sports (notice that all of the ones I engage in are solitary.) But because we don't, there is obviously something wrong with us. And so, they go in search of the reason we are so pathological.

By the way, video games must be pathological, because they're NEW!

Porn isn't new. And many of the most successful pickup artists I've ever met had huge porn collections. Frankly, the difference I noted between guys who got laid a lot and those who didn't was that the good pickup artists were much more callous, more manipulative, and used women like sex toys. But never mind, that's a sign of maturity. Or maybe women are just as immature as men. This is nothing new, either. Feminism was supposed to address this, but so far, it hasn't made a dent.

Nor do they notice the trend that has been going on for a century: in an age of increasing specialization, the gestation period for everyone, both men and women, is getting longer. The Bar Mitzvah is at 13--at one time, this is when you became a man, and you were ready to start a family then. A hundred years ago, few went to any school beyond what we would now consider elementary school: age 13 to 15. Then we went on to high school, age 17 to 20. Then college, age 21 to 23. Bachelor's Degrees, age 22 to 25. Now advanced degrees, age 25 to 30.

Material expectations are now also much greater. You must have a car, a house, a steady job, to raise children. And the strategy of parents is different; while my parents and earlier generations had as many children as possible, hoping that some would survive, most parents now wait and bet everything on one, two, or three, expecting them all to survive.

The world has changed. But the doomsayers have not.

Because, you know, it's not like any legitimate content is shared by BitTorrent.How nice of them to block WoW updates. And it sure gets rid of those pesky linix torrents--I can certainly see why Microsoft is backing this.

Well said! Political self interest is not the same as rational self interest. I do like my life style, which I try to make as low energy as possible, but I have no wish to starve, live on gruel, or subsist on back breaking labour--all of which are likely outcomes in we do not find an alternative to oil, and if we do not address the challenges of global warming;. The anti-global warming pedants fail to understand that we are trying to preserve their lifestyle, not abolish it, and that we are asking them to make small sacrifices to that end--and that, if they don't, the sacrifices they will be required to make will break them utterly, and will be measured in the blood of their loved ones.

You can start with Wikipedia and follow on from there. The effect of prayer is basically placebo.

Of all of these, World Peace is the most likely--read Stephen Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature, which details the decline of violence in the world and proposes explanations for it. Pinker's thesis is not a theory in search of data, but a mountain of evidence in search of an explanation. All of the technological innovations listed here will probably require us to divert resources from military spending to scientific research on a grand scale. Even human extinction is unlikely. Our worst scenarios may result in massive loss of life, but since humans are as tough and resilient as cockroaches, we can probably count on a large number of humans surviving them, albeit in conditions we would consider less that optimal.

Hooray for vacations and retirements.

There is some possibility that the rhythmic nature of the sound might have long term effects on health, or that some high frequencies might effect mood and therefore health.

This, of course, is entirely conjectural, and would need some solid evidence to back it up. Without that evidence, I would be inclined to chalk it up to folk superstition, encouraged in part by the anti alternative energy noise machine, which gave us, amongst other urban myths, the notion that florescent bulbs would require hazmat teams to clean up your house if they broke, because they contained some mercury (hint: the florescent tubes we've been using in offices for 70 years now contain more mercury.)

And let's not forget sports. When are one of these clowns going to ask for a ban on high school football? College football? Never? Of course not, despite the towering mass of evidence that demonstrates that this is a major source of violence in our society. This is not about violence, this is about being a demagogue, which means pounding upon minorities for the benefit of majorities. And who gives a fuck about nerds, right? Jocks rule the world, still, so football gets a pass.

This is all bullshit.