Are they a thief of focus or simply very efficient entertainment?
I lean toward "efficient entertainment", but I do sometimes wonder what that chunk of my free time would look like otherwise.
I would imagine every generation had their vices (lack of better word) that previous generations harped on. Why back in my day it was MTV (ok, occasionally they were right). But I’m sure when newspapers came out it was similar to tablets and phones. When tv came out, the radio-heads bitched about the “idiot box”. So on and so forth. Any history buffs out there care to elaborate?
You can find newspaper articles from the late 1800s IIRC, that decry the slothful youth wasting all their time reading novels instead of playing outside like the glorious generation before them
“idiot box”
it was called the boob tube
“Stop sitting so close, you’ll damage your eyes! Sit farther back!”
Thank you very much for sharing that article! t's an awesome read.
Pastime I think is the correct term.
And then there's the voynich manuscript, an old hoax/fantasy book documenting plants and animals that don't exist, in a made-up language.
That some people have dedicated their lives to "noble" pursuits and others to "wasting time" is entirely a function of who is telling you the story and how much money they stand to make off that other person's work. You get one life, do what you want with it as best you can.
Generations of monks did nothing but pray, work, and copy books for their entire lives. Is that a waste because they weren't writing novels instead? Because every one of them wasn't Mendel, obcessed with growing peas?
Play some video games, work on stuff if you want, or don't. Most people in history worked very hard and have been completely forgotten, all their works erased. With how easy it is to share your work online, you could even be famous for being good at video games (speed running, lore analysis, gimmick runs, etc) which may not change the world but objectively has more impact on more living people than writing small business websites or small farming rice in South Asia.
It is not clear that the Voynich Manuscript is a hoax/fantasy book. The plant illustrations, whilst ambiguous, do look like plausible real plants (though some have features of multiple species), and while nobody has decoded the text, the letter and word frequencies are consistent with it being natural language rather than gibberish.
Perhaps you’re thinking of the Codex Seraphinianus?
Hey I just wanted to say, thank you for sending me down the rabbit hole of both of these texts. Fascinating!
Regarding the Voynich Manuscript, and to be fair to the person you're responding to, with no current decipherment, there is a good possibility it's a hoax.
Churchill acknowledges the possibility that the manuscript is either a synthetic forgotten language (as advanced by Friedman), or else a forgery, as the preeminent theory. However, he concludes that, if the manuscript is a genuine creation, mental illness or delusion seems to have affected the author.
Also the Codex Seraphinianus is much newer and self-admittedly describes an imaginary world in an imaginary language.
Anyway, thanks again for the Wikipedia adventure. :D
The time sink that video games demand
Video games don't demand your time more than any other hobby... do you avoid woodworking because you're scared you'll make an elaborate wardrobe instead of a little box? Do you avoid swimming because you don't want to go across the English Channel?
You can play small games and you can play for an hour a week, there's no need to burn every hour of every day on it like a teenager.
I want a TV show about wood working addicts. Please Jeff, you must stop crafting intricate cabinets. No more driftwood tables either. I'm sick of cleaning up resin goddamnit.
I can see some indie games as being easy to pick up and put down without a huge time commitment.* However, we shouldn't discount the fact that a lot of games today, especially some of the "AAA" types, are purposedly designed to be addictive.
*Despite being a small indie game, Cracktorio Factorio will ruin your life. The factory must grow.
It's possible, but it can really change the type of games available to you too. I used to love Skyrim and similar, but eventually found I needed a minimum session of 2-3 hrs, otherwise I hadn't even done any real playing, just inventory management, or getting crafting supplies. These days, with kids and work, I like rally simulator games, it can be satisfying to just do one or two stages, which can take as little as 5-20 mins. But it's a whole different thing, no story, character development, surprises...a bit like going from watching Kurosawa films to watching the sports highlights.
It's way too easy for people to be exploited through video games, just as with gambling, for it to be "just another hobby". They can also become addicted.
Yes, it can be a very nice hobby; with some games you can even show something for the time spent (As in skills, not "achievements").
But it can also become a symptom of dangerous reality abandonment. The worst for this is in my opinion still better than substance abuse, but a danger nonetheless.
For AAA, live service, "games as an industry," sure. However, there are plenty of examples of games that are passion projects, respect your time, and have mutual respect with their community. You just won't see them advertised on billboards.
It's not video games keeping me from doing my niche interests. It's my 60 hour a week job consuming all my mental resources. Then I have to go home and do all the other things necessary to keep myself alive. Not much left for getting immersed in cool projects after that.
This sounds like all of the people who were complaining about comic books back in the day. Or books before that.
I don't like this thing, therefore it's terrible and everyone should hate it and I am not prepared to have a discussion about it.
It's the same thing every time a new far reaching tech is invented even the printing press was looked down on
I will never understand fishing. You just throw the lure in and fucking wait.
I see it as an addiction like gambling. You put in some time but don't always win. That causes a bigger positive feedback for when you do win.
Then the win is a delicious fish and you're hooked.
I think hunting and fishing are mostly an excuse for meditation or hanging out with friends. I have some family members in hunting/fishing geographies and they never seem to care whether they actually catch anything.
People many years ago didn’t understand the purpose of looking at, and even copying, the squiggly little lines found in what we today call books, so as with every generation, you’re in company.
Nah.
You are hunting the right spot, with the right lure, with the right cast and return. You want to match the right gear with the right lure.
Fishing is hunting done on water. Sometimes you wait, sometimes you're actively searching for your prey.
You do get the bonus of being outside, seeing the world as it is today, and if you hunt successfully you get to eat better than anything you can get from the finest restaurant. And even if you catch nothing, you get to keep the memories of just being there. Maybe alone or with friends.
I generally do that waiting in a beautiful place chilling with friends. It's the journey not the destination, etc. Although actually catching fish is great as well.
Meditation.
Such a great example of 'reality is what you're conscious of', I feel! 'Just throw the lure in and wait' could for another person be 'arrive at a beautiful waterside location, ritually prepare your tackle, cast it into the water (a skill that can be a minigame in itself, with all the associated space for practice, improvement, and intermittent positive reinforcement), then enjoy the wonders of being still in nature, but also focus on your task and be ready to react instantly.' It takes all sorts.
Downhill mountain biking for me. When im injured from throwing myself off something stupid it gives me time to catch up on platinum trophies.
Yeah the people who were cataloging all the species of beetles in Germany were upper class types. Most people in 1820 were tilling fields or working in desperately terrible factories.
The 1800s gave us the likes of Michael Faraday the 2000s gave us the likes of Hank Green.
Don't forget the insane rates of drinking and alcoholism in the 19th century.
That reminds me I need to swing by the liquor store I'm out of bourbon.
Hank Green is awesome.
Came here to effectively say this. If we were people in 1820's Germany, 99% of us wouldn't have nearly enough spare time to even think about cataloging those beetles.
The tricky thing is that there's less "real" stuff to be done. Take my silly passion for rocks/minerals as an example. Back in the day I would've happily made geological maps but my country has already been fully mapped in detail. Similarly the guy in OP's post can look up the bugs of his area online because they've already been documented. Videogames can give us a sense of exploration and progress that is hard to find in real life these days.
There are more unanswered questions in science than ever before, but researching them has become less accessible
Hey we share an interest!
My family would always say "why don't you do something with minerals?" And usually I say "well there's no job that is just admiring dioptase, and I really don't want to work for the enemy (oil companies)" lol
It is a crap shoot if an autist's fixation winds up being something beneficial to a single soul.
Which is okay. Focusing on a happy life is imho better than to strive for becoming an efficient worker in some way or another. There is a lot more to life than this.
Well, it's not to say they wouldn't be happy with the beetle cataloging. But yeah, you never know how either the beetle catalog or the sonic ring tutorial might positively affect another human being - so they're both contributions. I find that if you're doing most anything in life with true joy and enthusiasm, you're contributing!
If people didn't have weird obsessions, then sciences like geology probably wouldn't exist.
The worst thing about (thing I don't like) is that people do it instead of (working towards [goal]).
Why aren't you (working towards [goal]) ?
And yes, I get the whole undertone that this is about people with autism or hyper focus or whatever you want to call it. It doesn't make it any funny.
It's not an issue, since we have 10x more such guys than in 1820.
If you really look through history, I think you'll find that people did things like this because they were SO BORED. An entire town would come out to watch a small time trial because there just wasn't anything better to do. Hell, my parents who grew up in the 70's once told me "We'd be outside and bicycle around as kids all the time, after a while.. we were so incredibly bored." And during that time, tv and radio existed. I'm very happy we have the entertainment we do.
90% of them were so bored
the remaining 10% however
I thought they were going to say now there's a 26 part video on beetles. The beetle man never went anywhere. He's also on YouTube lol
I can't remember the name of the channel, but I've followed a guy rehabilitating a grocery lobster, one that took care otters, another with sea monkeys, and people just cleaning carpets. People with niche interests didn't go anywhere. If anything, they're more accessible because of the internet.
Leon the lobster! The channel just uploaded a new video a week ago. Channel name is Brady Brentwood, if you want the update. I haven't watched it myself yet.
Thank you!
Oh man, those videos of people cleaning rugs are fantastic.
Right? That and power washing videos. Just 👌🏾
I’d like to see the author prove that beetle counting is more productive than creating game tutorials. People make all kinds of baseless assumptions that are biased by their personal values.
Since we live under the hell that is capitalism, I'd argue the game tutorials are better!
Fuck your beetles.
(this is a joke, beetles are cool)
I’d like to see the author prove that beetle counting is more productive than creating game tutorials. People make all kinds of baseless assumptions that are biased by their personal values.
I hear if you read the book it will give you +1 on farming or +1 on survival (depending on your class), so...
People can spend their time how they want, but when I hear people bragging about spending literally thousands of hours on game X and/or Y, it kind of makes me sad.
That being said, sometimes they're well adjusted and satisfied people and that's just what they want to do with the majority of their free time.
I do hear people make those kind of comments, but then in other conversations I hear them talking about how they're dissatisfied, life is unfair, their life sucks, they can't find a girlfriend, school is stupid, they hate their job, they have no friends, etc., those are the people that make me feel sad.
One of the things I'd like to put on the table is that most people who spend thousands of hours on video games are actively engaging on a mental level, most people spend thousands of hours in front of a TV basically disassociating. Could I be going out training to climb everest sure, that's not what I want to do, and the same could be said for most people who don't play video games.
If someone was bragging about the thousands of hours of television they watch and was then later complaining about their dissatisfaction with life, I would feel the same way. It isn't watching TV, playing video games, or training for climbing everest that's the problem, per se. It's how much a given activity consumes of your finite time, how much of an effect that has on the rest of your life, and your level of satisfaction with that exchange.
Learning to play music, having friends and a social life, being really good at video game X or Y, having a significant other, excelling in your career, educating yourself, and so on: these are all time-intensive tasks and there are only so many hours in a day. Letting any element of your life consume a majority of your time necessarily comes with sacrifices in other areas.
I get sad when people can't seem to connect the sacrifice of having thousands upon thousands of hours invested in various video games with the dissatisfaction in their lives caused by not giving time to other areas. Again, I know people who balance video games into their life and are satisfied. I also know people that basically game and work and that's it, and they're satisfied. I'm not judging how "full" someone's life is, as far as that goes.
I just sometimes see people that think it's unfair they don't just automatically get those other aspects of their life, but they are simultaneously unwilling to give up some gaming to spend the time working on them. Sure, gaming is easy, immediate, and can be fulfilling. But, it can also feel like "what did I do for the last ten years that weren't in-game accomplishments in games I don't play anymore?" That's really up to the individual.
Those people are psychologically manipulated to spend money. There's no legislation for this sort of thing so they will remain abused forever since this is a huge money maker.
Have you ever heard of rat park? People who are deeply satisfied with their lives (good job, happy and stable relationships, food and housing security) don't typically spend thousands of hours mindlessly playing games or doing drugs or other forms of escapism. Addiction can affect anyone but it has a stronger hold on those with nothing else.
I run a company that does something very specific for some of the largest companies in the world. Key infrastructure is only functional because of what we do. One of the key skills that differentiate our people from the rest is something I often see in some of the top video game and TCG players. I always wonder, "what if they had focused that weird brain of theirs towards X or Y".
Do you guys really need some intense clickers?
You can't just tell us gamers that and then not tell us how to get that bag
Sorry, had work. I replied to another comment and gave more context.
What's the skill tho?
The ability to see the entirety of an environment as a single entity, find synergistic relationships and figure out how to exploit those relationships to force a system to do something it was not designed to do. Like those people that make really niche character builds that suck 99.99% of the time but given this unique set of environmental variables it will suddenly hit you with infinite fireballs with one million points of crit damage or something like that.
The problem is that a mind like that is one requirement, another is years of experience (been there, done that, I know what that is) and really deep and wide knowledge in the field, which is also very hard to find. Finding someone with all of them is like finding a jedi unicorn. These are the people that make very high six or low seven figure salaries.
I'm being relatively vague on purpose.
Either document beetles, or get REALLLY in to opium
So if someone wants to watch those videos on collecting all the rings in Sonic games, where might a link to said list be? You know asking for a friend.
Guy probably never heard of Tom Scott. Or CGP Grey.
Two of the best, let alone all the cool content you can find on local beetles.
Do what brings you joy? Like being a 🍌🦆!
Please, I need these YouTubers for things like the "Coin Collector" subset of achievements in Super Mario Sunshine, you really have to get every single one!
And I'll watch every one
In the 1820s, you'd be watching beetle documentaries, you waste of space
I think this way about sports savants, which makes me think that maybe it's a bad take and that I should let sports nerds have their fun, without everyone having to worry about creating communal value in the world (explicitly, I am speaking here, as much as possible, in an acapitalist context).
Efficient entertainment, almost certainly. People in past eras had completely useless time-consuming hobbies too, like memorizing chess openings
completely useless time-consuming hobbies too, like memorizing chess openings
...yes, those silly people in the past.
I don’t know but I know if you raise this topic usually you will get stoned to death by downdoots and comments like “I could be doing meth or killing people but I am a gamer instead”
In my opinion it is delusional to not notice that these things are mostly just slop. Sure there are some games that actually enriched your life and changed your perspective but compared to movies they are few and between. It’s the lowest entertainment for pleb in most cases.
Take something like call of duty what does that game brings into your life? It’s nothing just digital heroin straight to the brain. On the other hand there are sophisticated games such as disco elysium.
There’s nothing bad with slop but if you only consume slop your brain will turn into it. It’s all common sense
TL;DR :
-There are good games and bad games but both are inferior to movies since videogames are "the lowest entertainment for pleb in most cases"
-Good games entertain you
-Bad games entertain you, buuuuuut they are bad games
Damn, you sound like that one asshole elitist teacher
They probably have a gun collection that would make people pause.
I just like to face reality and not pretend that dopamine escapism is cool. Sorry if that personally hurt you but it’s better to be self aware and still do the thing than delusional that it is the same as more worthwhile forms of time spending.
I find the best games are challenging ones where I can watch myself improving at them, like training a skill. It's not a transferable skill, of course, but I think the act of building your tenacity and accepting success/failure is healthy and good for the ego.
When I try games that I would consider "slop": fetch quests and walking simulators in between cutscenes, I can feel my brain rotting and I don't enjoy it.
And the target demographic of rowdy young men would be challenging each other to gun duels instead of FIFA matches or games of COD.
What this meme is really saying is "the main issue with video games is you aren't developing skills that can serve capitalistic interests via monetization of hobbies"
Normally I would agree, but the deeper implication is contributing meaningful additions to collective human knowledge, and I kinda agree from an objectivist standpoint.
(disclaimer: OP was more clear than I initially read it and maybe my original comment doesn't hold up in reference to it. I'm just replying in reference to the bigger concept and it's so long because I'm procrastinating pretty hard right now. I wanted to be clear that I'm not upset or anything, just putting off cleaning lol)
Hobbies shouldn't have to be "productive," whether financially or otherwise. Who is to gauge what counts as meaningful anyway? Not everybody can contribute "meaningful additions to collective human knowledge," especially now. The bar to do so is so much higher than it was in 1820.
While Hypothetical German Lad could go collect beetles and have it be counted as a meaningful contribution as implied, I would have to (realistically, barring some 1 in a million happenstance) need a lab or something to make some big much wow discovery/contribution. If I went outside and collected beetles today, while it would count as a hobby, it wouldn't be the contribution being implied here, I'd just be a bug collector. Mildly interesting, but no more productive than making some progress in Baldur's Gate or doodling or whatever else menial pasttime.
I'm not interested in watching people play video games myself, but I'd argue it's a productive hobby if it brings joy or information to others. In regards to OP: A 26 part youtube series about how to get all the rings in every sonic game is going to be useful to people trying to get all the rings in Sonic Generations or whatever entry they're playing. There being 26 parts means they know that's going to be a resource they can come back to when they boot up Sonic 8: The Ocho later. It's still an addition to collective knowledge, just not all knowledge is deep cosmic understanding. I can have the knowledge of how to reach Burger King from work, bestow that knowledge upon a new coworker, but yknow nobody is going to write a book about me for it and that's ok!
The world sucks right now and people are struggling, let folks have their silly hobbies without having to justify them. 🤷
Agreed. It's like how Emperor Hirohito did very important work.
Not the war. He spent the later half of his life meticulously collecting baseline data as a (rich and connected) marine biologist. It's not exactly glamorous, but that data is a significant data point on how Climate Change is affecting ocean life. It's a lot more pointed than "I swear there used to be more fireflies".
I love video games, but creating content for a publically traded brand to post on an advertising company's streaming platform is inherently more serving of capitalism than documenting bugs.
That's not a "video game" issue though, it's a social media issue. Re-reading OP, it is more clear than I initially read it as (when I made this comment I felt it didn't make up it's mind who it's swinging at, gamers or 'streamers,') so in context of the image you're right.
However, I stand by my bigger point of "fuck shaming 'unproductive' hobbies." Let people find their dopamine where they can find it so long as it isn't bothering anyone.
There is currently a 20yo in Germany, working tirelessly to document every beetle in their province.
The world is large and diverse. Its fine.