borghe said:
And it is not a killer's fault that his wife was having sex with the pool boy. And not the bank robber's fault he was poor.
People need to take responsibility for their actions and enabling by letting them know it isn't all their fault just leads them to continue to exhibit lack of self control under the belief that it is out of their hands.
It's one thing to argue that, we shouldn't relent on the idea of personal responsibility, for the sake of making the people understand that they can and should exercise willpower to control addictions.
It's another thing entirely to use that argument to say that there is entirely the fault of a person if they fail to exhibit willpower, and that the blame lays solely with them.
The former is strongly compassionate and understanding of what must be done in order to make things better. The latter is a flat out disingenious argument to defend the addictive item in question.
I do agree, that there should be personal responsibility exercised; this can be achieved by warning people about the particular addictiveness of whatever it is they're getting into. It's not done by downplaying the risks of addiction and exclaiming that if the person becomes addicted it's because they're weak individuals. It can be personally exercised by taking careful guard against the addiction, or simply abstaining from it.
This is rich... I'm an idiot because I can recognize that some people take obsessions to dangerous levels?
Your argument is that, some people will take things to dangerous levels... fair enough, but in making that argument you effectively say that all addictions are equal and that all blame rests solely in the user who hasn't exercised self control.
But of course it's just not that simple; different things have different levels of addictiveness; creating different levels of not only a physical addiction but psychological addiction. This doesn't exclude the difference in ability between people (ability been willpower to control the addiction in this case), but it still recognizes the differences between different stimuli.
Wait a minute, you are comparing addiction to capitalism? And you say I have dodgy analogies? You're joking, right? This is a joke I'm assuming.
No, I'm comparing your argument to the argument for pro capitalism which I provided; i.e. a simplistic argument that while attractive on the surface (the simple logic of a meritocratic ideal within the capitalist system) is flawed or worst false upon closer examination.
Take responsibility. YOU lost your wife. YOU lost your friends. YOU flunked out of prep school. YOU lost your job. The evil MMORPG didn't do it. What's funny is that all your talking about is simple flat out addiction. That's all. People who over indulge. Yet because it's an MMOG put out by a company it's different. Yet I don't see you talking about the evils of Jim Beam, or Miller Brewing, or the Belagio casino.
For some people, susceptible to addiction of different types an option is to abstain. Yet the way you put it, it seems like everyone can indulge in a little moderation and that the people that get addicted due to this indulgence are weak. Moreover... what's with the bolding of you? Again, trying to discredit ME; my character, isn't a valid argumentative technique - it doesn't say anything about the validity of my arguments. In reality, none of those things have happened to me; all that has happened is when I walked away from the MMOs, I realised I had lost a large chunk of time and that a good portion of the experiences of the MMO weren't exactly a positive thing. Sure there were positive times, but the actual playing of the game... not even the effect of the time wastage, there were many more times that I felt miserable while playing the game... losing time to the game to feel miserable while playing. That's what I'm bitter about.
If you actually get far in the game, you'll realise how much misery it is to do the same run for the 30th time just for a small chance to get the item you want. Or going into small areas and attacking the same type of monster with your group for hours and hours per session, for many many sessions, in order to increase your stat points by a few points. But that's the kind of game that MMOs are.
Saitoh said:
Zaptruder: Where's your evidence that overwhelmingly proves MMOs are more addictive than an "average" hobby? All I've read is your opinion. Does yours carry more weight than say Borghe's?
When you say the time spent playing an MMO isn't necessarily that great -comparative to other past times- once again I ask, is your opinion more valuable than say mine? Can't you simply accept -that like any activity- some enjoy it, and some don't?
I guess what I'm saying is you're getting angry (calling people fucking idiots/wanting to kick ass) about some people not agreeing with you, and I don't understand why. You have yet to convince me that your "opinion" is correct.
Here's a good study on MMORPG addiction:
http://www.nickyee.com/hub/addiction/home.html
I can definetly accept that some people can enjoy it, that some people are able to enjoy it such that they don't let the addiction or the timesink nature of the genre get to them. But at the same time, I'm saying that there are timesinks and the genre is very addictive relative to other genres. More power to you if you can enjoy it, but at the same time I think you could probably enjoy something else more given the time input (even if you're not susceptible to addiction or what not).
Luckly the beta only lasts till the end of this month. then you have to P2P. No way im doing that.
