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Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

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Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#91

Post by Nomentatus »

sdfin wrote: post #28
bwang29 wrote: post #15

I definitely feel games like Sims and Simcity changed my perception of resource safety as a child. I played Sims/Simcity2000~3000/Civs for hundreds of hours as a kid, and I loved the "realistic" feels and setups of these games. When I started to play I always had later stage trouble when I'm overspending on building fancy roads and bridges in SimCity or buying expensive items up front. I slowly learned the way of set…

Resource management in video games is a skill that I'm sure transfers to real world resource management. Apart from the simulators you mention strategy games like age of empires and red alert also teach about it. Some weeks ago a co-worker told me something similar to what you share, how he learned about resources while playing SimCity. He also said his younger sister asked him "If people doesn't have money, why does…

Playing games would have made it impossible to imagine Qualitative Easing? I played a lot of SimCity and it taught me that tradeoffs are very real and that mayors have a tough job; but it didn't stop me from independently coming up with the idea of qualitative easing as it happens. Still, I take the point, one can't use QE every time or in just any year to avoid a tradeoff - only when deflation is a real possibility.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#92

Post by casefields »

gowld wrote: post #87
icelancer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Keynesian Economics, which ended the Great Depression This is a pretty bold claim and not one that should be stated as fact.

What are the competing theories? The most common one is "WWII", which is another way of saying "Keynesian Economics"

Bernanke on the lessons learned: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke201...

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#93

Post by watwut »

hluska wrote: post #58

This article reminds me of playing Minecraft with my stepdaughter. When we got her a PS4, I have to admit that I had a bit of a fuddy duddy moment. Games weren't like they were when I was young, blah blah blah, NES, blah blah blah, the damned princess is in a different castle. And, when I firstlooked at Minecraft, I couldn't for the life of me, figure out what I was supposed to do. Then, my stepdaughter took over and…

Nobody knows minecraft intuitively. There are many children's games that you can figure out easily, but minecraft requires "a lot" lonely experimentation or reading or someone shows it to you.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#94

Post by NegativeLatency »

skookumchuck wrote: post #37
bwang29 wrote: post #15

I definitely feel games like Sims and Simcity changed my perception of resource safety as a child. I played Sims/Simcity2000~3000/Civs for hundreds of hours as a kid, and I loved the "realistic" feels and setups of these games. When I started to play I always had later stage trouble when I'm overspending on building fancy roads and bridges in SimCity or buying expensive items up front. I slowly learned the way of set…

I'd be very careful about applying lessons from a game to the real world. Lots of games designed by economists, for example, tend to validate the pet theories of the economists, despite not working in the real world. Real world economics is infinitely more complex than the handful of rules in a game.

Counterpoint: Eve Online

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#95

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

hluska wrote: post #58

This article reminds me of playing Minecraft with my stepdaughter. When we got her a PS4, I have to admit that I had a bit of a fuddy duddy moment. Games weren't like they were when I was young, blah blah blah, NES, blah blah blah, the damned princess is in a different castle. And, when I firstlooked at Minecraft, I couldn't for the life of me, figure out what I was supposed to do. Then, my stepdaughter took over and…

I’m constantly encouraging the second, third, and fourth year apprentices at work to be the first stop and series of escalation points for the more junior apprentices and students who come in for week-long work experience sessions as part of their high school requirement.

Part of learning is learning to teach, to share the skills and knowledge we have. It isn’t strictly necessary, but we know more is revealed when we attempt to impart a skill or knowledge because we are forced to use our Beginners Mind.

Lots of kids will just do this as part of play. I think it’s important to continue doing as we age, but maybe that’s just my secret desire to be a teacher. As tradesperson at a company with two new apprentices each year that desire is fulfilled.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#96

Post by bitexploder »

watwut wrote: post #93
hluska wrote: post #58

This article reminds me of playing Minecraft with my stepdaughter. When we got her a PS4, I have to admit that I had a bit of a fuddy duddy moment. Games weren't like they were when I was young, blah blah blah, NES, blah blah blah, the damned princess is in a different castle. And, when I firstlooked at Minecraft, I couldn't for the life of me, figure out what I was supposed to do. Then, my stepdaughter took over and…

Nobody knows minecraft intuitively. There are many children's games that you can figure out easily, but minecraft requires "a lot" lonely experimentation or reading or someone shows it to you.

That is at least part of the fun. I bought it when it (Minecraft) when it first came out. It was FPS Lego as far as I was concerned. At the time, and still, more or less, it was a game with none of the Psy Ops modern game makers employ to get people hooked. It was just intrinsically rewarding to make stuff. My son learned to use a mouse on Minecraft (he is 11 now). Now my kids and I have a long running world where we have been working on th same castle and world for years. It is cool seeing kids grow up with this game. Watching their building skills and ideas grow with thier minds is pretty cool.

So, it isn't intuitive, but my 6 year old can do pretty much everything in the game now. Mostly her older brother showed her. So, I dunno, maybe it is lonely, but in the same way building Lego is lonely.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#97

Post by athrun »

fyi1183 wrote: post #82
TimmyMustGo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely is not a naive question. Printing money is precisely what the government should do. Income tax should be eliminated, it is a relic of the past. The government should fund itself not by selling bonds, which essentially is printing money that pays interest, but by simply printing money which is more direct.

To put a finer point on it, most people still believe that (monetarily sovereign) governments are constrained by their income and by the willingness of lenders to accommodate government debt. But that view is incorrect: the real constraint to government spending is only the economy's real capacity for production. Another way to think of it is that the real constraint to government spending is inflation (because exces…

Uh, this is a very interesting (and intriguing) perspective.

Couple of questions:

- Does this mean that there’s a case for QE to be made permanent under a low-inflation environment?

- Under this model, govermnents would be directly responsible for the allocation of the newly created money. How can this not lead to a depressed economic output over time?

- Where can I read more about this?

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#98

Post by zdkl »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #94
skookumchuck wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very careful about applying lessons from a game to the real world. Lots of games designed by economists, for example, tend to validate the pet theories of the economists, despite not working in the real world. Real world economics is infinitely more complex than the handful of rules in a game.

Counterpoint: Eve Online

Hey credit where credit is due, CCP is working very hard yo make the game enjoyable by the solo/little guys again, more options than straight up grinding. Still, hope you like multiaccount moon mining.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#99

Post by fyi1183 »

athrun wrote: post #97
fyi1183 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put a finer point on it, most people still believe that (monetarily sovereign) governments are constrained by their income and by the willingness of lenders to accommodate government debt. But that view is incorrect: the real constraint to government spending is only the economy's real capacity for production. Another way to think of it is that the real constraint to government spending is inflation (because exces…

Uh, this is a very interesting (and intriguing) perspective. Couple of questions: - Does this mean that there’s a case for QE to be made permanent under a low-inflation environment? - Under this model, govermnents would be directly responsible for the allocation of the newly created money. How can this not lead to a depressed economic output over time? - Where can I read more about this?

QE: Not really. The problem with QE is that it's a purely monetary operation, so the only way it could lead to real economic growth is if it somehow lead to more lending. But arguably debt leads to instability, and besides it's like pushing on a string: it doesn't work when people don't want to borrow. It'd be better for the government to outright buy stuff or give people money.

Depressing economic output: Absent inflation, economic output is proportional to overall spending, so a policy like this can't depress economic output almost by definition.

However, I'd say there is a risk of directing that output towards useless things, plus there's the risk of favouritism that leads to hidden inflation via inefficiency (see also: military industrial complex). So it matters where the money is spent.

Personally, I'd like to try something like a "citizen's dividend": just hand out money to all citizens equally each month (or permanent residents, you can argue the details), no questions asked and no strings attached, but vary the amount based on current inflation. That is, increase the dividend when inflation is low, scale it back when inflation rises above some target.

So kind of like a UBI, but with a macroeconomic motivation rather than trying to replace the welfare system. It also appeals to me because it's a sort of direct democratic approach to macroeconomic management: people can literally vote with their wallet about how the money is spent.

Where to read more: modern monetary theory is a good keyword to start with. I found Randall Wray's book very interesting. Warren Mosler's "7 deadly innocent frauds" is less academic, but it's available online and interesting since it comes from a practitioner instead of a theoretician. Though I admit it's been many years since I read either.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#100

Post by watwut »

bitexploder wrote: post #96
watwut wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody knows minecraft intuitively. There are many children's games that you can figure out easily, but minecraft requires "a lot" lonely experimentation or reading or someone shows it to you.

That is at least part of the fun. I bought it when it (Minecraft) when it first came out. It was FPS Lego as far as I was concerned. At the time, and still, more or less, it was a game with none of the Psy Ops modern game makers employ to get people hooked. It was just intrinsically rewarding to make stuff. My son learned to use a mouse on Minecraft (he is 11 now). Now my kids and I have a long running world where we…

I did not mean "lonely" as negative. But people sometimes go "oh I dont get it instantly I must be too old for it, cant do it and kids get it naturally". And that is not the case, kids are figuring it out slowly and their play is more incapable then they think at first. However, they "feel" like they know what they are doing whole time, so learning is pleasant.

But also, I dont really think Minecraft is like lego. You can play it like lego, but you dont have to.

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