321–330 of 1001 posts
With school out for summer, my preschooler is either playing a video game or watching youtube for hours on end. We try to force some time away from screens but it is a never ending struggle, as screen use is the immediate, default state to return to. I find most of the youtube content worse than the gaming, but neither are all that great.
I am appalled by all the supportive comments in this thread. Why are HN users so comfortable with authoritarian government? It’s about more than just online games. It’s about control. I’m sure the great firewall is perfectly fine as well?
There is a chance that liberal government is the most effective government, ever - the so-called end of history argument, but let's not forget the shot heard around the world was fired less than 250 years ago. Benevolent dictatorship could still work - especially today. Look at Singapore, look at China - lifting millions and billions of people out of poverty is an achievement that shouldn't be denied because they're an authoritarian government.
And just like that, China's competitive Dota scene will disappear. I wonder how this will effect the Perfect World/Valve partnership.
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Remember we're talking about a totalitarian regime, where using real IDs for digital accounts is already a thing. Where importing unapproved foreign media is (presumably) banned. Where you can't so much as get a VPN without permission. I'm sure some people will find ways around it, but I don't think that will be the norm.
I dont see it working any differently than piracy. If people can hack the bytecode to appear as though the game has received a valid key, I dont see why they cannot do the same for these restrictions.
I am appalled by all the supportive comments in this thread. Why are HN users so comfortable with authoritarian government? It’s about more than just online games. It’s about control. I’m sure the great firewall is perfectly fine as well?
I'm not in favor at all - but it doesn't seem like a massive overstep. I honestly don't see what the big difference is between online games and weed. It doesn't really seem off-brand for governments these days to be making these kinds of decisions. I mean, if they decided to make coffee illegal for kids - yeah, that seems dumb, right? But is that REALLY that big of a difference than making tobacco illegal? I just don…
People talking about the benefits of games reminds me of people talking about the benefits of, say, a glass of wine with every meal: it's worth looking into but at the same time it's the sort of thing that obviously doesn't scale linearly with the amount/intensity of consumption. I similarly have mixed feelings as well, but for slightly different reasons. I've read about studies that say that musical training (which…
> ... it's the sort of thing that obviously doesn't scale linearly with the amount/intensity of consumption. Is there anything that actually scales linearly? I thought the law of diminishing rewards applied to pretty much anything you do.
Come to think of it, quite a lot of things in life scale like this. Software development being among the well-known ones for this audience - e.g. if you'd be given only a 30 minute window for writing code during a day (or even a couple such windows spread out), you'd likely not even open the editor, as there's no point in even engaging with the task in such short window.
I'd go as far as saying that, in order to realize the most non-enjoyment value of a game, you not only need long enough sessions to fully engage with a game - you need long enough sessions to get bored with the game. But, that may be impossible with modern gambling-for-chindren-but-legal style of games.
You can imagine this as an "S-curve" model of value, where with games, the point most people consider "too much" for a kid is barely on the ramp-up part of the curve.
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Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Actually though this is a fucking big brother atrocity of a policy that people will inevitably circumvent and the government will pick and choose when to enforce.
Except the people aren't our enemy. We're worried about an authoritarian government harming our friends.
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Goodness. If this was the US, I would be losing my mind over such legislation. We must not convince the law makers that video games can be beneficial. That puts the wrong emphasis on the conversation. The emphasis must be, you have no jurisdiction when it comes to raising children. Your laws are invalid. Even if video games are detrimental, you do not decide what is the best interest for a child, the parents do.
What about child protection service, school, free lunch at school, healthcare, and more comparably age 21 restriction for alcohol consumption? Those are all examples of 'jurisdiction over raising children'.
Providing lunch at something the child is required to be at by law is not a parenting decision.
Requiring annual physicals is not a parenting decision, nor a health care decision. However, requiring a specific treatment is both.
Alcohol consumption is a grey area, and a cultural choice the country has made. Why not make the driving age 14? 18? It's a question of maturity. But this is a poor comparison. While alcohol has an objective measure of physical harm (ie: LD50, a measurable and detrimental effect on developing minds), video games do not.
Listing these as examples is not a justification for the government deciding for a parent how much time their child can spend on video games.
And for disclosure, I think a time limit is a much needed societal thing. But the government must not be the one to make that decision.
I am appalled by all the supportive comments in this thread. Why are HN users so comfortable with authoritarian government? It’s about more than just online games. It’s about control. I’m sure the great firewall is perfectly fine as well?