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China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

reuters.com

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Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#641

Post by cercatrova »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #636
cercatrova wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Fun fact, there has been recent research to show that the "glass of wine during a meal is healthy" is entirely a myth; _no amount_ of alcohol is beneficial to overall health [0]. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803651/

>_no amount_ of alcohol is beneficial to overall health [0]. I don't buy it. At worst, the negative health effects of alcohol are on an exponential J curve. Negative health outcomes like the risk of cancer is very small up until a rather high amount of consumption (4 drinks per day?) and only then outweighs the cardiovascular benefits. Regardless, like meat consumption, I have no desire to give up drinking in moderat…

You may not buy it but that's what the data shows. Now, you buying it versus you wanting to not believe it is another story. I too drink in moderation but that doesn't mean I'll act like it doesn't have negative consequences, however slight they may be. The study is not prescriptive, it's not saying people should give up alcohol, it's merely descriptive, in that it's telling the reader what's happening as a result of any level of consumption.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#642

Post by treebot »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #437
rank0 wrote: post #235

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?

Yep, the policy itself isn't necessarily an issue, but the fact that it's being imposed by the government is a huge problem. (Especially since it's not even a democratically elected government. Taxation without representation and all that.) If a parent instituted the exact same policy for their kids I would have no problem with that.

If it were imposed by a democratically elected government, would it still be a problem?

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#643

Post by MandieD »

lordnacho wrote: post #245
namelessoracle wrote: post #7

I have mixed feelings about this. Younger me learned a lot of problem solving skills and most importantly spent a lot of time learning how to read by playing RPGs and games that required lots of reading. My reading skills would not have been as advanced if i wasn't playing text heavy games that had a lot of plot like Square Enix games and the CRPGs of the time. Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as a…

I've mentioned this view a few times: computers are the modern double-edged sword. On one hand you can learn pretty much anything academic just by sitting in front of one. Quantum physics, history of Rome, food chemistry, and so on. Use it right, and you can really have access to a huge amount of knowledge that I never could as a child. On the other hand, it is the biggest addiction danger in the house. It's legal fo…

I remember an acquaintance calling it “EverCrack” 20 years ago…

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#644

Post by cercatrova »

yitianjian wrote: post #429
cercatrova wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Fun fact, there has been recent research to show that the "glass of wine during a meal is healthy" is entirely a myth; _no amount_ of alcohol is beneficial to overall health [0]. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803651/

(forgive me since I did not read your reference) but I recall there were some studies showing that the "health benefits" touted by the "glass of wine a day" studies were strongly correlated with: - being middle to upper class (can afford a glass of wine daily) - having good self control (drinking one glass of wine a day instead of many) which are both good health outcomes

Even controlling for those factors, there is no health benefit to alcohol, ie a middle to upper class person with self control does not fare better drinking alcohol versus not drinking alcohol.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#645

Post by honkdaddy »

knownjorbist wrote: post #365
uncoder0 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the last year of 'quarantine' for most of the Western world has made people more comfortable with authoritarian governments and actions. It's rather alarming how widespread and quickly this change in ideology has happened.

This is comparing apples and oranges, frankly.

I would say in both cases it's the government exhibiting control over its citizens lives under the notion that it's for their own protection. I think everyone has a point at which government control becomes tyranny. For some it's lockdowns during a pandemic, for others it's time-limits on video games. Seems like all apples, to me.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#646

Post by chickenpotpie »

treebot wrote: post #642
Ajedi32 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the policy itself isn't necessarily an issue, but the fact that it's being imposed by the government is a huge problem. (Especially since it's not even a democratically elected government. Taxation without representation and all that.) If a parent instituted the exact same policy for their kids I would have no problem with that.

If it were imposed by a democratically elected government, would it still be a problem?

Yes but a smaller one

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#647

Post by twobitshifter »

zachguo wrote: post #446
Tiktaalik wrote: post #238

This will destroy the Chinese games industry and this may have broader implications than just stocks in free fall. Video game programming is very cutting edge technology (eg. 3D graphics, animation, wayfinding, and more). China throwing this industry away will mean there are no home grown video game programmers which will have implications on their entire software engineering capability. This gives the rest of the wo…

The policy is targeting ONLINE games. Companies like Tencent will simply double down shipping those shitty games with loot boxes and microtransactions oversea to your kids. Meanwhile in China offline singleplayer games may see a boom.

I think they can make an effective offline grind that credits you when you log in and still comply with the law.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#648

Post by a1369209993 »

madrox wrote: post #601
rank0 wrote: post #235

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?

To play devil's advocate for a moment, is this different from age-gating we do anywhere else on the internet? We require you to be 18 or over to look at adult sites or view particularly edgy stuff on youtube. Is the difference just that there's an implicit wink going on because it relies on the user being honest about their age? I'm sure if we had a real ID system like China in place, laws would mandate its use given…

There is no difference; it's evil and needs to die.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#649

Post by jmfldn »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #264
lordnacho wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Half the time I spent gaming was spent figuring out how to get the computer to do what I wanted which lead to a life long interest in technology. I remember the old days of "extended memory" which meant you needed slightly different configuration files for each game. That meant if you wanted to play a bunch of games, it made sense to learn how to write a bat script to config according to what you wanted to play. Yo…

My first computer was a 486 33mhz w/ about 250MB HD . I could only keep a couple games installed at a time, meaning i was always installing and uninstalling. Then I had to play with the autoexec.bat and cmd.com files . Then I broke it. Then i had to fix it cause my mom was still making payments on the computer (like it was a refrigerator with a 10yr lifespan) ... This is how I got into computing. Come to think if of…

Hah! You've just described my childhood, hacking autoexec.bat and config.sys to get games to work. Each game needed a different hack. Had no idea what I was doing back then, it was more a case of discovering the correct incantation until stuff worked without the graphics juddering too badly.
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