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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

#891

Post by staunch »

nickff wrote: post #479
staunch wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Temporary and mild authoritarian measures during a once-in-a-century pandemic make complete sense, even to very libertarian people. The U.S. has a track record of such measures being temporary, such as the much more extreme measures taken during WW2. Comparing this kind of thing to what China is doing is drawing a false equivalency. There is no legitimate comparison to be made.

Which libertarians are you talking to? Every libertarian I've read or heard from has been against these " [t]emporary and mild authoritarian measures". The more popular libertarian publication/website, "Reason" has been against (all?) these measures.

Libertarians or libertarians? I know a half dozen people that are, what I consider, very libertarian (not Libertarian) personally that think its entirely reasonable.

Most Libertarians are extremist libertarians in my view.

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

#892

Post by nextlevelwizard »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #399
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?

Naturally, most of the comments here are expressing dissent to yours, simply because there is more to be said on that perspective. Most of the people who agree with you simply upvote your comment and move on.

Actually refreshing to see comments arguing instead of just downvotes for wrong think

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

#893

Post by davorak »

mrobot wrote: post #751
bogwog wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a big double standard to call their flavor of restrictions "authoritarian", while being ok with (or even strongly in favor of) our flavor of restrictions, even though the two are objectively similar in nature. Our restrictions came about through a democratic process (example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_... ), not because our supreme leader decided he knows what's best for us. N…

What do you actually know about China's governance and democracy? How do you know your flavor of democracy is really better than everyone elses? Chinese people actually like their government, and no they are not brainwashed.

My experience in the USA is that most seem to believe the in, or at least act in line with, the idea that governments with feedback from the masses serve the masses better or really at least less worse with those without feedback.

Many systems need feedback to remain stable. For governments that feedback in theory can come through different channels where more channels and more direct channels is often assumed to be better.

Voting, free speech, the right to own guns, among other laws/rights/practices are often used by those raise in the USA as the standard to judge other governments/systems, mostly because those are the channels people in the USA have and are therefor familiar with.

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

#895

Post by lhorie »

punkst wrote: post #749
lhorie wrote: post #91

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…

>I've read about studies that say that musical training (which is often believed to translate to improvements in other cognitive aspects of life) doesn't actually correlate to said improvements, and I suspect that the same might be true for games (e.g. solving game puzzles doesn't necessarily mean you get better at school math or whatever) Lots of unchecked assumptions. I'm only taking issue with the music assumption…

I do know of many studies that suggest the existence of a correlation between music education and academic achievement, but the gist of the argument against those studies is that they aren't well designed: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X1...

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

#896

Post by lhorie »

daveidol wrote: post #509
lhorie wrote: post #91

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…

I don't think anyone in this thread has discussed one of the other important aspects of gaming: the social aspect. Especially in an era of "quarantine at home" - online gaming can be a very social activity and a way to make/grow friendships and play with others. (Obviously I think getting outdoors and being active instead of staring at a screen all day is probably even better, but that is one benefit of games over ju…

The social aspect is a bit iffy. Talk to any female gamer and you're going to hear harassment stories.

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

#897

Post by TheFattestNinja »

nwellinghoff wrote: post #877

The key to making games productive is NOT to buy them for your children :). Or at least make it a rare event. When I was a kid, my parents refused to buy me a machine good enough to play the games I wanted. As a result, I got scrappy and found a way to piece together a computer that was decent enough to play at least "something". The main game I was interested in was the infamous "Star Control II". I was able to soci…

I play online LoL at top 5% level on a 2011 laptop with integrated graphics though, free to download. Not sure that approach really works anymore.

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

#898

Post by petersellers »

lhorie wrote: post #844
danrocks wrote: post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half-truth here. Younger people, recently more influenced by Xi Jinping's heavier hand in dispersing Marxist indoctrination, are indeed very supportive of the CCP ("generation N"). Other demographics, specially in southern China, aren't, but they can't speak up or they'll get prosecuted with "picking quarrels and provoking trouble".

I mean, I'm not trying to insinuate that every Chinese always agrees with the government, that's just silly. Even in the US, a good chunk of the population always disagrees with whatever is the political topic du jour... All I'm saying is that a bunch stuff happening in China does have a sizable amount of public approval, even if news articles make it sound like no one could possibly want it.

Honest question - how do you accurately gauge public approval in a country like China?

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

#899

Post by dang »

lhorie wrote: post #91

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…

This subthread was originally a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28356453.

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

#900

Post by sdeep27 »

welshwelsh wrote: post #717
victor106 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The feelings you (I have the same feelings about his as you do) have about this are at an individual level. State mandating how much time someone should spend doing a particular activity is a totally different topic. Even though I agree with the overall intention of this rule/law I vehemently oppose a state imposing such restrictions.

I have mixed feelings about whether or not restricting a child's video game usage is a good idea. However, I think that the state imposing these restrictions is vastly superior to having parents impose the same restrictions. The amount of time a kid is allowed to play games should not be related to what family they happen to be part of or which parents they happen to have.

Not sure if serious. You're implying a state should have more control over where a child's attention goes over their parents?
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