Would young men be rioting in the streets if they didn’t have video games to pacify them?
Hear me out.
We are seeing record levels of young men unemployed and living with their parents: The future for them is bleak. Saddled with college debt, they can barely get a job that pays miimum wage, while living independently is forever out of reach.
I feel like at other points of history, there would be more social unrest, but things are exceedingly calm given the economics.
I was watching a video by Healthy Gamer, a gamer bro-turned psychiatrist. He points out that video games are very addictive and seductive because they MIMIC accomplishment. You can grind to get to the next level, you can gain new skills, you are continually put on a treadmill of constant progress. It’s very satisfying in a hollow way, satisfying in a way that might make you forget that society has nothing to offer you but debt and homelessness after you followed all the rules.
Are video games weapons of mass distraction, the metaphysical equivalent of a million Christians being fed to a million lions every day?
Escapism is a thing for a long time before we were born. Alcohol or drugs is an escape. At one point you realize that the world is full of pieces of shits that are also in control of everything.
I’d credit the global reduction of lead exposure
Ok so first of all, it’s not than just young men who play video games, so it’s kinda shitty to imply that it’s only young men.
It’s also shitty to imply young men are the people who are obligated to riot, or the only people who do riot.
We’ve noticed a trend of less violence from people over the last several decades, which started before video games, so video games might be unrelated.
There’s always been something that feels like accomplishment but isn’t. Reading about how to do something tricks your brain into thinking it’s done that or is making progress on a project, but education only goes so far.
So imo it’s probably a combination of things. Video games might be one of those things but people feeling like they are rebelling by just reading about countercultural things may also be a factor, as well as humans being less violent and also maybe people are just scared and don’t want to die.
Way before video games were a thing people often lived in multi generational housing out of necessity without riots.
Riots happen when people are starving.
If people are in the basement playing video games it’s because they aren’t starving. It’s the not the video games preventing the riots, it’s the Doritos.
Hey hun, new Doritos slogan just dropped
It’s interesting people keep coming with alternative reasons for riots that don´t even cover the riots in the last 50 years. Mass hunger has not caused any riots in the US probably since the 1930’s.
Bread and Circus. They take different shapes over the ages, but the core remains the same.
I often wonder if gaming may also be responsible to the drop in violent crime seen over the last 30 years.
I like to attribute that to removing lead from petrol
Worth a reference for those not in the know, shit’s crazy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis
Women escape reality with youtube, tabloids, tiktok, instagram, and more. They don’t need gaming to be distracted and yet, they are. Guys would just find another thing to be distracted by.
There’s another article (thread) saying there is no loneliness epidemic but a poverty epidemic. And yes, that’s the problem: the uber-rich just have taken as much as they could and will continue to take more. They bought up our apartments, our debt, our third places, are playgrounds, and more. They own the media to tell us that the problems are all due to minorities that have no power and want us to look down or be distracted by services that we give all our information too, and allow them to find more ways to hook us into distractive crap so that we don’t look up.
Want to solve loneliness, childlessness, poverty, etc? !twnw@fedia.io #TaxWealthNow #TaxWealth
Are you aware that women play games too
Yeah, I was a little unsure if I should gender this discussion, but a few factors went into it:
- video games seem to cater to male-centered power fantasies;
- men are much more often the actors of street violence;
- men have a greater sense of entitlement to economic success;
- currently, men are doing worse than women on a lot of measures;
- and men seem to be remarkably politically active when their video game fantasy-life is threatened.
Totally agree that economics is at the root of all of it, and at the root of all of that is wealth (and power) concerntration.
Edit: Keeping in mind gender essentialism is bullshit, men in general tend to be more attracted by themes of power and control, women more by themes of connection. I think the gendered nature of the distractions we are bringing up reflect that.
I think there are more media-related distractions available, such as movies, tv shows, porn, sports, music, social media (though sm can also be used to incite/organize protests/riots), plus the old mainstay of religion (which is also a propaganda tool, but in most cases pro-government). But yeah, all these distractions definitely help. It’s like Rome’s Bread And Circus.
Desperate people don’t riot.
Revolutions are started by the “middle class” (or at least someone that can afford to miss a few paychecks).
Desperate people will fight to the death to defend a rich person tossing a couple crumbs off the table for them, because those crumbs are what keeps them from starving.
Could also be that poor people are much more easily thrown in prison or murdered by police.
Nah, that happens to anyone that disagrees with the system, poor or otherwise.
There’s a reason that pretty much every revolution in history was started by people that were either decently comfortable or an oligarch.
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Probably going to be an unpopular take online but… A lot of the most chronically single people I know are very into videogames. Not sure which way the causation runs or maybe it’s a self reinforcing cycle but there does seem to be a relationship.
The folks I know tend not to be the angry incel type but I could very easily see a pathway that goes something like: video games are cheaper and easier than putting yourself out there, thus you isolate, but isolation kind of sucks and no one likes to blame themselves, so the “manosphere” and it’s precursors are there to tell you it’s actually women/wokeness/the Libs that are responsible for your angry singledom…" To me, I see them at least partially a factor in the hard gender split in politics these days.
The timing also kind of maps out. Video games have moved from niche to one of the most lucrative entertainment industries. The generation of young men raised by really quality games was coming to electoral age just about 2016 and boy, did things start going g off the rails.
I’m not blaming everything on videogames and do play some myself but I do wonder if they’ve contributed to the problem.
I think it’s got more to do with the manosphere being an easily accessible community. There is almost no bar to entry, because they just need bodies to grift. You don’t need to pass a vibe check, you don’t need to have any sort of social skills. Matter of fact, failing to pass a vibe check and having no social skills make you an ideal recruit.
Manosphere is a huge part. I just think that the impressive improvements in video games have increased the pool of lonely young men on whom the manosphere preys.
As a crude example, I had surgery and finished Persona 5 while recovering. Mentioned that to a coworker when I returned and he was stoked and talked about his multiple playthroughs on that and his experience with the others in the series. With a full time job, that’s so very many weeks worth of time just devoted to a video game instead of meeting people, socializing, finding a partner etc.
Correlation vs. causation.
I think it’s a lot more likely that people who have little success meeting people, socializing, and finding partners are turning to videogames, as that’s a reasonably cheap mostly solo hobby.
Personally, if I’m not playing videogames, I’m out sailing. Not socializing.
Absolutely, there’s definitely folks who were already not good at socializing turning to video games. Buuut, I think the cheapness, ubiquity and quality have all improved so much that it has become a much easier alternative than it was in the past.
Like, if you lower the price of cigarettes, many who smoke those cheaper smokes would have smoked anyway. But as the price drops, it’s easier for those marginal smokers to continue to do so and for new ones to start. (You had to be pretty dedicated to suffer through Ultima VI etc.)
And the timing also kind of makes sense; for the last couple of decades there’s been a marked decrease in teenagers and young adults having sex. I assume part is the ubiquity of porn but I can’t imagine teenagers are just getting less horny…
Why not?
Never thought about it like that! It’s probably just like how so many under 30s living with their parents these days isn’t a sign of distress, they probably just love their parents more than every other generation!
What fascinating insights you have.
I asked “why not?” to a specific assertion. Teenagers getting less horny. I think it’s entirely reasonable that this is the case, now that we have endocrine disrupting chemicals being dumped into the environment.
Yes, people not having money to spend don’t go out as much. That is not the fault of videogames, that is the fault of capitalism and pollution.
Lemmy ahh thread
“ahh” thread? The fuck’s that mean?
i don’t get why that other user is being such a lemmy ahh replier. i don’t really use “ahh”, but here’s my working definitions.
“ahh” is slang that means “ass”, but as far as i know, it’s usage is restricted to when you would say “lookin”, or when referring to yourself.
so “goofy lookin’ shoes”, “goofy ass shoes”, and “goofy ahh shoes” all mean the same thing. this use doesn’t work for positive contexts, though; “sweet ahh car” is improper.
also, “my hungry ass when i see burger”, and “my hungry ahh when i see burger” mean the same thing.
a “lemmy ahh thread” thus means “a thread that is negatively stereotypical of lemmy”.
i hope this helps :)
Thank you for the actual explanation. I appreciate it.
Lemmite ahh comment (clueless, oblivious to the real world, deliberately being obtuse to make themselves seem smart and above it all)
How does that mean anything? The sentence is word salad. What on earth is an “ahh thread”
Doubling down ahh comment
I still have no clue what that means.
Obtuse ahh comment.
I genuinely have no idea what an “ahh” thing is.
Uprising because of lack of games? Seriously? Most people won’t overthrow the power of capitalists because no one has provided a working theory without capitalists. And changing some for others just doesn’t make sense. And this is not about games at all. Moreover, you are not even close to the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid. In my 18 years I couldn’t have something to eat. That is bottom, not live with parents.
As if a person swinging a sledgehammer at work for 10 hours and then going into their favorite shooter for an hour will immediately go to protests if they don’t have a shooter. Of course not.
I think that hiearchy of needs is misapplied and misunderstood.
People with food and housing kill themselves when their life loses meaning.
People without housing find Jesus because meaning is more important than collecting cans.
People kill themselves for various reasons. Mostly because of a mismatch between expectations and reality.
No Jesus will help you survive in the snow town at -30 degrees Celsius. These stories are good in the south, but not in the north.
Ok, granted, you can not find meaning if you are literally DEAD, but I think people are drawn to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs because they think it is actually some kind of pyramid you climb as a human being. You don’t think about community UNTIL you have housing. You don’t think about meaning UNTIL you have community.
But as you yourself have acknowledged, it does not work that way: someone with food and housing can kill themselves because expectations do not match reality. Someone who is homeless might survive because they think they have a mission to write music or whatever.
And yes, stories like “oh no, I have a loan, and I can’t pay it off, and nobody will hire me, even though all I know how to do is study, and I have a piece of paper” are very funny to me. If you want to make money, you will. By whatever means necessary. Just accept that the world isn’t as you dreamed.
UPD: and just admit yourself bankrupt. You won’t get a loan anymore, but on the other hand, if you can’t pay it back, that’s not so bad either.
How many people in your family have committed suicide? My cousin committed suicide in my family. I know exactly what I’m talking about. When you have nothing to eat, you don’t think about how bad it is that there are few cinemas around. You look for food. For a long time. For hours. You just don’t have time for anything else. This is real experience, not beautiful stories from social networks.
I don’t really think we’re disagreeing on anything.
You want me to understand that starving actually does suck, and I’m not disagreeing; I’m saying, “yes, and”.
Yes, starving does suck, and so does not belonging to a community or having hope for the future or having no purpose in life. And if you want to play personal credibility, I’ve been in the hospital for wanting to kill myself more than once and I went in on a full belly each time.
People need a variety of things in a variety of combinations at different points of their lifes. There is not stable pyramid guiding human psychology the way their obviously is for human biology. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has been criticized by smarter people than me on these points, and you can read their work if you’re interested.
I don’t argue that she was criticized. I just say that the problem described in the post—protests about games and comparisons with other countries—is irrelevant. In addition, for some reason, the topic starter included “evil capitalists” in the post. Maybe I didn’t describe it very well because I’m using a translator. Personally, I see this literally as a problem of the golden billion. Maslow’s pyramid is just an example.
Let me explain in more detail. Surely everyone was told as a child what successful future awaits them. How everything will be wonderful. Boundless horizons. Hardly any parent wouldn’t want this for their child. But reality isn’t like that. It doesn’t guarantee not only earnings but even life. Harsh truth. Therefore, all these sufferings in the spirit of: “cursed capitalists are profiting from us, let’s protest more. If something happens, will we protest even more?” seem very funny to me.
Especially for the USA, because the post was clearly written by someone from there. Guys, capitalists in 1996, if I’m not mistaken, provided your country with a lot of jobs at chicken factories just by giving one country free chicken under monopoly conditions. But luck doesn’t always turn its face.
So as it was sung in one Russian song:
We galloped merrily on wooden horses, We marched in war against the foolish adult world. We led an army of songs and toys together, We were very brave children.
But one day, in every child’s heart, it suddenly became empty, The fairy‑tale thread was torn. We got there, and it turned out there was simply no one to defeat. There are no adults here except us.
Time ran out, the veil fell, and everything that had so drawn us, that has always been inside us.
UPD: That’s why I wrote that suicide is almost always the result of unrealistic expectations.
uhh, i don’t go out and riot because i don’t have the emotional energy to do that. i play computer games because that’s free (in case of luanti, mindustry etc) and i can actually feel good while doing it.
i would go out more if it was easier to meet people in non-profit places, i.e. places where you don’t have to spend money just to exist.
i still wouldn’t riot though because harm has never helped anything, it just makes things worse. we need constructive criticism instead.
I’m not encouraging people to riot, just saying society does have feedback loops that seem to have been neutralized–at least in the US.
Yeah, we’re running out of third spaces here, too. My only real hope of meeting kindred spirits is online these days.
I’ve been playing Launti Asuna wondering when survival actually kicks in. Why am I only running across slimes? The only thing that consistently kills me is falling through cavern roofs. Starvation used to kill me, but food sources are plentiful (I didn’t realize mussel nodes were food!).
Is there a good meeting point for Luanti/Asuna? The ContentDB is pretty damn bare.
Other questions: Are biomes based on X, Y or Z? That is to say, I’ve been digging down and down and down, but the biome remains the same, though ores seems to increase a little bit. Is it better to just keep walking horizontally and occasionally do some shallow digs?
I’m primarily looking for obsidian (assuming magma + water?), which I thought I’d get closer to by digging down, but I just kept running into more ice blocks.
i’m not sure about asuna. i’ve played mineclonia before which has exact same mechanics as minecraft. to get obsidian, you need to pour water on lava (and not the other way around, i.e. not pour lava on water). the lava has to be a lava source block, so flowing lava does not work. easiest thing to do is to just find an underground cave with lots of lava in it, and then use 1 bucket of water and pour it over it all. easily get 20 obsidian at once. you need a diamond pickaxe to mine it though, otherwise you don’t get any drops.
Fun fact (works in MC and Asuna): you can make a permanent water spring by building a 4-block square reservoir and dropping a bucket of water in two opposite corners.
Would young men be rioting in the streets if they didn’t have video games to pacify them?
No, because humans have been around for thousands of years and video games have been around for less then 100.
Is English your first language? Did you read the entire post? Are you capable of keeping more than one idea in your short term memory at a time?
When an initial premis is false and can be disproved by a cursory glance at history, no manner of supporting evidence will change the outcome.
Seems like a fairly extreme response to a valid point…
Me: “X and Y have always gone to together. Yet now we have X and Z but not Y. Coincidence?”
Your valid point: “Actually, we’ve only had Z for less than 100 years, so, no. Obviously.”
Legend for the reading-impaired:
X: Economic despair
Y: Social unrest
Z: Video gamesSeriously, what the fuck, Lemmy?
It wasn’t my point…
What valid point were they making, then?