Episode 84: Are Video Games Harmful to Children?
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Transcript
[00:00:08] Blue: Welcome to Thurman Anything Podcast. Hey, Peter. Hello, Bruce. How are you today? Good. Well, why don’t you introduce the subject today? Since this one was actually one of your ideas, you’ve been wanting to do this one for a while, actually.
[00:00:22] Red: I have, yes. So this is an article that was actually, I say article, it’s actually an interview from 1992 with David Deutsch on video games. It might seem a little outdated since games have changed so much and certain things about it do seem outdated. It really struck a chord with me when I first read it. Part of it could have been that just where I was at in my own life with my own heads, like a lot of parents in 2024. Screen time is an issue, I guess. And just a thing we all have to deal with, I guess, in our families. And, well, it really sort of tweaked my, not just the article, but it coincided with getting into David Deutsch and sort of changing my ideas about humans. A number of things, yeah. A number of things and my own philosophy as a parent, as all will probably get into a little bit. I might try to contrast David Deutsch’s ideas on screen time with Jonathan Haidt, who’s probably at least in the kind of circles that I converse in seems to be about the most popular public intellectual speaking about these kinds of issues. And who, at least from what I understand, at one point, maybe three or four years ago, was saying that video games are not that bad, but seems to at least have, I think he’s become more pessimistic. Maybe it just seems like that because I’ve become more optimistic, but it seems like he’s more pessimistic. I think he is more pessimistic.
[00:02:26] Blue: However, I think it’s for a reason.
[00:02:29] Red: Fair enough.
[00:02:31] Blue: Specifically, I think his pessimism started after he got accused falsely of being racist. And I think that that was a wake -up call for him, that there was a problem that needed to be addressed. Well,
[00:02:47] Red: that’s almost a different kind of a thing. I mean, that could have played into it. I’m not saying that, but that’s a little bit… I mean, he thinks that there is… He makes the case, and he makes a strong case. I’m not gonna say he doesn’t. He’s a smart guy. I’ve read all his books multiple times. I’ve seen him speak live. He makes a strong case that we are in a mental health crisis, something comparable to cigarette smoking before people knew it was bad for you. From a recent article, boys are in trouble. Many have withdrawn from the real world where they could develop the skills needed to become competent, successful, and loving men. Instead, many have been lured into an ever more appealing virtual world in which desires for adventure and for sex can be satisfied, at least superficially, without doing anything that would prepare them for later success in work, love, and marriage. A little later, the virtual world is becoming ever more immersive and addictive. Every year, it will pull harder and harder on boys, urging them to abandon the real world. We’ve got to make the real world more appealing for them. The mental health crisis afflicting Generation Z is among the most serious of many serious problems we face in America. I see a lot of reasons to doubt that, and we’re gonna get into it here, I think. I thought maybe a good way to start it would be to read from the actual interview. This is David Deutsch in 1992. Sometimes in these things, we just start talking and forget about the fact that our audience might not have the same read the article that we’re discussing.
[00:04:34] Red: Let’s go that direction and then we can see where the conversation takes us. So, yeah, this is an interview with Sarah Fitz Clarridge, who is the co -founder of Taking Children Seriously along with David Deutsch. Basically, she asks, so why are video games bad? This is David Deutsch speaking. If you look closely at the evidence, boils down to no more than the fact that children like video games. There seems to be a very common tendency among parents to regard children liking something as prima facia evidence that it is bad for them. If they are spending a lot of time doing something, parents wonder what harm it must be doing them. I think this is fundamentally the wrong attitude. The right attitude is, if children are spending a lot of time doing something, let’s not try to find ways of letting them do even more of it. Prima facia, the fact that they like doing it, is an indication that it is good for them. I think that overwhelmingly, the thing which draws people’s attention to video games is the fact that children like them. People jump from the solitary piece of evidence to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with video games. As it happens, I believe that playing video games is very good for you. But I think more important than understanding why it is good for you is to understand and avoid the temptation of saying that if you like it, it must be bad for you. Now, why is playing video games good for you? They provide a unique learning environment. They provide something which for most of human history was not available, namely an interactive, complex entity that is accessible at a low cost and zero risk.
[00:06:26] Red: Let’s compare video games with other great educational things in the world. Books and television have great complexity and diversity. They give you access to almost every aspect of human culture and knowledge, but they are not interactive. On the other hand, something like playing piano is also complex and interactive, but it requires an enormous initial investment, months or years of practice and training with the associated huge risk of misplacing that investment. One cannot make many such investments in one’s life. I should say, of course, that the most educational thing in the world is conversation. That does not have the property that it is complex, interactive, and not to have a low cost, although often between children and adults it has a high cost and high risk for the children. But it should not and need not. Apart from conversation, all the complex interactive things require huge initial investment, except video games. And I think video games are a breakthrough in human culture for that reason. They are not some transient fringe aspect of culture. They are destined to be an important means of human learning for the rest of history because of this interactive element. Why is being interactive so important? Being interactive with a complex entity is what life and thinking and creativity and art and science are all about. Okay, that’s just one of several sections that really struck a chord with me. But let’s talk about what he’s not saying. He’s not saying, oh, I looked at all the meta studies. I know what the latest research says. I know that video games are good for you. He seems to be making a claim about what human beings are. That humans are a species who thrive under freedom.
[00:08:22] Red: And that when you give children freedom to explore their interests, their passions, including freedom to play video games, that they will thrive. It’s a perspective I’ve become pretty sympathetic to, I think, largely because of Deutsche’s influence. On the other hand, I’m a parent living in the real world. I don’t like to see my children zoning out on clash of clans or some stupid thing they’re doing. I don’t like it either. I don’t like myself. Furthermore, I don’t like myself when I get sucked into some of these games either. I had the experience of, my kids have turned me on to some of these games. I don’t really play that much, but they’ve turned me on and then I get kind of sucked into a little bit and then I just think, geez, I’ve had this several times, like a moment of clarity of like, what am I doing? This is a waste of time, right? Yeah. And it is. I mean, that’s not, you know, a 45 -year -old man hitting things on a, you know, I think about that, what is it, Jerry from Rick and Morty where he’s just popping the balloons, boom, boom, boom, popping the balloons. But, you know, I mean, Deutsch seems to be saying, and it maybe has, comes down to the, related to the fun criterion a little bit that, you know, if you’re enjoying it, it’s meaningful. And I, you know, I find that pretty compelling way to look at humans. What are your thoughts, Bruce?
[00:10:03] Blue: Well, first of all, let me just say that I don’t think I handled it right when I was a parent. So in fact, I actually have a story I want to tell that I think was enlightening for me as to the degree to which I had influenced one of my children that I didn’t intend to. So to explain this story, so keep in mind that this all happens before I even have read Fabric of Reality for the first time. So I don’t even know who David Deutsch is. So this is the setting, right? And I also want to point out that when I read an article like this by David Deutsch, there’s a lot in the article I totally agree with. And I actually really like the way he goes about it. But I always know there’s a little bit of a taint because you know, based on other things that he believes and that he said that while he’s saying one thing in this article at some level, he just thinks you should just never coerce a child at all under any circumstance. And you know he comes from that standpoint. I can appreciate this article in part because he doesn’t try to rely on the moral upfront fundamental argument. He’s not coming at you with the argument. Well, it’s wrong to coerce a child and therefore because of that you just shouldn’t do it and it doesn’t matter if it’s harmful or not. But don’t worry it’s not harmful, right? I mean, I can appreciate I’ve had people come at me like that and I know how ridiculously negative of an experience it is, very unconvincing and also I suspect wrong.
[00:11:40] Blue: Okay, I mean it’s anytime you say this is the way it is fundamental truth about morality it’s just there’s always exception cases and it’s just never that simple, right? So at least if you try to turn into a universal law, it’s often true as a rule of thumb but it’s almost never true as a universal law when it comes to morality. So the thing I really love about this article is that he’s really getting down to this is why it’s good, right?
[00:12:08] Blue: And look, at some point even you can tell he’s skeptical there’s any negatives but at some point he kind of admits there could be some negatives but it’s like you got to consider all the benefits it’s like this is exactly the right attitude don’t come at me with this is the moral law explain to me why given what I subjectively value with my kids this is what I want and I actually think that’s exactly this is exactly the way he should be making his arguments I think all the arguments around raising children should probably start with the idea it’s parents want what’s best for I mean maybe not every parent but the vast majority of parents want what’s best for their children and so it’s coming at them with this is why this is what you want and this is going to fulfill your desires and your values with your children it’s exactly the right kind of argument right so I could really relate to the article precisely because he kind of left behind the moral baggage philosophical baggage that I’m not likely to agree with and instead is convincing me using arguments that I can relate to and that I as a parent go that’s a good point you know that that does fit what I want for my children right and the stuff about the fact that it’s an educational experience I don’t think you could have this quote but he has a quote somewhere about how it’s the same impulse to play video games as the same as the impulse for him to do science I know for myself I know I know now for myself the thing which makes me play video games today is identical to the thing which makes me play with Legos then which is by the way the very same thing that makes me do science that is the impulse to understand things now having said all that
[00:13:50] Blue: I do have some I have one major criticism of this article that I don’t think is core to his argument so I’ll cover it at some point but I don’t think it really affects his argument any it’s just I don’t like something he said okay or at least I don’t even think I dislike what he said I think he contradicts himself and I think it should be called out if that makes any sense both the things he say I like but they’re clearly in contradiction to each other I
[00:14:17] Red: like the comparison I think it was right before the section you read where he talks about chess comparing a video game and you know as I’m not really much of a gamer I do play chess poorly but I have a lot of appreciation for the game the beauty of what takes place on these 64 squares but you know that could just be my own bias there’s really is there a fundamental reason why I look at my son and he’s on fortnight and he’s got his head set on he’s there with ten of his friends talking away you know not even just about the game they’re talking about school and life and singing songs and sometimes they have arguments or whatever like it’s cool like I mean is there is an experience like that inherently worse than playing chess is minecraft maybe minecraft is a better example I don’t know if there’s a fundamental reason why someone can’t you know explore the minecraft world and appreciate the beauty of these or sometimes very artistic creations I mean is that mindless escapism I mean how is it different than chess to me it’s an extremely valid question so
[00:15:39] Blue: and Deutsch makes the claim that there are certainly certain culturally sanctioned areas where knowledge is considered positive and others where it’s not culturally sanctioned and I would actually have a maybe a minor criticism there he’s kind of right culture prefers and culture has changed its mind over the years as to what sanctioned and what isn’t on the other hand some knowledge is more valuable to the market than other knowledge so like the example he uses of piano I totally agree piano has this huge upfront investment you may end up spending it and then it’s not what you wanted anyhow and so there’s like this giant risk with piano but if you’re a good piano player you can you can make money doing that right I mean teaching lessons at a minimum I mean I’ve known multiple women and men that do that as a side gig or full time well
[00:16:33] Red: my wife is a violinist and she’s had an extremely successful life as a teacher and performer so yeah it can work out now
[00:16:44] Blue: someone might at this point say well it can work out as a video gamer yeah
[00:16:48] Red: yeah
[00:16:48] Blue: there’s professional video gamers today you know I mean it’s but let’s be honest if we’re going to try to make that comparison the odds that you could make money with piano you know practice is probably quite a bit higher than you’re going to make money as a professional gamer you maybe
[00:17:09] Red: I mean when you consider how many people are making money streaming and all this stuff like
[00:17:14] Blue: I think even if you considered everybody making money streaming I don’t think you would even come close right
[00:17:20] Red: to people making money through music through
[00:17:23] Blue: teaching
[00:17:23] Red: music lessons yeah
[00:17:24] Blue: yeah okay it’s so there are there’s a similar thing that goes on with playing sports now sports is a more socially sanctioned thing for sure right and I wonder why because I don’t actually think sports is anywhere near as good as culture thinks it is although I don’t think it’s necessarily bad for people who are interested in it it’s just we almost force people into it and it’s dumb right
[00:17:48] Red: yeah it’s another one of these biases
[00:17:50] Blue: yeah okay but sports you can make the exact same argument well you can make tons of money in sports right no I mean you really can’t I mean it’s sure the very very best person in sport you know Michael Jordan with a ton of money in sports but who’s the Michael Jordan of software it’s Bill Gates you know I mean like it’s not even close
[00:18:13] Red: right you
[00:18:14] Blue: know I mean it’s there there’s definitely certain types of knowledge that make you money better than others you
[00:18:20] Red: know it’s not even I don’t want people to read us as thinking it’s just about money it’s about living it’s a meaningful productive life
[00:18:28] Blue: no I think that’s a better argument right
[00:18:31] Red: but
[00:18:31] Blue: we do have to acknowledge that as a parent one thing that’s going to cross a parent’s mind rightly so is okay but some kinds of knowledge are more valuable than others in terms of being able to sustain yourself in terms of a job okay now we can talk about whether that’s you know a moral panic we do it too much but like the seed of the thought strikes me as completely legitimate and we got to get that out there right away okay that if your child where I mean like think of some really horrific maybe even unrealistic circumstance you know your child does nothing but play video games you know and or does nothing but play chess I don’t care what it is does nothing but play sports you know well yeah
[00:19:18] Red: I might point out that many people dedicate their lives to chess and it just goes nowhere for them that’s
[00:19:26] Blue: right
[00:19:26] Red: laying in the park and you know they don’t seem to have particularly successful lives right so
[00:19:33] Blue: there is a legitimate concern there now how how common of a concern is it really probably not that common can we maybe wrap our minds around the fact that there’s a legitimate concern but there’s also can be a moral panic about the legitimate concern if we can wrap our minds around that I think we can get to a more realistic place right where we can acknowledge okay parent who is worried about video games there is a potential danger there but it’s way less common than you think it is right and I think that this is one of the things that
[00:20:08] Blue: that I’ve changed my mind about over because I grew up with parents who limited our screen time and my mom listens to my podcast and my dad listens to my podcast and honestly I don’t even necessarily have a criticism there particularly since back then you only could afford maybe one TV everybody wants to play video games you’ve got to somehow limit people so they can take turns I mean like there’s there’s a whole cultural environment that has to be explained that has to that existed at the time that was just a necessity people didn’t have personal screens back then that they were carrying around with themselves so they could just do it and not interfere with other people so I think that the first thing you have to understand is that the cultural reason why we limited screen time came from a place where that may have just been a necessity right that if you had enough kids there was just there was just no other fair way to do it right so let’s start with that so now I’ve got that kind of cultural is that pronounced that term right I
[00:21:14] Red: don’t know you know
[00:21:15] Blue: you yes thank you and it’s in my head that I should be limiting children’s video games but not necessarily for me like the whole situation has changed at this point right it’s we’ve got tons of TVs around the house kids start having little personal video games with them so one way I might be doing this out of for reasons that don’t make sense anymore right and I think that happens that you have a tradition the tradition was knowledge bearing the tradition made perfect sense and was really important at the time and the need for it shifts slowly away and it’s not obvious at first when to drop it or if to drop it and you in a lot of times we do traditions we don’t think about them that much right
[00:22:01] Red: my parents did this so I’m doing it right this the the old thing about cutting off the edge of the end of the pork and nobody knows why and they go back and turns out that the grandmother or the great grandmother had a pan that was too small everybody else thought there was some other reason you know or why they were doing it so that that kind of takes place where maybe we’ve developed a tradition it’s going to take a while for that knowledge bearing important tradition to die out because it no longer has a use okay yeah
[00:22:32] Blue: and it’s not always obvious why traditions exist sometimes their knowledge bearing in ways we didn’t it didn’t understand okay
[00:22:39] Red: so there’s a lot of I mean if you think about all the things that go on in a family the dynamics there’s there’s a lot of traditions one after another and you know it’s hard to if you want to destroy everything that your or change everything that happens in a family I mean well maybe maybe it’s for the best but easier said than done right so
[00:23:07] Blue: okay so with that in mind when I’m raising my kids I put a limit on their screen time yeah and this is the exactly how strongly put a limit to an open question right I think a lot of times you put the limit but you also put really fuzzy boundaries around the limit because the limit is almost more like a threat that it will get enforced if the privilege gets abused right so that’s probably more realistically what we’re doing we got this limit on screen time but it doesn’t always get enforced the kids know it doesn’t always get enforced we’ve even explained to them like you know we don’t care so much as long as you’re also doing your school work or doing something that is we feel is going to be moving you towards self being able to take care of yourself when you’re old enough you know things like that right um and so a lot of it does come down to ultimately a relationship with the child and you’re trying to do your best with the child and children don’t always do the wisest things and
[00:24:16] Blue: there’s you know I know if you’re coming from David Deutsch background you may at this point say well you know who are you as the parent to be the authority to decide what’s best for the child well you know I kind of it’s a valid point it is a valid point it’s not a fully valid point right it’s the idea that parents don’t sometimes actually know what’s best for the child maybe even often just isn’t true right and so there’s if we made a blanket rule the parent never gets to try to influence the child you know that would be a very bad rule that would be turning off the means of error correction right so we’re looking for what’s the best way to do this and maybe it’s not obvious right away what’s the best way
[00:25:00] Red: yeah
[00:25:00] Blue: so I’ve got this child in particular who is one of the one only ones that I enforce it with on a regular basis because he just does nothing but play video games and he won’t get his homework done and he won’t he never wants to be around anybody else and he kind of disappears right
[00:25:21] Red: yeah
[00:25:22] Blue: so I enforce this he gets a certain amount of video games but then he doesn’t get to play more video games at least until he finishes his homework or whatever and when he grows up he’s now an adult and by the way I would point out that it wasn’t ineffective that when we would take away the video games like that he would in fact then go do his homework and what soon as it was done maybe we’d let him reward him with more video games or something like that and
[00:25:53] Blue: he made it through high school and he probably wouldn’t have right now you know we can talk about whether I should have put my kids into high school or not that’s like a probably a totally different podcast but I was going to do it at the time and I was a traditional parent and and I don’t think school is an unvaluable tradition even now I do not believe school is an invaluable an unvaluable tradition yeah so I have a more complicated view of it now but you know I don’t really entirely disagree with my younger self on this one so he grows up and he has a girlfriend who doesn’t want him to play video games and keeps telling him video games are bad for him and he shouldn’t be playing them and it’s really kind of a strong sign that this girlfriend maybe isn’t the best for him she’s controlling she’s kind of manipulative she’s got these ideas that I don’t agree with and he’s talking with me about it and he goes I know I shouldn’t be playing video games because video games are bad for you I go why do you think that I’ve never told you they’re bad for you and he goes I thought you said they were bad for you I’m like I’ve never said that he says well but you always limited me I’m like oh my gosh that’s the lesson he came away with and it’s like oh
[00:27:11] Red: well you know I had a similar I think probably when I was getting into David Deutsch sort of just coincided for me like I alluded to before with really questioning how I was handling this with my own children you know we used to kind of do the same thing you did where we’d set the timer and they only get this much bad I just I was just getting so sick of being the springtime police that it just didn’t seem like a good thing to our relationship and I will say that letting that go was completely positive for my family I would say I mean not that it doesn’t have downsides too like I said it kind of gets under your skin when you see your kids just like watching these mindless TikTok videos or whatever but you know so I can’t but you know at the same time
[00:28:05] Blue: I can’t really convince myself that it would have been better just to hand my three year old a ipad and just say just do what you want don’t go outside don’t play games don’t you know okay so let’s talk about that let’s talk about what the concern is here and to what degree it is or isn’t warranted if that makes sense I want to kind of for those who are listening to the show who are parents that do enforce rules with their kids first of all no problem this is between you and your kids I am not in any way telling a pen for those who don’t who decide you know what I’m gonna let my kids I’m gonna be non -coursive with my kids no problem I completely am not here to judge you in the slightest either way but let’s talk about the underlying concern here so you made an interesting point that Dwight doesn’t look at any of the literature on the subject instead he’s comes up with this idea about what human beings are like well
[00:29:13] Red: I think he would probably question a lot of the assumptions behind the literature almost behaviorism and psychology and you know if you’re not if you just don’t find that convincing then it’s just not like what you’re gonna base your life on you know
[00:29:30] Blue: okay but by the time this podcast episode airs I have now made the statement reason as severe testing and somewhere in one of our past podcasts maybe several ago by the time this one comes out so I’m gonna challenge that a little on the one hand I get where he’s coming from and I’m not even saying he’s wrong okay but reason is severe testing so if you’re going to ignore all of that literature and you’re going to ignore an entire body of work out there okay let’s even assume you’re right to ignore it okay because it is in fact wrong okay you don’t get to under critical rationalism just decide it’s wrong offer me an explanation and not test okay you must come up with ad hoc non ad hoc explanations that are testable and I do see that as a problem not just on this one where I largely agree with him but I’ve seen him do the exact same thing in areas where honestly I think he’s just wrong okay and that he’s animal intelligence would probably be the most obvious one here where he’s ignored an entire body of evidence that I don’t think if he actually engaged he’d have even the slightest chance of overcoming in a testable way right
[00:30:47] Blue: so I do think that’s a problem like it may be that that we’re right that this idea of non coercion with humans that video games are great teaching tools that may all be true but we should have a little bit of doubt about that right even if it’s even if we’re ultimately right we should kind of know that our theories need to survive severe testing and if there is a body of evidence out there that is saying video games is harmful then it’s really upon us to figure out what’s wrong with those not to just dismiss them oh that’s behaviorism oh that’s psychology psychology universal explainer so therefore all psychology is wrong which by the way we’ve covered in this podcast is a false idea right because beings can influence us strongly right does genes influence you to want to eat through hunger oh heck yeah it does right so yeah right there counter example we now know universality does not mean genes do not influence you maybe even strongly okay you know pain do you do you dislike pain and then I know people will at this point say well there’s somebody out there who learns to not care about pain okay how often does that happen right yeah I’m not denying we’re universal explainers and that with the right knowledge we can change ourselves but it’s not necessarily easy right it’s it may be incredibly rare it may be incredibly hard to obtain that knowledge you know it may be something that just isn’t going to happen in your lifetime for you yeah
[00:32:19] Red: right yeah
[00:32:20] Blue: okay so we might as well just admit genes influence us then because that’s what this means right the fact that you can show me a counter example to that was making an assumption that the fact that there are counter examples shows we are universal explainers the fact that there are so few shows that the genes do influence us and that those two are not in contradiction to each other so because of that I do feel a little skepticism here at the idea that we can just wave it all away in this case though I think he’s probably largely right and now that’s just my own bias and so I’m putting it out there I do want to know what’s wrong with the studies in video games and I want to know how to modify those studies to test to be show a different result right and I if I don’t know how to do that then I’m going to reserve myself at least a little I may have an opinion I may have a strong opinion but I’m going to withhold and I’m going to admit I could be wrong that’s fallowism right and
[00:33:14] Red: I think there are other ways to argue you know I looked at some some articles that were criticizing some of the interpretation of the data that Jonathan height relies on and you know he’s probably a little more down on social media even he literally thinks I think he’s literally said that social media is going to destroy our country if it’s not addressed I guess by the government intervention and you know he doesn’t seem to like video games much either so it’s an extremely what to me seems like an extreme I mean maybe it’s realistic but it’s an extremely pessimistic view but there are people who who really question his interpretation of the data too and kind of take it at more that level so I think it might be pretty questionable in my opinion but
[00:34:06] Blue: yeah so I have never looked into this so let me just say that I also think it’s at least somewhat questionable I suspect there is some problems there though right so if I they’ve done causal studies where they’ve tried to work out do video games make you more violent if you’re playing violent video games that is yeah and they found that there was some causal effect now I don’t every time I bring this up with people who like video games and I love video games I love video games right I play them all the time I went through a period of not playing them but it was just because I had a health problem that stopped me and now I’ve overcome that I’m gone back to playing video games again it’s one of my favorite activities and I spend tons of time on it like I do not limit myself on video games right but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t potentially a problem right I would like to know if there is I would like to know if violent video games does across the population lead to violent behavior yeah
[00:35:07] Red: well you know we talked about a moral panic earlier and I was reflecting on a moral panic that what I perceive to be a moral panic that I grew up in which was during the 80s where people had a perception that our society was becoming more and more violent which it was to be fair I mean the homicide rate was skyrocketing for various reasons maybe the crack epidemic or whatever you know people had a perception that well oh yeah all this all these movies are becoming so violent and all this and my my parents wouldn’t let me watch a lot of these movies now like I think I don’t know I would hesitate to say it’s because I wasn’t allowed to watch these movies that I I love so many of them today it
[00:35:57] Blue: might be that might be
[00:35:58] Red: yeah I mean you know I think of my favorite movies you know my favorite actors probably Arnold Schwartz and Edgar and I love Conan the Barbarian
[00:36:07] Blue: really call him Vader I mean come on he plays Arnold Schwartz Digger
[00:36:11] Red: fair enough but he did it well he did it well we can consider the quality of these movies that he was in back to back in the 80s it’s it’s quite amazing they stand up to the test of time and that’s
[00:36:26] Blue: okay because Kevin Costner only plays Kevin Costner and he does a great Kevin Costner you could say that about amazing Kevin Costner
[00:36:33] Red: yeah but anyway I maybe that’s one of the reasons I still love these movies is because they were kept for me I don’t know but you know now it’s kind of like I don’t think that I think it’s more obvious to people that you know people can people know the difference between real and fantasy and that the vast majority of can consume violent media and not become affected by it
[00:37:00] Blue: you know
[00:37:01] Red: I remember taking my son to the as just kind of a fun father I’m not like real into guns or anything but I took him to the shooting range it’s just kind of a fun father son thing and I was thinking that he might think like oh this is Fortnite or something like that it might have some kind of like all these games these first -person shooters might affect his attitude toward it no he he I mean it was very a very intense experience for him to shoot this gun IRL and to be around you know other people with guns it was it was the difference between that in Fortnite did not think he was in Fortnite
[00:37:42] Blue: so let me make a case here though just so that we can understand where people are coming from even if we don’t agree
[00:37:49] Red: with them
[00:37:50] Blue: do advertisements influence people like commercials on television back when we had commercials on television well
[00:37:56] Red: they must a little bit at least
[00:37:59] Blue: okay you can’t really make the case that they don’t influence people like in fact McDonald’s there’s a story I’ve never checked to see if it’s apocryphal or not maybe it’s just apocryphal but that McDonald’s was thought that their brand was so strong that they wondered if they still needed to advertise so they stopped advertising in one city and sales dropped off I mean
[00:38:20] Blue: I don’t that doesn’t surprise me in the slightest of course advertising makes a difference this idea that advertising that just totally doesn’t influence you just can’t possibly be true okay if we accept that then the idea that we portray certain kinds of violence or whatever in media and that’s going to impact culture must have some truth to it now the question is like what does that mean for an advertisement to influence culture if I to make a Lexus commercial only one in maybe a million people who watch that commercial are going to be influenced by a Lexus due to that commercial right it doesn’t have to be much for the sales to suddenly be worth it so it may be a very small amount okay but what if that were true for violence like what if the vast majority of people were completely unaffected by violence in video games but what in a million thought that real guns were Fortnite and when I started shooting people okay I would want to know that right that would be a legitimate thing for us to study and to want to find out okay and so this is why I’m not advocating for the outcomes of the studies every study is tentative of course especially if you’re dealing with anything with human nature right it’s right it always depends on culture it always depends on lots of factors we don’t understand
[00:39:45] Blue: so that there’s going to always be issues around that but I’m completely against the idea that we just dismiss the attempt to try to use science on these questions because if we can figure out if advertisements affect people then we can figure out if violent video games affect people and I want to know how and I want to know how much I want to know if there’s something we can do about it if there’s a problem if there’s something we can do about it I don’t know I have much else to say I’m not assuming it does strongly impact us I don’t know how it’s similar or different from advertisements like there’s tons of questions I have but I considered the question legitimate if that makes any sense and I’m unwilling to dismiss the question I want to actually get to an answer on it and I’m okay with whatever answer that is I also think that let’s say we found out that violence in TV or video games did raise levels of violence let’s say we did find that for sure that there’s a causal impact I would still have a question as to whether that would mean we should do away with it so let me give you a real life example of this one that is actually well understood and well studied we know for sure that watching a news story about a suicide raises the suicide rate like they’ve done tons of studies on this if you do a news story and it’s a local news the suicide rate will jump a lot just where that news story was broadcast if you do it across the nation it’ll jump across the entire nation
[00:41:14] Red: yeah it’s similar if there’s a suicide at a school they usually don’t make a big deal about it and take assembly and all this because there’s always the danger of a copycat suicide
[00:41:28] Blue: so this is a case where media is well known and easily testable that media does harm okay and yet I’m still not sure I’m okay with just deciding some rule that we’re not going to talk about suicides on the news yeah right because there may be enough benefit of open communication there is enough benefit of open communication and freedom of the press and things like that that we’re going to have to accept the negative harmful impact of that kind of media because it’s or
[00:42:03] Red: the school I was going to make a comparison to the school shooting issue too I mean I think that Pinker even suggests that the media should the best thing to do about these school shootings or just mass shootings in general is just to stop publicizing these shooters as much and looking into their motivations and all that it’s probably true but at the same time like people want to know there’s almost like a right to know of curiosity of like what who are these people why are they doing this this kind of thing so yeah I don’t know what the right
[00:42:35] Blue: answer is so okay so relating this then back to video games and our video games harmful
[00:42:43] Blue: even if they are harmful and they might be certain types of violent video games I’m saying I’m not saying they are by the way I’m just simply being open minded about it as a question I’m not sure that that’s reason enough to remove them like the fact that somebody else’s child one in a million it’s gonna have it’s gonna cause them to go shoot somebody it’s gonna have a causal factor in causing them to go shoot somebody that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t let my kids play video games like it doesn’t mean that at all right yeah and so I think wanting to know the answer to the question wanting to understand it is legitimate but the answer is going to turn it to be it’s complicated even and that’s even assuming that there is a negative which there may not be right it may turn out that like one of the things that the causal studies I was aware of with video games they pointed out that like you can find the same effect by watching football football’s kind of violent both of them raise your adrenaline levels and maybe raising adrenaline levels leads to more violence but it’s got nothing to do with whether you perceive the violence in the game or not right and so this complicates things this means that it might have an impact but for totally different reasons than you’re assuming right or something along those lines it may not be worth removing if what would be the point of removing video games from kids if watching football has the exact same impact right and you’re a football fan it would just be weird now you really are just being biased so on the one hand I consider it a fair question on the other hand
[00:44:25] Blue: you have to ask the question even if it were true how much would this actually change my opinion much yeah I’m going to stop on the video game in violence because I think that what I just said probably about as far as we can go at this point there’s so much that’s unknown and even if it does turn out that it has a harmful effect it’s hard for me to believe that that would mean
[00:44:43] Red: we need to do away with violence in video games
[00:44:45] Blue: I think the stronger concern is so let me see if I can David Deutch says if you look at it closely the evidence boils down to the evidence for why parents think video games is bad for children boils down to no more than the fact that children like video games this seems to be a very common tendency among parents to regard children liking something as prima facie evidence that it is bad for them if they are spending a lot of time doing something parents wonder what harm it must be doing them I think this is fundamentally the wrong attitude now I can’t say that there’s never been a parent who has thought that way and there’s enough crazy parents out there you probably could find a parent who actually does think that way but I doubt you would find many now you might argue here well it’s subconscious okay but if we’re talking about subconscious then do we really know for sure that anybody’s thinking that way like maybe maybe not like to say if you look at it closely kind of implies like we’ve looked at it in terms of studies and we’ve done experiments and we’ve done reason as severe testing and I really don’t think that that’s what’s going on here I think that Deutsch is explaining his own personal conjecture on the subject right um
[00:46:04] Blue: I think the real concern like if you were to actually as a parent who’s felt this way talking to parents who feel this way I think the concern actually goes something like this right that there that there is the potential or so they believe that um the child will become so interested in video games and nothing else that they will end up not gaining certain kinds of skills that are actually necessary for that child to end up being successful in the market in the job marketplace later in life okay furthermore we all know of cases where with adults that has actually happened right now I want to point out it’s not very common but I have known adults and talked with adults who lost their marriage or lost their job because they spent too much time playing video games and they could not stop playing this video game and they stayed up all night then they couldn’t perform at work and that’s an adult right yeah so I know for a fact that there are some human beings where video games become detrimental to them
[00:47:12] Red: yeah okay well I think that leads leads right into another important point that the article makes is that when you you might look around at the world and see like you said an adult that has lost their wife and lost their job and they’re just playing video games all the time or you might you know but then it would be easy to make the assumption that it’s because of the video games but you could also be looking at a very troubled person for all kinds of reasons and it could actually be a good thing that that person has that outlet to play video games I think you’re right that it’s complicated and you could say the same thing about about a kid I mean it’s yes troubled kids might spend all their time playing video games it might be better if this kid was studying quantum mechanics and you know pursuing chess or whatever but like that’s just not where their mind is at there they have problems and they need an outlet can I read a small section of the article
[00:48:22] Red: could it be harmful suppose a child is for some reason unhappy with his situation his home life or school whatever and he has very few creative outlets playing video games is such a good thing in this respect that if he finds it and finds other avenues blocked off he may devote all his attention to it later if his circumstances change he may not be as open to taking up other opportunities as he might have been if that is so it is not the video game that is doing him harm it is that he has been funneled down a blind alley and not let out the thing to do is to let them out not to steal his last remaining source of joy and learning if someone is in that state just like with any compulsive behavior the cure is simply to offer him other things which he might prefer there will be some things which he prefers nobody actually spends 24 hours a day playing video games so in the remaining time try conversation try anything if that does not work don’t blame the video game be thankful that there is still something good in the child’s life to tide him over say
[00:49:30] Blue: yes I think that is exactly what I am talking about you have this concern that the parents have which I am going to declare a legitimate concern at least a concern that needs to be legitimately addressed what if my child and we talk about video game addiction I need to take a moment to talk about the word addiction so I can explain something about this so video games are not addicting in the clinical sense because they have no withdrawal symptoms and things like that now I have had people say to me video games are not addicting when people claim video games are addicting they are just wrong they don’t know what they are talking about I want to point out to people who say that that they are wrong because the word addiction existed long before the clinical definition of addiction it meant enslaved to something that is just what the term means from back in the laden or whatever I don’t remember GUIK laden from
[00:50:26] Red: a certain perspective all kinds of things are addicting that’s right we say chess or love all of it
[00:50:33] Blue: it makes sense that doctors took an existing word addiction that meant something and turned it into a more narrow use clinically right but it would be a mistake to then say anyone who isn’t using the term clinically is therefore using the term wrong that is wrong the word had a history far before doctors existed modern doctors existed I’m sure doctors have been around for forever but which doctors don’t count so because of that when somebody says I’m worried about video game addiction what they really mean is the person is going to be enslaved like these adults who lost their marriage or lost their job they’ve seen it happen they’ve seen somebody’s life be they think damaged by this video game and they’re worried about their child what if the video game I don’t care that it’s not addicting like a drug that’s not even what I mean to begin with I’m just worried they’re going to become enslaved to it and that it will they’ll end up living with me forever in their mother’s basement and they’ll be incapable of getting married and having their own life and they’ll have a miserable life and this does sometimes happen right so you can’t say it’s a completely unwarranted worry now I feel like Deutsche’s answer is good here he’s pointing out that well don’t confuse correlation with causation there’s a lot more you need to ask now having said that let me point out that I have talked with adults who have said yeah I lost my job and that was a wake up call so now I don’t play video games because that’s allows me to not become addicted to the video game and I can I’m a better father now okay
[00:52:24] Red: well they made a rational decision for themselves that’s right there’s nothing wrong with deciding not to play video games okay
[00:52:30] Blue: but I would be hard -pressed to say that in that case it wasn’t the video game right so to take the stance it can’t be the video game don’t take away the video game it is so again I feel like we’re talking about such margin cases here like how many adults do I know that have actually lost their job because of video games like I think I think one you know or two you know I mean like it surely isn’t a super common maybe
[00:52:56] Red: they didn’t like their jobs very much though
[00:52:57] Blue: that could be right it’s well I think that the larger point it is as Deutsche points out is that humans are not laboratory rats and we don’t react like laboratory rat rats you know there’s this assumption I think baked into so many of these psychological studies is that we can we’re just creatures who are just manipulated by the world rather than knowledge creators as David Deutsche defines human beings and growing up is a process of
[00:53:33] Blue: knowledge growth that’s what that’s what I mean living is I guess in general but you know especially when you’re a kid that that’s that’s what you’re doing you’re acquiring knowledge about the world one more short part about the addiction thing though they because he addresses this directly she asked him about the addiction I think that it’s completely untrue the only evidence that video games are addictive is that people play them all this talk about excess energy and being drawn in and so on is not what the scientists would call experimental data the data is that the child is playing the video game that is the only thing you can know for a fact you can’t see this drawn in business that is just an interpretation parents put on what is happening pure theory based on their own preconceptions I am not making a value judgment here I am just stating the fact my judgment is that these preconceptions are wrong and that children play video games because they instinctively recognize their educational value he talks in another part about how the games do have a lot of they teach you how to think I guess right not not what to think which is part of their their value I mean I think there’s something to that so okay and this is actually the one thing I feel critical of David Doichon so
[00:54:50] Red: okay
[00:54:50] Blue: he says here’s the quote people are so much more complicated than the simplistic theories of what influences them human beings are not laboratory rats and do not react like laboratory rats look at Eastern Europe where they used to control what everybody read and gave them a constant diet of Marxist propaganda which they had had to learn by heart and repeat with eagerness in their voices in spite of all that it did not rub off on the overwhelming majority of them and even those people are rapidly regretting it okay so he’s pointing out that you can’t
[00:55:21] Red: influence people so easily okay but
[00:55:25] Blue: then in a paragraph right before he’s talking about why women don’t like video games and his explanation is it is an effect it is an effect down a long chain of cause and effect which began with things like being dressed in pink costumes when they were babies the whole pattern of behavior towards girls rewards her for suppressing her creativity one of the unpleasant side effects of this is that it makes girls suppress the side of them which would like video games the reason why this effect is more marked in video games is that video games is so well suited for the development of creative skills okay that’s a clear contradiction to what he
[00:56:01] Red: just said right it’s yeah I’m not sure I completely agree with that
[00:56:04] Blue: so now I’m not I’m not sure which one of those two is true though right it could be that he’s right that that we are influencing women to not be creative and that’s why they don’t like video games and that’s why they don’t go into science
[00:56:18] Red: or maybe they’re just creative in other ways or maybe they’re just creative
[00:56:21] Blue: in other ways okay like I don’t really know like I consider that a fair question I’m not saying which is wrong I’m not saying is right but if he is right then that would be an example of how we are strongly influenced by things by culture so you can’t have it both ways right yeah my guess is that sometimes we are strongly influenced by culture and sometimes we aren’t and we don’t quite yet know what causes us to be strongly influenced by some things and some things we aren’t and I don’t know what it is either right it’s this this is something that we don’t understand how the human brain works well enough to understand it
[00:56:58] Red: yet
[00:56:58] Blue: or maybe I’m wrong maybe nothing influences us much and women actually don’t like video games because women actually don’t like video games that could be right I don’t know so it’s this is one of those things where I felt like I needed to call that out though because they were like two paragraphs back to back and it’s like oh that’s like an outright contradiction right there hmm
[00:57:22] Red: well what’s Jonathan height says about the gender difference is that you know at least what he was saying a few years ago now he’s saying that now it sounds like he’s more down on video games but at least what he was saying four or five years ago was that video games weren’t that bad for you and it was really the girls and social media that was causing what he perceives to be a psychological health crisis where these young girls are chasing these clicks
[00:57:50] Blue: online but I mean all the same arguments I think you can make for letting kids letting boys play video games you can make for letting girls go on social media I mean aren’t they just following their their own desires about what they how they want to interact with the world and what they want to do and who are we to say as fallible parents that this is something that that they should shouldn’t be allowed to do you know I mean I guess I agree with that but I have maybe a little more mixed feelings too like you
[00:58:26] Blue: yeah so again I consider a legitimate question I want to know right I want to know is social media harmful on girls if so I want to know why it is I also want to know if maybe it’s not harmful but we’re measuring the wrong things you know I mean like I just want to know what the truth is right I’m open to any possibility here I admit that I feel some doubts about Jonathan Hyatt he’s got great studies I’ve never looked into them I’ve never looked in the counter studies I just I’m not interested enough because I honestly I don’t agree with it enough maybe it does just my bias coming out to even go look into it yeah I didn’t put any limits on my girls social media I did I sort of didn’t encourage them to go on it and I don’t think they really did until they were past the age that he said it was it was a problem since he thinks it’s not a problem for like girls in high school it’s really girls and junior I think I think I sort of remember reading in his book or whatever this idea though let’s let’s take a hard look at the idea itself okay should a child be allowed to drink alcohol
[00:59:36] Red: that’s yeah okay
[00:59:38] Blue: or or is there a reason why they’re better off to not start until they’re older
[00:59:43] Red: now
[00:59:44] Blue: they’ve got some science some maybe it’s pseudoscience but give some science behind this that there’s a problem with children drinking alcohol or taking drugs at too young age it’s not as severe past a certain age because the brain has developed developed at that point okay let’s I know that if you’re a follower of David Deutch you probably think all those studies are complete junk my opinion of having talked to the people who say that is that they don’t have any sort of non ad hoc explanations to back up what they’re saying so I think it’s an open question at this point if they actually did have good studies that could show why these studies are wrong and you know instead of just simply citing universality which far as I can tell it does not imply that there couldn’t be a developmental stage that you have to pass through for the reasons we’ve talked about on this podcast I think I would feel differently about people who are taking that stance now again I’m not trying to imply
[01:00:45] Blue: that we shouldn’t put shouldn’t allow girls on social media because even if it were true that we shouldn’t allow kids to take drugs and that it’s safer let’s not even say not allow because that’s even now getting to the question of how much coercion should parents be using let’s just say is it a negative for children to take drugs at a young age and let’s assume the answer is yes because most people think it is and there’s science that at this point reason is severe testing our best theory is that it is okay and the counter theories that exist that I’ve seen are ad hoc so I don’t count them as of today they need to become non ad hoc before I’m going to take them seriously okay so my best yes at this point my best explanation at this point is that there is something about developing minds and that we don’t want to give children alcohol or drugs or we want to discourage it as much as possible prior to a certain age okay that’s the current science it could be wrong because I’m a fallibleist alright but once I accept that well why couldn’t it be that there could be a mental health crisis caused by girls being introduced to social media too soon I know it’s a stretch right and I’m not saying it’s not I mean of course it’s a stretch okay and but this is what critical rationalism is all about right is whatever your gut tells you could just be wrong your gut is a source of conjectures not a consort not a source of inference
[01:02:16] Blue: and the fact that you personally feel like it shouldn’t back that I personally don’t think it’s an issue doesn’t mean I’m right you know we’re talking in a very theoretical way about something that is generally harmless video games but then you know you also kind of have to think about it in the extremes to I mean if you’re 14 year old daughter comes to you and tells you oh I’ve got a new boyfriend he’s 30 we’re doing fentanyl together and drinking right you’re not going to be like oh well I’m a foul who am I as a fallible right right I tell you not to do that oh yeah you know life is about making mistakes and learning from him I mean I’m
[01:03:04] Red: thinking even you Bruce are going to react pretty in a much more let’s say I’m not going to wait for the
[01:03:12] Blue: studies I’m not going to wait for the lines
[01:03:14] Red: with folk epistemology we’ll
[01:03:16] Blue: say that but you’re right you’re right I would I totally would okay this is actually one of the things is critical rationalism does have a big flaw compared to folk epistemology it’s the fact that critical rationalism reason as severe testing means that most of the time you can’t draw inferences so we use folk epistemology instead and it’s worked right it’s it’s you make a snap judgment based on your gut feel and you use your vibes and that’s just sort of how it works and it’s worked well enough right it’s the basians try to put a number to it but you know it’s we can talk about whether that’s a wise thing to do or not but it would appear that human beings are able to reason in terms of snap judgments and why they get a lot wrong that way they get enough right that it’s it’s effective and so you’re right I think that in a severe enough case it just doesn’t matter what the science says you’re going to go you know what my daughter is not getting a 30 year old boyfriend and they’re doing what did you say what was the drug dollar or something together like it’s just a bridge too far for me I’m done you know so I mean if for no other reason than because
[01:04:35] Blue: culturally and legally I’m legally responsible for my child right and so this there’s reasons why we have to do a separate podcast on what the reasons are for why that is we can discuss whether that’s right or wrong but the fact is is as of now I do have certain legal responsibilities for my children society is going to legally hold me responsible for it and so if nothing else I’m going to stop her because this is something that I do have a legal responsibility on at this point of course probably more has got to do with the gut feel that I think it’s wrong you know
[01:05:05] Red: yeah
[01:05:05] Blue: so okay your points completely fair and in many ways it sweeps away everything I’ve said up to this point where I’ve said let’s look at the studies you know okay so but we do have to look at it across time frame right that the study is legitimate but you probably aren’t making decisions based on the studies at least not initially you’re probably going with what you feel right and I guess this does in some ways get back to why are parents scared of video games right they know the guy who told them yeah I lost my marriage in my job because of video games I’m an adult so I had to quit and I had to intentionally decide to use my wisdom as an adult to change my life and not include video games so that I could be a productive member of society and maybe they only know the one guy right because it’s only happened one person they know in their life right and yet somewhere in the back of their mind there’s this gut feel they’re going with where they’re going what if that happens to be my child you know and it’s kind of this moral panic or scare and it’s not a completely unwarranted one because it’s already happened once in their life right yeah I mean it’s it’s a completely valid impulse to be afraid of these things I mean your kids can go wrong
[01:06:19] Red: a million different ways and yeah it’s parenting is very very scary thing in some ways but so
[01:06:26] Blue: I was going to say you know I have to now that I’ve said all that I’ve actually been building up to now kind of undermining the point okay have you ever read Don Coyote no I have not so the whole premise of Don Coyote is that he read too many books because back then novels were the video games of the day they were
[01:06:45] Red: yeah they corrupted oh yeah there were moral panics about novels they thought they were growing the minds of young people so
[01:06:51] Blue: he read too many novels and now he thought he was a fictional character
[01:06:55] Red: yeah so
[01:06:56] Blue: he goes around chasing windmills having delusions etc now of course we have to talk about whether we’re talking about the book where the outcome is negative or the movie the play Man of La Mancha where it actually shows that those those hallucinations he’s having are maybe better than the real thing and maybe even truer than what people say are the real thing okay if you I love the movie because it upends the original point of the book and points at it going the other direction okay so basically he goes around and he thinks he’s a knight and he meets a whore and he convinces her she’s a princess and in the end she ends up getting beat and raped because she thinks she’s a princess now she doesn’t really believe she is but she’s trying to act like one and it undermines her protection mechanisms and so you seem it seems like they’re going the way of the book that this is a bad thing that he is he’s having these hallucinations but in the end she realizes she does have the same worth as a princess and that it doesn’t matter who she is and that he is seeing her as she truly is and she actually encourages him to continue to see himself as a knight because he is in a some sense more a knight and a truer knight than what we would consider a real knight and she is in some sense a truer princess then even though she was this whore then what a true princess would be like and they kind of make you come back around and realize that the the falsehood the hallucination was the truth after all okay even even with the suffering it brought it was still worth it was kind of where it goes so they upend it so this is an example of how you can make one point going one way and then you can take the exact same story and you can flip it slightly and you can make an entirely opposite point right
[01:08:48] Red: yeah
[01:08:48] Blue: um but Dom Quixote they were trying they were trying to say novels are dangerous for you and it’s going to and it’s just it’s no one can even imagine saying that today oh no my kid is reading too many novels and you know maybe
[01:09:07] Red: maybe that will be the direction that this conversation and video games are going you know there’s nothing inherently wrong with escaping into another world yeah to quote j r r Tolkien on this fantasy is escapist and that is its glory if a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy don’t we consider it his duty to escape if we value freedom of mind and soul if we’re partisans of liberty then it is our plan playing duty to escape and to take as many people as we can with us and play minecraft
[01:09:41] Blue: I guess I completely agree and I know and all the arguments we’ve used with video games even the ones that I said we need to take them seriously they all apply to books what what if books are too violent
[01:09:53] Red: exactly yeah I mean there are real downsides to reading too much too you’re just sitting there doing nothing or not moving your body there
[01:10:01] Blue: are people who have destroyed their lives reading books sure
[01:10:04] Red: sure yeah yeah you know I think we should probably wrap this up soon but one more point I was going to make yeah you know when I would reflect upon my life and being a teenager and probably most of the people I knew not that I was exceptionally bad but I was doing you know relatively reckless things and you know people I knew were even worse you know they weren’t like spending their time learning about science and knowledge and you know work they weren’t using their time in a very good way we’ll say that and sometimes it was dangerous and to have this outlet where my sons can you know interact with their friends at home safely and you know get on the headset and have conversations and explore this digital world I mean you know maybe it’s not the best but it’s definitely not the first thing they could do and there are there is actually a lot of data speaking of data that indicates that lots of this dangerous behavior that children teenagers engage in I’m talking about sex and drug use and all this these are all going it’s all going down you know in a lot of ways children are making more responsible decisions than ever let me just end on an optimistic note here I am a you know for better for worse a public school teacher I know that makes me maybe a
[01:11:38] Blue: questionable
[01:11:40] Red: character to certain people but it’s
[01:11:43] Blue: but by the way I definitely don’t feel that way
[01:11:45] Red: it’s just I know you don’t I know you don’t this is the path I’ve chosen and this is what I’m doing and but you know I will tell you I’m with with children and you’re 15 year olds in a geometry classroom I spend several hours a day with them and they seem fine they’re happy rambunctious well adjusted people I don’t really like see them as you know some of the people who get really invested in these negative pessimistic narratives about about the about young people I wish they could spend a couple hours talking about geometry with with with teenagers sometimes or you know or other things I mean we all kinds of we have all kinds of interesting conversations but yeah they’re fine
[01:12:37] Blue: so I think that’s a great way to end and let me give my final thought that I want to kind of leave people with so one of the things David Deutch says is one of the ways you can tell that playing video games is not something which captures people and then holds them to their detriment is that each video game has only a finite lifetime and then he goes on to talk about how you go through a natural process of learning going through a learning curve and then when you’re not learning anymore you quit now that may well have been true back at the time of back when David Deutch wrote this article I want to point out that it just clearly isn’t true for some video games today specifically massively multiplayer online games
[01:13:19] Blue: where my daughter started playing Guild Wars when she was a little tiny girl because she wanted to dress the little girls and make characters and she still comes home every weekend so that she can play Guild Wars because it’s a game she’s still playing she’s an adult now right and so this this is clearly she’s gained the skills at this point right so why is she still playing okay I think what we you have to accept here is that massively multiplayer games they actually what they do is they do create a feeling of accomplishment you they encourage you to they figured out how to grasp into that feeling of accomplishment that is meant to help drive you through life and they reward you for playing their game by having these things that you want oh I’ve got this I need to get this cool looking sword that has this trailing butterflies or something and my daughter will spend enormous amounts of time playing the game and I did too for a while before I started to hurt playing the video games and going through this and then like something new comes out and then she kind of goes through a learning curve with that but then that comes to an end and they’ve got these end games the thing I would make a point here though and I’m not against this by the way right I can see how in rare cases it might turn into a bad thing and the guy I know who lost his job over video games it was it was massively multiplayer game right it was yeah it was specifically that he had fallen into an addictive behavior with a game where he was starting to feel like the accomplishments in the game were more important to him than the real accomplishments in real life and therefore he started losing his ability to take care of himself so I mean like you know this can happen but this is why you can never make any final pronouncements right is your average video game that’s not a massively multiplayer game it was about trying to teach you something and utilize that and now they have other things they do and there’s even been really clever ideas about how to create massively multiplayer games where we get kids addicted to these games addicted in the looser sense not the clinical sense but instead they get points for creating positive benefit in the world and there’ve been a number of video games that were written to do that right where they’re trying to utilize what we’ve learned from video games I don’t know how successful they were but you know at least for some kids that played the game it was very cool and they would go out and they would they would have they would gain points for creating you know doing going and doing something maybe even in real life or maybe using their skills as a programmer or something like that and creating positive benefits for the world and leveling up by doing that and you can see how in rare cases it might get hijacked like it might turn into I’m going to spend all my time on this video game and I lose my marriage and I lose my job and that’s bad like it really is bad okay because you shouldn’t be imposing
[01:16:22] Blue: taking your hobbies to the point where you’re imposing on the other people that are in your life right that is coercive for you to do that on the other hand it’s super rare and there’s nothing wrong with it in the vast majority of cases to use the example of the ads we can do specific interventions maybe for someone who has a is a case where it is addictive since that is so rare but
[01:16:47] Red: this is not the case with your daughter that’s
[01:16:50] Blue: right now having said that let me now give an example of my son I’ve mentioned I have an autistic son so many people will say oh but he’s different because he’s autistic okay I doubt there’s any clear cut boundary between being autistic and not you’re either you know more in it or more out of it I’m not considered autistic what we define as autistic keeps changing maybe someday I will be considered autistic you’re just a little different yeah as we all are
[01:17:21] Red: there’s a lot of gray area
[01:17:22] Blue: so like no one would consider me autistic today because I can read people’s emotions I can read their faces I can look into their eyes I can I’m completely socially capable I don’t do so well in text in a lower lower fidelity channel I struggle more but you know I do just as well as probably anybody maybe better than most as long as I’m face to face or whatever right and that’s why I actually prefer interact with people in that way is because then I can kind of read their emotions I can see if I’m making them uncomfortable with what I’m saying and I can kind of adjust things like that right whereas my son would struggle with that he would he would struggle even if he were talking to you in person and he’s got the no filter and things like that he’s an adult by the way so everything about to explain we’re talking about an adult child in this case not a child under the age of 18 and there’s a very real danger with him and he has acknowledged this to me at this point that if we coddle him too much and we just sort of let him play video games all day he does tons of screen time when he’s allowed to and he struggles with jobs because of his autism we had to find him a special job that was understanding of his autism and that was a way of getting him to learn to work and things like that he started liking earning money so now he does it that eventually led to him choosing to go
[01:18:52] Blue: back to school he had a two -year degree but he had intentionally dropped any hard classes to get that two -year degree and he ended up with a university studies degree and he wasn’t wasn’t willing to go try and do hard things and that was undermining his ability to find the kind of job that he wanted and he was struggling with understanding that that was the connection because of the autism so at some point we do have to interfere now we don’t he’s a he’s not a child we don’t have the ability to legally coerce him so what we actually did is we sat down with him and we said you are old enough you need to start paying rent and all our kids know that if they’re not full time in school that in theory they’re going to be paying rent and I said you know what I don’t care what you do as long as you are paying rent as long as you are being productive enough that you are adding to the family finances and taking care of things then if you want to get a part -time job is by the rest of your time playing video games I’m fine with that right yeah you do need to not be a burden on me that’s and
[01:19:56] Blue: he he understood that he’s like yep I don’t want to be like that and then he admits he goes my life’s just not really very good when I play video games all day like I’m depressed all the time I don’t feel good about myself I want to be developing skills you know there’s reasons why it’s hard for him and we acknowledge that but he really wants to move forward with his life he would like to eventually reach the point where he can leave home live by himself get married have kids have a normal life he’s very high IQ so he’s not a person with autism that’s a lower IQ or disabled level so there’s no reason why he couldn’t do all these things right if he can just kind of figure the emotional side out that is difficult for him because of his autism so paying rent
[01:20:47] Blue: was the thing that got him to really stop think and think you know what I don’t want to just spend my life playing video games and I can get away with I only reason why I can really get away with that is because I don’t pay rent so if I pay rent or at least if I decide I’m going to go back to school so I don’t pay rent because that’s the out he’s allowed then that makes sense because I’m an adult and that will drive me forward so he ended up not minding he kind of complained first and he paid some rent now we actually have paid I think almost all the rent back to him like we’ll then take the money and we’ll say we’ll give you this if you do this or something like that and we get him to do and so he kind of gives us the money that we then used to give back to him so I don’t think he’ll end up actually paying rent in the long run it’s more of a psychological thing but it caused him to say you know what I do want to go back to school and there’s other reasons why he did he went and he got some help from the state and he took a test and he thought about what he wants to do with his life and they kind of talked with him and coached him and and he decided I’m going to go back to school and I’m going to actually take hard classes now and I’m going to pursue an actual interest in graphic design and so he still plays lots of video games but now he plays a lot less because he has to go to school he has to do work and I think this is where parents are actually coming from they’re worried about their kid being like my son when he isn’t worried about paying rent right and that it is a self -destructive way to live your life and even he acknowledges that it is right and there is a real danger of that with some kids and therefore that’s why I say I’m just in no position to judge you right everything’s going to come down to the relationship between the parent and the child in this case it’s an adult relationship maybe all of our relationships with children should be more like an adult relationship okay but that doesn’t mean the child
[01:22:42] Blue: gets to just coerce you right they don’t just get a pass and that’s the way it is right and I do think and we can do a podcast on this sometime where I’ll explain my view on this further but at the end of the day I sort of did end up limiting his video games but I did it indirectly as an adult by saying you need to pay rent right you need to act like an adult you need to take care of your life at least this much and that was what got him to stop think and decide you know what I need to not spend so much time playing video games I need to go get a degree I need to get serious about getting a degree I need to get serious about getting a job and things like that and he’s had a lot of very positive changes he’s moving slowly because he’s autistic but he’s moving he is moving forward with his life right and I suspect at some point he will be completely independent of us like I see no reason at all that day won’t come right and this is in some sense me parenting him even though he’s technically an adult right and there’s nothing wrong with that that’s a very positive thing in this case so and I think most people probably even most people who were non -course of parents or something would probably say well you’re right he sort of does oh you rent and it is your house and it’s not really right for him to course you either you know and so we’re going to all those need to come into the conversation
[01:24:10] Red: yeah the no course and things is complicated when it lays out in a family I think that we both realize we have children have a family we’ll leave it at that for now but I would love to continue this this line of thought with you on another podcast
[01:24:30] Blue: let’s do that we’ll have to do a perian approach to parenting or something like that what I’ve learned from Popper on parenting I wish I had actually come across Popper and honestly non -course of parenting when I was younger because by the time I actually got to know about it and really think about it I only had like two of my kids were adults and the other two were late teenagers you know so I did end up implementing a number of things which I could talk about in a separate podcast that I did pull from Popper and that I think are really good ideas in terms of parenting that I haven’t heard talked about as much as I think it should get talked about and I did try them out with my kids near the end of life and it really turned out to be something very positive so no
[01:25:17] Red: I agree this this this philosophy has been extremely positive influence on the way I interact with my family and if I had to do my life over again and I discovered this when the kids were little I probably would have raised them in a much less traditional way well
[01:25:35] Blue: and that’s the value of having these alternative approaches to life even if you end up not agreeing with it even if you end up believing you know what the way that non -cursor parents handle things doesn’t really work for me which is fine if you think that right the very fact that it existed forced me to think about what am I just doing out of tradition and
[01:25:56] Red: to really start questioning my own traditions and then figuring out how to improve them and to error
[01:26:00] Blue: correct them and so that’s why I feel even if you end up never implementing it they’re valuable just to make you stop and think about things and this is the value of having diverse ideas
[01:26:12] Red: well thank you Bruce we could go on and on but this was supposed to be a short episode I don’t know if we’re capable of doing a short episode really but that’s okay it was fun for me and I hope our audience likes it thank you very much bye bye
[01:26:42] Blue: I hope you enjoyed this podcast to others so others can enjoy it as well to the best of our knowledge we’re the only podcast that covers all four strands of David Deutch’s philosophy as well as other interesting subjects if you’re enjoying this podcast please give us a 5 star rating on apple podcasts this can usually be done right inside your podcast player or you can google the theory of anything podcast apple or something like that some players have their own rating system and giving us a 5 star rating on any rating system would be helpful if you enjoy a particular episode please consider tweeting about us or linking to us on facebook or other social media to help get the word out if you are interested in financially supporting the podcast we have two ways to do that the first is via our podcast host site anchor just go to anchor.fm slash four dash strands f o u r dash s t r a n d s there’s a support button available that allows you to do reoccurring donations if you want to make a one -time donation go to our blog which is four strands dot org there is a donation button there that uses PayPal thank you
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