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Games Entertainment

Why Do Computer Games Claim Lives? 321

Posted by Zonk from the i-blame-stupidity dept.
Ektar wrote to mention an article from Chosun, a Korean newspaper, asking the question why do videogames claim lives? The article is in response to some recent high profile gamer deaths. From the article: "Apparently rare overseas, such cases make frequent headlines in Korea. Why? Experts point to the poor environment of the 'PC bang' or Internet cafes that have mushroomed nationwide. Generally dark and poorly ventilated, they cater to gamers who tend to smoke heavily. The bad air and light can increase the danger of sudden death, experts warn."
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Why Do Computer Games Claim Lives? More

Why Do Computer Games Claim Lives?

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  • Seems obvious to me (Score:5, Funny)

    by gizmonic ( 302697 ) * on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:41PM (#14281407) Homepage
    From TFA:

    On Dec. 8, a 38-year-old man died suddenly after playing Internet games for 20 straight days at an Internet café, sustaining himself solely on instant noodles.

    I think we just nailed it in this case. What's the mystery?

  • The game did it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:44PM (#14281425) Homepage Journal
    Gotta love the shift of responsibility.

    I take it the game just reached out on its own volition and killed the people?

    Thats as bad as saying "the SUV ran over the child", or " a gun shot the teller during the holdup".

    Cant anyone take responsibility for their own actions any more?

    • Re:The game did it. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:55PM (#14281508)

      Ok, I ran over the child in my SUV after I shot the clerk with a gun.

      You people just won't let me forget about that, will you?

    • Re:The game did it. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:56PM (#14281513) Journal
      In these people's cases, I think it's fair to say the game did it to them. They're kinda like a lab rat pressing a lever to get more cocaine.

      Like the majority of gamers I know I've occassionaly gone without a night's sleep because i was up gaming. These guys are doing the same thing... but to an extreme.

      Fundamentally, it's a compulsion just like gambling, food, drugs (alcohol/harder stuff) or sex can be.

      And most of the aforementioned things aren't usually considered to be 'addictions' until they begin having a negative effect on your life.

      Games are to those gamers, what heroin is to a junky. And they ODed.

      • Re:The game did it. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Kohath ( 38547 )
        If you're addicted to something, it may not be your fault ... but it's your problem. And you're responsible to get the problem fixed. No one is required to help you or make it easier for you.

        Our society of no responsibility (created by lawyers, so they can make money off of every single thing that harms a person, every time it happens) allows addicts a whole range of excuses they can use instead of fixing the problem.

        • Re:The game did it. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @07:35PM (#14281753) Journal
          Drug use can instill some very very low level urges in a user.

          Even after you've weened a druggie off the physical dependence they had on their drug of choice, you still have to deal with the psychological dependence.

          Former users get cravings just from walking by a building they used to do drugs in, or seeing a person they used to hang out with while doing drugs.

          A psychological dependence is much harder to break.

          And you're responsible to get the problem fixed. No one is required to help you or make it easier for you.
          I'm not sure what country you're from, but some countries have this concept of 'the public health'. You might be shocked to know that in some countries, accepting addiction is not something that the government considers to be in the best interests of 'the public health'.

          Not to mention when the destructive behaviors that addicts begin to manifest start spilling over and affecting other people. So while nobody is required to help you, and it is your problem, it is in society's best interest to keep you from wreaking havoc on other people's lives.

          People like you deserve to get held down and injected with heroin. It might not be your fault you're addicted, but let's see how easy it is to fix your problem .

          FYI- Nicotine is more addictive than most if not all street drugs. Some people quit and some people can't.

        • Our society of no responsibility (created by lawyers, so they can make money off of every single thing that harms a person, every time it happens) allows addicts a whole range of excuses they can use instead of fixing the problem.

          Hey, let's call these people irresponsibility addicts! Then we can blame the lawyers for getting them hooked on quick money for being irresponsible!

          On a slightly more serious note, therein lies the whole philosophical conundrum: to prevent what appears to be an easily prevent

        • Re:The game did it. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Pyrion ( 525584 )
          Except in the case of video games, as with all other "addictions" that don't rely on foreign substances, it's completely your fault.

          Why?

          Simple. There's no foreign substance being ingested, inhaled or injected. If there are any chemicals being consumed within your body perpetuating the "addiction", they're also chemicals being produced entirely within your body. That's assuming it's a chemical addiction in the first place.

          If it's merely psychological, then only you hold responsibility for what goes on in you
          • ### There's no foreign substance being ingested, inhaled or injected.

            The throuble is that the body is quite good at producing the addiction causing substances all by himself. It doesn't really make that much of a different if you get addicted to some foreign substance or your own body chemicals, in the end you end up with a good chemical imbalance in your body and have great throuble breaking away from the patterns you have learned to produce said substances.

            ### If it's merely psychological, then only you h

      • Re:The game did it. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Bogtha ( 906264 )

        I think it's fair to say the game did it to them. They're kinda like a lab rat pressing a lever to get more cocaine.

        Lab rats don't have the intelligence to say to themselves "You know what? Maybe playing a game for twenty days straight isn't a good idea". Human beings do. Or, at least, if they don't, maybe it's a good thing that they get chucked out of the gene pool.

        The grandparent had a point. Why shouldn't we hold these people responsible for their own actions? They aren't rats, they are peo

        • We don't know this guy was "mentally retarded". He could have had serious trauma that made him want to escape reality in this way.

        • Re:The game did it. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @08:56PM (#14282125) Journal
          Once you break the physical addiction, you still have a psychological one to deal with.

          That is the reason that most addicts go back to using. Not because their body craves sex/drugs/gambling/food but because they can't quiet the mental urge which is constantly saying "i want it."

          Yes, some people can quit cold turkey without ever looking back, but some people can't. Not because they're weak willed, but because their brain is wired funny.

          I wonder how many of the people opening their mouths and saying "addicts should be responsible" have actually had to deal with an addiction in their own life. Or watch someone very close to them do self destructive things & refuse to stop

          And I don't mean "i crave chocolate," I mean "I weigh 500 lbs, why can't i stop eating" or "I look like a skeleton, why can't I stop taking meth"

          These people aren't stupid, but they usually do benefit from AA/SA/NA at the min and institutionalization at the most extreme.

        • ### Lab rats don't have the intelligence to say to themselves "You know what? Maybe playing a game for twenty days straight isn't a good idea". Human beings do.

          What makes you believe so? Humans might have a little bit more brain then a rat, but they get addicted in pretty much the same way. Its one thing to come up with the idea "plenty of gaming is not good for you", but its a whole different manner to actually stop playing so.
      • "In these people's cases, I think it's fair to say the game did it to them."

        No. These people did it to themselves.

    • Re:The game did it. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cnettel ( 836611 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @07:04PM (#14281563)
      Well, maybe the game didn't, but obviously the gamer's love for (or obsession with) the game DID.

      I think the situation is similar to several possibilities to die from drug use, where the real reason for death is not a physiological reaction outside the brain, or even a brain collapse, due to the substance, but rather the fact that the substance keeps you from keeping yourself in a living condition.

      As I noted in another comment, this seems to be connected to the cafe gaming environment, which maybe makes the enjoyment more intense (or whatever, I don't really know). If it is that way, then we can just ask(/regulate) the shopkeepers to pay some attention to what their customers are doing.

      If a game was released that really, with total certainty, made anyone who played it so obsessed with it that IV feeding always ended up as the only option, then I would think it would make total sense to stop it. It's not unreasonable to think that it would be possible to create something that triggered the general human nervous system that intensely, either.

      Before that, it's a matter of distributing the blame. It's reasonable (without more detailde information) to place most of the blame on the poor suckers who died, but that doesn't mean that everyone who would have been able to do something about it, but didn't, should feel good about themselves. If, for example, a MMORPG allows continous login for 48 hours, that sounds like a stupid idea, even from the simple "stop the bots" perspective. If it can stop one or two involuntary suicides, that's quite nice, too.

      • If what you say is correct, and they really are that weak in the head, then good riddens.
      • no, allowing login times longer than 48 hours is not stupid, it isn't the publisher's duty to help players with time management. if anything it would be the internet cafe's responsability to ensure a safe environment and possibly to send people home if they look ill.
    • Well, if the child would have been run over by, say, a tricycle and if the teller would have been shot at with, say, a soccer ball, they'd still be alive. So obviously we should replace all SUVs with tricycles and all guns with soccer balls. That would also make traffic more ecological and I would be more interested in sports because there would be no way to differentiate between a soccer championship and an action movie series. Maybe they could even put some exploding tricycles on the playing field, that w
    • Weird, too. Nobody ever wants to shift the blame to the dead - which is where it bleongs in this case.

      Seriously. Who plays a videogame for 20 days straight?? I've been a gamer since childhood, and the best I've done is 72 hours - and hell, that wasn't even gaming, it was programming.

  • Life claims lives (Score:5, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:45PM (#14281430)
    Why does this surprise anyone. Everything in life "claims lives." Driving claims lives. Taking a bath claims lives. Sitting on the couch claims lives.


    I'm not even a gamer and I can tell this is just another example of sensationalist journalism.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:46PM (#14281440)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Because it gets reported (Score:5, Insightful)

    by damiam ( 409504 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:48PM (#14281449)
    People die all the time while laying in beds. No one publishes an article every time it happens, wondering "why beds claim lives". Yet every time someone dies while playing a game, it's big news. Never mind that they've chosen to go for days without eating, drinking, or sleeping; apparently it was the game that killed them.

  • Average gamer? (Score:4, Funny)

    by baryon351 ( 626717 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:48PM (#14281452)
    > they cater to gamers who tend to smoke heavily. The bad air and
    > light can increase the danger of sudden death, experts warn.

    And this is different to the den of the average console gamer how?

  • Why? It's obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eli Gottlieb ( 917758 ) <eligottlieb@noSpAm.gmail.com> on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:49PM (#14281460) Homepage Journal
    Videogames claim lives because the government wants to regulate video games.

  • It's next on the list (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:50PM (#14281464)
    Because dying of disease, infection, drowning, poisoning, hunger, thirst, and/or war is now rare.

    The longer you live, the more likely you are to die of something new. The newer it is, the more likely it gets your dead self in the newspaper.

    The more hype it gets in the news, the more people think it's more significant than getting hit by a car or falling out of a tree.

    Someone cries on TV. Lawyers get involved. New laws are passed that prohibit things. Life becomes a little less worth living. People resort to videogames to escape. And then...



    Maybe someday, we'll wise up and just allow people to make their own choices.

  • While death due to game addiction is still rare, many PC game players suffer from disorders of the musculoskeletal system related to repetitive strain such as pain in the wrist, shoulders and lower back

    Anyone would get that way sitting in front of a computer that long. I do. Why blame games exclusively?

  • They were low level players. (Score:5, Funny)

    by joelsanda ( 619660 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:55PM (#14281507) Homepage

    All good gamers know that you play until your hit points get low, rest, then come back. The period of time between resting grows longer as you level up.

  • More anti-game hype and idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by deacon ( 40533 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @06:57PM (#14281521) Journal
    From the summary



    Generally dark and poorly ventilated, they cater to gamers who tend to smoke heavily. The bad air and light can increase the danger of sudden death, experts warn."

    So the games themselves do not cause death. Instead, and unhealthy environment, poor nutritional habits, and general Lard-assed-ness cause death.

    Who knew?

    Next we will discover that video games don't make you kill others, and that guns just sit there unless some picks them up and uses them.

    What is this, Masters of the Obvious week?

    Feh.

  • I mean, isn't it obvious? The videogame's parents must not've given it enough attention during the early formative years. They probably let it watch as much TV as it wanted, eat junk food, read dirty magazines.

    Come on, let's stop passing the buck and put the blame squarely on the Super Mario cartridge and the X-Wing collector's edition CD who had unprotected sex on the dirty matress behind the YMCA.

    FOR SHAME!

  • Compulsive Behavior (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Trailwalker ( 648636 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @07:02PM (#14281554)
    I've seen several of these stories. The "victim" plays games to the exclusion of everything else.

    He neglects small health problems until they become life threatening. Lack of sleep, malnutrition, etc. add to these health problems.

    Suddenly, one less gamer.

    Any compulsive behavior could possibly lead to one's death.
  • So are these deaths statistically significant, or could I also claim that it wasn't the game but the simple fact of owning a gaming device? It seems that it's more a case of a few but fairly well publicized deaths. I mean I'm sure there are people who have died do to eating oranges, should we write articles about the horrors of oranges then?

  • It's not the games... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Voltageaav ( 798022 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @07:06PM (#14281576) Homepage
    It's the radiation from the monitors that killed them. Everyone stay away from computers, they'll kill you! No, wait! I'm on a computer! Aahhh!

    • But the Light from the Monitor is the only thing that keeps the Grues from killing you in your basement! Turn of the monitor and be eaten by a Grue, or leave it on and die of Radiation Poisoning... Oh, ours is a Cruel God!

  • The real connection (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Trigulus ( 781481 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @07:07PM (#14281582) Journal
    People commit suicide for many reasons. Most of them stupid (loss of love or wealth, failing at something) The gamer suicide probably stems from an unusually strong emotional investment and the subsequent loss of or failure at that which they so irrationally care so much about. It is no different than someone committing suicide over the loss of a girlfriend/boyfriend or for the older the loss of a job. The fact that it was gaming related is just a novelty.

  • Extremists (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tiberius_Fel ( 770739 ) <fel AT empirereborn DOT net> on Saturday December 17, 2005 @07:08PM (#14281592)
    As with anything, there are extremists in video games. Yeah, video game extremism is a little less written about than say, religious extremism, but there are some people who take everything to the extreme. And doing anything to the extreme can lead to serious injury or death, be it gaming, drinking, sports, what-have-you...
  • Other factors are mentioned by the article; I'm sure they're very valid. However, I suspect these problems are amplified by some other factors that, on their own, are relatively harmless or positive.

    Basically, people in south asian countries have, on average, very high IQs. The best data I have on South Korea is that the average IQ there is 106 (normalized on UK=100, where the US has an average of 98- http://www.isteve.com/IQ_Table.htm [isteve.com] ). That may sound wonderful, but with a high average IQ you get high IQ

    • Re:IQ, addictive personalities, and Korea (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Arcys ( 99663 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @07:40PM (#14281770)
      You can't compare IQ across populations. IQ is standardized on a population and then only predictive on that population. If the test had of been standardized on African-Americans, Asians would score below 100. Its all down to how good your culture is at answering the IQ questions picked. The source you picked is a bit suspect as at least one of the authors seems to have a racist agenda.

        " In 1991 I extended my work on race differences in intelligence to other races. I concluded that the average IQ of blacks in sub-Saharan Africa is approximately 70. It has long been known that the average IQ of blacks in the United States is approximately 85. The explanation for the higher IQ of American blacks is that they have about 25 per cent of Caucasian genes and a better environment." is a quote from R. Lynn's web page, and this is no where near the most blatant.

      Now I suspect you didn't go far enough in your research to find this, but just remember that IQ has long been used to justify racial superiority. When ever you see a cross cultural comparison based on IQ please consider the source.

      As for the rest of your post, as a psych student I would be very interested to see the correlation between intelligence and obsessive behaviour (of any kind). While it is a stereotype that more intelligent adolescents play video-games, I would need evidence to show that there is any causal relationship.

      • Re:IQ, addictive personalities, and Korea (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Raindance ( 680694 ) <johnsonmx@@@gmail...com> on Saturday December 17, 2005 @08:56PM (#14282126) Homepage Journal
        I'm not racist, I don't think IQ means anything incredibly important and I'm sure it's not the whole picture, and I think your response was lacking. Given that, here's my response.

        You can't compare IQ across populations. IQ is standardized on a population and then only predictive on that population. If the test had of been standardized on African-Americans, Asians would score below 100. Its all down to how good your culture is at answering the IQ questions picked.

        That's a pretty bold, sweeping assertion. IQ tests aren't perfect, but neither are they arbitrary. I'm going to call you on that. Do you have any sources supporting this? Especially given that ACT/SAT/GRE are largely IQ tests?

        The source you picked is a bit suspect as at least one of the authors seems to have a racist agenda.

        I won't apologize for a racist, if that's what he is (it's hard to tell), but the fact remains that this is an interesting question, he's one of the few compiling any sort of statistics, and I don't think you've made a good case on why his statistics are invalid. If you have counter-statistics, I'd love to see them. Basically, I think you might be attacking your stereotype of the misinformed racist layperson. I can understand that, since this is a touchy subject, but it's also an interesting subject if we can find a good way to discuss it.

        Now I suspect you didn't go far enough in your research to find this, but just remember that IQ has long been used to justify racial superiority. When ever you see a cross cultural comparison based on IQ please consider the source.

        I appreciate your point (though I think your suggestion that I "didn't go far enough" in my research was inappropriate- you don't know me, and I'm not calling your credentials into question), but taking this stance hinders any serious discussion about this issue. I don't conflate IQ with superiority, and acknowledge IQ has been mis-used in the past. It's also not what most people think it is, and isn't the whole picture of a person. *But* I think the burden is on you to prove that IQ measures *nothing* given the amount it's used in our society. The military uses extensive IQ testing, and ACT/SAT/GRE tests are basically IQ tests.

        As for the rest of your post, as a psych student I would be very interested to see the correlation between intelligence and obsessive behaviour (of any kind). While it is a stereotype that more intelligent adolescents play video-games, I would need evidence to show that there is any causal relationship.

        I find this response a little too dismissive. But to respond, I think though there is little non-anecdotal data on this subject to date, there is plenty of anecdotal data, as you mention, and examining the lives of famously successful intelligent people (i.e. Newton, Einstein, Kant) showcases obsessive tendencies. Conflating "famously successful intelligent people" and "intelligent people" to make an anecdotal argument certainly isn't a bulletproof argument-- but personally it's more than enough to suggest that someone should study this. China, however, has to make immediate and important predictions on how their population will react to online gaming, and I think they'd be foolish to rule out a genetic component which is also correlated to IQ out of hand, given the (ample anecdotal) evidence.

        If you put serious thought into a response, I will respond.

  • Why do computer games claim lives? (Score:3, Funny)

    by AutopsyReport ( 856852 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @07:29PM (#14281718)
    This guy is responsible [putfile.com] :)

  • Why do computer games claim lives? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @07:33PM (#14281735) Journal
    Well eh they don't?

    There was a time cars claimed lives. This was in the day when it was thought that having a sharp metal pin aimed at the drivers chest and directly connected to the front of the car was a good design feature. Same with regular glass windows and nice sharp metal knobs. Saves you the worry of how to get out of your vehicle after a crash I suppose.

    In that way cars killed their passengers although the more accurate claim would be that it was the designers of the car that killed the passengers.

    You can say that smoke claims lives (smoke as from a fire) but this again is a fairly direct form. You would not say that love claims lives despite the fact that an awfull lot of people commit suicide over a broken heart.

    It is not the gameplay that killed them. If say you were playing a DDR game that just kept getting more and more intense until the user falls dead THEN the game would claim lives. If you played fear and got so scared you suffered a heart attack THEN the game would have claimed a live.

    Just taking bad care of yourselve is not the games fault. Sitting motionless in a chair eating bad food is not restricted to gaming. Just ask your average soccer widow.

    All these guys seemed to have neglected their body for a prolonged time and were probably not the most healthy in the first place.

    One article claimed the 38 year old male in question had existed on a 20 day diet of instant noodles. Eheh and before? Because I know from personal experience that the body can live a lot longer then that on instant noodles. I am willing to bet a few bucks that before he wasn't exactly a 2fruit+veg a day man either. So the real newsstory is, man who neglects his health totally does not live to a ripe old age (38 was once an advanced age for a human to reach)

    The other has someone having a 9 hour gaming session? Well I doubt anyone would be able to do that without having to pee and even then so what? I done far longer sessions. Perhaps this person was not the most prime example of the human species? If 9 hours in chair kills you then all this proves that darwin was on to something. You know there are people out there who for fun do 12 hour marches? What about pole-sitting contests?

    Nah I am afraid that as I read these stories it is just, not very healthy person dies doing something to extreme. I had an elderly neighbour who died going to the toilet (yeah how do you like to discover that eh?) Apperently the "pressure" caused a bloodvessel (internally) to burst and she bled to death. Going to the toilet is bad for you? No she just was old and that was her time. If it hadn't been then it would have been if she had bend down to lift something heavy. Sad but that is live. No need to make a headline off it.

    • Do we blame cars when people die in accident? No, we blame the drivers. Do we blame the knife when we accidentally cut ourselves in the kitchen? No, we blame our own carelessness. I fail to see why the death of some goober who refuses to eat, to drink, to bathe, and to otherwise care for himself is the game's fault. Herion addcits always blame the drug and never themselves for their addiction. Addicts of all types fail to take responsibility for their actions as well as the consquences of those action

  • Cigarettes and alcohol (Score:5, Insightful)

    by forgoil ( 104808 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @07:42PM (#14281781) Homepage
    Take a look at home many gamers there are out there, then look at how many of them die from these kinds of situations. Not that terribly many, right? Now take a quick peak at two of societies most common forms of entertainment, nicotine and alcohol (for those cultures who don't subscribe to those particular poisons, I leave it up to the reader to substitute). How many people dies every year because of those two? And not just from the direct causes (alcolism / lugn cancer) but from side effects such as the users killing others.

    So the point is, games are far less dangerous than alcohol and nicotine. Fix those problems first instead of whining about obvious cases of mental illness where society is unwilling to find and treat the people who are sick.

    Now move along, nothing to see...
    • The point Bruce Scheier makes, and I agree with him to some extent, is that the stuff which is terrible but so frequent it's no longer newsworthy is the stuff we really need to worry about. Alcohol, nicotine and driving-related deaths are just statistics these days, but they number in the tens of thousands yearly. Meanwhile, plane crashes and videogame-related deaths are sparkling rarities which make top news, but are far less significant overall.
  • Which is the fart-riddled chairs that release a stinky puff of poot everytime you sit on them!
  • I admit, I stay up until 4 or 5 in the morning playing PC games, but then I go to sleep for the normal 8 or 10 hours a person would sleep and get up at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. However, what these people are doing is completely different, they stay up non-stop, for days and even weeks on end. Of course staying in a room with bad ventilation and a bad air supply (smoking) will cause asphyxiation, and of course staying up for days on end will drain your energy to the point where you can't move.

    My point is,
  • Shouldn't these cafes just place somewhat generous limits on how many hours per day a person can spend in them? 6 hours seems like more than enough. Besides, I imagine that after a day or so, the body odor would drive some customers away. As for these places being dark and poorly ventilated, wouldn't it make sense to at least ventilate the place? All that smoke and crappy air must surely cut into the life span of the computers. And oh yeah, into the life spans of the customers, too.
  • In Soviet Russia, games kill YOU!

    Err...
  • When you're born you must die. One leads to the other, now if I have a choice between 20 hours playing a game or 2-3 years suffering from cancer, I know what I want my fate to be. We should celebrate it not mourn it!

  • People need to take responsibility (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pedrito ( 94783 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @08:42PM (#14282071)
    ... for their own actions. I mean look, video games can, for some people, I suppose, be as addictive as drugs. Liquor companies are no more responsible for alcoholics than video game publishers are for video game addicts. That is to say, neither video game publishers nor liquor companies are responsible. In the U.S., we've been building this culture of "it's not my fault." Cigarette companies are sued for people dying from smoking, McDonalds is sued for people pouring hot coffee on themselves or getting obese from eating their food.

    I'm a big believer in Darwinism and the "not my fault" culture goes completely against it. It's like those stupid warnings on hair dryers that warn you not to use them in the shower. If you protect idiots long enough, they'll breed. That's bad. If a guy is going to spend 20 days straight playing video games and eating noodles, then he should die. There's obviously something very wrong with his genes and that's not a trait you want to pass on to the next generation.

    That might sound cold and heartless, but to some degree, you need to be able to follow a basic instinct to survive or you need to be pulled from the gene pool. Protecting all these people from themselves actually encourages bad genes to propagate and it actually hurts the race as a whole.

    Oh well, guess I'll get off my soap box, but I just wish people would start taking responsibility for their own lives and stop blaming their bad habits on everyone else.
  • Well, for much the same reason that automobiles claim lives, collapsing buildings claim lives, defective medicines claim lives, use of illicit drugs claims lives ... usually it's because somebody did something stupid. Sometimes they have to pay for it, sometimes other people pay for it. Not much more to it than that, when you get right down to it.
  • Anyone who has died while obsessively posting on ./ please reply ...

  • What life ? (Score:3, Funny)

    by XPulga ( 1242 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @09:57PM (#14282373) Homepage

    This is nature's way of telling the guy that anyone who plays a videogame for 20 hours straight DOES NOT HAVE A LIFE.
  • I think I'll revisit my theory on the collective human intelligence.

    When humans first evolved (or were created, for you religious wackos), there were pretty smart. They used their big brains to find ways to work around the fact that they were scrawny hairless apes whose tiny little teeth and pathtic fragile claws couldn't harm a rubber baloon animal. Because of their success, their population grew.

    After a time, they started forming permenant communities where they could sustain their power and influence o

  • chlorine (Score:3, Interesting)

    by briancnorton ( 586947 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @10:34PM (#14282484) Homepage
    You know, if games, much like smoking, overeating, narcotics, and STDs throw a little chlorine in the gene pool, what's the problem? We're all ultimately better off that they aren't breeding.

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