[ExI] video games take 2

[William Flynn Wallace]

billk wrote:But I live in my parents basement! The only thing I can grow
down here is mushrooms and they're not green.

-  There's lot of people growing green things in basements, and the gov has
helicopters with heat sensors looking for them.

----This is similar to why almost everybody uses Facebook every day. If all
your relatives, friends and contacts are on Facebook then you have to go
there as well to keep in touch.
--------
Yes, and some of it is just pathetic - people checking email texts,
Facebook etc. every 20 minutes, as if some dire disaster is going and
feeling like a social outcast if nothing is there, and a gigaton of what is
there is trivial stuff that doesn't need saying - truly gigantic wastes of
time.  Banal doesn't even start to describe it.  But then, if you are not
Popular, then you are just a nobody, right?  Not in the 'in' group.  My
family, including me, are a bunch of introverted loners who keep in touch
maybe once a week, or in some cases, only on holidays.  Maybe we just have
cases of very borderline Asberger's and social skills we are not interested
in improving.  Snobs, contrarians, elitists and often crabby.  (Did you
know that mood, such as being happy or crabby or sad is partly genetic?
Suffice it to say that we are not Little Mary Sunshines in my family.)
 Frivolity is not in our vocabulary.

I have little to no sympathy for those who are bored, what with the
enormous opportunities available not only on the web.  But to avail
themselves they may have to actually learn something and maybe move off the
sofa.  Get a life - glad somebody coined that.

VR will have to have incredible resolution to even begin to equal face to
face situations, which provide the often necessary clues and hints of
facial expression and body language which often give lie to words. And I
would most certainly not rule out odors as something we can pick up on and
interpret, if they are not covered up as usual with perfumes and the like
(did you ever wonder why we are so turned off by body odors?  I enjoy a
woman smelling like a woman, not a gardenia, as much as I love gardenias).

With more development I am certain to enjoy VR, though.

I am also certain that many people will become addicted to VR, just the way
they are with smartphones and pads, etc.  But who am I to take away their
toys?  As for age, some people just don't grow up, and in some cases that's
a good thing, but often it isn't.  Some will be boys and never men.

-----------
If all your relatives, friends and contacts are on Facebook then you have to
go there as well to keep in touch
-------
Have to?  Uhuh.  See every kitten picture and joke and the outcome of the
vet visit for their tarantula?  No thanks.  Did I mention that I am a 99%
introvert?  We are basically very serious people (who like wit and satire
and Spike's flights of fancy).  I do not have to be entertained all the
time by other people, or provide such, now that I am no longer a teacher.
One reason I like this group is that it is not social media at all.

bill w


On Sun, Aug 6, 2017 at 6:15 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 5 August 2017 at 20:04, William Flynn Wallace  wrote:
> > BillK, maybe you need to get out and do some planting so you'll have
> > something green to look at.  Now if we can tour the Louvre, go
> underwater on
> > coral reefs, stroll Japanese gardens and many others thing with VR, I
> will
> > definitely buy into that, as I can't do that in reality any more.
> >
>
> But I live in my parents basement! The only thing I can grow down here
> is mushrooms and they're not green. My parents think I left home years
> ago as they never look behind the storage cabinets in the basement. :)
>
>
> > What Christian wrote is 100% psychologically healthy, I think.  What I
> fear,
> > for others, is that they will play games rather than have a life in the
> > world of trees and flowers and other people.  Retreating to video games
> or
> > other pursuits, as many social phobics do, is just not healthy.
> >
>
> This is similar to why almost everybody uses Facebook every day. If
> all your relatives, friends and contacts are on Facebook then you have
> to go there as well to keep in touch. It will be the same in the VR
> world. If all your friends are spending their time there, then you
> will go there as well.
>
>
> > Rather than play games, they need to develop social skills.  Again, I
> tend
> > to see this as a problem in a teen who isn't 'with it'.  They need to be
> > dragged, kicking and screaming, if necessary, into the world of people to
> > develop those social skills necessary for most of us to to those things
> Tara
> > listed for us.
> >
>
> It is not just teens that are playing video games. The 20-30s males
> are heavily involved as well.
> Have you ever tried taking the smartphone away from a teen? The
> i-generation cannot live without their smartphone. It will be the same
> with the VR world.
>
> The thing is that people won't see the VR world as 'playing games'.
> The VR world will become more exciting and 'real' than their boring
> day-to-day existence. Social skills are needed to get along with other
> people in the VR world, just as in the old world.
>
> The world is shape-shifting around us. The future will be 'different'.
>
> BillK
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