[MD] Food for Thought

[Case]

>[Case]
>I agree and so I have long since stopped passing judgment on the Quality of
>the pursuits of others.

[Dan]
Right. I forgot you're Mr. Perfect. Sorry.

[Case]
Actually I attempt not to pass judgment on others for exactly the opposite
reason. As wise man once said, "Judge not least ye be judged."

[Dan]
Uh oh. There you go judging. So you're not Mr. Perfect after all. Huh. Maybe

you're right. My grandkids also love to go to Mcdonalds and fill up on 
garbage and I use Quality as an excuse just to have unsweetened tea.

I think you are so wrapped up in gaming yourself that anyone who is not 
"into it" is perceived as  snobbish and judgemental. I used to know some 
coke-heads just like that.

Listen to me: IT IS AN ADDICTION. No matter how you spin it.

[Case]
All I am suggesting is that they see Quality in something you judge to be
worthless out of hand. Attempting to see what Quality they see and
communicating with them about it is a way to enter into their understanding
of things. The Quality time we spend with loved ones is more a matter of
time spent interacting not the means or ends of the interaction. 

Oddly enough one of the reasons I play these games is along the lines I am
suggesting here. While I have no aversion to them, I can take them or leave
them. I play mostly to share Quality time with significant others.

I actually signed up for a Yahoo group called EQ widows for a while before I
tired of their whining.

[Dan]
In a hundred years, where will that new shared reality be? Can you honestly 
say that anyone alive then will give a shit one way or another about the 
games you are playing? You may as well be sitting in front of a tv set.

On the other hand, I read authors from hundreds of years ago. Their writings

live on long after the writers have turned back into dust. Don't you see 
that? You really cannot be so blind, can you?

[Case]
Many of the games played today are outgrowths and updates of games
originally developed five or 10 years ago. It has been interesting to watch
them grow as an art form. I have no idea what will be going on in 100 years
but I still watch the occasional silent movie and I suspect someone
somewhere will find reruns of the Honeymooners entertaining well into the
future.

We don't have the accumulation of cinematic art that we do of the written
word but old movies are an ongoing source of insight into the recent past. 

At present more people play computer games in this country than go to the
movies. The annual economic impact of computer gaming it greater that movie
ticket sales. This represents a giant growth for a medium that is less than
20 years old.

I understand the Ludite impulse but it does not lead anywhere. We live in
inverted times. Even 50 years ago children were expected to learn from their
elders. Today, too often it works the other way around. Condemning the
younger generation dates back to Socrates. But the old ones always lose. 

[Dan]
You are under some type of illusion that gaming matters. It doesn't. And 
aren't you the one who argued up one side and down the other with me that 
you are a "real" person? Spin it how you will but you are simply full of it.

[Case]
I am not under the illusions that anything matters and certainly not that
one pastime matters more than another. I have never claimed to be "real"
that would be SOMish. :-)