Gaming as Escapism: Good or Bad? - Game Thought #3 -

As per usual, I don't really know wtf I'm on about, something to do with gaming and escapism and idunnomumblemumblemumble.
Background footage is Dishonored, because I have been playing the SHIET out of that game.

• Category

  Gaming

[Antrix32]

Great video but I have to disagree with the idea that we are destroying our culture. Gaming, amongst other modern mediums, is yet another way we create our culture. Are games not in fact pieces of art themselves? Do they not express ideas and thought of the creators? look at dishonored, it clearly reflects our own society in many ways. Television, music, games, all these add to our modern culture. We are changing, not losing, our culture.

[AnotherGaming Englishman]

¬_¬ I accidentally clicked thumbs down instead of reply, my bad. But what I meant to say was that I don't necessarily personally agree with the philosophers and writers I mentioned in the video. However I do think that modernity has broken down old, simple values: Our old concepts of totality (by which I mean values that define your existence), be they religion, general spiritualism, or even village community, have been broken down by modernity... cont'd.

[AnotherGaming Englishman]

... con'td. Modernity made the world into a more complex one, where traditional, ancient, simple cultures of ways of life were no longer concrete: With modernity, everything became questionable and ambiguous. Is this a bad thing? Not really, although it's existentially frightening to question your once traditional values, it can also be progression. My point is that in this newly questionable, worrying world, much of life can be seen to be attempts to escape from this distressing state.

[AnotherGaming Englishman]

Damn the YT comment word limit :P Too short for discussions like this. Just wanted to add, I do certainly agree that our current form of modernity is no longer destructive, yes we've abandoned many traditional values, but now we're simply creating new ones.

[Thunderios]

My God. This is exactly the thought I've had lately. I actually argued with my cousin that real life is just our brain trying to have fun. Sports, candy, sex, all of it, is just to pleasure our brain. Real life is no different in this regard than gaming.

Also, I think Nietze wasn't exactly right that we would eventually become purely rational by ourselves. I think first we will become a society that's based on nothing but social interaction, because all other needs are taken care of. And then...

[AnotherGaming Englishman]

Hah, what a coincidence. I'd certainly agree that Nietzsche's proposed "end state" of humanity was more than a little bit of an extrapolation based on his own fears. If he were around today I'm sure he'd see that humanity just isn't a rational enough species for his worries to come true... Generally speaking though, I do find a lot of his ideas weirdly prophetic.

[RastafarianPilgrim]

D': What'd Descartes ever do to you?!

[Keenan Weaver]

You're basically a classicist and medievalist! Love it. Protip: Descartes ruined everything.

I do regularly ponder if "videogames" was a possible invention outside of an industrialized, capitalist society.

[Antrix32]

Also, continuing from this comment I'm replying too, I did not mean to intend I disagreed with you, I just disagreed with the concept that we are losing our culture with modernity, and the philosophers you mentioned that claimed such. Although, not to say they were wrong. They simply stated their concerns for a uncertain future.

[Antrix32]

Glad to hear you agree, I can see why many of these philosophers would have been apprehensive of this modernity and what it could do to culture, the same way we look to the future and make crude estimates of people losing all individuality, and humanity abandoning all sense of culture ext...Its a fear we will always have for the future. We aren't going to suddenly lose our imaginations and desire to create and explore new possibilities, its just our methods that will change. Change can scare.

[TomusMedia]

You could speak about gamer's entitlement :D

[TomusMedia]

I dont think I agree with schizophrenia and the like being products of the expansion of the western world. These disorders have always exist, but know we have the means to pinpoint them and give them a name; instead of just sending someone to an institution.