Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!milton!hlab
From: dtj@sumac.cray.com (Dean Johnson)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: Virtuous Worlds (Was Re: Wargames and Virtual Worlds)
Message-ID: <1991Apr27.010714.1295@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 26 Apr 91 19:34:01 GMT
Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab)
Organization: University of Washington
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Approved: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu



> On one hand I don't like the idea of Nintendo rotting the brains of
> the youth of the world.

I totally disagree with the "Nintendo rotting the brains..." statement.
Watch a 6 year old play nintendo and see the amount of information that
he/she can assimilate, maintain, and infer from, not to mention the dexterity
and concentration aspects. You look at many of those same 6 year olds 
graduating from high school and they can't read and can barely tie their
own shoes. This is from a meat-grinder educational system that teaches
kids to conform and not think. As one of my professors said, you learn to
"Puke in the right post holes". Kids that think and explore are ridiculed
and called "geeks". Teachers are "mental janitors" that remove "bad things"
and do little to instill "good things". Of course, I don't mean to say that
every teacher is bad or that teachers are even to blame, it is a problem
with the system.

> But on the other hand, I, like many of my distinguished collegues,
> became interested in computers partly because of fun with computers
> shooting aliens for hours on end.

This isn't specifically a computer trait. I have yet to have a chemistry
teacher that didn't get into chemistry through blowing toilet off the wall
by flushing sodium, or starting railroad bridges on fire by throwing sodium
in the river. "Blowing Shit Up" (virtually or in reality) is intrinsicly 
interesting.

> Demonic posession?  Maybe.

Probably, just ask any parent or SO trying to get someone away from a
computer.

> Will anyone argue that entertainment does not hold the highest
> profit potential for Virtual Worlds systems?

Perhaps we can make *real work* entertaining and thus increase productivity.

-- 
        -Dean Johnson
         Software Berserker/Rabid-Protyping Specialist
         Tools, Libraries, and Commands Group
         Cray Research Inc.       Eagan,MN      (612) 683-5880