If you didn’t watch Inception just yet, do yourself a favor an do it!
I’m making this post to share my own conclusions about it, so please be advised, it’s almost pure SPOILERS.
And even if you don’t mind it, I’d suggest you don’t read it and try first to reach your own conclusions before reading this.
But if you already watched the movie, I do recommend reading the post to compare your conclusions with mine, correct me if I’m wrong, or just try to analyze the movie deeper… it’s what I liked the most about the whole movie. Continue lendo 'Inception — What I took from it'»
Shure most people nowadays will just shove it off as some japanese otaku weirdo that’s too timid to go after a real girl etc etc, but reporter Kyung Lah goes a little deeper into the question showing that while this might be a little odd now, it also can be the very start of a tendency of people getting related more to virtual beings than real ones.
As I’ve seen in lots of otaku documentaries and stuff, what seems to happen is that these anti-social oftenly shy and recluse people finds in virtual characters and friends relationships that are more confortable and less prone to bad surprises and judgements.
Despite Sal9000 there being an extreme case going as far as a simulated marriage and total dedication to the character, it’s becoming less and less a far fetched idea not only in Japan but also in the rest of the world of people turning the virtual world his/her only contact or at least the main contact with the outside world.
If this is bad or good, I won’t be the judge… today’s society standards certainly looks at it as something odd and weird.
But at least in some cases, I’m not so shure it’s as bad as the news makes it look…
Action News does a piece about game addiction quoting World of Warcraft and Everquest representing MMORPGs as “new sources of addiction”:
I guess the whole thing is close to fair, if compared with most of the mainstream news bashing of online games.
BUT, the comparison with drugs, AGAIN, is as unfortunate as ever.
As you see, they completely ignore that both WoW and Everquest have, has had, and will probably have hundreds of thousands of players who never had problems like the ones described.
It’s as close to gambling, drugs and other addiction as Monopoly and that Uno card game is.
With an userbase like the ones the games have, shure, it’s innevitable that some kids and adults who already have problems will end up having sad tales to tell. We had something very similar to that with the Dungeons and Dragons RPG decades ago.
But as I see, it could be just about any other thing. A book, a movie, TV series, a music band or whatever.
What parents, friends and other people have to understand is that, for people who already have problems (ADD, depression, etc) anything can be used as a tool to potentialize it… so there must be constant monitoring of habits to prevent those problems from getting worse.
Blaming a game for being the cause of suicide for a guy who stopped taking medication after who knows how much time he spent isolated playing one game is just bullshit.
He used the game to escape reality. So seems more likely that what killed him was the reality he was into.
If something, it’s more believable that Everquest delayed his suicide with rather than the opposite. Unfortunately, he found no one who would make his reality better than what Everquest had to offer, it seems.
Apparently, RPGs (role playing games) are also the work of the devil. So, even if you don’t play, watch to or know Pokemon, if you are a WoW player for instance, you’re a lost soul too!!!
That’s not me talking, fortunately:
To clarify, I have nothing against religions or those who have faith in them – but I have to pitty the children of people who actually believe what this guy is saying.
It’s people like him that gives religious people a bad (and sad) face.
Of course he won’t say about the overwhelming number of crimes, acts of violence and even wars that happened because of religion… mostly because of extreme cases like him. No no no.
Because for each murder commited related to Pokemon or RPGs (because none of the cases are actually caused by them) there’s probably ten thousands… maybe even millions of deaths related to speeches just like the one he’s doing there.
So kids, play Pokemon, play RPGs and pay no attention to crooks like this guy. Because following people like him is making your own life like hell.
I saw this very awesome Brawl in the Family comic few days ago recommended by a Kotaku commenter and wanted to share it with XSpBlog readers.
But there was one big problem: It’s a comic that has a song with it. Also, it was a VERY BIG comic, so it wouldn’t work if I only posted as an image.
Quite a while ago, I remember reading about LRAD… a sound cannon developed to be used as non-lethal weapon specially in crowd control.
Well, it was finally put to use on Pittsburgh G20 protesters:
Much like tear gas and tasers, this is prone to raise quite a discussion.
I dunno if it’s true that it can lead to permanent hearing damages, but I imagine it really it very annoying, and will probably affect lots more people than it was intended to.
Just imagine living near the place, and having to wake up to this every time there was a protest or something.
Shure, it’s much better than accidentally breathing pepper spray, and it’s far better than rubber bullets and other methods (unless the hearing damage is true)… but critics will always be critics.
Trying to cheapishly please the horny crowd, or a very interesting critic about black bars, censorship, moralism and taboo our society has about the naked body?
Maybe a bit of both, but regardless, this clip is funny and interesting!
From The Brighton Port Authority, the music is called Toe Jam!
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