itwbennett writes "A large number of Chinese parents are finding their teenagers to be exhibiting such psychological symptoms as depression, antisocial behavior, and slipping grades. The cause: Internet addiction. World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike rank beside Chinese role-playing games as those that hook the most patients, says Tao Ran, the founder of a youth rehabilitation center on a Beijing army base. Online chat programs more often hook girls, who make up a handful of Tao's current 70 patients. The teens are subjected to a 'strict regimen of military drills, martial arts training, lectures and sessions with psychiatrists.' And, most importantly: no Internet."
That's the great thing about exporting American culture... eventually, the rest of the world will be as fat and lazy as we are.
It's obvious where this is going. Just read all the articles about the billions we're spending on the development of remote control flying killing machines. Our enemies will be too fat too run away, but our technology will allow us to fight even as we need to clean ourselves with a rag-on-a-stick.
When you've got a country with that many people and that much manufacturing capacity, you can get a huge army without resorting to oddball tactics like this.
I think the real reason is genuine concern over a social problem that may be far more pronounced in China than it is here. They also have a heavy-handed government that doesn't mind creating a new social program at the drop of a hat, so they end up with all kinds of (wacky) things being done so that every branch of every agency can say "Look what we
Why am I not surprised that the girls like to talk and the boys like to play combat (remember cowboys and indians? cops and robbers?).
I know, right? I mean, when I'm online on chat sites, it's amazing that all the people who are on all day are girls. Take last Sunday, for example. 4 AM... a bunch of girls are online, and some guys. 10 AM... the same girls but a bunch of different guys. 4 PM... still the same girls, and new guys. 8 PM... same deal.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday July 09, @06:55PM (#28644455)
American - kill all your allies in 'friendly' fire incidents. Full auto on anything that moves, may move or have previously moved. Aw Hell full auto on anything.
Chinese (according to the Geneva Convention on war ) Day 1 - One million unarmed troops invade Alaska and surrender. Day 2 - One million unarmed troops invade Alaska and surrender. Day 3 - One million unarmed troops invade Alaska and surrender. . . Day 5 - US economy collapses US surrenders.
50 years ago, going out was the norm. 20 years ago, occasionally going out was the norm.
Today, spending an evening at home is the norm, where it's cheaper and you can connect with someone halfway across the world who you know will share your interests, and not spurn you(and if they do, you can find someone else). You're also not faced with personal problems such as personal performance, social anxiety, or the real fear of making an ass out of yourself, etc. There's people you never have to face, but will listen.
Move forward 10 years, as the new kiddie-tech generation moves even further online? I see individuals who will prefer to remain connected at all costs because of this. We have people now who need to know all information at all times, need make sure that they're in instant contact with the world around them. And are experiencing this now.
I don't see it changing, I see it increasing. China, US, Canada, any country in the world can do whatever they like to try and change it. But the more interconnected the world becomes, the smaller it gets. The smaller it gets, the more people want to remain connected to it.
The thing I'd like to know is. How much does it cost to send my own kids to China for a bootcamp? Do they need to know Chinese? I don't have any kids yet, nor a girlfriend yet. I'm just pre-planning.
Take a bunch of kids that like to sit around playing games and browsing for porn, isolate them from friends and family, label them as "addicts", brainwash them, put rifles in their hands and train them how to kill people, then declare them "cured". I'm glad that society has its priorities right.
Having gone through Boot Camp myself (Not in United States, I live in a country where millitary service is mandatory) I also highly recommend it as a means of turning useless people into productive citizens. On the other side, it is a good way to turn useful people into far less productive citizens.
My opinion is that, the main goal of the boot camp is to create an average person, not too smart, not to dumb, not too hardworking, not to lazy, etc. Transforming normal people into standardized soldiers.
Yes, he's been trained. He still has free choice (he's posting to slashdot, isn't he?), and his training helped him overcome his previous undisciplined, capricious habits.
While you, dear person, are trying to brainwash others into your peculiar groupthink - that military style training aimed at developing self-discipline is "brainwashing" and inherently evil.
Most students that I teach in China (18-22) can't afford the computer required, so they play WOW and CS at their Internet bar. These places are usually dark, dingy and full of second-hand cigarette smoke. They make some of my teenage hacker basements look positively healthy.
So I think it's not that the parents are really worried about the length of time spent playing, it's the conditions they are played under.
I really don't think this is going to work, I've been through boot camp (USMC), and once I went back to civilian life (I had a shoulder injury that prevented me from finishing the last week of training and then going on to serve.) I was pretty much the same person. The only difference is when I came out I had military training, I feel more calm in stressful situations than I did before, and I'm more confident in my fighting and survival abilities. I still play video games and browse the internet as much as I did before I joined the Marines.
So if you go into boot camp as an internet addicted teenager you're going to come out as an internet addicted teenager, with military training. Unless they're sending them into the army right after they're not going to keep in that mindset, they're going to go back to the internet and their video games. Perhaps sending them to a summer camp where they have many activities to choose from would be a better idea. Hikes through the woods, swimming, sports, and being encourage to speak to other people and socialize would be good for these people. The boot camp seems like it would be too much like work for these kids and they would just resent it rather than enjoy it.
You mean you turn someone who is antisocial, depressed and angry into someone who is antisocial, depressed and angry with military training and self esteem.
I think the Chinese will soon live in very interesting times.
This is, btw, also why DARE is pretty much a waste of time and taxpayer money. But that's not the topic now.
What is "addiction"? Basically that the body (or mind) wants some stimulus that you handed him for a long time. Why does it want it? Because the stimulus was/is positive and not getting it is subjectively negative.
Which leads to the crucial question: Why did you start taking/using it in the first place? It's not like someone goes "Hey, it's Tuesday, it's colder than outside, let's start pumping heroin up our veins!" That's not how it works. Hell, by now pretty much everyone knows that addictive substances and behaviour are, in the long run, bad for you. Do you think anyone who started pushing thought H is "not really so bad"?
Drugs are a last resort means for people who have no other way to get a positive stimulus to their system. The worse they're off, the worse the drug they'll be willing to use. Let's be honest here, anyone here pushing H? Anyone? Somehow, I doubt it. Maybe we have a few ex addicts here, in that case the question to you: Were you as "well off" back then as you're now?
China, with its one-child policy, imposed an insane pressure on its youth. Parents only have one child to carry on their legacy, and that child has to PERFORM! Add a confucianist ideal and a booming market where anyone "smart working hard" can become rich and important, and you'll notice that not even a "western" only child can possible imagine what the pressure is like.
So, to make a long story short, those "boot camps" (and similar programs all over the planet, albeit maybe not as brutal) will not accomplish anything. Worst case they'll make it worse. They try to cure the symptom, but that won't solve the underlying problem. Addiction is never the problem itself. Take away an addict's "substance" but fail to solve the problem behind it and he'll just search for something new.
...Except for the fact that I consider it a right to use what you payed for so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. This "boot camp" takes away those rights (anyone else find it just a bit suspicious that its located on an army base?).
Kids probably aren't paying for the Internet connection and they do not have the rights of an adult. The addiction is hurting their intellectual and social progress. Is that their choice? Not while they are dependents.
Americans send their fat kids to boot camp. I really wouldn't be suspicious.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday July 09, @07:08PM (#28644569)
... morbid child obesity without a clear medical explanation should be grounds for child abuse.
I mean, I am all for fighting obesity in all ways possible, but it just doesn't seem right to beat children or otherwise abuse them simply because they are overweight.
I mean, I am all for fighting obesity in all ways possible, but it just doesn't seem right to beat children or otherwise abuse them simply because they are overweight.
Not to mention it isn't very fair. It's not like they can run from you. Or if they can, it's not like they can run far.
There is a difference between excessive to one person and excessive to another. I know plenty of people who don't get very much activity, eat things loaded in sugar and fat, yet are incredibly skinny and healthy looking. I know other people who exercise a ton, eat extremely healthy food choices, yet are very, very large. There are some reasons for obesity that go way beyond just what you eat. Some bodies have a natural tendency to be large, others have a natural tendency to be very skinny. You should not punish parents for something they can't really control.
Stop it! Stop justifying obesity by giving fatties excuses! The general public is dumb enough to actually be grossly overweight in the first place, do you really think they need to repeatedly hear people say things like "well, some lucky bastards are just born with a high metabolism!", "Being large is beautiful!", "Beauty comes form the inside, there is nothing wrong with beeing plus sized"?
Fact is, you CAN'T gain weight if you put less energy into your system than you expend! Finding an online basal metabolic rate [wikipedia.org] calculator [about.com] isn't very hard either. Now, if you can't be arsed to learn anything about how your body works, spend 5 minutes with Google to find a BMR calculator and pay attention to how much you actually eat... Live a life unable to go to the beach, make people uncomfortable when you undress at the beach, get diabetes type 2 and die of heart complications at age 40.
Just don't force that on your children. If you do, you should be reported for child abuse.
On a somewhat related note.. I live in Norway and I can safely say that even though we are nowhere near USA level of crazy obesity, things are starting to change here as well. 7-8 years ago when I was in highschool, there were <5 overweight people in my entire school of ~300 students. These days, nearly everyone I see between age 15-19 is at least 5-10kg overweight. Hell, even the ones who happen to eat as much as they burn still look out of shape with girls sporting untrained thin thighs and flabby asses and the guys possessing the same level of upper body strength as my little sister! The exceptions are the morbidly obese and the sickly skinny, who seem to make up about the same percentage of the population now as the "10kg too much"-portion did a few years ago. Not "super size me" by any means, but still that is a lot different than a few years back!
Justifying being unhealthy? No. Being overweight is a symptom of an underlying problem - the problem is quite simply that you cannot regulate calorific intake/outgoing as well as a 'normal' person. That's not an excuse, it's a fact. It is down to the people who are overweight to recognise it as such, and deal with it - much like someone who is diabetic needs to take on board and pay attention to their nutrition and need to have insulin daily for the rest of their life.
Recognise the problem - that people w
Often the simple solutions don't work, either, which is why people need to be better educated about how the whole system works.
Most people that are obese (or even just overweight) will try, before anything else, to reduce their intake. For many (if not most) people, while this might have an initial effect of dropping a couple of pounds, it usually has the reverse effect in the long term of causing the body to store more fat, thinking that the food has gone away.
I'm no longer convinced that it's about how much you eat, but rather what you eat. You can feast on carrots, green beans, peppers, and broccoli all day and I would put money down that you won't gain weight from it. Our society is overloaded with high calorie, low nutrition snack foods and deep fried dinners. The idea that you can eat what ever you want so long as you burn it off is just plain misleading. Yes you can go to McDonalds and not fall off the bandwagon. But if you're going to McDonalds every
That's because "rights" are an idea from western civilization, and most other cultures had different notions about justice and social harmony. Considering that over 40 million Chinese died during the "Great Leap Forward," and countless more before that in previous wars and revolutions, we don't have the same perspective on stability that they do. The coastal city of Ningbo, for example, was bombed with the bubonic plague by the Japanese during World War II. The amount of violence and upheaval that the Chinese have faced in the last hundred years is incredible, and sometimes I think that we Slashdotters would do well to relax and give them some time to sort things out (it is their own country, after all). They have a 5000 year old civilization, after all, and things aren't going to implode because pimply-faced teenage kids have to do martial arts rather than play World of Warcraft.
Rights are an important part of humanity. Depriving people of that deprives them of their humanity. If we can't judge the Chinese government for depriving citizens of rights, then thats no different then allowing waterboarding in the US (its part of our culture) or cannibalism (theres nothing wrong with cannibalism, its part of their culture).
...sometimes I think that we Slashdotters would do well to relax and give them some time to sort things out...
The Chinese are going to "sort things out" whether Slashdotters relax, don't relax or even throw a massively coordinated e-tantrum. Slashdot isn't actually really all that influential as it turns out.
That's because "rights" are an idea from western civilization, and most other cultures had different notions about justice and social harmony.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ [un.org] By the way, what exactly are you talking about? Chinese have had a turbulent history, so what? We shouldn't be critical of the current Chinese government because 40 million have died at the hands of its predecessor with whom (on paper at least) it shares the same ideology? I don't understand what your point is.
Yes, and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights reflects the western "rights" tradition. You think that just because a document exists in an international peacekeeping organization, that it's really a part of other cultures and accurately reflects their values? If so, that's pretty naive.
If China does not stand behind UNHR, it should state clearly what parts of it it disagrees with because they don't "reflect their values". China is a grown up country, it doesn't need you to defend it. But just out of curi
You are confusing government policy with human culture. Chinese culture has no native rights tradition (or native communist tradition), and instead focuses on individual consciousness, especially in the native philosophies of Confucianism and Daoism. Even laws are viewed as failures of the government and its people. These traditions view society in terms of the individual, rather than advocating overt methods of government control and social change. Over time, people began accepting western ideas about rights, communism, and other things, but these are in no way Chinese ideas because they are only foreign imports.
We're not talking about different notions of justice and social harmony here. They don't have to have the same government and society as us, but everyone should be guaranteed basic human dignities such as freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, protest, fair trial, petition, etc. I am pretty impressed with the progress China has made in the last 30 years, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve criticism. But plenty of countries have gone through hard times and the ravages of war without turning i
How? I'd imagine that a ton more people are more severely addicted to TV, sports, books and activities considered "normal" than are "addicted" to MMOs. I'd imagine the guy who spends 6 hours a day playing WoW is better off then the guy who goes to the gym for 6 hours a day. As for social progress, its a lot more social to fire up a game of WoW and chat than it is to go to the gym. And intellectual? With WoW you are constantly reading and writing and doing math.
Spending 6 hours a day doing something does not make it an addiction. Suffering from depression because you aren't spending 6 hours a day doing something makes it an addiction (outside of sleeping and autonomous functions). Addiction will cause everything directly not linked to that addiction to suffer as a result of it to one degree or another. Spending time talking to people in Azeroth is not as socially healthy as talking to people face to face. It's healthier than spending time in front of a tv or book. As a freetime activity, it's healthier than many things unless you let it become detrimental to your real non-make-believe life. It's not a problem when an activity is a healthy relief of pressure and stress... It's a problem when it's an addiction, then you may need help to return it to normal, healthy levels.
With your first point, you're setting up strawmen. Depression from loss or trauma is not the same as withdrawal symptoms. I used the line to make a very limited, simple point. There's no argument in stretching it beyond the point it was meant to make. I didn't feel it neccessary to write an 60,000 word essay on the differences between hobby and addiction.
With your second paragraph, you're skirting the issue. Is it a better social experience to speak with a friend face to face or online? It's healthier to talk to a person than to talk to words on a screen. Allow me to make an analogy of this conversation if we were discussing food:
Me: It's healthier to eat vegetables than junk food. It's ok to eat junk food as long as it's not interfering with the rest of your diet.
You: What if junk food is all you have? Not everyone has vegetables available.
It is simplified, but contains the neccessary arguments. I believe you are capable of answering your own questions at this point, even if they were meant to be rhetorical (I won't assume whether they were or were not).
Every time I read about someone proclaiming the virtues of WoW and how it teaches reading, writing, math etc. I just have to laugh and wonder whether the OP is just trying to justify their own pathetic (yes, I think WoW addicts are pathetic) addictions
Except for the fact that it's the parents that are sending their kids to this place. Believe it or not, parents actually have an over riding authority on what their kids will and will not do even in the US.
2, Tell irresponsible parents that it's not their fault (which actually is).
Do explain how it's the parents' fault? It's not like the parents were trying to get their kids addicted to the Internet. They (like any responsible parent should), gave their children access to the Internet. That the children became addicted to it is part of the child's psychological response. There's no way a parent can be expected to anticipate this and have the training to be able to redirect their kid's attention before the signs of addiction become apparent.
I'm not addict! (Score:2)
Re:I'm not addict! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, don't worry, they're catching up [english1.cri.cn].
That's the great thing about exporting American culture... eventually, the rest of the world will be as fat and lazy as we are.
It's obvious where this is going. Just read all the articles about the billions we're spending on the development of remote control flying killing machines. Our enemies will be too fat too run away, but our technology will allow us to fight even as we need to clean ourselves with a rag-on-a-stick.
World domination is at hand!
MWUA-HA-HA-HORK-acktph-[gasp]-[grunt]-HORK-[splat]-HA-HA-HA
Parent
Cynical thought (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I think the real reason is genuine concern over a social problem that may be far more pronounced in China than it is here. They also have a heavy-handed government that doesn't mind creating a new social program at the drop of a hat, so they end up with all kinds of (wacky) things being done so that every branch of every agency can say "Look what we
Boys and Girls (Score:4, Insightful)
World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike... those that hook the most patients (boys)
Online chat programs more often hook girls
Why am I not surprised that the girls like to talk and the boys like to play combat (remember cowboys and indians? cops and robbers?).
Very indicative of our society as a whole. Just sayin' . . .
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I know, right? I mean, when I'm online on chat sites, it's amazing that all the people who are on all day are girls. Take last Sunday, for example. 4 AM... a bunch of girls are online, and some guys. 10 AM... the same girls but a bunch of different guys. 4 PM... still the same girls, and new guys. 8 PM... same deal.
I mean
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Military Strategy (Score:5, Funny)
American - kill all your allies in 'friendly' fire incidents. Full auto on anything that moves, may move or have previously moved. Aw Hell full auto on anything.
Chinese (according to the Geneva Convention on war ) Day 1 - One million unarmed troops invade Alaska and surrender.
Day 2 - One million unarmed troops invade Alaska and surrender.
Day 3 - One million unarmed troops invade Alaska and surrender.
.
.
Day 5 - US economy collapses US surrenders.
Re: Military Strategy (Score:4, Interesting)
That sounds like our history of immigration.
Wave after wave, all of them eventually assimilated. It turns out to be pretty good for the economy.
Parent
These drils and training (Score:5, Interesting)
The most devestating technique in their arsenal.. (Score:5, Funny)
.. exposure to girls.
World is a changing... (Score:5, Interesting)
50 years ago, going out was the norm. 20 years ago, occasionally going out was the norm.
Today, spending an evening at home is the norm, where it's cheaper and you can connect with someone halfway across the world who you know will share your interests, and not spurn you(and if they do, you can find someone else). You're also not faced with personal problems such as personal performance, social anxiety, or the real fear of making an ass out of yourself, etc. There's people you never have to face, but will listen.
Move forward 10 years, as the new kiddie-tech generation moves even further online? I see individuals who will prefer to remain connected at all costs because of this. We have people now who need to know all information at all times, need make sure that they're in instant contact with the world around them. And are experiencing this now.
I don't see it changing, I see it increasing. China, US, Canada, any country in the world can do whatever they like to try and change it. But the more interconnected the world becomes, the smaller it gets. The smaller it gets, the more people want to remain connected to it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, that makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Take a bunch of kids that like to sit around playing games and browsing for porn, isolate them from friends and family, label them as "addicts", brainwash them, put rifles in their hands and train them how to kill people, then declare them "cured". I'm glad that society has its priorities right.
Good idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good idea. (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, having gone through boot camp, you'll never know for sure if that's really what you think, or if that's what they told you to think ;)
Parent
Re:Good idea. (Score:5, Funny)
Having gone through Boot Camp myself (Not in China mind you) I highly recommend it as a means of turning useless people into productive citizens.
Productive you say? I can't help noticing you're posting to /. ...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Having gone through Boot Camp myself (Not in United States, I live in a country where millitary service is mandatory) I also highly recommend it as a means of turning useless people into productive citizens. On the other side, it is a good way to turn useful people into far less productive citizens.
My opinion is that, the main goal of the boot camp is to create an average person, not too smart, not to dumb, not too hardworking, not to lazy, etc. Transforming normal people into standardized soldiers.
The pr
Re:Good idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, he's been trained. He still has free choice (he's posting to slashdot, isn't he?), and his training helped him overcome his previous undisciplined, capricious habits.
While you, dear person, are trying to brainwash others into your peculiar groupthink - that military style training aimed at developing self-discipline is "brainwashing" and inherently evil.
Parent
More of a health issue.... (Score:5, Insightful)
we don't need no.... (Score:3, Funny)
I don't think this is going to work... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't think this is going to work... (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean you turn someone who is antisocial, depressed and angry into someone who is antisocial, depressed and angry with military training and self esteem.
I think the Chinese will soon live in very interesting times.
Parent
Addiction is never the disease, it's the symptom (Score:4, Insightful)
This is, btw, also why DARE is pretty much a waste of time and taxpayer money. But that's not the topic now.
What is "addiction"? Basically that the body (or mind) wants some stimulus that you handed him for a long time. Why does it want it? Because the stimulus was/is positive and not getting it is subjectively negative.
Which leads to the crucial question: Why did you start taking/using it in the first place? It's not like someone goes "Hey, it's Tuesday, it's colder than outside, let's start pumping heroin up our veins!" That's not how it works. Hell, by now pretty much everyone knows that addictive substances and behaviour are, in the long run, bad for you. Do you think anyone who started pushing thought H is "not really so bad"?
Drugs are a last resort means for people who have no other way to get a positive stimulus to their system. The worse they're off, the worse the drug they'll be willing to use. Let's be honest here, anyone here pushing H? Anyone? Somehow, I doubt it. Maybe we have a few ex addicts here, in that case the question to you: Were you as "well off" back then as you're now?
China, with its one-child policy, imposed an insane pressure on its youth. Parents only have one child to carry on their legacy, and that child has to PERFORM! Add a confucianist ideal and a booming market where anyone "smart working hard" can become rich and important, and you'll notice that not even a "western" only child can possible imagine what the pressure is like.
So, to make a long story short, those "boot camps" (and similar programs all over the planet, albeit maybe not as brutal) will not accomplish anything. Worst case they'll make it worse. They try to cure the symptom, but that won't solve the underlying problem. Addiction is never the problem itself. Take away an addict's "substance" but fail to solve the problem behind it and he'll just search for something new.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Your Rights Online (Score:5, Informative)
Americans send their fat kids to boot camp. I really wouldn't be suspicious.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea that "fat camp" is any more acceptable than this crap is deplorable.
Re:Your Rights Online (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, I am all for fighting obesity in all ways possible, but it just doesn't seem right to beat children or otherwise abuse them simply because they are overweight.
Parent
Re:Your Rights Online (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, I am all for fighting obesity in all ways possible, but it just doesn't seem right to beat children or otherwise abuse them simply because they are overweight.
Not to mention it isn't very fair. It's not like they can run from you. Or if they can, it's not like they can run far.
Parent
Re:Mod up (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Mod up (Score:4, Insightful)
Fact is, you CAN'T gain weight if you put less energy into your system than you expend! Finding an online basal metabolic rate [wikipedia.org] calculator [about.com] isn't very hard either. Now, if you can't be arsed to learn anything about how your body works, spend 5 minutes with Google to find a BMR calculator and pay attention to how much you actually eat... Live a life unable to go to the beach, make people uncomfortable when you undress at the beach, get diabetes type 2 and die of heart complications at age 40.
Just don't force that on your children. If you do, you should be reported for child abuse.
On a somewhat related note.. I live in Norway and I can safely say that even though we are nowhere near USA level of crazy obesity, things are starting to change here as well. 7-8 years ago when I was in highschool, there were <5 overweight people in my entire school of ~300 students. These days, nearly everyone I see between age 15-19 is at least 5-10kg overweight. Hell, even the ones who happen to eat as much as they burn still look out of shape with girls sporting untrained thin thighs and flabby asses and the guys possessing the same level of upper body strength as my little sister! The exceptions are the morbidly obese and the sickly skinny, who seem to make up about the same percentage of the population now as the "10kg too much"-portion did a few years ago. Not "super size me" by any means, but still that is a lot different than a few years back!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Recognise the problem - that people w
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Often the simple solutions don't work, either, which is why people need to be better educated about how the whole system works.
Most people that are obese (or even just overweight) will try, before anything else, to reduce their intake. For many (if not most) people, while this might have an initial effect of dropping a couple of pounds, it usually has the reverse effect in the long term of causing the body to store more fat, thinking that the food has gone away.
People need to spread the same food out a bit
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Your Rights Online (Score:5, Insightful)
It's *China*. When it comes down to it, nobody has any rights, in the sense that Europeans or Americans think of rights.
Parent
Re:Your Rights Online (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Your Rights Online (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Your Rights Online (Score:5, Insightful)
...sometimes I think that we Slashdotters would do well to relax and give them some time to sort things out...
The Chinese are going to "sort things out" whether Slashdotters relax, don't relax or even throw a massively coordinated e-tantrum. Slashdot isn't actually really all that influential as it turns out.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
e-tantrum
This word is the most descriptive I've seen this year. It applies to so much "outrage" strewn across message boards, not just on Slashdot...
Re: (Score:3)
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ [un.org] By the way, what exactly are you talking about? Chinese have had a turbulent history, so what? We shouldn't be critical of the current Chinese government because 40 million have died at the hands of its predecessor with whom (on paper at least) it shares the same ideology? I don't understand what your point is.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If China does not stand behind UNHR, it should state clearly what parts of it it disagrees with because they don't "reflect their values". China is a grown up country, it doesn't need you to defend it. But just out of curi
Re:Your Rights Online (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Untrue? Thousands of people were evicted without compensation to make space for Olympic venues. And how about Tiananmen Square?
Do you think there might be some form of sample bias there?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We're not talking about different notions of justice and social harmony here. They don't have to have the same government and society as us, but everyone should be guaranteed basic human dignities such as freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, protest, fair trial, petition, etc. I am pretty impressed with the progress China has made in the last 30 years, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve criticism. But plenty of countries have gone through hard times and the ravages of war without turning i
Re:Your Rights Online (Score:5, Insightful)
How? I'd imagine that a ton more people are more severely addicted to TV, sports, books and activities considered "normal" than are "addicted" to MMOs. I'd imagine the guy who spends 6 hours a day playing WoW is better off then the guy who goes to the gym for 6 hours a day. As for social progress, its a lot more social to fire up a game of WoW and chat than it is to go to the gym. And intellectual? With WoW you are constantly reading and writing and doing math.
Spending 6 hours a day doing something does not make it an addiction. Suffering from depression because you aren't spending 6 hours a day doing something makes it an addiction (outside of sleeping and autonomous functions). Addiction will cause everything directly not linked to that addiction to suffer as a result of it to one degree or another. Spending time talking to people in Azeroth is not as socially healthy as talking to people face to face. It's healthier than spending time in front of a tv or book. As a freetime activity, it's healthier than many things unless you let it become detrimental to your real non-make-believe life. It's not a problem when an activity is a healthy relief of pressure and stress... It's a problem when it's an addiction, then you may need help to return it to normal, healthy levels.
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Re:Your Rights Online (Score:4, Insightful)
With your second paragraph, you're skirting the issue. Is it a better social experience to speak with a friend face to face or online? It's healthier to talk to a person than to talk to words on a screen. Allow me to make an analogy of this conversation if we were discussing food:
Me: It's healthier to eat vegetables than junk food. It's ok to eat junk food as long as it's not interfering with the rest of your diet.
You: What if junk food is all you have? Not everyone has vegetables available.
It is simplified, but contains the neccessary arguments. I believe you are capable of answering your own questions at this point, even if they were meant to be rhetorical (I won't assume whether they were or were not).
Parent
Re:Your Rights Online (Score:5, Insightful)
Addicted to gym is worse than addicted to WoW?
Now I've heard it all.
Every time I read about someone proclaiming the virtues of WoW and how it teaches reading, writing, math etc. I just have to laugh and wonder whether the OP is just trying to justify their own pathetic (yes, I think WoW addicts are pathetic) addictions
Parent
Re:Your Rights Online (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget child porn and cyberterrorism. They have those there too.
Re: (Score:3)
2, Tell irresponsible parents that it's not their fault (which actually is).
Do explain how it's the parents' fault? It's not like the parents were trying to get their kids addicted to the Internet. They (like any responsible parent should), gave their children access to the Internet. That the children became addicted to it is part of the child's psychological response. There's no way a parent can be expected to anticipate this and have the training to be able to redirect their kid's attention before the signs of addiction become apparent.
It's like saying the parents are to blame if