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comment by wolajacy · 2022-05-05T04:36:25.781Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Sorry to be blunt, but the whole post is made of unsubstaintiated claims and dubious associations. I had a very difficult time going through it.
Among many, many good reasons not to play video games, the main one is that they create invisible stress and consume large amounts of brain energy that you could be using for work, school, or moments of inspiration.
You claim that, but don't provide any evidence for this.
Don't trust any source that says video games don't stress you out; there are billions of dollars and vested interests at play.
Why should I trust you instead? As in: don't trust any source that says X; there are billions of dollars and vested interests at play.
The takeaway is to pay attention to your mind and body, and not to any pundit who claims that video games are good for you. They are not. From a bayesian perspective, you are more likely to encounter a lying, bribed pundit, than you are to encounter someone who has done honest research that legitimately argues that video games will make your life better.
Again, "you're more likely to encounter a lying, bribed pundit than you are to encounter someone who has done honest research that legitimately argues that X will make your life better". You're not presenting any such research, or even do not vaugly point in a direction of it.
You can insert whatever you want in X, and it will be as much convincing as your statements.
Then, the posts turns into (what looks like to me) a list of games that you personally find relaxing, with your prescriptions on how other people should play them, and then a shorter list of games you didn't like, that is devoid of even a trace of argument, besides already-repeated "games that stress you are bad".
Replies from: TrevorWiesinger↑ comment by trevor (TrevorWiesinger) · 2022-05-05T07:05:52.520Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
The inspiration for this post came from when I originally started doing some research into this topic, and then became alarmed at the scale of clearly motivated research and unreliable datasets. There's no point in linking someone to a journal article claiming that video games are unhealthy when 90% of journal articles erroneously claim that video games are healthy. It would be the same problem with cigarettes and cancer in the 50's, except unlike with video games, people couldn't visibly notice themselves getting cancer after smoking.
It's more of an "I think therefore I am" sort of proof, since the harm is visible and obvious to all victims, but like with fast food they have to pay attention in order to notice that they feel unwell afterwards. That's the opposite of unfalsifiable; it's instantly falsifiable. Look for an article saying that video games relieve stress, play a video game, pay attention to whether you feel cognitively exhausted afterwards, and then it's immediately clear that something doesn't add up.
My goal here is to minimize harm. Advising people to quit cold turkey is increasing harm. Which is why I gave a list of games that serve as alternatives.
You're right that with a post this long and controversial, I should have put my core arguments in the first paragraphs instead of sprinkling them throughout. That was very poorly thought out on my end.
comment by romeostevensit · 2022-05-05T04:53:56.178Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
games to avoid: factorio-likes
comment by Pablo Villalobos (pvs) · 2022-05-05T13:44:22.938Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Wait, how is Twilight Princess a retro game? It's only been 16 years! I'm sorry but anything that was released during my childhood is not allowed to be retro until I'm like 40 or so.