Self-Evidently Evil: VIDEO GAMES and Why We All Must Quit.

rather meet me or the game hit it's
either me or the game are you serious it's even meat or the game so what do you got to get thrown out yeah nah I'm not gonna get thrown out but I'm gonna leave you go the young couple that you've just seen in the intro to this video we're going to return to their story at the very end the final four minutes of this video will be edited excerpts showing this young couple disputing whether or not the young man will be willing to quit video games in order to stay with in order to do better with this relationship with a young woman I checked their social media as far as I know they are now preparing to raise a baby together I do not know if the young woman was already pregnant at the time when they recorded this video following up on my earlier video about video games I received this broad question of how does one really know what is bad and what is good amongst the things you might do in your spare time whether that's playing video games or learning any language I am NOT an uncritical fan of what's called Socratic method on the contrary when I first came on social media one of my punch lines was hashtag Socratic method is dead I think in many ways both within academia and in our you know struggling with political problems personal confrontations and disputes in real life I think there's a sense of which Socratic method is both extremely overrated and historically misunderstood most people don't understand the game that Socrates was playing how and why he played that game in his own time in ancient Athens be that as it may nevertheless with these sorts of broad questions of good of asking in our own lives in direct what would be good to do it's remarkable how rarely we really deal with disputes over the meaning of the word good over questions of what is good what would be good if we just engage in a little bit of Socratic dialogue and I think one interesting sign of how easy it is to come into contact with what we mean by good is that very often we can resolve a dispute with someone else just by reframing the question not in terms of what they would like to do themselves not in terms of their self-interest not in terms of what would be good for me or for you but if just putting in one stage of detachment and asking them what would be good for their own son what would be good for their own daughter it's a more powerful question partly because there's a degree of detachment there but also because very often we love our own children more than we love ourselves we care more about the goodness of what our children do with their time and do with their lives more than we care about what we might do ourselves I knew a man I'm going to tell the story very briefly because I've mentioned it on YouTube before I knew a man who worked in a slaughterhouse for several years I don't know how many years and he was full of excuses and rationalization that working in a slaughterhouse was perfectly good that it was a good job that he wasn't ashamed of it that he didn't feel traumatized by it you know seeing the animals being chopped up by machines hearing their screams seeing the blood smelling the corpses most people who even visit slaughterhouses are really struck by these things the sight the smell the experience so on and so forth but there's a certain visceral level on which many people who work in slaughterhouses will admit its horrifying or will admit that it's a strain on them shall we say they will admit that it is bad but this guy was talking to he insisted that it was good and that there was nothing bad about it and that he didn't regret working in a slaughterhouse and he said that he would be happy to go back and resume that job in the future he would take the same job again and yet his whole attitude his whole demeanor changed my said to him so what about your own daughter would you be pleased would you accept it if your daughter grew up to do the same job you did in that same source and he sat there and he shuddered looking straight ahead breaking away from eye contact with me he didn't want looking eyes and I could see he was saddened and disgusted just imagining his own daughter working in that Sadr knows what's what's going on there what's going on for him psychologically morally and ethically that guy I think he basically thought of himself as a bad person I think he basically thought of himself as a piece of crap and there's no doubt he was comfortable feeling that someone like him that he himself was not too good to work in a slaughterhouse he thought of himself as a rough and worthless knockabout character and I think he thought of himself as a tough guy he did not want to think of his own daughter in any of these ways I've met I'd met his daughter I think he wanted to imagine that his daughter could do something better with her life that his daughter could be a good person I think he wanted to imagine that his daughter was too good to do that job and of course he could imagine in terms of his daughter being a very sensitive child he could imagine how the horrific and horrendous nature of working in a slaughterhouse might really change her as a person okay implicitly the excuses that he was making for himself working at a slaughterhouse he would not make those same excuses for his own daughter likewise people seem to make a lot of excuses for playing video games themselves but if you refer to their own son or their own daughter what would be good for your own child's future would you approve if your own son played video games for six hours a day will you be okay with your own daughter playing video games for six hours a day if we start to frame it that way then it seems to give us just enough detachment that we can see clearly oh no wait if my son or daughter were playing video games the same way that maybe these individuals make excuses for themselves claim viewings that would be a bad thing for their future that would not be good at all it would be a bad thing for who they are as people so in this question you say it might be very interesting to have a conversation with someone who was so alien from you and I morally that they really genuinely didn't know whether or not it was a good thing to learn a language in your spare time as opposed to playing games if they genuinely in an open-minded way they really didn't know what was a better use of their their child's time let's say like do you think it would be better for your son or your daughter to go and take lessons and learn Chinese as opposed to spending the same amount of time let's say three hours per day playing video games I've never met anyone from any culture who genuinely would not know or would feel some doubt in comparing those two things who like who just wouldn't be able to discern which one was good and which one was bad or of the two alternatives which one was better now these things are are culturally loaded they rely on cultural knowledge i've lived in some places where i was surrounded by kind of illiterate farmers and so on be good or bad for you or for your son or daughter to learn Latin the Latin language I think some people already have a level of cultural familiarity with Latin and why it is important like why the literature is important why the politics and history and philosophy are important but also maybe linguistically that learning Latin can actually improve your ability to use the English language and it can improve your ability to learn other languages like French and Spanish and so on that you know Latin is useful and it's valued culture noise some people culturally would right away be able to say oh yes learning Latin is rewarding and important and good it's good for you it's gonna help you become a better person and they valorize that culture they have no question maybe someone is you know so ignorant and so divorced from that culture that they couldn't appreciate that and they might genuinely think that playing video games for 3 hours a day would be better than learning Latin for 3 hours a day try to imagine who that person might be like okay even if we go to Japan and we meet a farmer in Japan let's say it's a bamboo shoot' farmer in Japan and this guy is just not an intellectual and you've been his whole life he works on this bamboo farm and you say to him well you know what what do you think would be better for your own son or daughter I noticed you have a son or daughter who's now playing video games with us today do you think it would be better if they started learning Latin so culturally totally healing from Japan if you just had a very brief conversation about what Latin is and why it matters Oh what's this ancient language and there's this literature in history and you know it's influential in these different ways and helps you I have difficulty even imagining an illiterate Japanese bamboo farmer who wouldn't be able to appreciate or discern that something as alien as learning Latin would be good it would be better for who his son is who his daughter's for the type of person that it would benefit them that it would be a good use of their time compared to sitting and staring at a glowing screen and pressing buttons on a control pad to simulate the action of shooting your enemies in the head again and again and again killing people with the press of a button through a crosshairs and watching their bodies explode the type of repetitive mildly violent simulated activity that these video games seem to offer for people's gratification again again for that same period of three hours a day okay so when we're talking about video games we are talking about something so self-evidently bad that almost any of these comparisons I'm being asked about here and I think the person asking is sincere it seems to be impossible to really entertain this kind of debate in a sincere way I mean you're asking me is it really better or worse to spend your spare time playing video games as opposed to writing okay so you know me do you think I would be better we could do this as Abed what if I took just two weeks or every day for three hours a day I write my own autobiography I write the story of my life or three hours a day i play the most popular video game on the internet right now I believe that's fortnight having Google you could you know obviously okay it doesn't matter fortnight or the current Super Mario Brothers game on Nintendo switch yeah we could I could go I have the money I can go buy a Nintendo switch and start playing the new Mario game okay what would be better for just two weeks three hours a day writing my autobiography or I don't think that highly of the value of writing my own I don't I don't think that's right I mean it's much more difficult to say what would be better to learn Latin or write my autobiography or learn Chinese or learn Latin those are difficult those are difficult compared isn't playing video games versus writing ok theater poetry going to a museum walking in nature reading literature learning a language you're seriously asking me to compare these two playing videos you're seriously asking me which one is good ok working in a slaughterhouse is so awful it's so revolting it's so brutalizing it's so disgusting that almost nobody really sincerely wants to reflect on how good or how bad it is compared to working in a library I'm not gonna glorify working in a library most your time working in a library you're just putting books on shelves you're sweeping the floor you're doing customer service working in a library is not terribly meaningful however working in a library versus working in a slaughterhouse engaging in Socratic method it just seems like there is no possible debate to be had about what is good here we're not going to enter into a profound reflection on the meaning of good or what it is to have a meaningful life alright and we're in this same bleak realm of self-evident self-destructive behaviors when we look at the prospect of spending 3 hours a day playing video games compared to almost anything else including including taking care of the ones you love including having sex with making love to your wife your girlfriend caring for waking up in the morning making pancakes for the woman who is in this example pregnant with your child all day all the time you got up when you want to go get the food and look see your [ __ ] lazy eyes it's been here for like once again you see how to put your Apple on Apple stick whatever I got that yesterday you hadn't even talked to me the only time you talk to me is when the game is over and you only got a little bit of time she can go on to the next game lying ain't nobody lying down here like you really been on like him all day I'm trying every time I wake up I can't ever wake up next to you because your eyes it's always on the game do something else for them it's productive when you wake up give me an for W me something eat wake me up to [ __ ] breakfast in bed I always gotta tell you're hungry in some pancake mix I don't care you only having get some you always take some awesome Peggy we ain't got no pancake good you know I like pancake all that while goes into the game all this mind goes into that game yeah oh what'd you think of is about the game my mind is not on me all the time yes it is you don't even get up to clean oh no I gotta wake up and clean up all the time I gotta wake up and do everything that you made a mess what am I supposed to do is sit down and look at the wall get on my phone the fungus boring okay you can do other productive things what does the game have to do with anything it's a video game everybody plays a game nobody else people complaining about they [ __ ] playing a game razón okay females don't let you compare me to other female oh they don't do this and that they don't do that don't just saying there's no reason to complain about a game I'm not doing that okay not the game - the initial axes got purpose you you know the games I might in turn it off stop I literally have a dope-ass loadout in this game right now and they're meet me or the game it's either me or the game are you serious it's even a meet or the game I'm not jealous I mean I'm you don't talk to me no more that game makes you jealous yeah you don't spend time with me no more like you used to you don't talk to mr. - that wake up I have to say some because your your [ __ ] eyes are right in the [ __ ] game all the time so you're making me choose you yeah game though the game out or just make me get out and I leave so one of them got money you gotta get thrown out yeah nah I'm not gonna get thrown out but I'm gonna leave are you gonna go don't worry isn't me or the game period you know I'm gonna choose you over a game but that doesn't make no sense why am i throwing the game out because you're jealous of a game okay I'll do it up don't transmit right here you want to give me a little bit of time like I just can't go without I don't get her before I break you so first you said throw it out and now you're gonna break it yeah because you're not willing it I just bought a new gaming headset go ahead so I gotta choose the game over you Oh Here I am happy when I played the game but I'm also happy when I'm with you you really have to think about that I'm playing I just told you I choose you