Rich from ReviewTechUSA: Quit Video Games.

what are you doing what are you doing
you're too old to be gaming grow the hell up because i grew up with like the first full generation that grew up with gaming from the beginning you always got resistance to it you always were looked down upon i was the first generation basically that grew up with gaming from birth it was looked down upon because it was something new and it wasn't deemed socially acceptable it was it was you were in two categories if you gamed and it was either you were a kid young or you were a creepy adult that you probably if you were one of those creepy adults parents wanted to keep their kids away from you there was no in between that's literally how it was deemed it was either for children or for adults that were probably people that you didn't want to engage with it's sad that it was that way but that's how human beings are when there's a new emerging technology or a new emerging genre it's different oh my god we have to like look at it with skepticism because human beings like every other animal are creatures of habit and they don't like change some of them to this day that i know i won't name any names are the same people that will exist during football season for the sake of football like i'm like because that's a much better thing to invest your time in great great job there much better look i'm not talking down to anybody who loves football but my point being is a hobby is a hobby there's things that you enjoy in life and yeah they could be considered time wasters but what are we ants in an ant farm like are we just existing to work and not enjoy ourselves i said in a recent totally unrelated video that the way we explain things to others can be very important because with the passage of time it comes to be the way we explain things to ourselves you might say the excuses we make to others publicly starts to become our private innermost personal philosophy the selection of examples that our reasoning relies upon often betrays a great deal about our own motivations the limits of our own sincerity and our own rationality when i have debated with people who were openly racist on the internet i'm on the anti-racist side and they're on the pro-racist side i noticed that they would cling to very particular self-serving examples defined in a very particular way so they would have something to say about the contrast between african-americans and white americans and the city of chicago and iq tests or some of that and i would be able to not just challenge them but completely overturn their world view and demolish their argument not even by criticizing their position not even by disagreeing with it but just by shifting to a different set of examples like okay so why don't we apply what you've just said to me to cambodians and vietnamese people people in thailand and people in laos let's just talk about some other examples of contrasting ethnic groups and let's think through the implications of what it is you you claim and just by changing the examples they'd selected and and switching to a set of examples that they had some emotional detachment from like they're super emotionally attached to the conflict between white people and black people within the united states of america then they start thinking about different ethnic groups that have their own history of racism have their own history of conquering and enslaving one another by the way too their own history of slavery and the evolution of slavery and and suddenly none of those excuses seem to make sense anymore when i've talked to people who were right-wing libertarians they'd be so attached to some particular example like they'd have such faith that if you could just abolish the postal service uh private companies like federal express would do a better job than the us postal service is part of their right-wing libertarian political and economic philosophy and you just changed the example say oh that's okay so that's your theory now how does that apply to sewage treatment plants you think the coca-cola company is going to operate sewage treatment plant plants at a at a profit is that what's good just challenging them by switching to a different set of examples their philosophy would fall apart it would become ridiculous what this guy is doing here what he's deeply committed to and what he lacks any sense of emotional attachment over shows in the selection of examples what does he say to you well on the one hand there's playing video games which he admits is a waste of time and then there's american football watching football on tv watching sports on tv and playing fantasy football also a waste of time and then the only other possibility we're presented with is well what what do you think do you think life on earth do you think we're supposed to be a soulless race of worker ants do you suppose we're supposed to just devote all of our time to meaningless drudgery to labor without end those are the examples he chooses those are the only alternatives he he presents you with in questioning your own life what you're doing with your own limited time on this planet one thing can both things technically are waste of time but you pick up a video game you're a weirdo you play pretend but because it's football and it's considered something socially acceptable it's okay the other major recurring light motif in his presentation is that you shouldn't give in to peer pressure you shouldn't respond to what society tells you really he fleshes it out with examples you shouldn't care about what other people tell you just other particular people in your life the other people you know in your family from high school your work colleagues whoever it is you know face to face rarely do people interact with society for the most part these are dialogues with unique individuals and tell me something tell me something how else are you going to learn about opportunities and alternatives that are out there if you're not willing to listen what if there really is a better life to be had than sitting in your apartment alone playing video games what if there is something better for you to do with your time than watching football on television what if there's something much more meaningful you could do with those hours that would motivate you and reward you so much and you just don't know about it yet you just haven't considered it yet for a long time i really didn't gain i remember going to get dead rising and then i played the first time i ever played fear even though the best way to play it now is obviously on pc but the first time i played fear the first person shooter um was on 360. i'm like this is amazing and i remember playing condemn criminal origins they had all these dark action games that were so up my alley and i'm like you know what man why did i deny myself this this is absolutely amazing all of these games are great and gaming is a hobby that i truly enjoy it's my passion for tech and gaming that inspired me to do this and if it was me just listening to society to tell me oh you're too old to play video games and you're too you know that's for children and that's and i and i did for many times i denied myself that and tried to fit into societal norms and it was the best choice i ever made was saying screw everybody i'm gonna start gaming again my point being is if there's anyone here who's my age and you denied yourself gaming or if you're younger and maybe you're getting flack because you game don't listen to it man if you're if you're socially healthy physically healthy and you're a productive member of society don't let anyone dictate what your hobbies are don't let anyone tell you what you can and cannot do to enjoy your life i'm divorced my first wife her whole life changed because of a casual conversation she had with somebody in a coffee shop and she was at a point in her life where she wanted to do something more meaningful she wasn't sure what it was she wanted a new direction she had this conversation with a guy where she described what her interests were and also i think what her kind of criticism of the university system was what she didn't want to do in university and he said to her well have you thought about anthropology it sounds like this is perfect you know a perfect match for you you could go into anthropology long story short she eventually got a phd in anthropology from cambridge university from an elite university right i can't say she had never heard of anthropology before most of us have heard the word we're aware that there is a noun in the english language anthropology but she had never thought about anthropology as a career option for her as a topic for to study university as something she could do with the rest of why would you do did your parents or grandparents say to you hey have you considered becoming an anthropologist right my whole life changed because i decided to move to cambodia and study the cambodian language and do humanitarian work nobody in my family ever told me anything about cambodia they could have actually knowing knowing my parents and knowing who some of my brothers and sisters are it's possible but none of them ever none of them ever had a single conversation with me about cambodia i saw the word cambodia for the first time in a comic book i can remember the the comic book and for the first time i asked my father about this war and the morality and history surrounding what was this odium surrounding cambodia and it stuck in my mind that was before google that was before wikipedia i was i was a little kid i didn't look it up in encyclopedia but it stuck in my mind as an interest and eventually years later you know i got interested in laos and cambodia this other side to the history of the vietnam war and the american and canadian involvement in it you know i was open to the possibility of taking on a new direction doing doing something better something different with my life how how would i know about that how would ever and you know this idea that any kind of social pressure is going to be negative if people tell you to stop wasting your time playing video games then you should just fight against that you should just be committed to enjoying yourself right but it's not really conceivable to you yet just how rewarding it might be for you to get a phd in anthropology for you to study the cambodian language for you to do something anything that is orders of magnitude more meaningful and more rewarding than playing video games watching football on tv or endless meaningless drudgery like being an ant in a terrarium i worked to save up money to buy a sega dreamcast and i did and i bought that i bought sonic adventure with it and i got soul calibur and i was in love with that for a while i was absolutely in love with that i remember i remember um playing that basically every day when i got home from school but again i remember focusing on other things like wanting to be stay at school trying to get girls doing things going out during the weekends and stuff like that and again my dream cast i kind of like hit it away like yeah that's not the cool thing to do rich remember that like it was just like i was fighting back the fact that i wanted to play video games because i was trying to be socially accepted by a bunch of other jackasses that had no bearing on my life am i a loser for playing video games i went to gamestop i was running a whole bunch of errands i was like you know i'm passing by gamestop there was a dude in front of me and he embodied the stereotypical nerd gamer and i'm not even talking about appearance because let's keep it real i i have no room to talk okay it's not that i'm a greek adonis with washboard abs i'm a fat dude with man tits but it wasn't even about the appearance it was about his persona he was like hey there how are you doing today i just i was really excited to pick up some pokemon cards and i was looking at him and i'm thinking to myself oh my god that's how people outside of this community look at me and i'm looking at him and i start getting real [ __ ] uncomfortable man because this is where i'm going to start tying into more of what rev was talking about because i'm also he just turned 35 i just turned 35 and i have a kid coming my kid's going to be here my my fiancee's pregnant and he's we're expecting a son but i'm looking at this guy i'm like i'm 35. do people look at me like him all of these things come at a cost in economic parlance what we're dealing with here is opportunity cost i regret going to cambodia i regret studying the cambodian language it was the wrong choice never talk to me again but i really wonder if at this stage my ex-wife also would say that she regrets getting a phd in anthropology long story short it didn't work out for her there's plenty of room for personal growth here there's plenty of room for regret also and you know what my father had nine kids two of them had already been to cambodia before me two of my older brothers and i remember the conversations i i had with them about it they went to cambodia in a really shallow way they basically went there as tourists and they both responded very differently to me saying that i have this clear sense of purpose look i'm going to cambodia and i'm not just going as a tourist but sure you know there was an opportunity even just within my own family for me to have gone into that situation better informed either my brother they could have helped nobody in my family helped i was all alone i went to cambodia with my money in the bottom of my boots back then getting robbed on the road was a big problem i had the money on the between my my socks and the sole of my shoes as i entered the country um my cambodian dictionary on paper no cell phone no credit card no lifeline i went there alone to start a new life and it didn't work out and what i was hoping for there what i was looking for there the life i wanted to have there it wasn't there to be found i was disappointed and i learned i learned a great deal from this appointment but there was something else i could have done with those years of my life with that time with that energy and yes even that money and i'll never know i could have gone to egypt right same thing for my my ex-wife right it's not so much that anthropology is the worst thing in the world it's not for me that going to cambodia was the worst thing but there was something else she could have done there was something else i could have done right at that juncture in her life she could have studied anything she could have done anything with her career and she did this one thing to the exclusion of all else and now she's left to wonder what else she could have done what might have been a better choice so the decisions we do make are in this way always in the shadow of this kind of unknown exchange right the opportunity cost what this guy doesn't realize rich from review tech usa who amazingly is three years younger than i am he looks 10 years he looks 20 years older than i am when you bought that dreamcast rich look up what the price was for buying a dreamcast at launch the dreamcast and the games and adjust for inflation rich you could have bought yourself an airplane ticket to egypt you you could have gone to cambodia you could have gone to all kinds of places all right if you had gone just to see the pyramids in egypt if you started taking a correspondence course to learn to speak arabic and the egyptian dialect if you've just gotten a little bit interested in the ancient history maybe of greece and rome and the egyptian pyramids i'm not going to say to you that it's the most meaningful thing in your life going to cambodia wasn't the most beautiful thing for me either okay but compared to the time and money and energy you put into that sega dreamcast there is an opportunity cost there are so many more meaningful things you could have done that would have changed you that would have resulted in you being a better person today and the saddest fact of all is you can't even imagine what they are because as you've said yourself from the cradle to the grave you're someone who's played video games from your earliest childhood and it has narrowed your imagination about what this world is what your place in it is what difference you can make and who you can become [Music] do maybe we can we can practice