Raids: What are the dynamics?

[Murgos]

Except, maybe it's just me, but "It is better to play chess than checkers" was always an appealing life philosophy to me - that by using more of our talents and exploring more of our possibilities and potential rather than fewer, we achieve greater self-actualization.

Sounds boring, also sounds like a good foundation to build a cult around. I think I'll stick to what I find fun.

EDIT: I'd venture that I'm more self-actualized than anyone who would use a word like "self-actualization", especially those who feel the need to project their lives and beliefs upon others. I just do what I do... enjoy doing what I enjoy doing. I don't analyse my life or try to weigh how meaningful or worthwhile it is. I don't see why people bend over backwards to make themselves different, or "better", nor why they care that others do not. I guess maybe that's how they have fun, good on em I say, just wish they'd just stop bothering me.

I actually agree with Mediocre on this one.

I made a conscious decision years ago to try and push myself to see what I could contribute at the top end.  Sitting and watching Jerry Springer and losing whole hours to worthless spectacle was not the kind of person I decided I wanted to be.

So, yes, I agree that it's better to play chess than checkers.  Even closer to the mark would be, "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

Though, I am not sure I agree that you should be telling other people to play chess and that checkers sucks.

[Azazel]

Sitting and watching Jerry Springer and losing whole hours to worthless spectacle was not the kind of person I decided I wanted to be.

Yet you're sitting there debating gaming bullshit with the rest of us. Losing whole hours to worthless spectacle describes MMOGs pretty well. Sure there's social interaction and all the rest of it, but it's hardly a high water mark of quality use of time. Now and then, I imagine how much painting I could get done if I didn't spent so much time playing teadmill MMOGs that never end and never truly go anywhere. May as well throw the rest of the games we play on that pile too, you keep the puzzle solving and leteral thinking and whatnot, but lose the social interaction.

I'm not knocking the games so much as saying that they're not a huge step over watching TV, though I do think that using your brain for puzzle solving and communication is better for you than watching Jerry. But Jerry's fun to watch sometimes too.

[Murgos]

Sitting and watching Jerry Springer and losing whole hours to worthless spectacle was not the kind of person I decided I wanted to be.

Yet you're sitting there debating gaming bullshit with the rest of us.

Correction, I am sitting at my desk at a job I am leaving in three weeks debating bullshit with the rest of you.

A well paying technical job, I might add, that is particularly well suited for idle discussion on message boards.  And yet I am leaving it...

Conundrum?

edit: Also between the first post and the second I spent five hours digging into how ATM (not that kind, the other kind) networks work.  Hardly wasting time involved in the pursuit of spectacle.  Anyway, I am not saying you can't spend some time in leisure activities, I am saying that I don't want to be one of those people who does the least amount possible ALL THE TIME so that they can go be vegetables.

[Telemediocrity]

Though, I am not sure I agree that you should be telling other people to play chess and that checkers sucks.

Oh, I'd agree that that doesn't necessarily follow from our shared starting point - that's my own little addition, based partly on secular notions of the social contract and partly on general tikun olam thinking. But this is interesting, so let's delve a bit more.

I will say this, though - it bothers me, in some sense, that many people with the means and opportunities necessary to enact great change (i.e. they can afford broadband and WoW so they're not desperately poor) are more daring, more driven, more dedicated, and spend greater energy of thought and analysis on a video game than on real-world problems.  Never before, as a world, has there been so great a disparity between our capabilities for progress and our willingness to use those capabilities.

I'm certainly not immune to this; my dad always used to give me shit when I was little about how I could spend hours studying complexities of video games but wouldn't put the same amount of time into serious intellectual work.  I'm not that bad these days, but there are still times when I'll find myself having an easier time slipping into a MMO (or F13) than I would writing a paper or learning something new, and I try to self-correct.  Of course, everyone loves a little "checkers" (i.e. Springer) from time to time, and the person who never does is probably one burned out motherfucker. But that's not to say our collective balance isn't a bit off from where it should be.

When I say "Checkers sucks, play chess", I'm not implicitly adding "Because I always play chess and not checkers and thus I'm so great".  Hypocrisy isn't my worry; I think that if everyone calls everyone else out on their shit regardless of their own failings, when reasonable, we all end up better than we would autonomously.  Hell, I don't do the "online societies" thing really, but I have an anonymous myspace account solely for the purposes of yelling at random people I've never met to quit fucking up.

So, yes, I agree that it's better to play chess than checkers.  Even closer to the mark would be, "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, if he wins, knows the thrills of high achievement, and, if he fails, at least fails daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

[Lantyssa]

edit: Also between the first post and the second I spent five hours digging into how ATM (not that kind, the other kind) networks work.

ATM is such a pain due to logistics.  I'm greatful we dumped our machines that used it.