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grouchymusicologist comments on Should I play World of Warcraft? - Less Wrong Discussion
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What would you be doing in your spare time otherwise? A few years from now, if you looked back at a nontrivial proportion of your spare time having been spent playing WoW instead of the other things you'd have done, assuming that you had enjoyed your time playing the game but derived no especially lasting benefit from it, would you be happy (or at least indifferent) about it?
I've spent a ridiculous proportion of my spare time in the pursuit of sex, and derived no especially lasting benefit from it; yet don't regret it.
Therefore, I should either play WoWarcraft, or choose celibacy,
(Odd, then, that those things tend to go together...)
But what was your ideal outcome when you were pursuing sex? If it was really just the possibility of meeting someone to have sex with once, then yeah, the ideal outcome is pretty transitory and the analogy to playing WoW is legit. But if your ideal outcome was long-term partnership and an ongoing sexual relationship, then I think the time spent pursuing sex is best thought of as an investment of time which, even if it hasn't panned out for you yet, has a very big hypothetical payoff (if you are the kind of person who wants an LTR). I don't think that situation is a very good analogy for WoW, where the most you will ever be able to say is that you enjoyed the hours spent playing it, never that they furthered your other goals in any way.
No lasting benefit? You're not better at social interaction because of it? It didn't improve your mental health and thus facilitate other activity that built other skills or helped you in some other way? Etc.
Many of the 'lasting benefits' are usually associated with foregoing contraception...