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PhilGoetz comments on Should I play World of Warcraft? - Less Wrong Discussion

12 Post author: PhilGoetz 07 October 2011 04:25AM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 07 October 2011 04:39:35AM 6 points [-]

How do you distinguish an addiction from something that's just really, really good?

Comment author: MileyCyrus 07 October 2011 05:09:28AM * 17 points [-]

An addiction is something you want, but don't like or approve of. The good stuff is what you like and approve of.

Comment author: XiXiDu 07 October 2011 10:43:18AM * 3 points [-]

I don't want to save humanity and don't like it, but I approve of it. I want to play games and like it, but I don't approve of it. I can't really think of any activity that meets all criteria, +wanting/+liking/+approving. What should I do?

Comment author: wedrifid 10 October 2011 08:43:36PM 3 points [-]

I can't really think of any activity that meets all criteria, +wanting/+liking/+approving.

Really? That seems... odd. Are there no healthy enjoyable activities that you want to do? Not even sex?

Comment author: Mycroft65536 10 October 2011 09:10:20PM 0 points [-]

When I would explain wanting vs liking vs approving Sex was my go to example for an activity that fits all three.

Comment author: Document 10 October 2011 04:15:22PM 0 points [-]

I can't really think of any activity that meets all criteria, +wanting/+liking/+approving.

Eating?

Comment author: jsalvatier 07 October 2011 02:15:00PM 0 points [-]

Perhaps experimenting with ways to change your disposition about either wanting or liking about a particular activity you approve of?

Comment author: randallsquared 07 October 2011 06:00:02PM 1 point [-]

Or, you know, approving.

Comment author: grouchymusicologist 07 October 2011 04:46:24AM 6 points [-]

Well, I believe the field of psychology has tended to distinguish addiction by noting that it pertains to behavior that you persist in despite negative consequences in other areas of your life. If you're skeptical about that definition, then think of it as something you want to stop, because you've determined that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits, but can't.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 07 October 2011 04:45:30AM 5 points [-]

How do you distinguish an addiction from something that's just really, really good?

In general, addiction is hard to define and is some extent an issue of cultural convention. We can't label all superstimuli as addictions.

Strong verbal declarations by the individual who have the relevant behavior that they wished they could stop is one good indicator that something should be considered an addiction.

If it is something that is not normally part of the human set of behaviors and creates strong physical or mental dependency effects in those who engage in that behavior then it is likely to be useful to think of it as an addiction. Thus for example, social interaction is a normal part of human behavior so we don't call it an addiction. But I have seen people who are away from their WoW for too long become cranky and irritable in a way that looks pretty similar to how a smoker acts when they can't smoke for an extended period of time.

I should probably be more careful with the term addiction than I am since it is a term that does have a history of abuse.

But, whether or not we use the term addiction in this context, it seems that WoW does become a massive timesink for no substantial positive gains.

Comment author: RobertLumley comment score below threshold [+] (11 children)

Comment author: JoshuaZ 07 October 2011 04:51:45AM * 3 points [-]

This seems like a really bad rule of thumb. People have died playing soccer and football with full pads. People have died running. On some rare occasions there have even been deaths due to chess games. All activities have risk.

Comment author: RobertLumley 07 October 2011 05:01:22AM 1 point [-]

The chess game may have been the proximal cause, but I doubt it was the distal cause.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 07 October 2011 01:57:47PM 6 points [-]

The same argument can be made for people who have died playing WoW. Some of them are people who likely have psychologies particularly vulnerable to addiction. Similarly, there have been cases where parents have let their kids die while they were immersed in video games. I suspect that those people would in similar circumstances with other potential issues be likely to find other ways of fatally neglecting their children.

The upshot is that "people die from it" is not sufficient. This is especially true as the human population gets larger. With nearly seven billion people, the number of people who are going to die in freak results from essentially harmless activity is going to be high. One needs therefore to pay attention to things like the proportion or look if the activity has any positive or negative effects on the vast majority of people who engage in it and don't die.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 07 October 2011 05:12:23AM 8 points [-]

Seriously, you must clarify and improve your argument, because right now you seem to me to have written your bottom line ("chess good, World of Warcraft bad"), and just taking whatever zig-zaggy way you can find to reach it.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 07 October 2011 04:50:02AM 3 points [-]

So I should avoid tobacco, alcohol, fast cars, and hamburgers; and stay with safer things, like cocaine.

Comment author: Prismattic 08 October 2011 01:18:35AM 3 points [-]

I'm mildly curious (but not quite enough to go spend 20 minutes doing web research) how much of cocaine's harmfulness is intrinsic and how much is due to the fact that the underground nature of its production means it is often cut with rat poison and the like.

Many people on LW seem to think highly of caffeine and nicotine, both of which are also addictive stimulants, but which differ from cocaine in being legal and therefore normally produced in a "safe" form.

Comment author: arundelo 08 October 2011 02:59:40AM * 3 points [-]

Anecdote! -- George H. Smith (author of Atheism: The Case Against God) talks about his experiences with cocaine (generally positive) and heroin (generally negative) in several posts here and several email messages (quoted by another user) here. He used it "on a regular basis for nearly 15 years".

A few quotes:

[...] my years of cocaine use were the most productive, intellectually and financially, of my life.

With cocaine, this problem [of knowing when to stop] is exacerbated by its illegality, which means you have to use a product that has been cut many times -- sometimes with a benign substance like baby laxative but more often with something to give it a punch, especially "crank" (i.e., speed).

To this day I remain convinced that if I had been living in a civilized country and been able to go into a drug store and purchase valium (or something similar) over the counter, I would never have touched heroin.

Comment author: RobertLumley 07 October 2011 04:53:47AM 0 points [-]

My point was more that the video game is so addictive that it kills people...

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 07 October 2011 05:00:22AM 5 points [-]

If it's the addictiveness that's your true objection to the game, then talking about (the ridiculously small amount of) deaths that have occurred in relation to the game is a complete distraction.

Comment author: RobertLumley 07 October 2011 05:20:19AM * 3 points [-]

Sorry, I guess this is illusion of transparency. I thought I was being obvious.

Tobacco, alcohol, fast cars, hamburgers etc. all have direct medical damages. The addiction is a contributing factor, not the cause. WoW is addictive enough in and of itself that it has the potential to make you keep pressing the lever until you die. That is not true, to my knowledge, of chess.

Comment author: Prismattic 08 October 2011 03:19:33AM 3 points [-]

That is not true, to my knowledge, of chess.

Not so fast...

But chess, precisely because the abstract challenges on the board can be so absorbing, can also derail a kid. Listen to Shawn, who's ranked third on the Murrow team and constantly skips school to play blitz games in the park. In an interview with the New York Times before the high-school championships, the foundering student lashed out at his mentors. "I became addicted to chess. They think they did something for me, but they didn't. Chess didn't save my life. They want to make it like I'm a kid from the ghetto and I can play chess and that's special. Why does it have to be like that? It's embarrassing."

PhilGoetz comments on Should I play World of Warcraft? - Less Wrong Discussion

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