My personal take on reality is that the whole shebang is a "meaningless treadmill", but I'm willing to accept that it might not be true for the next guy.
Most of the philosophers we revere did exactly this -- define and put forth universal ideas for what is meaningful in life. No one is forcing these ideas on you, and it's easy to take shots at the "man in the arena" who steps forward to tackle a subject. I found it pretty interesting, as I had never thought much about the impact of this new class of "achievement" modern society has created.
These kinds of reactions only stifle dialogue and debate. I think it's generally understood that this is his opinion, and that he doesn't have designs to become a dictator and make this opinion the law of the land.
Yeah, I think he wants to be the next Tony Robbins:
"My mission is to inspire people to think clearly, to live deliberately, to conquer fear and embrace possibility, to express beauty, and to love completely. Prepare to be scorched then reborn, authentic and complete."
I think we can argue there there is a world where there should exist universal qualities. I certainly wont knock the author for trying to argue video games inherently don't have the same value as say "going for a walk" and helping your family or community...
Universal right and wrong just isn't my thing. YMMV
And the funny thing is, such statements come off as absolutist claims about how other people should not be making absolutist claims. I mean, isn't it pretty arrogant to declare someone else, um, pretty arrogant? :)
It's hard to criticize someone for criticizing someone, or to judge people for judging people.
Isn't it then also pretty arrogant to mean that it is pretty arrogant to declare someone else pretty arrogant? ;)
I think this thread is heading for a stack overflow.
Anyway, I think a lot of these self-referential paradoxes have a simple resolution. Just refuse to play. I'll do what I want, and I'll ignore whether everyone else thinks it's justified or not.
As long as, on an individual level, people are free to choose their own utility function (as long as that function doesn't stop other people from choosing and partaking in their utility functions), then nothing else really matters on a grand-er scale. To put it another way: "cultural relativism" is wrong, but only because there is theoretically a perfect culture that allows its individuals to have individual relativism of ethics with a minimum of friction between individuals. The best culture is the transparent one people don't define themselves in terms of.
The easy part to culling the bullshit is to ask yourself: Is this activity making a positive, tangible difference in my life or anyone else’s life?
Easy for him, maybe.
It's fine to make the limited argument that certain games devolve a bit too quickly into flavorless tickling of the brain's pleasure centers. So long as you are clearly arguing about taste in game design, not about the ultimate meaning of life.
But when you decide to delve further, to the point that you've argued not just that crack cocaine and MMORPGs are ultimately meaningless, but also that education, money, casual acquaintances, success, and writing comments on HN are ultimately meaningless, shouldn't you keep going until you get to the end? Which would be something like:
All achievement is porn; that is, it is ultimately empty.
Although I would never phrase it that way; I prefer a more classical phrasing, like this [1]:
Life means suffering.
The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof.
Now that is a general principle.
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[1] I cribbed these lines from http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourtruths.html , because that's what came up in Google. There are probably a few other sources... ;)
In other words, I seek the coin under the lamp rather than in the dark corner I lost it in, and I'm fine with that.
-- Bill Hicks
Like most things, moderation is king. Extremely shallow but effective manipulations of behaviour are a bad thing. A lot of people consuming these will agree ultimately that they have wasted their time and post-hoc have prefered to been forced to do something more challenging and fruitful with the time.
Challenge, discipline and delayed-gratification remain virtuous (in my opinion) and good despite technological advances short circuiting reward sensations.