Lord of the Hackers: lame NYT article

[Pielorinho]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/07/opinion/07TURK.html

I kinda feel like somebody more eloquent than myself should write a rebuttal to this article, in which he dismisses women gamers and generally belittles our hobby.

Daniel

 

[clockworkjoe]

For one thing, the author is a she

http://web.mit.edu/sturkle/www/

and two, she appears to be another pop 'culture' expert specializing in how computers make us think bad.

 

[Nightfall]

Yet another example of a fine education gone to waste. Both as a fan of Tolkien AND classical literature, I'd DEARLY like to point out to this woman the following.

1. Tolkien HATED technology, or at least it's depradations on the human soul.

2. The reason women are never featured in prominent roles in fantasy IS that the majority of writers (up until Marion Zimmer Bradley and Ursla(sp) LeGuin,) were men. Does that make them sexist? Hardly, they drew upon what they knew existed in the human conscience, which things like HONOR, DUTY, LOVE, BETRAYAL. These things supercede sex, as both men and women commit them in equal portion. Not to mention they were smart, BECAUSE they wrote about what they knew, which certainly wasn't the empheral nature of women.

 

[Nareau]

An eloquent rebuttal

What?! Grr. Stupid!!!

 

[PenguinKing]

I would respectfully point out that the prompt is "Abort, Retry, Fail?", not "Terminate".

I would furthermore respectfully submit that anyone who has a pH.D. but can't get simple, trivially-confirmable facts straight before writing an article for a major publication is a doink.

- Sir Bob.

PS. Nih!

 

[Nightfall]

Yep, another example of how academia is so far back into the late 1900 century mores and cliches, they aught to get Piorot to help them find their way back into the present world.

 

[kenjib]

I would respectfully point out that the prompt is "Abort, Retry, Fail?", not "Terminate".

I would furthermore respectfully submit that anyone who has a pH.D. but can't get simple, trivially-confirmable facts straight before writing an article for a major publication is a doink.

- Sir Bob.

PS. Nih!

The funny thing about that mistake is that when you correct it it completely unravels her silly little argument in that sentence.

 

[gregweller]

When she asserts that fantasy is somehow 'binary', she obviously hasn't experienced one of the interminable discussions about whether it's moral to kill prisoners that crops up on these boards with some frequency. I've read her book 'Life on the Screen', and I wasn't terribly impressed. It always amuses me when one of these writers starts to go on about how women aren't interested in gaming, and then I look at my gaming group in which I'm the only male.

 

[redmage]

rebutting Lord of the Hackers

I submitted the following to the OP-Ed column of the NYT.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


I must rebut the article posted by SHERRY TURKLE entitled Lord of the
Hackers. First I must say it is uninformed. Sherry seems to have formed
an opinion about a specific subject and found facts that appear to
support it. Any one with any type analytical training what so ever
knows that this method of forming a hypotheses is incorrect and lead
you to conclude falsely.

Yes a programmer at MIT did write a game called adventure and yes many
people do play and are still playing FRP (Fantasy role playing) games
assisted by a computer or using the computer as a platform for the
game itself. But the assertion that the games are for computer geeks
by computer geeks is dead wrong. I know personally people that play
games such as Dungeons & dragons that have never touched a computer.
And the assertion that Girls don't do that sort of thing is dead wrong
as well. I personally know many women that play such games. Their
are scores of people that play these games that don't use computers
and their are scores of women who play such games.

The reasons that these games lend them selves to be developed and played
using a computer as a platform has nothing to do with the mentality
of a computer programmer. It is true that computers use 0's and 1's
to encode information. But all forms of information that we as humans
can produce or communicate can be encoded as 0's and 1's. The reason
that these types of games lend them selves to be run on computers
is because they are statistical driven games. Most games are. In actuality
i cannot think of any games at all that cannot be made into a form
of statistical probabilities.

It also seems that the writer believes that the RPG world runs parallel
to the computer industry. In the scope that is is male dominated and
designed to be exclusive to females. I find this to be offensive stereo
typing of a profession. It is obvious to me that this person has (A.)
never played a FRP game and (B.) Has never worked in an IT position.
I am an IT professional and I know women in all levels of the industry.
It maybe true that men are currently in the majority of the filled
positions in the IT industry however that is true for a lot of industries.
Their are industries in which women are in the majority Nursing, Daycare,
Floral, just to name a few. But you don't see men running around complaining
and pointing this out.

It is also stated that things such as computer programming and FRP
games are geared toward the male mindset or way of thinking. That
adolescent boys see programming as a game of a type that they have
one block of code that they conquer and then they move on to the next
block of code. As a programmer this is an unrealistic perception of
what programming is about. In order to write a program one must first
analyze the task to be performed then decide on a formula that would
complete the task, then the programmer must take that formula and
break it down to it simplest steps and implament them using a programming
language, after that the programmer must test the program agents all
types of environmental conditions such as of the user inputs the incorrect
data. How much data can the program handle from any input source and
countless other conditions that are outside of the normal operating
specification of the design of the program. Programming requires many
skills and is not a simple task. a programmer must be analytical,
must be able to sort out information a divide it into logical segments.
must be able to the use that information to formulate steps to accomplish
the intended goal. To suggest that women cannot do this or are not
naturally inclined to such task should be an offense to women everyware.

What spurred me to write this rebuttal was a woman that was on dungeons
and dragons message board made a post that she would like some one
that was more eloquent with word then herself to rebut this article.
I personally hadn't planned on it however after reading the article
I was sadend to see that anyone could have such a narrow focus on
the these things. Lumping J.J.R Tolkin D&D and roll playing games
all together and stating that all people that do these thing are of
the same mentality and must be men. To me that is offensive and it
should offend a great many people as well. This was not an accurate
analysis of any of the things mentioned in the article.

As for the authors interpretation of J.J.R Tolkens Lord of the ring
series. Again I must say that she is dead wrong. In fact The books
were written to establish the argument that of spiritualism verses
materialism. The books were authored in a time of modernization of
America that focused on materialism. The idea that these new scientific
inventions and devices would make your life easier and more pleasurable.
The books them selves are a direct contradiction to the advancement
of computer technology and the possession of things. J.J.R Tolkin
as other writers attempted to point out that we as humans have more
intrinsic abilities that are more profound and better then the advancement
of science and technology. writer such as C.S. lewis and J.J.R Tolkin
were not for and were even agents such things. They saw the advancement
of materialism as a direct undermining of the religious principles
on which this country was founded. The author failure to understand
this only shows her lack of depth and preception. I personally don't
believe that she read any of these authors either but took her 10
year old girl to go see the movie and decided that the movie was bad
an thought to write a slanderous article about it.

The author also missed the psychological value of such roll playing
games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Roll playing has been a standard
tool used in phychotharepy for many years. These games can teach people
to have more confidence and have a better self image. The ability
to deal with character on a fantasy level exercises the imagination
and builds creativity. Games such as these are played by people of
high intelligence such as M. Joseph Young a member of MESA. To speculate
that the game is played by impresionable young boys and teaches them
to dissociate them selves from reality is iresponsable. In fact the
goal of the game is to simulate reality in such a fashion as to make
the imagined world realistic. People who have played such games for
a long time are able to litterate much better in my opinion then the
average person. It teaches problem solving skills and many other things.

in conclusion I must say to the author that writing about things that
you have no prior experience and knowledge is questionable at best.
Writing about things in which you have experience and knowledge with
out research is just plain foolish. Please refrain from forming opinions
of false assumptions and misinformation. Remember that the world wide
web is accessable by over 33% of the earths population. Their are
a great many divers groups of people who know a great deal about a
great many things. To go slandering a group of people without research
and without facts opens yourself to ridicule and discreadits yourself.
It was once said ``It is better to not open your mouth and let people
think you a fool then to open it and prove them right.''

Setting the record straight

Redmage.

 

[redmage]

comments

please comment on my roast as you see fit. I don't know how the op-ed system works with the NyT but i have a feeling that this article probly will not be published. It dispells myths and reveals truthes. Something we all know the mass media has no intest in . They whant to sell subscriptions and truth dosn't sell verywell i'm afrade.