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The second “chapter” of this post is pretty disappointing. It seems like one of the authors doesn’t like violent video games (and thinks that they’re the cause

The second “chapter” of this post is pretty disappointing. It seems like one of the authors doesn’t like violent video games (and thinks that they’re the cause of school shootings!) and because of that thinks (or at least implies) that educational software is bad because it’s on a spectrum with violent video games. Also, while even some of the best educational software (like Duolingo) have problems, they’re generally not the problems that the authors expected.

jrimbault 5y ago
There should probably be a [2002] date in the title. The discourse around Mathematica, educational software, and video games has changed a lot in 20 years. I've the whole thing, not much is particularly relevent. Wolfram asks simply too much per license to be widely used in primary and secondary education.
dr_orpheus 5y ago
Yes, he also uses "On Killing" to support his argument for video games. It is a very fascinating (and disturbing) book. But most of the book is focused on the changes in military training that led to the increase in "shoot to kill" between WWII and Vietnam. In addition to the military training the book also talks about dis-association of killing through different methods and how that increased the "shoot to kill". The basic argument is that it is easier to kill someone when seeing them at a distance through the scope of a rifle than being right next to them and stabbing them. The other part of the dis-association is campaigns to dehumanize the enemy in war and not refer to them or acknowledge that they are individual humans. The video games argument in "On Killing" isn't part of the main thesis of the book, it is more tacked on the end. Whereas the rest of the book is looking at the past and evidence of what has happened. The video game part of it was (at the time) more focused on current feelings and attitudes towards it and was not substantiated.

jrimbault 5y ago

There should probably be a [2002] date in the title. The discourse around Mathematica, educational software, and video games has changed a lot in 20 years. I've the whole thing, not much is particularly relevent. Wolfram asks simply too much per license to be widely used in primary and secondary education.

dr_orpheus 5y ago

Yes, he also uses "On Killing" to support his argument for video games. It is a very fascinating (and disturbing) book. But most of the book is focused on the changes in military training that led to the increase in "shoot to kill" between WWII and Vietnam. In addition to the military training the book also talks about dis-association of killing through different methods and how that increased the "shoot to kill". The basic argument is that it is easier to kill someone when seeing them at a distance through the scope of a rifle than being right next to them and stabbing them. The other part of the dis-association is campaigns to dehumanize the enemy in war and not refer to them or acknowledge that they are individual humans. The video games argument in "On Killing" isn't part of the main thesis of the book, it is more tacked on the end. Whereas the rest of the book is looking at the past and evidence of what has happened. The video game part of it was (at the time) more focused on current feelings and attitudes towards it and was not substantiated.