[spamkillerj]

yup, teaching children to be dictators

[erepsysoulpfbs]

It'll also replay starting in 20 minutes, which is good because I missed it tonight.

[boizzones]

How many 12 year olds are on these or any Civ board?

He's really reaching.

ACK!

[Lebybynctisee]

I first started playing Civ when I was like 9-10.

[dHXaE2h9]

I started playing civI when I was 11

[fhutiussk]

ditto on playing Civ 1 on release

I was 11 or 12

[SkapySisy]

I started playing civ2 at the age of 24. .

[Yfclciak]

The New Yorker reviewed this same book and author a while back. He makes some interesting points, especially comparing the interactivity of books against video games.

Books: You are essentially passive. True, your brain is visualizing what you read, so you're do some work interpreting it, but there's no measure of success or failure to challenge you to continue. The ending is always the same, and you're rarely the one doing the problem solving.

Video games: Geared to exercise your problem solving skills, these can range from managing a virtual empire, to figuring out good dogfighting techniques, to finding your way out of a maze.

One line that was a real kicker said something to the effect that if video games had come out first and then books were invented later in mankind's history, there's no doubt that society would look down on books as "unchallenging" or "shallow" or "dumbed-down entertainment".

[Pznrrmaf]

Originally posted by Jaguar
I was playing Civ1 in 1993 at the age of five.
bullshit

[mensforyouthis]

Dang young whippersnappers (p'toouey)

I didn't even see my first computer until I was on a high school science trip to a college in the next town. They had a mainframe there. It played tic-tac-toe. And believe it or not, you couldn't beat it!

[Aminkaoo]

Suffrage for 5-year-olds now!

[pushokalex1]

I grew up being told that "video games would rot my brain" and all that BS. It's just version 1,323,537 of the whole "new product X is corrupting the youth" thing.

[Domovoy]

Originally posted by Jaguar

That's a rather typical response from a 30-year-old without kids. Just because you grew up without video games doesn't mean young kids can't pick them up really quickly.

To adults, learning the rules of an entirely new world is somewhat difficult. It takes a 35-year-old longer to master Mario Kart than it takes an 8-year-old. To kids, it's second nature to learn the rules of new worlds. They're still learning the rules of the first one. So in the same way I learned that one must wash hands after going to the bathroom, I learned that Chivalry was unnecessary if you weren't planning a war, because it was a dead-end tech which only led to a single unit.

I was looking at your profile to see how old you were, and I noticed you're a chess player. Did you play when you were young at any competitive events? Did you meet those kids who are seven or younger but better than players twice their age?

While adults have much more life experience, it's not necessarily relevant in games. Knowing the course of history doesn't actually help you in Civilization. I can recall asking my mother whether there were Ironclads in 1310, because I had gotten an ironclad then. A little kid can't be expected to know the course of history. He can, however, learn to create roads around his cities to increase the number of orange and yellow arrows. And that's all he needs.

Ozzy, QFT me.
ok

[Eujacwta]

I was starting Civ 2 when I was about 9, and came here when I was 12, I think.

[Kamendoriks]

Originally posted by duke o' york

But Civ 1 was a lot more complicated than the average game at the time. Yes. And it did have corruption.

[palantownia]

I was about 16 when I first started playing Civ...

[wCYvMKAc]

The video is up on the website linked in the OP for free now.

Very funny.

[Mboxmaja]

I think it's roughly 49321 times more useful to know how to use a DVD player vs knowing of Charlemagne.

[fygESytT]

Originally posted by Jaguar
wikipedia entry. Praise Wikipedia!

[kranfid]

Eh. I'd rather people know how to find a lot of information when they need it than be able to immediately recall less information.