That's because video game consoles are more popular, and they've become more accepted by the media.
30 years ago, my father and his brothers played Atari. I grew up with parents that both understood video games, at least somewhat. There's nothing objective about the way we view video games, or any other form of media.
For instance: I primarily look for media with some sort of emotional power, which is all-but-impossible to find in video games. I can think of perhaps five or six video games that had any emotional impact on me. I can name far more movies that have had a similar impact. My secondary search is for polish, and there movies also have an edge over modern games. The things I look for aren't what you look for, though - they're subjective. I remember having much more fun on an SNES than I did with, say, the Xbox. Your milage varies.
Wow, Gaius, somebody's downvoting every one of your posts.
There's a big movement towards emulators among the gamer scene I'm able to observe, because a lot of gamers are realizing that games haven't become fundamentally better in the last decade. Yesterday evening at a friend's, the Wii was forsaken for a Genesis; it's surprising how entertaining those games still are, because we've been conditioned to think you can't have fun without being cutting-edge.
This is an argument that has quite a bit of nuance to it. I'd argue that the iPhone is a luxury item for certain definitions of luxury, that in fact it is more luxurious than something like a diamond necklace if you use a utilitarian definition of luxury.
I guess what I was trying to say is that it depends on what you mean by luxury. I always viewed luxury as whatever took some annoyance off my mind, so having a phone/mp3 player/camera/clock/gaming combo that syncs quickly is a luxury to me. I also really like pretty things that act very responsive, which I consider a luxury since that's not strictly a part of usability.
Keep in mind that I won't even wear a watch because I don't like dangly things, so I won't even pretend to understand what sorts of people go for the typical sorts of luxury item.
That's how I define luxury also. To solidify it a little, I'd say that a luxury is something that may or may not provide utility but that isn't a commodity. Once it becomes a commodity, it's not a luxury anymore. Consider the evolution of telephone features:
1 you can just dial a number, you keep a hardcopy list
of phone numbers of common contacts
2 phones get the ability to show caller ID, just the
number, not any associated name
3 as part of becoming portable, phones include a simple
contact list showing names and numbers that you can
select to dial
4 the contact list is used, along with caller ID
functionality, to show the name of the caller
5 the contact list gets the ability to store address book
style information also, which is not directly related
to any other feature of the device (the phone).
6 the contact list is maintained portably outside the
device, allowing integration with additional services
7 the phone gains the ability to communicate via IM
8 the contact list is used to store unified information
for all contacts, IM and phone, and not have separate
lists independently in each phone feature.
At any earlier stage, the later stages seem like luxuries until the majority of devices have that feature; then it's not a luxury anymore, it's a necessity. Who's going to buy a smart phone these days that doesn't have some kind of unified contact list? Not having it would be a major hindrance, but lack of hindrance, utility, doesn't make it a luxury or not.
There's a pop culture definition of luxury, as you point out, like dangly watches, that serve no purpose other than to show off. That's the most baroque kind of luxury. There's also a more pragmatic, utilitarian luxury that is not absolute but changes based on the market and availability. Few people would consider the utility of an indoor outhouse to be a luxury, despite the fact that its main purpose is also served by an outdoor outhouse.
Let me expand upon my one line explanation. I apologize for being terse last time.
Let's say the stock market increases at 10% per year. This growth is driven by more capital being invested in the market each year. That means everyone in the market earns 10% interest every year, right? Well, in reality, that's not the case. Some people earn 30% and some people lose 20%. In fact, if anyone earns over 10%, that means that someone else must be earning less than 10%. So, maybe it's a 10-sum game, but most people still use the term "zero-sum game" to describe the situation.
Distribution of wealth and standard of living work the same way. Everyone's standard of living is increasing at 10 moon units per year. This growth is primarily driven by technology. However, if people in emerging markets are to have their standard of living increase at 15 moon units per year (which it is, and that's great), then someone else will have their standard of living increase at less than 10 moon units per year. That doesn't mean that our standard of living will decrease (although I wouldn't rule that out); it just won't increase as rapidly.
This is only true if the bar is rising at a pace regardless of increase in participants.
In reality, increases in trade raises the bar faster for everyone, often so much that it offsets the drop from the increased competition.
So say both country A and country B are increasing at 10 moon units per year. Country B trades as a net exporter with country A, and takes 1 moon unit per year from country A. However, the increase in economic activity boosts 2 moon units per year for everyone. Now country A is increasing at 11 moon units per year, and country B is increasing at 13 units per year.
> "In fact, if anyone earns over 10%, that means that someone else must be earning less than 10%. So, maybe it's a 10-sum game, but most people still use the term "zero-sum game" to describe the situation."
You fixed the rate of increase. Jesus. Obviously it'll look zero-sum under those circumstances. The point is, the more efficiently the stock market's played, the faster it grows overall (in theory). It's not zero-sum.
In game theory and economic theory, zero-sum describes a situation in which a participant's gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other participant(s). If the total gains of the participants are added up, and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero.
Just look at the stock market as an example. Many people speak of the stock market in terms of a zero-sum game, because on any given transaction if one person makes money the other loses money. However, every day more and more money gets pumped into the stock market, so that, on aggregate, everyone makes positive interest.
The same is true of our standard of living. The standard of living index, so to speak, has been increasing for a long time (forever, maybe?), and it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Everyone's standard of living will increase, in aggregate.
However, if people in poorer parts of the world start commanding higher salaries, people in more affluent areas won't be able to buy things as inexpensively as they do now. That's exactly what FSJ is pointing out here. I don't understand why I'm being down-modded for echoing it.
There was a time when Kings built huge castles and palaces. Those times are behind us now, because the standard of living is more evenly distributed. It's only going to continue to become more so.
Tech is only different if you play by the game wherein anything that doesn't abuse a computer's stats is not worth toying with.
I'm guilty of playing this game along with everybody else, but at some point we'll realize that we don't need all of what we've got, and we'll start being satisfied with it. Hell, I can see myself sticking with the laptop I've got right now for a decade.
If you want to separate yourself from the world, then you could still use typewriters. Typewriters can't receive e-mail. Similarly, a Pentium can't run modern Web applications at a reasonable speed. A ten-year-old cellphone won't have a camera and all the associated applications of that. You can stay with old hardware -- but at the cost of eventually giving up access to contemporary applications.
I must admit, I was a bit disappointed. I was expecting an article on why attempting to maximize followers is doing yourself and your ideas a disservice.
Coming home from college this summer I've realized how many of my friends sell drugs as their summer occupation. Just selling weed earns you twice what you'd make doing long hours for minimum wage, it seems.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to get in on the business. Seems like a high-risk high-reward situation.
So is Facebook's. ;-)