U.S. Budget & OBBB | OCT 1 - Gov’t Shutdown Begins

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superrific said:
What are they supposed to be doing when not working? Standing on their head?

That only matters if the reason they are not working is that they can't break away from video games. Which is, of course, not what is happening. I have my doubts that there is any AEI study at all like what Johnson is describing, but if there is, the researchers were not looking for any sort of causality.
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There is a blog post from AEI on this issue. A guy who claims to have conducted a study when in fact he just joined two database tables and didn't bother with any sort of statistical controls. That is not the same thing as a study.
 
Calheel said:
Gaming addiction, like many other behavioral addictions, is a real thing. They are many kids (many with ADHD, who need the immediate dopamine rush) who have a problem with chronic gaming and not moving forward with their lives. This became exacerbated over the Covid period.

Now, what percentage of the unemployed population? That is not sure. I tend to doubt most of those kids have the initiative to sign up for Medicaid when they are kicked off their parents' insurance.
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You're describing my wife's kids and their friends. How many of them are actually addicted? My guess is a very small number. And if addiction is the problem, then make treatment available. But of course they won't do that.

The fact of the matter is that, in today's world, "looking for a job" is not a time consuming process. You submit some applications to hiring websites and wait for a response. Maybe you get an interview. Then you wait for a response. There's nothing do with your days. That they fill the days with games and TV is not at all surprising.

I mean, go back 40 years and ask the same question. People who aren't working -- what are they doing with their time? Hanging out at the gym, going to bars, loitering -- this is not a fruitful line of inquiry.
 
Calheel said:
Gaming addiction, like many other behavioral addictions, is a real thing. They are many kids (many with ADHD, who need the immediate dopamine rush) who have a problem with chronic gaming and not moving forward with their lives. This became exacerbated over the Covid period.

Now, what percentage of the unemployed population? That is not sure. I tend to doubt most of those kids have the initiative to sign up for Medicaid when they are kicked off their parents' insurance.
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OF course gaming addiction is a real thing. As is social media addiction. But there is no real attempt to offer solutions here. It's just fingering pointing as a way to demonize those who are out of work.
 
superrific said:
You're describing my wife's kids and their friends. How many of them are actually addicted? My guess is a very small number. And if addiction is the problem, then make treatment available. But of course they won't do that.

The fact of the matter is that, in today's world, "looking for a job" is not a time consuming process. You submit some applications to hiring websites and wait for a response. Maybe you get an interview. Then you wait for a response. There's nothing do with your days. That they fill the days with games and TV is not at all surprising.

I mean, go back 40 years and ask the same question. People who aren't working -- what are they doing with their time? Hanging out at the gym, going to bars, loitering -- this is not a fruitful line of inquiry.
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There is a bit of a cause and effect loop here you are ignoring. Like any addiction, the gaming addiction reduces the desire to do other things, like work. It is not just they don't have a job, so they play video games. It is that they play video games (and are chronically online) so that they don't get a job.

Obviously, there are degrees of addiction and some are worse than others. But there are certainly some -- not nearly as many as Mike Johnson believes -- who are living a chronically online life and can't/won't become a productive member of society. Several of them have recently taken to the assassination line of work.
 
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Calheel said:
There is a bit of a cause and effect loop here you are ignoring. Like any addiction, the gaming addiction reduces the desire to do other things, like work. It is not just they don't have a job, so they play video games. It is that they play video games (and are chronically online) so that they don't get a job.

Obviously, there are degrees of addiction and some are worse than others. But there are certainly some -- not nearly as many Ron Johnson believes -- who are living a chronically online life and can't/won't become a productive member of society. Several of them have recently taken to the assassination line of work.
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Well, there's also a cause and effect loop you're ignoring: kids with autism or ADHD -- especially undiagnosed or untreated -- gravitate to video games because they struggle in other areas of their lives. When they struggle a lot, they play a lot of games. They weren't necessarily going to be employable anyway.

My wife's eldest is like this. He's autistic; really smart; and barely graduated high school because it was very difficult for him to keep a consistent sleep schedule, pay attention in class, do his homework assignments. He also gamed a lot. The gaming was a function of his difficulties, not vice versa.

As I've mentioned before, my wife is a child/adol psychiatrist. This gives her a lot of insight on this topic, and it's her opinion that excessive gaming is much more often symptom than cause.

What I've learned from her is how many parents actively resist mental health diagnoses for their kids and/or treatment. She has loads of cases where the mom or dad brings the kid in for ADHD treatment. The other parent comes in and refuses to acknowledge there's anything wrong. If they have joint custody, they end up head-butting but the "no way is my kid taking Ritalin" parent wins by default. So my wife tries to treat the kid but has the most effective and appropriate medications taken off the table.

Not surprisingly, a lot of those kids play a lot of games. Obviously the households are conflict-ridden and so they seek refuge from fighting, and in addition they aren't getting treated.

Also, my wife's brother had a kid with ADHD. He's a PhD in biochem from a top school (Emory, I think) but simply refuses to believe that ADHD is real. He wouldn't let his son get treated for that thing because it was phony and fake. Only when the kid attempted a suicide did the dad relent.
 
superrific said:
Well, there's also a cause and effect loop you're ignoring: kids with autism or ADHD -- especially undiagnosed or untreated -- gravitate to video games because they struggle in other areas of their lives. When they struggle a lot, they play a lot of games. They weren't necessarily going to be employable anyway.

My wife's eldest is like this. He's autistic; really smart; and barely graduated high school because it was very difficult for him to keep a consistent sleep schedule, pay attention in class, do his homework assignments. He also gamed a lot. The gaming was a function of his difficulties, not vice versa.

As I've mentioned before, my wife is a child/adol psychiatrist. This gives her a lot of insight on this topic, and it's her opinion that excessive gaming is much more often symptom than cause.

What I've learned from her is how many parents actively resist mental health diagnoses for their kids and/or treatment. She has loads of cases where the mom or dad brings the kid in for ADHD treatment. The other parent comes in and refuses to acknowledge there's anything wrong. If they have joint custody, they end up head-butting but the "no way is my kid taking Ritalin" parent wins by default. So my wife tries to treat the kid but has the most effective and appropriate medications taken off the table.

Not surprisingly, a lot of those kids play a lot of games. Obviously the households are conflict-ridden and so they seek refuge from fighting, and in addition they aren't getting treated.

Also, my wife's brother had a kid with ADHD. He's a PhD in biochem from a top school (Emory, I think) but simply refuses to believe that ADHD is real. He wouldn't let his son get treated for that thing because it was phony and fake. Only when the kid attempted a suicide did the dad relent.
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Yes. All that is true. And almost always, video game addicts (like most addicts) have several underlying mental health issues.

It’s never as simple as Mike Johnson makes it out to be. It’s not simply a matter of changing the law to get the deadbeats back in the job market.
 
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Calheel said:
Yes. All that is true. And almost always, video game addicts (like most addicts) have several underlying mental health issues.

It’s never as simple as Ron Johnson makes it out to be. It’s not simply a matter of changing the law to get the deadbeats back in the job market.
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It's not Ron, it's Mike.

That's not on you. We shouldn't have even one bat-shit crazy lunatic lying piece of shit in Congress. But we have so many they have overlapping names. I blame the Johnsons.
 
lawtig02 said:
Maybe they're training to be drone pilots in the USAF?
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I was thinking more like playing Call of Duty to prepare for the next deployment to an American city. I mean, we all know it's a warzone in the all big cities being run by Democrats.
 
Saw the Speaker's talking point, that he had not added anything to the CR nor asked for anything. Therefore, its all up to the Dems. On the surface, not a bad point to tout to the less informed.

The Democrats should counter that if it were that simple then why are we here in the first place? Why didn't the Republicans get it done thru the budget process before we ever got here? This is their failure.
 
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