trapical

Well I didn't mean you would dress like a guy, but I would think you would dress more modestly. I think most guys permanently stuck in a girls body would at first feel a little uncomfortable walking around in a miniskirt and tube top, if for no other reason than the fact that this would draw the attention of all the guys around you. But who knows, maybe you would want to do so in order to get used to it, after all it is you life from then on out. This is totally uncharted territory by the way, even my pseudo-survey doesn't have any data on how people would act in a permanent switch. :-s Sort of off topic, did you guys like the picture that greeted you all when you first clicked on this thread? Ha, I wish I could start every thread with a picture like that, something amusing and thought provoking that gets you ready for the thread subject. :wink:

That's kinda interesting how you can actually get your mind to think in that hypothetical of a situation. Actually, I bet that's another lone question you could ask someone and find out a lot about them. Weird how different minds work. I am also quite impressed and very surprised that we can even have a conversation as obscure as 'what you would wear' without people running around and calling everyone gay. Trust me, three years ago this would not have been possible. These forums have definably matured at a tangible rate over the past few years, nicely done everyone :)

Drago, don't worry about it. That is most likely cause a muscle releasing it's neurotransmitters that it was holding on to. Let me explain in simpler terms. For a muscle to move it needs to release a burst of 'energy'. Let's imagine that 'energy' is a bucket of water. Now when you are running or climbing stairs you are using a lot of energy so your muscle is gathering dozens and dozens of these buckets of water and using them all as fast as it can obtain them. Now you suddenly sit or lay down. The muscle stops all of a sudden and tells itself it stop collecting these buckets of water. Of course there is a slight delay in the communication and by the time the signal gets to the other side, the muscle is sitting there, idle, holding on to all these extra buckets of water. After a little while the muscle gets sick of hanging on to these heavy buckets so it simply says "forget this!" and it just throws the water aside. This action causes that once muscle to burst into action all of a sudden for no apparent reason. :

Lol, wow man thats pretty impressive. I'm almost regretting admitting this, but since the comic was based on a theme I had been researching... I read all ~800 on the same day :uhh: But yea, I totally agree with what you said. The author is a genius in the way he presents the story. Before I read it and had heard it was ranked in the top 10 webcomics, I was really skeptical. But after reading it I am going to have to agree. I would even say it would make a really good movie if done right. As for Abstract? Abstract's story isn't nearly as polished and the site is less professional (several artists, updates 3x a week instead of 5, etc) but Abstract has a lot more random humor. Well, moving on... I know, I totally came across this with a lot of the people I talked to. Pretty strange, but I think it might have to do with the fact that you would really want to experience the situation, get your money's worth so to say. After the whole anatomy thing got boring after a little while I think most guys would want to go to someplace like a mall and just walk around wearing really, really chick-like things. Clothes that a guy could never, ever wear. Why would you want to spend your few days as a girl wearing jeans and t-shirt when you could wear a skirt and a halter top, and in addition be able to show off your new found goods? I think this phenomenon is only true if the change is temporary though. I think if you actually went through a permanent change you would subconsciously dress more tomboy-ish. I sort of know what you mean. I think, in all honesty, that if out of some bizarre random ocurrance I was actually offered The Question, I would consider permanent. Let me restate, once again, I am as heterosexual as any guy I have ever met. But I don't know, I think even knowing of the disadvantages of being female (less pay, periods, have to worry about rape, childbirth, weaker physically, etc) I would still probably consider the option of permanent change simply because... I don't know. I honestly don't know, and that fact has really intrigued me. I think that was one of the reasons I did this survey, to see if I can find that answer. But regardless, in the meantime don't tell my gf what I just said :-$ :

Ha, cool. Might I ask which one, Misfile or Abstract Gender?

Guys, if you don't like a poster just ignore him. Responding to it with a single smiley face or a single sentence does nothing to help the situation, and it really breaks up the flow of the thread. Regardless, ThoseTheBrokes, I love the title of the thread :wink: And yea, A.E. does have some pretty spiffy things if your willing to pay a few extra bucks.

Lol, I don't know if that was sarcasm but it does remind me of an interesting point from my survey. I noticed that many guys, when talking about what they would do in those two weeks, seem to bring up the point "Oh man, I'd try on everything in my closet, see what it's like to wear a dress, and then go shopping!" This really surprised pretty much every girl who heard this. I think most girls seem to think that the men in girl's bodies would spent the first week locked in their room enjoying themselves, and the second week they would spend wearing a loose sweatshirt and baggy jeans as to try to pretend they were a guy. But the results speak to contrary, most men say they would wear the most girly thing they could find and then shop at Victoria's Secret :-s I did not actually, I thought that would be kind of awkward, me being a guy and all. Which actually brings up another point, why can girls easily admit that their friends are hot, but men never would even let those thoughts cross their mind? Again, not saying I wish men would think like that, but I think it's actually really weird that things are like they are. That's probably the chief reason I would want to switch bodies for a little bit. Sure there is the sexual aspect of being in a girl's body, but I think the psychological tidbits would be really cool to experience. : I don't really have any of those numbers -.- This was a very informal survey, conducted over about 4 years. I could only ask people I knew personally, asking a total stranger if he wished he was the opposite gender would have been awkward and would have totally screwed with my results. So I started out in High School, asking all my friends and peers that I knew. At first I didn't even write the data down, last year when I wanted to put all my data together I had to literally get out my yearbook and go through the people I asked and recall what they said. This was surprisingly easy to do, but chances are I probably mixed up someone somewhere. It got easier when I was in college. I had a lot more diverse friends and I began to keep a more detailed record in the back of an old notebook. Even so though, the total people surveyed over the four years is about 80 people of each gender, hardly enough to draw any serious conclusions. Oh, and there is a slight bias towards Biology majors in the survey, they probably made up about 20% of the people I asked. The other 80% are a complete blend of degrees and cultures. Good point. That was a huge problem I had to tackle when doing this survey. Sure I could ask my friends the question and they would laugh and answer it honestly, but how could I expand it to more people? Well I began asking the question in the middle of a party where everyone felt at ease (and often but not always, many were slightly drunk). I usually started by saying something like "I had a dream that I was a girl..." or something like "I saw this crazy Japanese movie..." I then led in to the hypothetical question and made it look like I just came up with it out of the blue. I would usually ask the person who had the most to drink the question first as a sort of additional ice breaker. After that person answered the question the thing took a life of it's own and I couldn't stop the conversation if I wanted to. At this point I just sit back and observe the two dozen or so people who take turns speaking all trying to get their word in. I think it's a clever way of doing the survey on people who would never tell the truth normally. While the party atmosphere might affect the results in a slight way, when I compare the data I gathered from these party observations to the date I got from just downright asking my friends out of the blue... the date is actually fairly close. Oh, and I would actually probably give someone a hundred dollars if they went out and did an actual study/survey on this. :)

Aww, that kind of sucks. If it makes you feel any better I missed being Homecoming King by one vote senior year... and three of my friends forgot to vote -.- As for your situation? Try to not let it get the best of you. Actually, heck, if you really want ask the girl if you can be her assistant or something. I'm sure you can hang out with them if you want, schools rarely deny students that want to help out.

This is an interesting concept to ponder. I first came across this phenomenon (the question, not that actual situation :wink: ) during a high school Psychology project. I was trying to determine the chief differences between male and female thought and the more I looked into it, the more I got confused. For example, why do guys hate seeing other guys in revealing clothing... yet girls don't mind seeing girls in bikinis. Furthermore, guys never want to touch each other yet girls love rubbing sunscreen on each other. It's often not even logically, two guys sharing a huge king sized bed is considered unacceptable, but girls often giggle and don't mind sharing a twin sized bed with 2 other girls. We all know these things about out culture, and never really think about it... But really, what's going on here? At the end of the semester those 3 years ago I concluded my psychology project more confused than when I began it. But while the project may have ended for me academically, I still actively pursue its answers even into today. Among my studies, I devised an interesting test one can use to find a lot about a person with just one question. "If somehow possible, would you switch bodies with a someone of the opposite gender for two weeks" For most females I often got a curious glance, almost as if they expected that if they said yes I would say something like "well then, follow me". But other than that the results were pretty much as expected. For girls it was about a 50-50 split between yes and no. Upon questioning it seemed of the 50% that said no, nearly all of them said so just because they didn't want some random guy to be alone with their bodies. While this makes perfect sense for it is interesting to note that men didn't seem to care about this at all. When I asked the men the same hypothetical question, nearly all of them said yes before I even finished the sentence. :XD: Like I said, men didn't care the slightest about the consequences of someone else in their body, which either means the men simply didn't care or they felt it was worth the risk. Something else of interest I found when dealing with the females was that there was no correlation between attractiveness and the answers to my questions. The "hot" girls were just as interested in the deal as the "ugly" ones, and both types of girls had a near equal percentage concerned about the ramifications of people in their bodies. But anyway, back to males. My simply question opened up a Pandora's box with the males. Many asked if they could extend the two week period. Probably the most interesting response I got was from a fairly respected, popular athlete in my school: "Of course I would switch genders for a two weeks... [at this point he paused and looked at the floor before continuing] ...day one I would find my girlfriend and, without her knowing who I was, ask her if she really truly loved her boyfriend. If she said no, I would spend the next 13 days trying to find out how to remain as a girl for the rest of my life" :| Wow, that was quite a statement to hear. If it was up to him, the only thing keeping this heterosexual guy from living life as a girl was his girlfriend's love. I was both impressed by the power of his love, and wondering what made him so eager to give up his manhood. I didn't ask either question and at first thought he might be gay. But I really don't think that was not the case. It seemed almost half the guys I offered the "permenent switch" to at least contemplated it, and most answered with "I don't really know". I should say that when dealing with this question it was assumed that this switch would be unexplainable/magically done. I am in no way saying that half the kids in my school would want to undergo a sex change surgery. :wink: Anyway, surprisingly the results didn't differ much among men in relationships. Like I said, essentially all men would take the 2 week trail, and about 20% would want it permanent. This percentage changed a little bit depending on status for the men: -If the guy was a virgin: 20% would prefer to stay as a female -If the guy had a g/f: 25% would prefer to stay as a female :shock: -If the guy just got out a relationship: 10% would prefer to stay as a female Interesting results huh? - - - - - Anyway, going back to the picture at the beginning of this post. When I asked a girl I know the aforementioned questions she laughed as asked me if I have been reading too many webcomics. I was quite confused by this, since I could have sworn most webcomics are like "Ctrl Alt Delte", "PennyArcade" or "Cyanide and Happiness". You know, funny comics with inside jokes for people who know a lot about games or computers. Well apparently there is a whole genre of webcomics that deal with the above discussion. Upon a little researching, it seems ~three years ago it all began with comic by the name of Misfile. Misfile, which is the source of the above picture, is a webcomic with an interesting plot. A guy goes to bed and wakes up as a female due to a glitch made by an Angel, who has since been kicked out of heaven and is in no way able to fix the problem. The guy's (or should I say girl's) problem is complicated by the fact that his entire past has changed and everyone thinks he has always been a girl. Only one other person knows the truth and together they try to fix the problem. However some 800 episodes later, and they are no closer than they were at episode one. "Misfile" is surprisingly popular, it has been consistently been ranked as one of the top 10 webcomics out of several thousand. And thats just one, there are literally dozens. One which I have come to enjoy reading is the crudely named "Abstract Gender" comic. It deals with two high school guys who get ambushed by a mad scientist and turned into girls. One of them is able to change back and forth from male->female at will, and the other one is stuck as a female. It is a quirky comic full of amusing moments (sample here, the girl in the red shirt is the one stuck as a girl, the guy in the grey/black shirt is the other main character). It is important to note that it follows a theme from Misfile and nearly all other webcomics in this genre: Sex is never mentioned. Neither is any other form of sexual pleasure. The comics are totally G-rated and just deal with the main character trying to adapt to 'her' new life and learning about the nuisances and differences that exist between genders. They show the countless things that we all partake in with out half of the population without us even thinking about it. Anyway just a seemingly random thought from me that I decided to share. :

I call shenanigans on the winning one.

Wow talk about a badly done survey. Any professional survey company should realize that there is a difference between: -two things that go hand in hand -a correlation between these two things For example, I could release a revolutionary survey that said "A recent study found out that the most of the people who pee standing up are men! Therefore peeing while standing seems to be a primary cause of what determines your gender! If you pee while standing, chances are you will become a male!" :-s See what I mean? Gaming doesn't make you smarter than the average person anymore that peeing while standing, or using a men's bathroom will make you a male. You reversed the points. -Being a male means you are likely to use a men's bathroom. -Smarter people are more likely to play video games. (Not the other way around) Smarter people play more games since most of the smarter people spend more times indoors studying or reading when they were a lot younger. Meanwhile the everyone else was spending more times outdoors playing sports/running around. As these kids age the people that played outdoors when they were young grow up to become kids that like being sports and have lots a outdoor friends. Meanwhile the "smart" kids grow up and have friends like themselves, friends that are used to staying indoors. They prefer to play video games or learn computer tricks since they are used to staying inside and reading or watching educational children's videos.

It's also a waste going out every night and getting drunk and all high and stuff. It's a waste to study every single night, spending from the time you get home to the time you go to bed in books. In a sense, its not a waste to play games. Its a way people want to spend their lives. Dont call people's life styles a waste. I beg to differ Lionheart. I can see your argument with gaming vs getting high, but in comparison to studying? A good friend of mine, six years my senior, spent his college life studying to become an Astro-physicist. Everyone else was playing PS1 or out drinking and he spent those 4 years in the library. Now he is an engineer at Lockheed Martin. He joined the team of the 100 or so people that are designing and building the replace for the space shuttle. He uses his knowledge of the things he studied and with it is building the ships that will carry men to Mars and beyond. One of my professors spoke of when he was a 4th year medical student back in the 90s. He was taking the bus back to his apartment and a 35 year old man on the bus collapsed after an apparent heart attack. The Med School taught him CPR two years ago as part of a class. Although they were told they would never be tested on it, my professor had studied it and spent the time to review it every few months with the feeling that one day he might need it. He saved that man's life on the bus that day. Let me tell you another true story. My best friend in elementary and middle school was "Joe". Well, Joe was a genius, the smartest guy I knew. He was lazy though, as most geniuses are. He rarely if ever did his homework since he instead preferred to play NES or Gameboy. He averaged C's in middle school despite his intellect but always said "your grades don't matter until High School." He was correct in this point but when High School did roll around, old habits die hard. He became a huge tech nerd and was hired by the school to help out with the network. He knew everything there was to know about Windows, C++, you name it. He graduated with a 1.9 GPA and barly got into a local technical school. He wanted to become a computer programmer but still had a huge fondness for video gaming. He never attended classes and got kicked out of the college. Joe was, without a doubt, smarter than I am or ever will be in terms of IQ. Hell, he is probably smarter than the aforementioned professor who saved that guys life on the bus. But Joe didn't study, he played games. Joe now works for Wal-Mart. [/100% true story]

Lol, nice try but you are both wrong technically. For one, it's biologically impossible to pee with an actual erection, so there's no peeing in the face side effect :wink: However saying men have 'morning wood' to prevent bed accidents is just silly. What about females then? No form of sexual stimulation can prevent a women from urinating. So do all females wet the bed every night since they can't get a urine blocking morning wood? How come I can pee when I have one? It's really hard because it sprays upwards, but I still do it. Well this conversation isn't awkward at all, but anyway, if your peeing you don't have a full erection. If you have one and you try to pee your body than backs off the erection a little bit, thus allowing you to pee. Wow, I really need to get used to these awkward conversations if I want to become a doctor...

Lol, nice try but you are both wrong technically. For one, it's biologically impossible to pee with an actual erection, so there's no peeing in the face side effect :wink: However saying men have 'morning wood' to prevent bed accidents is just silly. What about females then? No form of sexual stimulation can prevent a women from urinating. So do all females wet the bed every night since they can't get a urine blocking morning wood?

This is actually a testament to how crude of brain is. Sure it's complex but if you think about a toenail getting ripped of the part of your brain that deals with pain is like "Wait! What?!! Toenail ripped off? Where? Uh, uh, uh, umm, crap why isn't it confirming?! Did the brain get the image of a toenail getting ripped off, let me double check.... yes it did! But why isn't it going in the normal channels?! Ah crap, lets just go on standby to alert the conscious in case something really is going on *ENGAGE SLIGHT PAIN TWITCH OF TOE*. "

I prefer the Skull and Bones society in Yale. It's an elite group of students and you can't tell anyone your in it and you can only get in it by invitation. Former members from Yale speak of the elaborate plans they use to invite people. One guy said he was somehow drugged and woke up on an oak chair in the middle in a dark room somewhere. He was surrounded by guys in black cloaks that covered their faces and one of them spoke "The Order recognizes your special skills and extends an invitation... do you accept?" Anyway the Order founded the CIA and something like 4 of the past 11 presidents have been members (including both of the Bush presidents). Also whenever a member of the Order is elected president, nearly the entire Cabinet is made of members as well :wink:

Hmm, I suppose I should contribute something to this tread being the Bio major and all... :-k Ah ha! Spiffy little fact I came across. Okay guys, hang with me, this is actaully pretty interesting but you are going to need a little bit of background knowledge about the different types of nerves works. Prepare for a 45 second crash course on how nerves can work \ A nerve picks up a signal at one end and then does a complicated process, I won't get into, then sends the signal out the other end onto the next nerve. However what sends the signal out the end to the next nerve? Well it can be two things. Either: 1)Neuro transmitter chemicals like acetylcholine, these chemicals are released by the cell into the synapse between the cells, and the molecules wander around the open space until the land by chance on the next cell. This method is pretty simple and sort of slow compared to most other body functions (it still happens in 1/100 of a second, but it is by far the slowest part of your nervous system, it's takes up about 99% of time it takes for a nerve to send a signal) But there is another way... 2. Electrical synapse. I'm sure you have all seen the movies where they show the brain and lightning is shooting across everywhere. Yes, these are the "cr̮̬̉̉me de la cr̮̬̉̉me" of cells. These cells are able to create enough charge to shoot mini lighting bolts over to the next cell instead of using those silly neuro transmitters. Okay so let's review. A nerve cell can either use chemicals (neurotransmitters) or electricity when dealing with passing the nerve signal to the next nerve. The advantages of electrical nerves? Well it's instantaneous, it increases the speed of transmission by almost a hundred fold. Also remember that neurotransmitters are complex chemicals, and a cell only stores so many at once. Meaning neurotransmitter cells can only send a signal so many times before they get tired and need to "recharge". This is one of the reasons why your muscles get tired, the muscles cells are running out of these neurotransmitters and need time to make more. Some cells can't afford this problem, cells they need to work 24/7. The heart for example, is made entirely of electrical synapse cells so it can run nonstop as long as it has food. Every second the lightning bolts are send across one heart to the other, every second of your entire life. In addition to heart cells brain cells connected to your conscious self are also electrical, since they need to work without rest. So heart and conscious = electrical, but what about all your other nerves? Well Different people have a different mix of electrical and chemical synapse nerves. What does this mean? Remember electrical nerves have two bonuses, the first being fatigue (which isn't that big of a deal) but the second is Speed. Remember how slow chemical neurotransmitters work? Yea, well, electric ones are instantaneous. People with even 1% more electrical nerves have substantially better reflexes than the people that don't. Now know what's interesting? Biological historians have traced the bloodlines of famous swordsmen and found that the decedents of people such as Miyamoto Musashi and did tests to determine that these people have extraordinarily high electrical synapse ratios. When most people have 8-12% these people had around 20-30%. The family joked that their grandparents always bragged about being able to do things like catch training spears mid flight and other feats that required incredible reflexes and speed. There are theories that they was a tribe of humans thousands of years ago that evolved through some event and they all had 100% electrical synapse nerves. There people would have been demi-gods in any form or combat or physical skill, they would not fatigue and they would have reflexes faster than you can even image. You probably think you have pretty fast reflexes, well these people would have had reflexes approximately 90,000 times faster than anyone alive today :ohnoes:. No one knows what happened to these people, but their genes have been spread out across the globe. People such as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, or "King Arthur" all probably possessed a higher concentration of these genes. Even today, some of us have these genes and some of us don't. Do you win a lot at games like "bloody knuckles"? Do you have fast reflexes? Well chances are one of us at this forum is part of this ancient bloodline and has a higher electrical synapse count... :-s

Understood Nadril, you do bring several valid points. I think we both agree the truth lies somewhere inbetween us. Thanks for the debate, it was one of the most civil ones I have ever had on tip.it :)

I wasn't just referring to football btw, which is sort of a silly sport. I fail to see how learning how to throw a ball or how to run into someone really hard will help you in life. I was referring to sports like track, swimming, etc that give you useful traits. Everyone needs to run someone at some point, having been in track for sometime will give that person a better running ability, and better cardiovascular health for the rest of their life. Same with swimming, you lower blood pressure and improve heart health. But I digress, and I don't really think you meant for your arguments to be that specific :wink: You have a good point here. The answer to your question doesn't make a strong case for me, but it answers your questions. 1) The health argument. People devote a lot of time to their "game" of choice. People also need to devote a substantial amount of time to fitness. Might as well do both at once. 2) People need role models. Athletes are examples of physical perfection, which we all have an evolutionary attractiveness to. Example of a stereotypical gamer vs athlete. Obviously that stereotype doesn't hold true for all gamers and all athletes but it is the general trend. I don't blame Americans for looking up to athletes instead of gamers. 3) Gaming and sports... It's just not the same. I can only describe this in an anecdote that anyone who has ever ran a race can relate to. In practice you run until you are tired and then feel like slowing down so you do. But in a meet with a rival you start out running faster and seeing your competition drives you faster and harder. As you make it to the last 100 yards you have already shattered your time trail record but are still neck and neck with your competitor. 75 yards to go, months of training reward you as the countless muscles in your legs work together with perfection that has been made possible by millions of years of evolution; you are the product of thousands of generations, and you are in your prime. 50 yards to go and you are totally numb with adrenaline running faster than you ever thought you could, you get tunnel vision as you try to pull just a few inches ahead of the guy next to you. 25 yards to go, your rival has managed to pull ahead about half a foot in front of you now, you look to the side and see your classmates and peers cheering your name, lending you their will and hope... the prestige of the entire school is on your will now. How fast can your will yourself to go? This race is no longer physical, it's all mental. You give one final burst of speed and triumphantly cross the finish line a hair ahead of the other guys. You get an endorphin high and everyone around you is saying congratulations. You look at your rival and he smiles at you and says congratulations as well, he knows more than anyone else how hard your performed. You congratulate him back for a great race and then go and talk to your classmates who await you with open arms. Meanwhile an up and coming pro gamer has a really hard Halo 2 match. He memorized all the respawn points and has gotten really good at shooting people in the head with the sniper rifle. He knows its a hard match but that really doesn't change that much. Does he "play harder" than he ever has in the past? Is that even possible? In the end his opponent spawns in a bad spot next to no guns and is easily mowed down. Our hero wins the match, says "LOL, n3wb" and then drinks some Mountain Dew. This was an exaggeration but I think you can see my point. Physical sports require mental and physical training. Also athletes are able to "push themselves" to perform while gaming only requires knowledge of the game. :| Bleh, I hate pro sports. And yes it's sad that a baseball player can make 100x as much money as a chief diplomat or the head neuro surgeon at Johns Hopkins But oh well, I can't change that. Still though, I think I would rather have a culture of children who try to emulate athletes than one that has everyone emulating pro gamers. I mean my god, look at how obese the kids are nowadays and thats WITH the huge emphasis on pro athletics! If that emphasis was gone...*whistle* things would not be pretty. Very interesting concept. I don't really know for sure, but I think yes, I would be a bit more supportive. Granted if there was a pro gaming league when I have kids, I think I would be more comfortable with them having an interest in say, tennis, than in pro gaming. ... The thing that really gets me, being a pseudo evolutionary biologist, is the fact that for millions of years physical activity and competition have been around. Look at wolves, they actaully have races with their brothers and there has even been footage of a papa wolf playing Frisbee with his 6 month old son using a thin caribou bone. Physical sports and competition are great things and are part of our culture and our eternal past. Giving them up for competition where two people sit at computers for hours at end simply doesn't seem right to me. Sorry but thats just how I feel about it.

Okay, I'll give you guys that, you can pick up a few things from video games... But from MegaManX or Metroid? Lol, right you learn that ice beams are good against fire monsters. Thats handy. And besides all the actual benefits from sports, let me just point out one quick fact. Let's say you want to go pro in a sport. What do you do? You go to college so you can play for the university team. While in college, you are required to take the classes and maintain a certain GPA to stay on the team. Thus when 99% of the athletes finish college and don't make it pro, they at least have a college diploma in hand. Meanwhile kids that want to become pro gamers stay at home, don't go to college, and play Halo for days on end. They never make it pro and end up having to work at a GameStop for minimum wage. But at least they learned that rocket launchers are better against helicopters than plasma rifles.

Wow, this is an impossible battle to partake on a gaming forum. I never dismissed gaming as something that no one should ever do. Sure people can game on the weekends or after work if they have the time, thats fantastic. Gaming in the casual context is fine. But I was referring to the OP when I said why would you want to live in Korea, where people have full fledged jobs as professional gamers. Hundreds soon to be thousands of teens drop out of college each year and play games nearly 24/7 with the hopes of "going pro" Perhaps 1 kid every 5 years does 'become pro' and gets sponsors and stars in commercials, much like a celebrity. The problem is, what about the other thousand kids who dropped out of universities to get better at games. What will they do now? A bigger problem is the fact that the Korean media portrays these professional gamers as heroes and celebrities, thus todays youth in Korea has the connotation that "if I grow up playing video games every possible minute, I can become famous!" South Korea as we know it is successful because of the generation that grew up during the Korean war became determined to bring success to their war torn country, they wanted to be prove to North Korea that capitalism was better, so they worked tremendously hard and created corporations like Samsung and LG from scratch. The current generation seems hellbent on creating not new electronics giants from scratch, but instead creating a half dozen really popular "professional gamers"

Uh, Jack who? No seriously, never heard of him. But I take it that was an insult... As for those people saying "You can either be a gamer or a rapper or druggie!!" :roll: That's not my point, you guys twisted my words. My point is why do you want a value system that praises laziness/leisurely activity over a culture that promotes capitalism and self success? Every country has nerds, and people that fun of nerds. The latter can't be helped but when it comes to the "nerds" would you rather have a culture that encourages them to become scientists and work for companies like Intel or Apple or would you rather have a culture that encourages all computer savvy people to stay at home and play WOW? Like I said, if you looking at the top 10% of the intelligent population, would you rather have them go to universities/business or would you rather have them all become professional gamers :roll:

Why would you want gaming to be accepted? It does nothing for society. Would you rather have a country of nerds, wasting their time on WOW and playing xbox... Or would your rather have a country of doctors and businessmen, bringing wealth and prestige to your country?

Call me old fashion, but I could never justify paying $100+ for a pair of shoes made of plastic and rubber. All of which are made in China for probably fifty cents a shoe. I get lots of compliments about the shoes I wear. Mind you, I am in college, wearing these in High School would have been social suicide.

That's fantastic Tigra, I'm happy for you. I honestly wish you the best, and you have my congratulations for finally getting what you have been hoped for the last five years. You get a happy man: :D->-<