Again, that’s you substituting your judgement for theirs. There’s nothing wrong participating in a fad btw. Free time doesn’t need to be “productive” by only consuming something exalted like From Software.
I substitute my judgment for theirs as a parent; that's intrinsic in the nature of the job.
As I said in my previous comment, my kids chose the From Software titles because their friend group plays it, so I don't think that's a particularly good example of me substituting my judgment for theirs.
Ok, give us a few examples of when you substituted your judgment for theirs.
You’re trying to wriggle out by saying actually, my kids have impeccable taste and I didn’t tell them about From Software, they picked it up themselves. So tell us when they wanted to try something that was popular among their friends and you vetoed it.
Your account has unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly lately. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart? We'd appreciate it, because we're trying for something different here.
I think you’ve misinterpreted my tone in this thread, I really was approaching it because I was curious about his parenting style. But I’ve apologised to the other guy, because it wasn’t my intention to ruffle any feathers. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45873355)
I’ve made a couple of nasty comments about Elon Musk recently. I’m unlikely to change the way I speak about him. I don’t speak about anyone else that way, as far as I know. You can ban me if insulting Elon Musk in particular and no one else is something you don’t like. It is my sincere belief that he warrants an exception, because of the damage he’s done and continues to do. You’re welcome to defend him and ban people who insult him in the name of upholding the rules.
The issue is not tolerance, or intolerance; it's the site goal of pursuing "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" and doing so while we all, among other things,
>Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
>Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
None of that precludes us here from criticizing someone or something. It's a matter of how we hold such discussions.
I'm proud of my decisions and I'm not here to defend them. I'm here for the conversation because I'm interested in the topic.
I vetoed Minecraft and replaced it with MineTest because Minecraft has the hypixel community, which is essentially an MMO that's built inside of the world of Minecraft and dominates the Minecraft playerbase. I was worried that my 11-year-old would be too young to deal with a massively multiplayer game like that, so I prohibited Minecraft for him. The original joy of Minecraft when I first bought it off of Notch's site in 2009 was that you could build things and exercise creativity. I found that in the MMO versions of Minecraft, this is less of a focus. So instead I host a docker container with a minetest instance that we can all build in together.
I also vetoed Roblox because I feel that the entire economy in that game is going to be a net negative, particularly the aspect where kids beg their parents to use real money to buy them Robux.
But to your point, the list of things I veto is pretty small: I'm socially very liberal, and so the main thing I'm trying to filter for is games that are exploitative of their playerbase in some way. In the case of Battlefield and Fortnite, since I used those examples earlier, these are both games that my kids have independently decided they are not interested in; I think some folks read my original comment that I had removed Battlefield and Fortnite from my household. But if you look at my phrasing, I used the passive voice because it was basically a group decision to never really pick them up. I'm using weasel language because they sometimes go over their neighbor's house and have experience with those games, so I don't want to make it out like they've never played them at all.
Sorry about my previous comment. It felt to me like you were deflecting because I was asking about what you’d vetoed and it felt like you were saying you hadn’t vetoed anything.
I actually agree with your vetoes and your logic for the vetoes makes sense. An MMO is too much for a 11 year old. And getting kids hooked the real money aspect of Roblox will have negative consequences in the future.
Obviously I’m no one, but it seems to me like you’re a good dad. Good on you. Again, sorry for the contentious tone of my previous comment.
I think you've justified your positions more than enough and it's clear you've thought through these decisions and made them along with your kids. Good choices on the game selection!
