The Steam Deck is changing how normies think of gaming PCs.

Gaming@beehaw.org – 363 points – 11 months ago

Just thought I'd share something I thought was pretty interesting. I have a mother in law who is... well let's just say she's a stereotypical older mom who doesn't own a computer, just an iPad. During the pandemic, she started getting into Nintendo games and bought herself a Switch. Fast forward a few years later and she's interested in getting a Steam Deck, since one of her "mom groups" told her about some pandemic inspired games, similar to Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing that are only available on Steam.

When it comes down to it, she doesn't care about her computer, she just wants to play computer games in a way that's easy and accessible for her. We'll be getting her a Steam Deck for her birthday, which in my opinion is just super neat. Even PC gaming is becoming extremely accessible, and it's a fantastic time to be a gamer.

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Yeah, I get it. Here's the thing though, this specific part:

I also have autism and some people with the condition aren’t as good as me at putting together the connotations of words AND the overall post to figure out the poster’s intentions. And some people aren’t terminally online and have less exposure to seeing this word used. They’ve likely overwhelmingly seen it used as a pejorative, and end up very skeptical of this post.

Those people all have one thing in common: nobody put a gun to their head and said "what's going on with this post? Make the call and post your comment NOW". One thing all we here on the internet do all have in common is the ability to read, and to use our sapience to make decisions about what we read. To say "this seems out of line. Could it be what I think it is, or am I assuming?" By process of elimination, a person either chooses to do that, or chooses to be assumptive. And also:

I don’t like the idea that people like me, or that people who might have reasonably arrived at a different conclusion about this, are being told that they’re huge dorks who need to go outside.

There is no reasonable way to get to the wrong conclusion.
Ever.
If you're being reasonable, you either find the right conclusion beyond all reasonable doubt, or you concede that you don't have enough information and then move on with your life. The only way to get to the wrong conclusion is to jump to conclusions, because being reasonable requires you to start from the point of "there may be no answer I can find". The people in this thread who got it wrong made assumptions, jumped to conclusions, and defended themselves by being belligerent. That is a fundamental lack of respect for others' intelligence that goes beyond being rude to people and using mean words.

To say “this seems out of line. Could it be what I think it is, or am I assuming?” By process of elimination, a person either chooses to do that, or chooses to be assumptive.

I’m assuming you’re human right now, even though the possibility exists that you are an alien who hasn’t revealed themselves as such and that your alien self prioritizes engaging here instead of talking to the world’s governments. I’m choosing to be assumptive because I don’t care to track you down and try to match your identity to a human person in real life, because I find doing that distasteful even if I never end up exposing your identity to anyone else in the world, and because I am extremely confident that this assumption is correct. But it is still an unproven assumption.

Should I hold the possibility that on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog or alien or something in my head because it’s an assumption? Probably not. I should probably assume you are human. People will make assumptions they believe to be reasonable, and people will also call out what they believe to be bad behavior even if they’re wrong.

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