From: psperson@old.netcom.invalid   
      
   On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 09:24:53 -0800, Bobbie Sellers   
    wrote:   
      
   >On 1/28/26 22:25, Bobbie Sellers wrote:   
      
      
      
   >	The Afterword is quite readable.  It discusses Dungeons and Dragons   
   >and the ridiculous outcry that was made over the young people playing this   
   >  game back in the day, witch-hunters and other madness.   
      
   You have to understand this as part of the Blame Game: that is, an   
   attempt to answer the question "why are our kids not learning?" that   
   doesn't blame any adults. It is very important that no adults be   
   blamed, for then the problem might be fixed, and where's the fun in   
   that?   
      
   In my experience, the first stage was /comic books/: kids weren't   
   learning because they were reading /comic books/ instead of real   
   books.   
      
   Of course, I believe I have references to an earlier time when the   
   problem was SF. This is why the earlier forms of SF were aimed at   
   teenage boys and focused on the science and technology [1]: this was   
   to make them /educational/ and so /ok to read/.   
      
   [1] Did anyone else notice that, at the end of one of the Lensmen   
   books, the boy is advised by a senior to marry the girl and the next   
   book starts with them being married long enough to have children (and   
   not, IIRC, infants either) with /no clue whatsoever where the babies   
   came from being provided/? This is the sort of thing that the later   
   sex-laded stories were reacting against.   
      
   But then D&D (and similar games, but D&D was the best known and so   
   most cited) arrived, became popular, and suddenly the kids weren't   
   learning because they were not reading at all but playing a fantasy   
   game. A fantasy game some parents objected to because of the witches   
   and demons and so on. I don't know which they liked less: that the   
   witches/demons were being /introduced/ to their kids, or that they   
   were being treated as /imaginary fantasy characters/ while the parents   
   preferred to treat them as possibly real.   
      
   Since then, of course, we have had /1st-person shooters/, alleged to   
   be responsible for every mass shooting done by a kid. Or young adult.   
   Other factors, such as the level of abuse and hatred in public   
   expression or the various economic problems, some with a very long   
   history, are, of course, of no importance. "Pay no attention to the   
   man behind the curtain".   
      
   I honestly don't know the entire history of this nonsense or what is   
   currently being blamed -- but, whatever it is, I am sure that it has   
   absolutely no relation to what is really responsible. Which we must   
   not investigate because it might turn out that the man behind the   
   curtain is the very adults trying to blame something -- anything --   
   else.   
   --    
   "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,   
   Who evil spoke of everyone but God,   
   Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)