Thermal Runaway

[Some Yahoo]

OK, I must admit that in the past I went to electronics school.  Studying electronics is what taught me that I wanted to be a programmer.  I'll offset the electronics talk so if it bores you, you can easily skip it.

Bipolar (not THAT kind of bipolar) transistors - the thing that there are 10 million of in your CPU - have this little problem with something called thermal runaway.  As they conduct electricity, they warm up.  The warmer they get, the better they conduct (they have lower resistance).  This increases the current that flows through the transistor.  Which makes more heat.  Which reduces the resistance and makes more current.

You may think this will never end,  But in truth, as long as you're not flirting with the edge of the transistor's capabilities, this effect is minuscule and usually harmless.  However, when you are near the full capacity of the transistor, This can cause the chip to overheat and release it's spirit to the world in a puff of smoke.  This is an example of a broader concept called runaway systems where a bad thing makes things worse and worse until it all crashes down.  Incidentally, field effect transistors don't have this problem, because when they get hot, FETs increase in resistance.  They're not indestructible, but they at least work toward saving themselves and their circuits instead of always looking to explode.

So much for the esoterica,  As it turns out, gaming effects our lives in a similar way.

• you had a bad day
• so you escape into games
• where you essentially waste all your time (no accomplishment in any game will help you in real life)
• so you miss out on your life
  • you have no real friends
  • you sucked at school
  • you sucked at work
  • you got no sleep
• so your life gets darker and darker.
• so you lose friends
• so no one seems to understand you or care about you.
• so you escape into the game world even more.
• repeat until you wise up.

It's not a question of if you should have quit gaming, it's a question of how much of your life are you going to sacrifice on this altar?  A year?  Ten years?  Twenty?   You see, you never get that time back.  You aren't improving yourself in any way.  Your language skills, personal skills, cognitive skills (the ability to focus, think and reason) are getting put on hold until you work on them.  That's why gamers are widely known as nerdy social misfits.  Contrary to Hollywood, gaming will not make you a super smart computer programmer or hacker.  The Big Bang Theory guys are depicted as always gaming, but in real life they would have had to focus for 10+ years in a super hard college to get where they are.  There would be little time to achieve that level of competence if they spent all their time in World of Warcraft.

So, how much of your life are you going to sacrifice on this altar?  Imagine yourself at age 60, at 400 pounds in a darkened basement playing games and watching porn all day.  You'll have that massive life-ending heart attack alone in a faded black tee shirt, cargo shorts, and sandals, having not seen the eyes of a loving wife or beautiful children.  You will not have sailed the oceans or dived the great coral reefs.  

Even if you do experience some of these, you'll not have had the time to become excellent at them.  All because you chose in every moment to focus your energy on gaming.  

Life has much better.  It's harder, and there are no respawns, but the rewards are so much better.

 

 

[karabas]

I did skip the electronics bit, but this is pretty much on point :)

Been trying to quit for 10+ years, but it's been a problem for a lot longer. Enough is enough.