Recently I read about an advance in AIDS research where online gamers helped solve a problem that has had researchers stymied for over a decade. In just three weeks, the Foldit players came up with a good enough model of a protease scientists have been trying to recreate that they can now use that model in order to learn how to disable the HIV protease.
This morning I'm listening to my son as he revisits The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. He hasn't played the game for a couple years and so is doing a lot of talking himself through partially remembered areas and features of the game, occasionally asking me questions about what I remember to refresh his own memory. At one point I heard him say to himself, "Maybe I'm not supposed to be here right now," which certainly seems like an important existential question to ponder, and led me to ponder on the heretofore unrealized (at least to me) potential of gaming in solving some of life's big problems and mysteries.
And thinking about this causes me to realize I may have been wrong years ago when I wouldn't allow my older children to have any electronic game systems throughout most of their childhoods. I think they're pretty special people, but what more could they have been if only they had been allowed to spend their time seated in front of a television screen, eyes riveted, mouth agape, barely breathing, moving nothing but their thumbs for blissful hour upon hour?
And this brings me to the realization that I owe my older two children a huge apology. Kids, I'm really sorry my shortsightedness caused you to miss out on realizing your full potential in life and I can only hope that when your younger brother takes over the world he'll remember he owes the fact that I finally caved on the electronic games issue to your persistence and will give you jobs suited to your limited abilities!
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