Hillary, GTA, and High School Football 1169
The LA Times is running a really worthwhile story discussing the recent attack on video games in congress. It talks about GTA, the decline in youth violence, and mentions that football actually encourages real aggression, causes real injuries, and is treated totally differently. It's worth a read. Unfortunately I'm fairly certain that very few U.S. Senators are listening over the sound of hype.
Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
"Think of the Children" has been a rallying cry for as long as there's been politics. It's what Socrates was exectuted for, for Christs sake.
It's also been the mantra of the religious right ("conservative") for generations, on topics ranging from pornography to prohibition to abortion.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:3, Insightful)
Liberals also invoke "Think of the children" on topics ranging from gun control to public schooling to the environment.
It's a bad argument used by lazy thinkers on both sides of the political spectrum, not just a conservative mantra.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do-gooder (Score:3, Funny)
Hell, I'd bet it was a factor in Christ's execution too.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:3, Funny)
You're right. The conservatives mantra is "think of the fetus".
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, I can say decisively that careless use and storage of guns has killed and scarred far more kids than any form of pornography--yes, even goatse... "Conservatives" have been under the anti-pornography/anti nonmoral "think of the children" banner forever, which is to say--just as long as the "liberals". I don't mind guns or gay marriage. I'm for conserving our forests and oil, water and air. I don't think abortion is a good thing for the mind/body/soul, but I wouldn't deny it to those who need it. I didn't like Clinton, and I sure as hell don't like Dub'ya--they're both fucking liars. I guess it's just a bitch being a rational, moderate person.
If you're too stupid, arrogant or scared to pull your head out of the ground and realize that all of our parties use the same bullshit tactics, are completely full of crap, and only seek power then that's your problem.
Re:I had a weird thought the other day (Score:4, Interesting)
Back when the 2nd Amendment was penned, times were interesting - if a well-armed militia meant a well-armed citizenry, what that did was put the citizens and government military on equal footing. To my knowledge, there wasn't much differentiation with respect to the weapons used by the military and those used by citizens. If the citizens had to defend themselves against a goverment that had spun out of control, they could- and it would be a fair fight.
Contrast this with the conditions we have today...we still have the 2nd Amendment, but the difference between what the government has at its disposal, and what the citizens are allowed to have, makes me wonder if it would even be *possible* to defend against such an occurrance.
Re:I had a weird thought the other day (Score:4, Insightful)
The military is still composed of PEOPLE, ordinary Americans who would have to be somehow be persuaded to use that awesome weaponry against their fellow citizens. If a significant number of the military pople were NOT persuaded that it was good to kill their fellow Americans, any people in Government would that would like to exterminate a sizeable number of Americans for whatever reasons would preciptate a civil war. Americans are not the obedient kind of lemmings that the Germans were under Hitler.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do-gooder (Score:3, Interesting)
she probably only stands a chance if the gop puts up a woman too.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:4, Informative)
Interestingly enough, the most recent VG Cats [vgcats.com] deals with this topic, as does a recent Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com]. It's nice to see a funny spin on this continuing GTA and "videogames kill!" bullshit.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Interesting)
Do-Gooder psych is more pathological than that, and it's not limited to Sen. Clinton. Nor is it limited to her party. But it usually starts off with something "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good" and metastasizes from there.
Spend enough time behind the counter at the welfare office "helping the less fortunate", or enough time behind the security barricades of TSA "keeping the Homeland secure" and eventually...
Rand's a bit of a nut, and her epistemology may be from somewhere out past Zeta Reticuli, but I think she nailed the psychology of the compulsive do-gooder dead on. To hell with everybody, as long as you're feeling virtuous about it.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
Now there may well be a minority of people whom she does describe. But by and large, she's off the mark by a mile. The typical do-gooder isn't doing somethign because it makes him feel good- he's doing it because he thinks he's doing the right thing. He beleives it 100%. Its like religious zealots who try to convert everyone- they believe they are saving your soul. Assuming that they aren't what they claim to be wil cause you to entirely mispredict them.
Now there's the question of if Hillary is really that type of person. The answer is probably not- she's jumping on the bandwagon to get "What about the children?" votes for 2008.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:3, Insightful)
Rand seems to understand this just fine.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
Did I do it anyway? Sure. Because it was the right thing to do, a friend needed my help. Did I enjoy doing it? No.
If you really think helpign people is emotional hedonism, you have some severe psychological issues.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
If we are going to deconstruct things, why not also deconstruct the psychology behind people who refuse ever to take anyone's virtue at face value?
I suspect that people who refuse to admit the possibility of virtue do so because they do not have (or do not care to have) any virtue of their own, and they need to find a way to justify their lack of virtue without feeling inferior or immoral. If they can "prove" the non-existence of virtue in anyone else, then they are no worse than anyone else, despite being selfish uncaring bastards.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Informative)
Have you actually read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged? "Fuck everyone else, I got mine" doesn't really come anywhere near her philosophy. It was more like, "Everyone being self-serving ultimately leads to the greatest good, because we only get what we want by producing for others." Unless you're self-sufficient, and that's basically no one now, you get what you want through trade. The surest way to get what you want and need is to aggressively pursue your self-interest. Since people spending time working hard are far more productive than people who spend their time niggling over what society "owes" them, the net sum of productivity is drastically higher and society as a whole benefits. Her protagonists are generous. Howard Roark uses his talents to build incredibly cheap, effective, quality low-income housing; Hank Reardon is generous with his relatives. But in the former case, Roark's work is perverted by meddlers crusading for "more, more", refusing to accept his work as it is, wrecking the project and taking things back to where they were: a project they can't afford, a project of lesser utility, and ultimately a failure. And Reardon's relatives hound him relentlessly, yammering about his social duties. He's creating a bold new railway system enabling massive increases in transportation efficiency and leading to the employ of thousands, but they ride him about his greed and his uncaring until he finally throws them out. But both of them start working for the greater good. Rand's lesson isn't that generosity or charity is bad; it's that when honest generosity and charity cross with greed and corruption, such virtues are likely to be perverted. Roark's housing project and Reardon's family are just two examples of people doing good who had their good deeds demolished by unproductive self-righteous busybodies.
Rand's characters and stories are meant to be larger than life and iconoclastic. They have heroic characters with heroic talents. But they illustrate the nature of man astutely quite often.
Now there may well be a minority of people whom she does describe. But by and large, she's off the mark by a mile. The typical do-gooder isn't doing somethign because it makes him feel good- he's doing it because he thinks he's doing the right thing. He beleives it 100%. Its like religious zealots who try to convert everyone- they believe they are saving your soul. Assuming that they aren't what they claim to be wil cause you to entirely mispredict them.
That depends on the type of do-gooding. For people who are following Hillary's "for the children" crusade against violence and sex in video games, it falls into a combination of:
(1) People too lazy to take care of their own children and think the government should protect them from everything
(2) People who are so horrified by sexual content of any kind that they will try to ban anything, anywhere, any time. They've been fighting for laws to keep alcohol out of stores, pasties on nipples at tittie bars, and making it illegal to show porn without getting a credit card first. In other words, they're people with a strong feeling of moral superiority; or a terrible fear of certain vices which manifests as moral superiority.
(3) Demoagogues like Hillary, or GWB & Karl Rove. They're there to capitalize on this mass of uncritical thought and feeling, to channel it into action. "Sexual content in video games! To arms!"; let's not stop and actually think about what we're crusading for or against. It's a bit like GWB and his "Wherever people stand for liberty, we stand with you
Do nothingers are even more screwed up (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, in the end everything we do, we do for selfish reasons, but I like helping people. Not because I like them to bow or scrape, not because I feel better than them, but because I feel like I am building a world where people help each other, a world where, if the situation were reversed I would be helped. I also feel good about not having desperate miserable people around me.
The irony is that Ayn Rand's philosophy is, " To hell with everybody, as long as you're feeling virtuous about it. And I'll tell you how to feel virtuous about ANY damn thing you want to feel virtuous about, as long as it isn't helping someone else! Remember: Helping is Hurting, Charity is Theft, a Hand Up is a Slap in the Face, Sharing is Selfish, Only Egotism is True Loving Compassion."
Ayn Rand and people like her who consider any kind of charity or compassion as selfish egotism are the laziest type of self involved, egotistical, idiots. I will defend their right to spout their crazy nonsense, but that doesn't mean I have to like it or that I have to say it isn't B.S.
You don't want to help others? Fine. Don't, see if I care, but if you are going to mock me for caring and for acting out of compassion and assign to me the basest of motives, I am for sure going to point out how selfish, egotistical, and short sighted you are. There are plenty of good reasons for wanting to help others that don't revolve around being a self important prick.
Re:Do nothingers are even more screwed up (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
Hillary? Do-gooder? Gimme a break.
She's doing what all slimey politicans do -- she's jumping on an issue which will offend the fewest possible people (young people don't vote very much anyway) in order score points and look like a hard-fighting politician struggling for truth, justice, and the American way.
I mean, just look at this completely worthless Congress: they ignore the US military's widespread and continuing torture, they ignore Bush's wholesale and blatant lies to start the war in Iraq, they ignore Karl Rove's lying and outing of a CIA spook just to score points in a game of political revenge, and they whitewash everything from the 9/11 investigation to Halliburton robbing taxpayers blind.
Yet they find time to rant about baseball players on steroids, Janice Jackson's nipple during the Superbowl, and Hillary's whining about cyber-sex in GTA.
The founding fathers aren't just rolling in their graves -- they're vomiting with disgust and the coffins are getting full!
Re:Do-gooder (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes you lied.
Now imagine that good american soldierd DIED because of that lie...
Did you know...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you aware that the United States is in violation of UN mandate?
Are you aware that the United States has recently supported (perhaps currently supporting) terrorists?
Did you know that to some degree, every nation on the face of the earth is a threat to every other nation's national security?
Isn't amaizing how pointless and misleading true statments can be?
Republicans sponsored the bill & you blame Cli (Score:3, Insightful)
Congressman Upton, a Republican from Michigan, introduced [house.gov] the bill [loc.gov] to congress. It passed 355 for, 21 against, 56 abstain [house.gov].
Yet nobody here is saying "Oh fuck those Congressional Republicans for introducing the supid bill", or fuck those Democrats and Republicans for passing the bill. You're saying "Fuck that Senator Clinton".
It's true, Senator Clinton a
Re:Republicans sponsored the bill & you blame (Score:5, Funny)
Did you just ask, with a straight face, why Slashdot posters aren't even-handed with their dealings of members of both political parties, and both genders?
Well, I'll assume you're in earnest and answer.
1. Democrats are better than Republicans by the slimmest of margins. Actually, most of us really adore Democrats but since we know they're just as slimey and two-faced as Republicans, we pretend not to. But we vote for them anyway, despite all of our talk of voting for Libertarians, who more closely resemble Republicans than Democrats. When you boil it all down, we didn't get up on time on election day to make it to the polls.
2. Women are weird creatures who don't think we're funny and who can't appreciate the subtle humor necessary to doggedly recite tired lines from British pop-culture trash from the 1970's. Since they shun us at social gatherings (like family reunions and GenCon), we harbor unspoken misogynistic tendancies that manifest at odd times. For as much as we hate George W. Bush, at least nobody of his gender has ever rolled their eyes when we quoted Jabberwocky!
Re:Republicans sponsored the bill & you blame (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand the bias in regards to the political parties-- but the bias against gender is a sign of immaturity. I expected better.
For as much as we hate George W. Bush, at least nobody of his gender has ever rolled their eyes when we quoted Jabberwocky!
Funny you should say that. My Sunday School teacher, his wife, and my male HS Civics teacher/Mayor of my town have accused me of Satanism for reciting that poem.
And for the record, I know plenty of woman who know the
Re:Republicans sponsored the bill & you blame (Score:3, Interesting)
Clinton is a pretty good candidate for a lightning rod on this one. The 'morality' of video games has traditionally been an issue for social conservatives who reel in the face of social change (they tend to call it something like a decline in traditional moral values). I wouldn't expect this kind of rhetoric from someone like Hillary Clonton, who is
Re:Do-gooder (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Interesting)
Now there is no "small government" party, it seems. They both want to meddle and they both want your money (OK, technically, today's GOP just wants to spend your money, they don't actually bother to collect it first, but that's a minor quibble). How did America become a choice between two nanny-state parties? Do we have to wait for all the Boomers to die before we can get back to small government?
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Interesting)
That's who the parties cater to now. Those who are afraid. That's what "Family Values" is all about - fear. Fear of the unkown, the expansion of things you don't like, fear of foreign influences on your life, fear of a million artificial ghosts who want to eat your kids. Look at the SUVs, the PTAs, the condo associations, etc. All fueld by terrified busybodies.
Of course, we're young and invincible, in a field that reaffirms our own mental godhood, so we don't feel that fear as much.
Parents are being trained to fear every second that their kids are away - of bad influences, of paedophiles, of another kid going nuts and killing them. Once fear takes hold, higher principles like freedom and democracy go out the window.
The unfortunate, silent fact is that Americans _want_ a nanny state. Not the '60s liberal nanny-state, where nanny feeds you and clothes you, but a nanny-state that just tells you what not to do, but doesn't actually care for you.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course "soccer moms" are defensive about their kids, it's part of their responsibility as a parent. The problem is when this is taken to the extreme, and kids are actually denied the experiences required to grow up. Many people do buy into the fear mongering that goes on in the media, but most people (that I know anyway) do not buy into the fear constantly
Re:Do-gooder (Score:4, Interesting)
Because when we are on the recieving end of government spending we feel like its free. We sell our freedom for "free" government services.
Become active in your local school districts don't accept the use of federal funds in your schools. Become more active in other local governments and refuse federal funding to build local roads, stimulate local economies, etc. Refusing to accept federal funds will make it much easier to get votes to curtail federal spending. When there is less money in government it will less attractive to empire-building bureaucrats and corrupt politicians.
(Note: This is not easy. Nothing that takes forethought and self-control is easy.)
IMO all the problems with national politics come directly from apathy in local (and personal) matters. (ie. Why are we surprised by government debt when consumer debt is so high? Why are we surprised with corruption in Congress when we allow - or participate in - corruption in our neighborhood association politics? Why are we surprised at cheating CEOs when we steal office supplies and give - or recieve - only token punishments for cheating in school?)
-----
This in an incomplete thought, and is not meant to fully represent the complexity of the many problems that exist in government, but I think that it addresses important cores of those problems.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, the Libertarian party wants to abolish police forces and public schools. That's a little further afield than most "socially and fiscally liberal" people.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.reformthelp.org/home/intro/ [reformthelp.org]
Check out this link. I have hope. With support, the opportunity to reform the LP into an effective party is a real possibility.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Do-gooder (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me about it. I wasn't too sure about Cthulhu's platform at first. I mean, I wasn't too big on the 'Eating all that Live' when it came to me, but I was really for the 'Eating all that Live' thing when I realised he really did mean 'all that Live,' unlike those other Horrors from Out of Space who just want to eat their enemies.
IA! IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN!
(And remember Carl Eric von Kleist's Law: Any sufficiently tentacled spheroid is indistinguishable from the Great Cthulhu -- a great way to turn people into jibbering wrecks at parties!)
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
We have a lot of regulations in this country, but at least I know that when I drive to On the Border for lunch, I have a pretty good chance of those mandated seat belts and airbags saving my life in the event of an accident, not getting salmonella with my burrito, and not having the restaurant catch on fire because of aluminum wiring.
Most of the world's economy has been primarily libertarian since the dawn of man. It was the concept of human rights that catapulted us into the modern world we currently enjoy. And human rights should always trump capitalism.
Re:Do-gooder (Score:5, Insightful)
If you go back and read the papers from the 70's and 80's, you'll see that the majority of car manufacturers did not provide shoulder-harness seatbelts and airbags until legislation was passed mandating their inclusion, despite widespread public support of these devices.
The restaurant you're eating at has a damn good reason to ensure that their workers handle the food you're eating properly: if they don't, they lose profits. All it would take is one or two cases of food-borne illness before word would spread and that restaurant's business would dry up pretty quick.
1. If this is true, then why are the rates of food and water contamincation higher in countries like Mexico? Shouldn't the free-market method of quality control have weeded out all of the bad restaurants by now?
2. What if all of the restaurants and food sellers in your area subscribe to the cheaper-is-better business model?
3. Read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle to understand what life was like in "free-market" America before the FDA
4. Please explain why the notoriously unsafe aluminum wiring was used in just about every structure built in the 70's until the building codes were changed to prohibit its use. What happens to the free-market system when everybody uses the inferior and unsafe solution despite the consumer's wish.
Remember that if you don't like some what some business is doing, you can exercise your ultimate right as a sovereign consumer and not patronize that business
I really don't like Wal Mart and would like to shop elsewhere for my camping equipment. Unfortunately, Wal Mart has wiped out the other two stores in my town that sold camping equipment. What do people do when the free-market system creates a monopoly or a cartel as usually happens in unregulated economies?
In the absence of government regulations, Consumer Reports-type publications will open up to test, survey and measure how well car safety devices work, how many people have caught food-borne illnesses from Bob's BBQ or Joe's Gyros, and whether or not the wiring in those restaurants is safe or not.
1. If I were a restaurant owner, I would simply not allow that Consumer Reports person to inspect my kitchen.
2. What's to stop me from just paying a nice fat "consultation" fee to this Consumer Rating Company so they give me a good rating? (If you've ever been through ISO 9000 certification, you'll be especially aware of this little trick).
3. Assuming I can find an uncorrupted for-profit Consumer Rating Company, it's going to cost me more than a non-profit governmental entity.
And I now I hear you asking, "what if people don't take the time to buy these consumer watchdog magazines
I have an idea. Since it would be a real pain in the ass to have to constantly check up on every little thing like house wiring, car safety, food quality, etc, let's pool our resources into some sort of not-for-profit entity that monitors all of these things for us in an unbiased and fair manner. Give this organization some teeth to enforce our collective wishes and we might have something. We could call it...hmmmmmm....government?
Very Nice Article (Score:5, Insightful)
I was wondering this same thing. Could this be a conceivable conclusion? Could it be possible that kids these days are actually getting their adrenaline fix from these games instead of causing real-life crimes (or vandalism)?
When I was a kid the games were much mellower, and less realistic, and I was a hoodlum. I could speculate that if I had these games I would have caused much less trouble when I was a kid.
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:5, Funny)
Foo you on Senator Clinton.
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:5, Insightful)
Could be. However, look at it this way: Video game consoles are cheap and abundant these days (when adjusted for inflation, they might be the cheapest they've ever been). If more and more kids are staying inside to play, instead of roaming the streets, wouldn't that lead to less juvenile crime?
I know that, when I behaved like a hoodlum (rarely), it was more due to boredom than any other factor.
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:3, Insightful)
Break the window by the town hall
Listen, the siren screams
There in the distance, like a roll call
Of all the suburban dreams
Let's take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight
In Suburbia
You can't hide, run with the dogs tonight
In Suburbia
I only wanted something else to do but hang around
I only wanted something else to do but hang around
I only wanted something else to do but hang around
I only wanted something else to do but hang around
It's on the front page of the papers
This is their
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:3, Interesting)
It remains to be seen how the current wave of methadone addiction sweeping the Midwest will affect future crime rate. Especially considering all the "meth orphans", kids effectively abandoned
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:3, Informative)
I bet it would work. The problem is that our society is generally repressive by nature. As a culture, we don't like to admit these things exist. As a result, we end up making them worse by repressing them.
I generally agree with Hillary on the important issues. I think Bill Clinton was the best president since Kennedy. But freedom o
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:3, Funny)
so 'sex-seekers' will now get their thrills via gta. teen prenancy will drop substantially!
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:5, Interesting)
Possible. Something else to consider, though: GTA doesn't just allow you to commit vandalism, it also deals you consequences for your actions. Run over pedestrians, police chase you. I'll tell you something, once you've gained three stars in that game, the Police turn into real bastards. They keep coming, they never give up, and your chances of survival have more to do with luck than skill. I can imagine kids saying "Well, that was fun, but man I never wanna piss off the cops."
It's hard to say, really. My basis for this suggestion is that in playing GTA I've become quite allergic to attacking 'innocents' in the game. It's a lot easier to play when you don't have cops trying to drive up your butt. Compare this to Crazy Taxi. I never made any effort to avoid pedestrians in that game because they'd instantly jump out of the way. If you ask me, that's far worse than GTA. You'd think that people would understand that "Don't do that." doesn't have near the effect that "Don't do that BECAUSE..." does. GTA's not bad at illustrating the consequences.
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:4, Informative)
This is a very outdated idea from psychoanalysis [skepdic.com] that has leaked into the popular consciousness, but actual scientific evidence suggests otherwise. Freud observed that biological drives like hunger and thirst are temporarily diminished when they are satisfied, and he incorrectly assumed that all motivated behavior (including sex and aggression) worked the same way.
Think of it this way: If this were true, armies would be complete pussycats (because they would've gotten it all out of their systems in training), and pacifists would regularly go on murderous rampages.
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:5, Funny)
Won't someone think of the Nazis?!
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true. The study you're referring to was about World War II, and in response the military changed their training tactics in subtle ways to reinforce the kill instinct, i.e. changing rifle targets from bullseyes to human shapes, using bayonets on stuffed humanoid dummies, etc.
The upshot of this is that this new training worked too well, and was partly blamed for Vietnam-era war crimes like the My Lai Massacre.
The kill instinct in war has nothing to do with video games, and everything to do with military psychological conditioning.
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:3, Interesting)
On Killing (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget the other part. Getting back from WW2 took a nice slow ship in the company of your comrades, where you had plenty of time to talk through a lot of what you had seen and done, and generally had an opportunity to "come down" from battlefield conditions.
Whereas in Vietnam, you could be in the bush on Sunday, and back home a civillian on Monday. No chance to adapt to the new surroundings, no suport network, and just to rub salt in the wound, a rather unsympathetic populace.
I don't think you can hang Mai Lai on traning tactics though. A better source of blame is an unprofessional (in the literal sense) and undertrained soldiery who got all the technical training but little of the ethics and ethos.
DG
Re:Very Nice Article (Score:4, Interesting)
I have been close to death before in real life, but honestly the adrenalin rush from playing video games is a much better high. They are designed to get your adrenalin pumping and they are much better at it than say skydiving. Skydiving may be really fun but it's not fun for vary long and you spend a lot of time and money waiting to have fun. It's the same reason why I don't really go to amusement parks they are fun but video games are much more fun.
Heh. Football... (Score:5, Funny)
football (Score:5, Funny)
well, duh
Re:football (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:football (Score:4, Insightful)
Though come to think of it, playing football can cause you to get laid, while playing videos most certainly will not.
Let's make really important issues moral ones! (Score:5, Interesting)
heh, sure, those kids are really spending all that time doing homework and not nearly as much as becoming more aggressive playing after-school sports or killing, fucking, and carjacking!
Down with homework and more carjacking! Oh wait.
The most amazing thing about this is that Hillary can get so many people up-in-arms and pissed off about a stupid fucking video game and no one else can mobilize parents to "protect their children" from real harms that go virtually unnoticed in the political arena.
Someone really needs to link serious environmental issues to religion-based morality. Maybe then people will get mobilized. Afterall, it seems to be quite the rage recently...
Re:Let's make really important issues moral ones! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention that most of the people who will support such action from the government is the same parents who want the government to raise their kids. I guess the fact that "GTA:SA" comes with an "M" rating on it (well, now "AO") didn't deter mommy and daddy from buying the game. Then they're "shocked, SHOCKED!" (to quote "Casablanca") that there's sex and violence in video games. Too bad responsible parenting has gone out the window.
The f'd up logic of it all. (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, there was a backlash for the violence in the game. And honestly, I don't think kids should be playing it. I am by no means conservative, but I think the game is just in bad taste for impressionable youth. But whatever. The game was given a rating, I don't think it should be outlawed.
What pisses me off is that all the recent uproar is because there was sex in there. You can beat a cop to death, but for Jebus' sake don't show animated boobs! Oh the humanity! Violence is OK, but sex, something natural and essential to our very existence of the human race, is taboo. Superbowl? OK. Boob at the Superbowl? Congressional hearings. Unjustified War? Hmm, OK. The F word is uttered in public? the decline of our moral civilization.
Re:The f'd up logic of it all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when is 17 a kid? In a couple months, they can vote, marry, serve in the military, smoke, buy guns and fuck legally. Like they not doing the latter already.
Action (Score:5, Insightful)
Need to re-think the video game market (Score:4, Insightful)
Clinton's Real Agenda (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahhh fun times!
And another thing (Score:5, Insightful)
What's this lame soft-core porn doing in my ultraviolent "Grand Theft Auto"?".
This reminds me of one of my first experience of US TV. I was watching "The Godfather" on TBS, in the middle of the day. When Santino beat the living Bejeesus out of his sister's husband on the street, they showed every frame of the violence. 5 minutes later, they pixelated the 3.5 seconds of nude breast (the only nudity in the entire film) in Michael's wedding night scene.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Keep going further left, Hillary... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hillary specifically, and Democrats in general, have a long history of blaiming _things_ for the actions of people. I think it's a case of them not wanting to offend someone who might vote for them someday. "Oh, we can't blame the criminal for doing that, we should blame society/the gun/the judicial system/anybody but the bad guy". Just like this case - let's blame the game manufacturer/reviewing organization, instead of the kid who goes out, downloads a program that adds this functionality to an existing product, and chooses to install it. The kid is making this happen, but she's blaming anyone but the kid.
Yes, I'm sure I'll be modded into oblivion for this, but this is politics.slashdot.org. Before you mod this down as "flamebait" or something, consider that disagreeing with someone doesn't mean they're posting flamebait, or off topic, or whatever.
Re:Keep going further left, Hillary... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're Karl Rove, planning the 2008 election, you want to go after Hillary on her ethics and her family values. You want to neutralize her female base by making her appear to not care about family and good parenting. This is a calculated move by Hillary to move to the *right* on this issue, not the left. It doesn't matter who she blames, it matters that she's in the papers sticking up for some kind of "family value."
(I blogged about this here [nonperiodic.net].)
Re:Keep going further left, Hillary... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I think you're both incorrect. "Left" and "Right" are just meaningless terms used by Democrats and Republicans to get people who don't really think to vote for them. They in no way capture the subtle nuance of a person's position.
It's just us against the fascists...it doesn't matter if the fascism comes from the "left" or the "right". It's still authoritarianism that clamps down on our freedom. I really could care less if someone is "liberal" or "conservative" if voting for them results in a loss
Re:Keep going further left, Hillary... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, Hillary Clinton isn't left-wing. She's a politicians who does whatever it takes to win elections.
She and Bill have long stood with the Democratic Leadership council, a group that for over a decade has told Democrats to support Corporate America, and to act just like Republicans. (And then the DLC wonders why people just vote for real Republicans rather than Democrats-In-Name-Only.)
This is just Hillary pandering to the "soccer mom" vote, another attempt at "triangulation" in preparation for running for President in 2008.
I don't agree with you, by the way, that the kid who downloads the mod should be blamed. We should blame the parents who have abdicated their parenting duties. We should blame the parents who have so failed to educate their children that a few minutes of simulated sex in a video game would somehow "damage" their children.
But the real tragedy is that their are far more pressing problems in America: declining educational standards, health care inequity, an ever-more stratified economy where CEOs make thousands of times what workers make, and a costly and apparently never-ending occupation of a desert country where everyone hates us.
I'd have a lot more respect for Hillary if ferreting out secret sex mods in GTA wasn't her top priority. But of course, I'm being unfair: GTA isn't her priority at all -- getting elected in 2008 is her top priority.
Re:Keep going further left, Hillary... (Score:3, Funny)
I couldn't agree with your more. Interestingly enough, she was President of the Young Republicans at Wellesley College.
The problem she has, and she apparently doesn't realize it, is that most of us in the middle can't stand her no matter what her current focus is. The simple fact that she gets any media exposure is nauseating.
Re:Keep going further left, Hillary... (Score:3, Interesting)
And you think Bill Frist, Tom Delay, and Rick Santorum disagree with her? Hillary isn't truly on the left, she's center right if anything. The fact of the matter is that most politicians will do stupid things to pander to stupid voters. If it stopped working, they wouldn't do it. Unfortunately there is a large, vocal, voting block that wants exactly what she's doing. And if you stand up agains
Re:Keep going further left, Hillary... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's unfortunate that you posted this as an AC. I'd
true, sort of (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Taco failed to read into the author's sarcasm regarding football, but that's ok.
The author of the article seems to have taken some of their ideas from the recent Discover Magazine article titled Your Brain on Video Games [discover.com]. A very interesting read, a lot of which I agree with.
I'm a parent, a geek, and a former athelete (yes, it's possible). Our children (ages 8-15 now) have their homework time and we (they?) split their entertainment up between going outside to play, video games, nonsensical tv, and educational tv (of course, with a few random things thrown in to boot). On top of that, we ask that they play one sport of their choosing, and one instrument of their choosing. The mention of football in the description is a bit misleading. Some of the good things football teaches are
- How to work with other people
- How to get along with people you may not like
- Discipline and focus, with regard to achieving a goal
- Planning and stragety
- Competitiveness, which certainly can help later in life if applied correctly
Other things are learned by playing instruments such as math (in different bases), appreciation for different cultures, etc... but that's a bit off topic here.Video games can actually teach children as well. However, when they start to focus all of their freetime on video games, rather than other forms of entertainment, I think they're mission out on quite a bit. Everything in moderation.
Re:true, sort of (Score:4, Informative)
Steve Johnson wrote both of those, and the book Everything Bad is Good for You. He's been in the news quite a bit lately.
Football teaches (Score:3, Funny)
1. How to work with other people
Ok, you boys go together and slam into that guy with the ball.
2. How to get along with people you may not like
Slam into that guy with the ball.
3. Discipline and focus, with regard to achieving a goal
Ok, you slam into him, and you slam into that guy, and you make the touchdown.
4. Planning and stragety
If it moves, slam into it.
5. Competitiveness, which certainly can help later in life if applied correctly
Now boys, it's just a game. But you better slam into them h
Re:Football teaches (Score:3, Funny)
If she's a cheerleader, slam her.
Re:true, sort of (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, but it was in PERL, so of course nobody could tell.
And that's how the HTML-producing CGI script I was trying to write accidently became a self-modifying ASCII-text Pac Man game that did DeCSS decoding if you ate all four ghosts.
Politicians and the Hype (Score:5, Interesting)
The bigger problem is, I believe, that they don't hear anything but the hype. Most politicians don't troll Slashdot or gaming sites. They have enough to do with meetings, looking at bills, more meetings, campaigning, photo ops, and the rest.
I wrote a small piece on this not too long ago [advancedmn.com] that talked about this issue. It's not just that Senator Clinton is believing the hype - that's all she's probably hearing! Who in the gaming community is really going to her and the other politicians who discuss the issue?
Where's the Hollywood style lobbyists from the gaming industry? Isn't this what the ESRB and other gaming organizations should be doing - going to politicians and explaining how an R rating is the same as an M rating, how they're working with stores to keep M rated games out of the hands of minors (and if they aren't, then they damn well better be before Washington does it for them), why the "Hot Coffee" mod was never meant to be played and discovered by people voluntarily choosing to play the nude scene (and if they are minors, do you really think they can't get nude people easier than installing a mod in a $50 PC game?).
Yeah, I'm pissed at Ms. Clinton and Thomson and all of the ilk who "don't get it" - but I don't entirely blame them, because odds are there are few people who have really taken the time to explain it to all of them. (Well, except for Thomson - in my opinion, he's just a money grubbing lawyer now using nudity-in-games claims to line his pocket). [theapprenticepaladin.com]
Of course, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Physical activity? (Score:3, Interesting)
What of Dance Dance Revolution and its various clones?
Speaking as an obese man, if that isn't physical exercise, I don't know what is.
Yeah, but has he actually played GTA? (Score:5, Informative)
Worse if the game actually were as characterized, it wouldn't sell as many copies: way too difficult, not entertaining enough.
But the description sounds really good. "Training the wage slaves of the information age"
Re:Yeah, but has he actually played GTA? (Score:3)
I haven't played any of those games, but World of Warcraft is a MMORPG of some form and hence probably has bizarro 'to-hit' calculations that players try and extract in order to work out which item of equipment is best...
Correlation != Causation (Score:3, Interesting)
Devil's Advocate (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, you have GTA which shows characters do everything we've already heard about blah blah blah, no consequences just restart, blah blah blah, and minors might get the impression that blah blah blah, etc.
I'm not trying to justify either side of the argument, but just saying that comparing football to GTA is fundamentally flawed. Oranges and apples.
Proper Child Rearing (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all about the money (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't this also a big reason why so many (way spoiled and overpaid) pro atheletes behave so badly off the field?
I'm no fan of GTA, but I see it as just a small part of the overall hyper-violent diet that we are fed here in the US.
No sexy (Score:3, Funny)
PEOPLE!
This is about naughty SEX!
You crush heads and break bones, even allow fights on the field or have the loosing team executed after the game. SO LONG AS they don't have sex or are encouraged to engage in sex.
If we keep sexuality out of games and media, our precious, perfectly innocent children wont learn of it until they are a proper age, like 30.
Its important to remember that raising your children should in no way take time away from YOUR all important life, and anything that goes wrong is the sole responsibility of something else that is sue-able.
REMEMBER! Children are perfect, until they are corrupted by someone else and its their fault. You are not responsible for your children, and should not have to educate, protect, or raise them yourself. That is the job of the Government. Now go back to paying attention to yourself.
You have a niave view of Senators (Score:5, Interesting)
You have a niave view of Senators. They understand the silliness and meaningless of what they are saying, probably better than most people around here. What you fail to understand is that media events like this are all about getting face time on TV. Free face time on TV is more highly prized than nearly anything else. The explicit lyrics crusade of the 80s, the assault weapons crusade of the 90s, the current video game violence crusade, all were merely PR stunts that accomplished very little.
Opinion != 'Story' (Score:4, Insightful)
My tendency towards violence has increased... (Score:4, Interesting)
...ever since I took up a martial art.
There are plenty of physical and mental health benefits involved in studying a martial art, but there is the undeniable fact that I am much more prone to violence now.
I'll walk into so many situations with a belief that I can overpower a problem with brute strength or with a precision strike to a body part, whether it makes sense or not. I have the hammer so everything looks like a nail.
I don't think I act on these urges, but I'm sure others might disagree.
Video games never encouraged this kind of behavior in me since video game problem solving is entirely confined within your head.
Football's real aggression (Score:5, Interesting)
Hitting after the whistle incurs a penalty. Hitting the wrong way incurs a penalty. Hitting the wrong guy let's someone gain yards or score. Going outside the boundaries hurts not only you, but your team.
Yes, football is a very aggressive game. But at the end of the game, you're going to go party, and often with members of the other team (unless they're your arch-rivals but even at the end of the season you'll be laughing with those guys over the last game).
All of which are valuable real life lessons. There's a place and a time in real life for aggressive action (not necessarily physical, but sometimes), but if it's not controlled, you'll quickly find yourself on the wrong end of the moral (and often legal) line.
Mostly what football teaches, though, is that you can push past whatever limitations you percieve given the dedication and time.
I'm not sure that GTA has similarly positive lessons to be learned from it. GTA has the advantage that the aggression is pretend, but has, from what I've seen, no corresponding lessons about control and responsibility to teach.
Re:Football's real aggression (Score:3, Insightful)
I take it you've never accidentally racked up five stars of police presence while driving home, then? There is definitely a time and place for aggression in GTA, and it is not when trying to get back to your garage after a mission.
This lesson can be interpreted differently (Score:4, Interesting)
But then again, it's all how you teach the game. I.E. it's the parents, coaches, teachers, and mentors you deal with that teach you to be an ass, not games.
The problem is that gamers vote for these idiots.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hillary Clinton has nothing to fear. She could propose that anyone who even thinks video games should be legal should be rounded up and shot without trial, and the Democrats will justify it as "Oh, I don't like it, but we must beat Bush, he is worse". And G. W. Bush could declare a "War on Filth" and bomb Rockstar Games headquarters, and Republicans will justify it with some equally convoluted theory.
You might bitch or moan about censorship and attacks on gaming now, but when it comes time to hit the voting booth, you will be tripping over yourself to vote for some rabidly pro-censorship politician.
Not the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Come on, despite being a cold blooded killer, CJ is pretty much a pussy. He does whatever anyone tells him to. Heck, he killed and maimed just to help some poseur gangster rapper called Og Loc working at the burger shack. He listens to his idiot brother who would rather live in some crime infested filth hole then any one of CJ's luxury homes.
CJ has killed hundreds of cops, yet he does whatever Samuel Jackson tells him to because of a trumped up vague threat of going to prison on a cop killer charge. (If CJ was a man of real character, he would have iced Officer Tenpenny in the first five minutes of the game.)
Do you think Tommy Verceti would put up with this crap? No way.
I for one wish the ESRB would alert parents like me to the questionable character presented in the game, not this whole 'sex' things.
Re:What could be worse than GTA? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Video Games Make you smart! (Score:3, Interesting)
If you RTFA, you'll see:
Re:Starts of fine, but then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this based on anything but a gut-level, kids-these-days, knee-jerk reaction? Just wondering.
m-