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Thailand Imposes Gamers Curfew
bg writes "How addicted can you be? According to this article, Thailand will install a curfew to "protect" their childern from the addiction from Gaming. "Game servers, both local and overseas, will be blocked from 10.00pm to 6.00am daily from July 15 to Sept 30, while Internet cafes will also have their hours curbed to those times". Under particular attack is Korean role-playing game Ragnarok, which was introduced to Thailand seven months ago."
Maybe they should have a good read of the article about why games are good for you. Video games are good for your kids! (Oh, they're good for adults too....)
This is bad in that it doesn't just affect the kids. Not sure how much simpler I can put that.
... said the gaming industry as it faces hostile action from various quarters for the violence it 'promotes'.
I believe they have a new ratings system for video games. It rates the games on the basis of the level of violence in the game. e.g. cartoon violence, fantasy violence, intense violence and sexual violence. This will come into effect from Sept. 15.
I wonder why Thai authorities could not do the same instead of imposing curfew.
Anyways, I don't think the curfew is gonna work. It never does! After all, the forbidden fruit is always the most desirable... and the best way to ensure that children do something is to disallow it!
Just run a game server at port 80? Or if it requires more ports, tunnel them all through port 80 or use other common ports? (21, 23, 25, etc) This either renders the "curfew" useless or generates one helluva fun spastic reaction from Thai officials as they accidently ban the web.
Hate me!
Malaysia has, like Thailand, what it perceives to be an increasing amount of youth addicted to gaming. What one has to understand is that the methods of parenting in many Asian countries are quite different from those employed here, as is the perceived role of law enforcement. Because parents feel that they cannot simply order their children to stay away from the arcades, they put their trust in the laws of the land to prevent their children from what is seen as an unproductive, unhealthy activity.
I've been to Malaysian Net Cafes. Part of the reason parents are so worried about these places is because they often are havens for youth gang members, and still more often serve as venues for recruiting impressionable youths into the gangs.
Gaming addiction, while not so prevalent here, is quite common in the Far East. Kuala Lumpur has Net Cafes on every block, and enough children skip school or sneak out at night to play there that parents groups have demanded that something be done.
Many asian societies value strict adherence to the wishes of one's parents. These curfews have probably been implemented because parents feel extremely concerned that their children are defying family values (by disobeying their parents and playing games at all hours).
When television first starting being broadcast in the UK, there was no transmission perhaps an hour in the evening so that parents could put there children to bed.
There is a middle ground, and it involves responsibility. As much as I like to tweak Euros, the areas outside of the UK tend to involve an expectation of parental and personal responsibility that goes far beyond the rest of us East or West -- and it works. Eastern governments enjoy imposing restrictions on activity, sometimes almost on what seems to be a whim, and our Western governments are coming around to their way of thinking.
"What if I lived in Pakistan and wasn't a Muslim (or Buddist, or whatever) and WANTED to look at porn, but couldn't because the government regulated my internet traffic?"
.adult domain? Simple - the firms making money over porn wouldn't stand for it.
You're precisely proving my point. The simple fact is that Pakistan (or for that matter Thailand, Singapore or India) treats it's citizens as just that - citizens. Their personal beliefs and values are respected within their homes and places of worship - society has a uniform set of values. (Okay - this is abused in a few countries, but generally this is the unwritten belief). To sum up, it least matters what your personal faith is, it's important that you're a Pakistani. And as they say, while in Rome, do as the Romans do.
" And NEVER trust the government, because they're the only group that can legally kill you and everyone you ever met "for the common good". I'd rather trust people concerned with money than people that could kill me for not trusting them... "
I didn't know killing was one of the rights of the govt. I'd imagine if they did it on a large scale, someone would stand up for them and put them in order (Iraq, for instance, assuming the horror stories were true). OTOH, what has Corporate America done to prevent spam and porn from reaching kids? Why can't there be a simple legislation requiring all adult content to be registered under a
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
..... but not surprising coming from the country where it is allegedly illegal to go commando!
..... it's part and parcel of what separates us from the animals.
But seriously. This sort of thing is serious, even although it is "only" happening in Thailand, because I can hear Blair, Bush et al having real live orgasms about the possibilities. You have to ask the question, "what next?" When they finally take the ashtrays off restaurant tables, the sugar bowl and the salt cellar will look furtuvely at one another and wonder how long they have left. Those in authority never stop with what they have. If they can successfully "solve" the "problem" of childhood addiction to computer games, then some new problem will take its place as "#1 menace to our youth" and will, in turn, be "solved" by an even more pointless and draconian law.
Since when has it become necessary to prevent adults from doing something that might be harmful for children just in case children might do it anyway? That is not the job of the government, it is the job of parents. The whole point of being an adult is that you alone are responsible for your actions and the consequences thereof. Since the dawn of time, the human race has practiced self-destructive behaviour
Governments have been nibbling away at our rights for a long time now. Every so often, though, they seem to bite off a huge chunk, chew it with their mouths open, and spit it in your face.
If we don't take up against this sort of thing right now it might be too late. The day is coming when every single decision that might have a hint of a consequence about it will have already been made for you. The world is turning evil, what with ID cards, CCTV cameras, embedded RFID chips, anonymous tip-off hotlines and suchlike. And you know what? Under that kind of a system, I really can't think of a single advantage to not being in prison.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Isn't it the Koreans who always seem to be dying from 72 hours of non stop gaming, forgetting to eat sleep or drink. Try googling for korean+gamer+death - seems to happen quite a bit.
Police also tend to get weird ideas, like the undesirable person might not be dealing drugs, but we don't like his kind here anyway. Lets say he's a drug dealer (blam).
To me, this sounds like a human rights disaster waiting to happen, and I hope Singapore gets itself out of the mess before it blows up in their face. I don't think you'll find due process "ball-less" when you get wrongly accuesed by some overzealous cop listening to some guy pleading for his life and fingering everybody he knows as a drug dealer. Yes. The government knows the best forms of entertainment for you. Thinking for yourself is bad. Pick up government novel GN-23562 for your daily entertainment stipend today. Interestingly enough, a lot of those fast food places used to close between 10 and 12. Maybe the kids will turn to drugs once they take away the gaming? I don't know. I do know that the games weren't hurting anybody (the vast majority of the time at any rate), I don't know what they're going to do instead though. This is a bit of FUD, but it really does reflect my uncertainty about the upcoming situation.
I read the internet for the articles.
This doesn't suprise me at all. When I was teaching in rural Thailand (though close enough to an urban center to have net cafes), I would go there every day to check my email. Usually, most of the computers would be taken up by kids I recognized from my (elementary level) classes. At that point, the really popular game was Counterstrike. It was a strange experience to be writing home while the sound of gunfire came at me from a dozen directions ...
...
I have to admit wondering at the time what effect it would have for an entire nation to grow up playing a game like that. They would be well-versed in squad combat techniques, for a start
As someone who literally just returned form a night out in Bangkok, this story really does not suprise me at all. In the last 4 years in living here, I have witnessed some rather large changes implimented by the current government. fortunatly these did not include PM Thaksins' proposed and aptly named "Ministry of Information". Clubs and bars are shut at 2am in order to prevent and indeed supress what was a large underage clientel and widespred drug use. However methods used to protect the family values that are so (seemingly) strongly revered here seem to classically attack the problem a long way from its source. In a society that takes some getting used to, and has the ability to leave many with a very jaded overall impression, it must be understood that methods used here to address such issues, in being very un western, do not necessarily make them wrong. Thailand is not still classified as a 3rd world country for nothing, and thus I have to admit, im glad to see that there are at least best intetions present in this bill. These can also be seen in the implimentation of many other such 'cleanup' bills, however my gripe must be in the way such 'cleanups' are undertaken.
Prime example of the recent "war on drugs" in which the police were the front line and casualties (officially) mounted well beyond 4-5 thousand 'drug pushers'. If such "official" figures can be so shocking, the real death toll, as can be expected, is simply inhuman.
Thus with a figurehead in the PM of thailand that also happens to be one of asias greatest and well published corrupt tycoons to take example from, it is no wonder that the general population of Thailand, in beign exposed to examples of the destruction of such 'values' that are so revered, in the form of acceptable corruption, sexual deviance and all out murder, have trouble explainign to their kids why it is not a good idea to spend all day and night in interet cafes playing ragnarok, rather than working at school to achieve respectable results.(a certain well known polititians son of this region was also recently exposed in acheiving his higher level studies through methods that did not actually involve attending school). Thus, shutting internet cafes and blocking access, even internationally, to gaming servers will likely only see the spawn of some new entertainment for the somewhat dissatisfied youth of this country, and its is most likely that this will turn out to be far more socially detrimental than wasting time playng computer games. So, much as I am sure there is a serious problem, I am yet again annoyed at beign affected by a somewhat inneffective government who will declare in a number of months time that the ills of "mindless computer gaming in society" have been cured, and in sweeping it under the carpet, move on to much more important tasks, such as the traditional "peronal revenue generation for the politically elite of Thailnd" or even more important... and quite regular, "use local village government slush fund to exorcize evil ghost-spirits with the aid of generous ammounts of good thai whiskey". Politics and living here is so fun =).
Prohibition is largely symbolic. The "body politik" of a nation will use prohibition to quell fears and to address the concerns of the citizenry. In that vein, the use of prohibition as a political tactic isn't totally without its merits. In evaluating the "success" of prohibitions, prohibitions are generally deemed successful when the majority of the citizenry agree to abide by the prohibitions. They are considered to fail when the majority of the citizenry refuses to abide by the prohibitions. As was the case during the depression with the prohibition of alcohol. Essentially, the "success" or "failure" of a prohibition appears, to me at least, to be associated with two components.
Prohibition is generally more successful when you are dealing with an object, practice, etc... that is non-addictive. Individuals will have no psychological or physiological "need" to satisfy by indulging in a prohibition. On the contrary, prohibition appears to be inherently less effective in eradicating pornography, drugs, and any addictive behavior (gambling, alcoholism, etc...). I have not done research in this area, however, I would consider that the psychological or physiological compulsion to "satisfy a need" (real or perceived) provides a barrier to complying with a prohibition. I would be interested in any input that social scientists reading this post could contribute.
What isn't stated in the article (that I remember) are the punitive measures for violations to the curfew. I wonder what the "remedies" for infractions to the curfew would be. Perhaps fines or loss of connection priviledges?
In your post,
you make sweeping assumptions. Is the DARE program a failure? Being that it is a "local initiative" you would need to validate the success at a "local" level. In your comparison of the drinking habits of American and European youth, you allude to their exposure to alcohol as a significant factor in their behavior. While that might be true, at what average age do the two cultures receive exposure? How do we define exposure? Is it an evolving process that lasts a lifetime, or is it a specified period of time in the life of the adolescent that exists for a specific duration? What information do we have that links "binge drinking" to the failure of prohibitions and laws? In the end, Thailand will be responsible for satisfying their populace. If they believe curfew is an acceptable practice to curb an addictive behavior, then that is what they will implement. In America, it very well may be a different answer.To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.