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Hillary, GTA, and High School Football
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.
Hillary is doing what do-gooders always do. She's saying: "I'm smart enough to handle this and you're not." (Paraphrase of Penn Jillette)
Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
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.
If the allegations of football and videogames as stated above are true, that would explain a lot about my high school football team. The spoiled brats had all of the video game systems that their parents could buy them, and a 0-10 record on the field...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Seriously, when politicians get involved, be afraid. The issues will become more clouded. I believe Hillary is just using this to make her seem more mainstream.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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football actually encourages real aggression
well, duh
Of course, I admit that there's one charge against video games that is a slam dunk. Kids don't get physical exercise when they play a video game, and indeed the rise in obesity among younger people is a serious issue. But, of course, you don't get exercise from doing homework either.
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...
I've read so many stories on the (unjustified) outcry over GTA:SA. What I haven't read are any stories asking the readers to Write their public officials in an effort to stop this political witch-hunt.
The GTA brouhaha to me is about video games coming of age. They're no longer just about kids and teenagers, but for adults of all ages...it's a $25 billion business, and bigger than the movie industry...and it's just beginning. Sure, more grown-up ratings might shrink the market a bit, but the industry needs to be more creative about expanding the market. Besides figuring how to handle Easter Eggs, and adult content within games, the industry also needs to figure out how to meet the time constraints that adults have in playing games. Yet, most games are in a time warp, with limited ability to save, locked levels (you gotta earn it mentality!). It takes 2-3 hours to see a movie on a DVD and at least 20 hours to play a game. As a decades long gamer, I know it's there's fundamental difference between the two forms, and a totally different experience, but... If I'm springing close to $50 for a game (vs. say $20-25 for a movie DVD), and I don't feel like investing the 50 plus hours to play/replay segments to earn the right to see all the levels, and understand the story, I should be able to have an "auto-play" or "fast-forward to the next level" feature. This could significantly expand the market for games of all types, as more grown-ups can fit a game into their lives in terms of time. More here: http://mp.blogs.com/mp/2005/05/on_playing_pcco.htm l
What's next? No Boxing!? No martial arts!? Anything can be positive in a controlled environment. I think the problem is parents aren't taking the responsibility to control their children's gaming habits.
Mrs. Clinton is attempting to put herself in a position to be the democratic candidate for the 2008 Presidential election. This has nothing to do with GTA and everything to do with her attempting to strengthen how she is percieved with respect to traditional family values. I am not a fan of Bush and consider much of what he does to be fascist, but Hilary makes Bush look like a libertarian.
Ahhh fun times!
Here's a nice article, neatly summarised by its headline -- "There's Sex In My Violence!
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.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
She is just trying to get the conservative religious vote.
+-+-+-The folowing statement is true. The previous statement is false.-+-+-+
But it is a nice summary of most of the sensible points made against this whole "video games are the devil's tools" phase legislators seem to be going through once more.
Their(the legislators) arguments didn't work against Mortal Kombat, what's so different about today's games that they would somehow fundamentally warp childrens' minds?
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
It's absurd to say that playing a violent video game is the cause of violence in the society. The problem is more deeper and lies in how the person was raised and how he interacts with other people in his neighborhood. I have played plenty of violent games in my childhood and I am just fine and I have no urges of killing people on the streets. I have increasingly seen laws in US tacking baseless things than the root problems. One of the reasons might that on doing so might come and bite them in their behinds one day. I wonder when will someone realise this.
The more she does stupid things like this, the easier it will be to defeat her when she runs for President. It's funny how the most leftist of politicians do exactly the sorts of things that they accuse the right of.
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.
we're under an attack of the 503's service unavailable... time to kick start the server again.
Haha, sounds like someone got his head dunked in a toilet a few times. Poor Maddox.
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. 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.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
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 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).
Of course, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Story? This isn't a new article. It is an opinion piece. Can't the submitter read, or is he just trying to generate more controversy?
Anonymous Cowards suck.
But okay, look at the following sentence:
Many juvenile crimes -- such as the carjacking that is so central to "Grand Theft Auto" -- are conventionally described as "thrill-seeking" crimes. Isn't it possible that kids no longer need real-world environments to get those thrills, now that the games simulate them so vividly?
That's almost as stupid as the idea that children who play realistic FPS games are more likely to use guns with violent intent in real life because they are disconnected with reality. In fact, wait, that's saying pretty much the same thing. It was a pretty well written article, but don't fight fire with fire.
Of course, I admit that there's one charge against video games that is a slam dunk. Kids don't get physical exercise when they play a video game
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.
This is so stupid. All sports encourage competition. Many of them (basketball, hockey, wrestling, martial arts, etc...) have varying levels of direct physical contact. Sports are not the problem. What is the problem is that young athletes are not being taught to properly handle their feelings and deal with the game. They're taking a lot of their negative emotions onto the field, and taking their aggression off of the field. This is not the fault of sports, any more than it's the fault of video games. The point is that individuals are responsible for their own actions, and parents are responsible for supervising their children (teenagers included) to ensure that the are capable of emotionally handling the games or sports that they play.
I found the article to be a bit juvenile. The sort of article that is easily overlooked due to it's abrasiveness. It's a shame that something like this didn't make it into a more popular publication:
http://illspirit.com/press_release.html
Hillary isn't calling for a ban on certain video games. What is wrong with just researching the effects of violent video games on children? If it comes out that there is no major problem, then great. If it turns out there is, then parents will be able to better understand what effects such things will have on their kids. Do I personally think it causes a problem? No way. Getting picked on in school and having your head slammed into lockers is a lot more likely to drive you mad than playing GTA. Hell, most parents incite more anger and violence in their kids than video games ever could. (You can tell where I'm coming from here.) That said, the study can't hurt, and it may provide more useful information; You could end up being surprised.
*goes back to playing Resident Evil 4*
First of all, not all violence is bad. Violence against unwilling, innocent victims is one thing. Teams lining up on a football field to play each other is totally different, since they voluntarily participate. There are many reasons to rag on the politicians who are using GTA for a convenient whipping-boy, but this analogy gets the whole article off to a bad start...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The letter starts off making some good points and pointed analogies. But, but the end it just sounds ridiculous. I mean, read this snippet from the end...
"Math SAT scores have never been higher; verbal scores have been climbing steadily for the last five years; nearly every indicator in the Department of Education study known as the Nation's Report Card is higher now than when the study was implemented in 1971.
"By almost every measure, the kids are all right."
Is he joking? I mean, does he seriously believe what he wrote there? For one thing, if scores have gone up at all it's because the standard has been lowered over the years. For another, kids in the US, as a whole, are far from "all right" these days. If you don't see that, you're not taking an honest look at the state of today's younger generation.
They should just link videogames to terrorists and then patriotact'em to hell.
In my high school town (Doylestown PA), a group of several football players from CB West High School were attacked by a much larger group of football players from North Penn high school (next school district west). Basically the fight was rooted in the bitter football rivarly between the two schools. Four kids got seriously injured in the fight. One kid got kicked repeatedly in the stomach while he was on the ground.
a wl-update.html
Here's a story about it from the Philly ABC station.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/101504_nw_footbr
I think it is important to point out that we are dealing with the same problems that every generation has dealt with. Crime statistics fluctuate, and IMO they really can't be attributed to just one factor, but as the article correctly points out, we cannot rule out the idea that these violent games give kids an outlet for natrual aggression.
On sexual content, I am more concerned with violence than sex here. I don't really understand why our society is so prudish. Violence on TV (murder, rape, child molestation), is a "concern", but bearing a breast during primetime is an "outrage"!
The bottom line, this is yet another ploy by the Hildabeast to try to portray herself as a conservative Democrat in preparation for 2008.
You got any karma man? I really neeed it. Just a little hit! Come on!
The last few years for myself have been a pulverizer. Couple deaths in the immediate family, illnesses and many other stresses. Feels like Job.
I own two games for PS2. GTA: Vice City & San Andreas. If I didn't have that to direct some of that rage, I would have exploded. Real violence.
Whenever I feel like I'm going to snap, I go take it out on the ("virtual") world.
Healthy? Maybe, maybe not, but no worse than chemically numbing things.
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
..but funny. The author makes good points, but I especially liked this part:
The national carjacking rate has dropped substantially since "Grand Theft Auto" came out. Isn't it conceivable that the would-be carjackers are now getting their thrills on the screen instead of the street?
A spin worthy of a senator. While I don't discount the possibility outright, I do question it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
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"
Football teaches real aggression, while teaching that real aggression hurts. It hurts the aggressor, and it hurts the target. It also teaches in-person teamwork, and all the social checks and balances on appropriate/inappropriate aggression. It's the ultimate high-bandwidth feedback training for group aggression.
Of course, football produces lots of jocks who tape nerd buttocks together, then trap the nerds in a closet. So even football's feedback training produces lots of aggressively dysfunctional people. Football fans, without the pain feedback the players get, are arguably psychotic aggression freaks. But it does produce cheerleaders, another psychotic American human product that we know and love.
Videogames don't hurt anyone physically. But the realistic representation without physical risk can encourage physical aggression. I know it did with me: after playing GTA for a few days, I almost got drawn into two fights, one in a bar, another on the street, that previously never would have engaged me. I expect that children, who haven't learned the benefits of nonviolent (verbal) confrontation vs. the risks of kicking someone's ass, are even more succeptible. Combine that with the AMA's documentation of increased aggression disorders among children who watch TV unsupervised while infants and grade-schoolers, the extreme version of feedback-free violence "training". The picture of young people learning about violence, without its consequences, is certainly a warning.
So videogame makers should pay to "clear their name". They make billions in profits (including toy/movie/TV spinoffs), which are threatened by adverse publicity and possible liability. They should fund a reliable study, performed by a certified research institute (with the funding contract explicitly guaranteeing no strings attached to the results), of the actual developmental effects of their product on their market. Then they'd be able to take measured steps to ensure their product is safe. If it in fact is as safe as they've claimed for generations, they'll have invested a small amount in a study that protects their trillions in future profits. If there is actual health risk, they'll have quantified it, and be able to ensure their market survives to consume their products. Without getting some surprise lawsuit, backed by an "independent" study without their participation, that brings all those chickens home to roost like a FPS adaptation of Hitchcock's _The Birds_.
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make install -not war
If video games influenced us, the Pacman generation will be running in dark rooms, eating pills and listening to repetitive music.
Oh wait...
Content Management System: A pretentious way of saying "text editor."
I have played both and there is a difference.
In football there is physical pain. It hurts. You know that if you get hit or hit someone that it will hurt. I do not like to watch pro football because I have played in High School. It does bother me that people are paid vast amounts of money to get hurt for our entertainment. Don't even ask me about boxing.
All the same why is it bad to not let kids buy mature games? What is wrong with making the parents decide that their kid can play GTASA?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Many people compare GTA and football to the 'catharsis' model of aggression. This states that if you're really pissed off, you have to vent some of that anger. Maybe it's playing GTA and mentally killing Bill Smith for stealing your lunch money. Maybe it's tackling the opposing team extra hard to get all that emotional energy out. Or, the most popular example, maybe it's hitting each other with foam bats in a therapy session.
:
The problem is this model is incorrect, even if it is widely popular and thought to be true. Lets look at football. If playing hard was cathartic and made you more calm, then football players would be as calm as buddist monks. Yet on average football players are more likely to commit violent crime. You can look at video game studies, they do in fact convey a rise in violent behavior if the video game is violent. Especially if you get caught at a younger age.
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The only wiki source for politically incorrect non-information about things like Kitten Huffing and Pong! the Movie !
Please allow me to hate the creator of the 120-character limit: *HATES*. Thank you.
I'm frankly perplexed about the whole issue.
GTA:SA and the whole series have to be one of the most violent set of games out there and people are wound up about a tiny bit of sim sex rather than than killing cops and innocent bystanders.
But hack the game so you can see a little sim titty, and out come the feds and the nannys.
Sheesh.
I'd much rather see a game that glorifies sex than violence any day.
People need to get a sense of perspective.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Well according to your favorite and mine, Jack Thompson, the Sims is the new bad guy http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07/22/news_61296 09.html
Wow, now that EA peddles porn, you would think that matel and all the other makers of dolls would jump on that bandwagon. Who needs real nudity when you have a barbie.
Before people start flaming over whether video games cause or reduce violence, I'd like to remind everyone cum hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy.
I always cringe when politicians make a big deal out of such things as it almost always reeks of political opportunism. It's easy, perhaps cowardly, to try to present one's point of any moral quality by attacking an "evil" without a real lobby.
The effort is better spent by not treating people as though they are stupid (even though many indeed are), but educating them in real world practicalities. I'm quite certain that most people are aware that they're not really "killing" anyone or anything in games. Anything killed spawns back or can be replaced. Many would not be that enthusiastic about playing in a game in which they can expect to actually be killed or inflict real damage to real people... and that's perhaps the reason they're playing games and not shooting guns.
Now when politicians start campaigning against actual guns and the actual NRA lobby... that's when they'll be showing guts.
see a Text Widget
Football is a very personal sport. There are consequences for your actions. If you hurt or get hurt by somebody on the playing field, you have to deal with it. At the same time, sportsmanship is encouraged. You tackle the person, but at the same time you don't try to maim the other player.
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.
The politicians are the source of of much of the hype, and will contribute to and encourage the rest. US politicians on both sides now live and die by the amount of moral outrage they can stir.
"We can't let Terry Schiavo be murdered!"
"We must keep our children safe from these sick perverted video games!"
The whole point, as far as I can tell, is to keep everyone in a state of hysteria, and make sure that you pick one side or the other (because the other side is surely the way or complete moral degenracy and the downfall of civilization) so you won't notice that really, for the most part, both parties do exactly the same thing: enrih themselves and their wealthy contributors.
Seriously - for all the bluster and noise about these "hugely important" moral issues over the last 10 years, how much has actually been done by the politicians in power? I mean, if they really do care that much, surely it wouldn't be that hard to get some legislation through? How come the DMCA went through easily, and broadcast flags, copyright extensions, etc. keep recurring, but apparently these horribly important moral issues manage to simply keep getting batted back and forth with no real tangible action taken?
The politicians live on the hype. If they didn't you migt actually notice what they're actually doing (as opposed to what they are saying).
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Whatever happened to parents taking an active role in raising their kids? How about the parents take responsibility of their kids being little terrors. The behavior starts at a young age people. Instead of blaming your kid's bad behavior on video games, football, TV, etc...take a good look in the mirror and go "did I raise Junior in a way to respect other people?" Is this THAT hard of a concept to grasp? Have we become THAT lazy as a society?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
The article makes a passing reference to real football encouraging real aggression, but the second two things you mention are fabricated. Here is the only reference to real football from the article:
I'd like to draw your attention to another game whose nonstop violence and hostility has captured the attention of millions of kids -- a game that instills aggressive thoughts in the minds of its players, some of whom have gone on to commit real-world acts of violence and sexual assault after playing.
The bulk of the article is actually about there really not being a problem with kids playing video games and that in many ways, modern, difficult games actually stimulate learning (at least more than watching professional sports). The author then cites many games such as Halo 2 and the Sims and Madden 2005 as proof of how beneficial these games can be. I happen to agree with him, however that is somewhat of a bait and switch,... weren't we talking about games like GTA? How do the benefits of Madden 2005 justify the perceived issues with GTA:SA?
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Car jacking is now a " thrill seeking" thing? B.S.!! car jacking is a violent crime, in case you haven't noticed. I can't believe nonsense like this is coming out.
Sex with hookers and shooting cops is not a good thing, and just because something is in a video game doesn't mean it's ok.
I hope GTA gets banned here in the US just like the Aussies had the sense to do so.
This analogy is absurd. Both are games, and that is about where the similarities end.
In GTA, killing people is the GOAL. Gang warfare is the goal. Killing cops, stealing, etc, is the objective of the game!
Um, football, not quite. Football is physical, so injuiries happen, etc. But hell, if you want to use football players who get caught for drugs, assualt, etc, as an "example"; why not use actors, scientists, etc, who do the same kinds of things when they are at home! I can see the headlines: "Rocket Science bad sets example for children: NASA engineer found beating her husband."
Btw, I like both GTA and Football, my point is simply that they are totally different!
Too bad that dirty hippy Frank Zappa is dead. He sure put those senators to shame last time around.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
As long as the big 'headline' sports like football, basketball (and hockey here in Alaska) continue to bring in the money they will always be coddled by politicians. I mean, it may be obvious, but I think that many folks are interested in watching these sports specifically _for_ the violence in them. For example, how many times have you heard "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out"?
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.
Of course, I admit that there's one charge against video games that is a slam dunk. Kids don't get physical exercise when they play a video game, and indeed the rise in obesity among younger people is a serious issue. But, of course, you don't get exercise from doing homework either.
Well, to make a silly point (pointing out the uselessness of this final statement in TFA) sitting in a classroom isn't helping kids get any exercise, either. How about we try new and interesting ways to educate while mentally and physically stimulating them as well?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/halo2.ht ml
Oddly enough, now they have real research to back up their conclusion.
Are you talking about the game you play with the feet or the one you play with the hand ?
Absolutely, this is just Hillary jockeying for a better political position for a presidential run.
But I think it will misfire. This will not bring any right wing supporter over to her camp; and while it will probably not drive any of her supporters over to the Republican party, I forsee a lot of nominally Democratic voters suddenly becoming a good deal less enthuisiastic about her.
It should benefit the Libertarians, but it *won't*. Sigh.
When some bad outcome is attributed to religion or team sports, there is a large contingent of people that vote, who respond that the actions of an individual do not reflect upon the Bible or team sports. Your assertions are assumed to be false. Make the same ridiculous assertions against video games, drugs, or even cigarettes, you will find yourself in a voting minority that can be exploited. This is the essence of America's mob rule democracy. The mob of the day gets its freedom and the individual gets the shaft unless you have the numbers or the money to defend yourself against the mob.
Violence? Aggression?
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.
i don't care
Heh, like most of my fellow nerds, I love the GTA franchise. Untill my PS2 finally gave up living, it was my way of blwoing off steam. I'll decline to describe exactly what I do (it's not going around killing hookers and having sex), but it gives me a way to vent my frustrations in a way that while not productive, hurts no one else either. Granted I kinda had to stop playing so much when I found myself sitting at a stoplight, or behind another car, and checking out that empty sidewalk with a thought "hmmm I bet I could cut through there....." ;) especially compared to other people's chillens who have no respect for anyone or anything. All it takes is a little time and love, and if you don't have those, maybe you should keep it in your pants, or keep your legs closed.
Granted, I'm not 12, I'm 26 and I know that if I start thinking like that, I just need to laugh and take some time off.
Whatever the reasons for kids doing whatever it is kids do nowadays, legislation and finger wagging is no substitute for taking an active part in your kids lives (or friends kids, or your neighbors kids, etc...) and teaching them right from wrong. From the way I see it, it's like that old paradigm that kids are going to rebel against their parents in some form or another (i.e. doing what they are not told to do). So with a younger population having kids etc, they are rebelling, by behaving, because their role models don't care enough to instill proper values and judgment into them. So, they are rebelling against what they see in society. Sexually repressed? Dress like a whore. I could go on, but I think most sane slashdotters know what I'm getting at.
As a father myself, I take pride in knowing that my son is well behaved and courteous (well, as well behaved and courteous as a three year old can be....
Actually, what she is doing now is acting like the right, not the left. It is the right that tries to control your lives through the morality police. The left merely lectures you to death or tries to shut you up.
Show GTA to a hard-core right: "Oh my God, we have to ban this awful stuff!"
Show GTA to a hard-cord left: "Ugh, that's disgusting. Wouldn't you rather go out and play?"
As if the rest of the LA Times articles aren't worthwhile. And I am not saying they are.
The Tech Terminal
so very tired of this.
And it works, she tops William Hill list (4/1) for potential 2008 US presidents...
Now the scary stuff: Arnold Schwarzenegger is 6th on the list (16/1)
\u262D = \u5350
I've been watching and voting for losers for over 30 years and have learned two things:
The Democrats don't know how to win, but (fortunately) the Republicans do know how to lose.
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
the crime rate for carjacking is decreasing because the demographic that routinely performs this and other similar crimes is decreasing. As people get older they usually wise up and stop doing such stupid things. True, the games may be more of a time sink eliminating the amount of free time that a hoodlum like yourself could use to get into trouble. Games are no substitute for the real life adrenaline fix. The bit about the test scores going up is a joke too: the SAT people have 're-centered' the test because today's students suck at it compared to those who took it 20+ years ago.
Awesome article. More non-gaming, non-digtal based enternatined people need to read this.
All of the studies and statistics I have seen have shown either no direct correlation between video game use and teen violence, or that overall teen violence has steadily declined since the introduction of PC and Console gaming.
This is just another attempt to turn the focus away from things that really matter (growing poverty rate, federal defecit, War in Iraq, etc, etc) and turn the attention to something that can be easily pounced on and "controlled" by new laws and regulations driven by fears of the general unknowing public...
Why don't Americans demand more from their politicians?
I'm fairly certain that very few US Senators are listening over the sound of hype.
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.
Congratulations Hillary! You just lost the collective vote of slashdot and gamers nationwide. Keep up the good work!
I ran across this story yesterday and it neatly summarizes some statistics about the violent crime rate in correlation with some big moments in video game history, such as the release of PSX and the GTA games. The "Truth"
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
This guy obviously hasn't played Dance Dance Revolution before, that is an intense workout. Also as 3D total immersion gameplay begins to become more viable (I'd give it another 10-15years) that bit about a lack of physical excercise will go away.
**insert favorite profound quotation here**
No one got their panties in a bunch until hot coffee came out and allowed access to "porn".
There's plenty of violence as bad or worse as GTA on network tv every night. No one cares. They care about boobies. Janet Jackson shows a nipple and the FCC gets involved, but Law and Order last night had the gruesome details of a rape, then the murder of the rapist by the rape victim. Compelling drama they say. Sure, if that's what turns you on.
Think it's just a coincidence that they wanted to replace the M rating with an A for GTA? A Scarlet A - that is.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
When done right, sports and martial arts hone the violent instincts in young men and women to be disciplined and under control. Aggressiveness is actually a good thing when it is controlled by other impulses. Afterall, how many women out there would feel safe with a man whose first reaction is to just "talk it over" when he sees another man really accosting his girlfriend or wife?
I completely support the right of Rockstar to produce games like GTA, but I believe that ones like GTA are not cathartic. I despise the PTC even more than most here because of their rhetoric which clashes with a Biblical notion of parental responsibility, but I have to grudgingly agree that GTA is not good for many younger players. It's not like Quake or Unreal Tournament where you're shooting really fake-looking people to death, but you're graphically beating to death a guy who's similar to the hobo you might encounter walking down town. Most violent games are safe and cathartic because either the violence is for a "noble cause" or it's just mindless mayhem. GTA is very violent, very straight to the point about targetting certain groups, kinda realistically actually, that do exist in society and that many people might encounter on a daily basis.
As always, the real people to blame are the distributors like Wal-Mart. Rockstar deserves its FTC investigation for fraud, but let's not forget the fact that it was Wal-Mart, Target, etc. that put those copies of GTA in junior's hand in the first place. Rockstar, as bad as they may be, can't enforce that because they're just the company the makes the game.
I've said for a while that what we need is a return in this country to a real gun culture. We need the average kid to grow up in a Swiss-style family where the parents train them how to use it, and instill respect for weapons from an early age. We used to have that here and the violent crime rate was lower because since they were small kids, the general public knew what weapons were and understood the need for discipline. Most violent tendencies can be controlled through discipline. What we have to do is instill good training, respect and rational thought into our kids from an early age. If we did that, then crimes would be rarer, our jocks would be less likely to be anti-social assholes and society in general would be healthier.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
The company that earned millions by selling gore violence to teens, lost it all because of the only non-violent thing in the game.
Or, as they say... the criminal got busted for a crime he didn't commit.
Nelson, your cue.
- HAH HAH!
"Our video games are fun and harmless! You evil little bully!", cried the young, nerdy-looking fellow.
"It's your stupid football that ruins everything! That's the real agression!", he said to popular crowd as they snickered at him. Suddenly, a speeding pig-skinned oval came sailing through the air, breaking the glasses of the poor, awkward chap.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
The football analogy is a decent one, but it could also be applied to hockey as well, and to a certain extent, baseball given recent events in the MLB. The joy of most team sports is that it teaches cooperation and social skills, since a dysfunctional team will lose.
With kids though, the line has to be drawn on how the game is coached. If the emphasis is on strategy and skill, then you'll get players who will sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the team. If the focus is on brute strength, aggression and winning at all costs, then you get aggressive players who don't understand the concept of teamwork. Parents should be able to figure out if the coach is telling kids to literally destroy the other team.
Keep in mind, this is all based on my experience. I coached baseball for a few years and focused more on skill and strategy and playing good baseball than telling kids to hit homers every time they get to bat. The kids' self-esteem improved, and parents seemed to like it.
What goes for sports also goes for video games - if the game is played simply for its fun and entertainment value, then there's little to worry about. If its played because little Timmy enjoys killing people, then there are bigger problems, but that falls to parents to monitor.
Video games also make a great release too. I'd rather see a 16 year old who is pissed off take a Skyline in NFSU and speed around at 200 km/h than do it in real life. I'd rather see a kid on an angry streak play Counter Strike than take a sniper rifle and start picking off people in real life. Let's face it - we all get angry and need to release sometime. Again, parents should keep an eye on this.
Video games and sports are ways to see into a person's mind, not influence them.
World peace thru internet violence.
I think they saw something way before anyone else did.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"According to Duke University's Child Well-Being Index, today's kids are less violent than kids have been at any time since the study began in 1975."
Great article, but i am not so much worried about teenage kids as i am towards the younger ages. these games are pointed at younger ages and its getting younger. i'm 16 living in a neighborhod with many 9, 10, and 11 year old kids. One in particular i see having growing interest in knives, guns, fire, the lot... after playing gta. Come on, he used to be playing with cool tools until his parents bought a playstation 2! The problem here is kids playing these games when they are too young, and too immature to understand that the violence in those games isn't real life. Its more of a problem than the teens who understand that it is fake.
They should open an investigation into Little League Baseball. I've seen parents get into verbal and physical fights with each other and the referee, Little Johnny takes a tongue lashing for dropping the ball because the sun was in his eye, and God knows what's happening in the parking lot. Unfortunately, since Little League baseball is as American as apple pie, there's no sex appeal to investigate what's probably doing more damage to the kids and the community than anything else.
In any case, anthropologists tell us lots of interesting stuff about the connection between play and learning. It seems logical that as the world changes around us, the form of play is going to change. That change will then fuel more change. Some people are always afraid of change, so they attack it.
For the record, though lots of things were made legal by the book of Sport, Charles I apparently thought bowling was immoral enough to remain illegal. Isn't it shocking how our moral standards have declined?
Good article, if you choose not to think.
unfortunately, thats not for me.
Too many people try to justify their position by bringing in a lame comparison, or any comparison, to divert your attention from the truth.
Dont even get me started on the use of statistics.
Tying a decrease in carjackings to kids playing more video games? What?
We might as well say there are fewer carjackings because of an increase in martial arts classes taken, thereby providing the means of people to fend off attackers.
Please.
And saying "we dont target football" doesnt make a violent, sexual video game appropriate for children. What is appropriate, is making sure consumers are aware of the product they are buying.
Blame the parents, blame football, but please, be logical. Talk about the issue itself - i do not want my children acting out sex scenes when they arent able to act out the change in life that follows a STD or pregancy.
Maybe they will make a video game about leaving your wife and unwanted children.
This is an opinion piece. I happen to agree with it, but calling it a 'story' has different implications about the intended objectivity of the writer.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
A few years ago there was yet another attempt to pass a flag-burning amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I wrote my senator with my qualms about the idea. I'll give him credit - he wrote back (or one of his aides did). He said basically that he had taken his stance, and so wasn't going to change his mind.
If you write your congressman, I doubt he is going to say, "Oh, my! What was I thinking? Perhaps RockStar got punished enough by forcing GTA:SA to be re-rated! Now, back to important things...."
He is a lot more likely to say, "Judging from the mail I've received, this is a hot-button topic, so if I choose a stance that will help me come election time next year, I can stay in office! Now, back to those poll figures...."
This may not be universally true and it may not be a fair criticism, but look how far witch-hunting got Senator McCarthy and his assistant, Richard Nixon.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
Unfortunately I'm fairly certain that very few U.S. Senators are listening over the sound of hype.
One component of the hype is the media bullshit and partisan bickering. If a Senator actually had a reasoned argument for why we needed to leave purchasing decisions up to the citizens, someone will start screaming about how that Senator doesn't care about the children, is in the pocket of big media, etc. etc. Stupid citizens will believe the exagerations and misrepresentations they here from the politicos and media and will sing along so they can feel like they're on a winning side (or something like that). I'm not saying that there aren't times when we need to restrict things, but the media and the politicians are a primary reason the real issues become obscured by all of the hype.
The author mentioned a good amount about the complexity of video games, it sounds like he took a lot of that straight out of this guys book. "Everything Bad Is Good for You"
y Id=4762320
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
The interview is very good, but you need real player, or windows media player to listen to it.
later,
-manno
Can we just have a "War on Video Games" now? I've been waiting like 7 years for a politician to say it, and they haven't done it yet. Just imagine the fun I can have with that sound bite.
I thought family values, and morality was a right wing trait?
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
I will never vote for her. Not like if she's hot.
If you are looking for evidence that Hillary Clinton is unfit to be president or hold other postions for that matter here it is. She spends her energy making noise and trying to change trivial BS instead of working on the hard problems that are actually worth spending resources on. It's better to hold ones toungue and be thought an idtiot than to spam your yapper and confirm it.
I still play unreal tournament whenever I am really pissed at someone or something. I love it when he says "Godlike" in that voice when I kill lotsa "people" in a row without being killed once. Not to say I'd kill people in real life but I certainly enjoy the outlet when I feel at all frustrated.
Every vote count came up with Bush the winner. Period.
All the courts did was tell Florida to stick to the laws regarding vote counting. Gore was trying to play cutsie games with statistical fluctuations.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Hillary could have played the "hot coffee" incident beutifully, and there is still time for other politicians to take advantage.
There are literally millions of people in the U.S. like you and me that play games every day (more than 50 million PS2's sold), and have little support in the political arena. Although many of them are not of voting age, there are still a significant number of 18+ gamers.
If a politician were to fight this investigation, state that there is no reason for government interference, allow the ESRB to do its job, and defend the gaming industry, they would gain the vote of most gamers in their state/district during the next election. In doing so, the gamers whose votes they would gain would be larger than those they lost.
Gamers are a large, untapped political base. A powerful ally, for a politican we would make.
San Andreas has this actually. When you drive to a location to do a mission, and then you die, you can skip that part by hitting a button when you do the mission again. "Later that day..."
...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.
In football "real aggression" is taught. It's also taught that for aggression to be usefull, it needs to be controlled and directed and timely.
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.
[sarcasm]
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 harder than they slam into us!
-Valiss
Politicians and selfish, unresponsible parents are both doing the same thing as most groups faced with a large problem.
Upon trying to find a solution for said large problem, they fix something completely unrelated.
Nowadays parents care less and less about their children and worry more about their own sorry asses. Proper parenting would solve 90% of all agression and violence issues. I've been playing video games for years and I played high school football from 7 - 12 grade, and haven't killed anyone....yet. Time for lousy parents to step up and be..well.. parents.
The reason they want it raised is they want to ban the game. How's that work, you ask? Well the reason you never see AO games isn't because companies don't think people want them, they know they do, it's because most retailers, Walmart most improtantly, won't stock them. They just flat out refuse to stock anything AO. So it's basically a kiss of death for most games. If you can't get in the major retailers, your sales will be for shit. Hence, they shoot for rated M.
Same deal with NC-17 and unrated movies. People are fine with them, as the sales of unrated DVDs shows, however theatres are not. There are next to no theatres taht will show a film with an NC-17 rating, or one that wasn't submitted for ratings. Hence all movies are cut to be R for theatres.
If you ever have the chance, go and get the rated and unrated versions of American Pie and/or Van Wilder and watch them. You probably won't notice the differences unles you are looking for them, it's pretty small changes. So you probably are given to wonder, why bother at all? Well the unrated is as the director orignally shot the film, however when it was submitted for raitings, the MPAA said it would get an NC-17, so they made the necessary cuts to bring it down to R.
That's what this is really all about, it's not that they want people to be warned, it's that they want sales of the game to stop. They can't actually ban it, so they are trying to effectively ban it.
She doesn't give a shit if it's the Association for Raping Bitches in Darfur, or Save the Rolly Pollies Foundation. She just wants to be on whichever side is going to win. Which is basically what a mercenary does. Or a double-agent.
Even Bill stood-up for some shit, from time to time. I can't name anything specific right now, but there's certainly something.
I find it hard to believe that the US govt spent $90 million on a video game study. I think the money could have been much better used on something that will actually help people. Maybe its just me, but finding cures for diseases, sheltering homeless or feeding the hungry would be a better use of $90 million.
You only live once, so you might as well have fun before you die.
Remember how that ex-military guy was all up in arms about video games a few years back? He was basically making the rounds on all the political talkshows saying that video games caused violence, and, oh yeah, he was a colonel or something. Did that seem strange to anybody else?
What if this whole dog and pony show is more nefarious? What if video games are channelling teenage aggression into outlets that cannot be harnessed and exploited by the military? What if kids these days would rather sit at home and shoot terrorists on their television than sign up to shoot dissidents in Iraq?
It's been known for a long time that football encourages the kind of violence and groupthink that is a useful precursor to military training. What if violent video games have the opposite effect? Would you expect our politicians to come out for or against them?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
This is stupid. Why are all you idiots pinning the blame on Clinton, when plenty of other government representatives are involved, including Republicans.
Congressman Upton, a Republican from Michigan, introduced the bill to congress. It passed 355 for, 21 against, 56 abstain.
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 also asked the FTC to investigate Rockstar, and it's a stupid waste of time-- ala the Janet Jackson breast exposure.
A male congressmember can be an asshole and nobody complains, but as soon as Senator Clinton gets uppity, you all call her a bitch. Where the even-handedness here?
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Hillary has NO chance of getting my vote...not with the same attitude that the Republicans have had. "I know better than you, and need to interfere in your life."
Why can't we write a second american constitution and bill of rights that forever enshrines certain liberties above the muck of anyone's political ambitions?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
It may encourge aggression on the field, but the coaches aren't trying to get you to go beat down random people on the street. I played football all throughout high school and I was also a video game addict. I don't think I've ever started a fight in my life, I may have ended a few but it was pure defense. Whoever is doing these so-called studies are either doing so with an agenda or clueless. Of course the kids who play football are going to be more aggressive, it attracts aggresive people. Though I think I'm living proof that playing football, playing violet video games, and watching horror movies have nothing to do with how aggressive you are in real life. This kind of slipshod research that gets blown up into national crusades makes me want to Kill some one! :P
It's sad how many people I hear saying that they're going to vote for Hillary when she runs. Some say just because she's a woman. Some say because she has great moral values.
It's a sad, sad day when we vote someone into office just because "it's something new" or we think that a person like Hillary has "grade A" moral values.
I you were to expose a young infant to a breast, there is no telling how they will turn out.
Every year, thousands, no MILLIONS of America's youth are exposed to breasts at a young age. What's worse, they are exposed to the insides of female genetalia at an even younger age!
We MUST stop this horrible practice of defiling our youth. Ban breast feeding and birth canals! Better yet, lets ban the female body all together! After we get rid of all women, the world will be a safe place from the dangers of sex. Us men can get back to the good wholesome activities sexually frusterated men always revert to.
Mindless tribal warfare and violence! Wholesome, sweet, good for youth, violence.
Boo to boobs, down with vaginas! Chant it with me now!
You think that slashdot is to conservative don't you....
the body count surrounding Hillary Clinton is what should be called into question - not GTA. One of these days her sorted actions will come out and we will be spared another Clinton regime.
Never tried DDR I see? I'm waiting for an active version of GTA that requires I actually run on the pad and wave my hands around in front of my tv to punch hookers. Damn yeah I'd play that shit.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
R U kidding me? Football causes real injuries and encourages agression, so it's worse than having kids play shooter games? Jeez.
Look, football is real. What you see on TV, what you do if you play it happens in reality. If you go and try to tackle the biggest guy on the field, well, your behavior is influenced by the consequences that may occur.
In a shooter game, the player suffers no consequences, and gets to enjoy the "thrill" if waxing as many opponents as possible. The problem for kids is that this is not real--there are no consequences. Some kids who play these games will act out what they do...even in small ways.
This seems to be because the games trigger the same physiological response as real-life danger situations, (adrenaline, etc.) without any real-life means for expelling it. There is no fight to "fight or flight" from. What's reinforced is that when you feel that adrenaline rush (next time maybe in real-life) that there are no consequences. Eventually, some people act out on that.
Goes without saying that its not the games' fault, and not everyone acts out. In moderation this probably isn't harmful. Problem is that some kids play without supervision or moderation.
LOL. Take about taking your eyes off the ball.
Given you can be recruited and in Iraq, dying for oil, at 17 its a complete joke. Only in America.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
On the minus side, Football, like a lot of sports, can teach you to push the limits and try to cheat, or bend the rules unfairly, or hide your fouls from refs. It can also make you feel "better" than other people because you are the center of attention and can do things other people can't. This can make you feel arrogant and want to flaunt the rules.
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.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
football actually encourages real aggression, causes real injuries, and is treated totally differently
Football usually doesn't involve guns....
I find it ironic how Hillary doesn't seem to appreciate how sexual acts can offer you free publicity.
go read starship troopers, then tell me that having 'aggressive thoughts' is bad.
I made the comparison between videogames and football in an article over at kuro5hin back in 2002.
While it certianly isn't an original comparison, even when I made it, I think it is worth wondering why we encourage kids to hit each other as hard as they can in real life, and are afraid of virtual violence. -- and perhaps more importantly why none of our lawmakers are pointing this out and yet we keep voting for them...
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
What don't you like about her epistemology?
No, it's mostly a left-leaning site, with a strong libertarian (With a small 'l') streak.
But I'm getting really tired of the "Fuck that Bitch" attitude while ignoring the male assholes who do the same thing.
It's reflective of a site that is 97% male, and incapable of thinking outside the box.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Is that the kind of do-gooder that you are talking about?
Virginia doesn't want him. It will takes decades to fix the departments and agencies he has gutted. The Wilson Bridge is "on time and on budget" at the moment, but the rest of the states highway projects have been massively scaled back, postponed or cancelled. That is just one of the agencies he has nearly destroyed. And you can't hire for the needed jobs once they are added back in because the skilled workers moved to another state to work!
This whole slashdot item and the article it refers to ought to be reported to the Federal Election Commission as a political contribution to the Republican party. The article referenced is just a silly "open letter" addressed to Senator Clinton, and she's only mentioned once when the author vaguely assigns to Sen Clinton his laundry list of anxieties regarding some barely related issue (I guess you can tie anything together by drawing it back to some root emotion about constraint.) C'mon, you're being manipulated people, this is the Republican Party propaganda machine jerking you around, it has nothing to do with Sen Clinton. It's "The Hillary Limbo": How LOW can you GO! They're desparate to smear her, you can smell the fear.
Let Johnson talk all he wants. When push comes to shove, all this anti-video game rhetoric isn't going to get anyone to change their goddamned votes.
[o]_O
Fire Bad!
People who use the crazy straw man arguments of Ayn Rand tend to be the type of people who want an excuse to feel good about doing nothing. Her philiosophy is the ultimate sop for the supremely egotistical. It's a short sighted kind of selfishness, though, the same kind of selfishness that leads to things like procrastination. "If it feels good now, do it! " is not a great philosophy.
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I used to attend a technical high school (it was a partnership between the BC Ministry of Education and the University College of the Fraser Valley). Students were divided up into programs, like Computer Information Systems, Electronics, Electrical, Business Management (clerical), and so on. It was very much an intellectual school, all for high-school students who wanted to start their university education early.
Of course, in the entire history of the school, the soccer team had never won a game. Oh well. We can't all be track stars I guess.
That was worthless.
Anyone using the phrase "digital workplace of tomorrow" will be flogged.
caritj.org
God of War does not show the act on screen. You get some sound effects and a vase getting knocked off a table. GTA, on the other hand, is right there on the screen.
That, apparently, is why there is no hoopla over God of War, despite the fact that nudity is a lot more prevalent in God of War than GTA.
say football is a form of terrorism that has only gotten worse since 9/11
oh, and "for the children" or something along those lines
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Relax, Tipper Gore was a bitch too.
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!
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
How many videogame players riot after the game? When was the last time (or the first) that the conclusion of the Sims led to overturned vehicles, flaming trashcans and assaults on strangers?
When we say "story" in a newspaper context, we suggest a news report. This is an editorial, which is an entirely different section of the newspaper and has an entirely different purpose.
I'm not suggesting any unnecessary bias and haven't even RTFA yet... it's just that we shouldn't confuse news with commentary. There's a world of difference.
RP
Now, which activity challenges the mind more -- sitting around rooting for the Packers, or managing an entire football franchise through a season of "Madden 2005"...
Let me tell you mister, that rooting for the Packers has been challenging my mind more and more lately...
and incapable of thinking outside the box.
:)
Nice pun.
He's comparing video game with American football! There is not a game in the world more retarted than American football.
This debate is structurally identical to the case against pornography and obscenity throughout the last several hundred years; only the medium has changed. Advocates on both sides of this unsettled issue would be well advised to read the history of obscenity trials.
For anyone interested, try _The Secret Museum: Pornography in Modern Culture_ by Walter Kendrick.
Every time I see someone go on about the potential for videogames to act as a "release valve" for their tensions, I want to point out something like that article.
First, videogames really don't "solve" why you're angry in the first place.
Second, over time, everyone gets desensitized to violence, requiring more and more to have the same personal effect. For example, you'll start off hitting a pillow once or twice when you get angry. Then you'll go on to hitting it a lot more. Then you'll hit it with a baseball bat, then a knife, etc. It's kind of like a drug that way.
Third, let me say that I like violent video games. I play them, and don't think any of them should be banned. They can increase hand-eye coordination, problem-solving skills (depending on the game), and help with spatial memory skills (part of intelligence testing). Let's just say though they have their benefits and they can be enjoyable, HOWEVER they're not good for someone to use as their primary outlet to control their aggression.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
This whole crime rate issue may be a red herring.
Most (violent/thrill) crimes are committed by young men.
The fewer young men, the lower the number of crimes.
What would be interesting to see is the number of crimes committed per 1000 young men, not just the number of crimes committed per 1000 people (which would include aging boomers, and others who are not 'crime prone')
Lt. Col Dave Grossman "On Killing" - great book.
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
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
both political parties, and both genders?
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 Poem by heart. It's popular among geeks in both genders.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Simple. She is the one that is in the media, the one everyone knows about. Nobody knows about Upton, or anyone else that is involved for that matter, because they aren't making the headlines.
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
Be careful what you wish for, manditory C-Sections and manditory Gerber(tm) baby formula could well be legislated.
The programmers, according to what I've read, left the controversial scene in the game. They know that tech-savvy kids/teens/adults can mod the hell out of a game. If they didn't want it discovered, they shouldn't have left it in. It should've been dropped to the cutting-room-floor, as I'm sure much of the other content similar to it was.
I'm sure they don't want the controversy, (We have a conservitave government, people are going to cater to their sense of what's right/wrong, simply because they are the majority. Same would go if it were librals.) But think about it. Now, they sell a bunch of games cause honey little teenage boys (or teenage girls. Or adults of either sex.) will buy it so they can see the scene. They're making money off it.
Afteralll, it's a Brave New World.
Not only that, but it is teaching soldiers how to respawn in 30 seconds if they get killed. (And teaching them to just give up and die when they run out of bullets, because they'll get more when they respawn.)
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
They said amoral values. You just misunderstood them.
I shot the german soldiers all day, without any remorse. I'm not anti-german or anything. I didn't even know what a german was, who Hitler was, or what WWII was all about at the time. I just knew they were bad guys, and I was shooting them.
But then I got to the part with the attack dogs. I felt really bad about killing the dogs. At some point, I sat down and thought about my behavior, and marvelled at what kind of monster I was, feeling no remorse for shooting people in a video game, but feeling bad for having to shoot the dogs.
Is this just me?
I guess it could be justified, in that while killing bad guys, you're killing someone who's rational and had the ability to chose between being a bad guy and a good guy. They chose badly, and ended up on the wrong side of a very large gun. The dogs were just trained that way, though. They're forced to be bad, because their made that way.
Of course, getting even more philosphical, how is the dog's relationship to its trainer's training and commands any different than a common soldier's relationship to his commander, his training, and his commands.
There have already been enough studies which show that exposure to violence at a young age influences their behavior toward more violence.
But besides that, why do children and young adults need to have violence in their virtual "entertainment"? Atleast with the violence they would be exposed to in sports or backyard/schoolyard play, when someone is hurt, they are VERY aware of the damage inflicted and most likely will even understand how small things scale up. In the virtual world, there is no feedback to "learn" from and there is very little socialization going on...
For an idea of where we are going, had anybody seen the "new" Bugs Bunny? Geesh, he's almost frightening. Then, today, I just saw what is supposed to be the comeback of the Troll Doll. Again, a vicious looking, pissed off looking toy. WHY? Is this what we want our children and adults to be/resemble? Sure they are "just" toys, but developing minds emulate alot of what's around them.
IMO, it's not needed and does far more harm than good when you consider that the violent aspect is not required to sell the toy if it really was a worthy product to begin with.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I don't care about politicians blathering on, its what both Republicans and Democrats do. However, $90 million? Aren't we currently running a deficit and don't we have better things to do with money?
Let's see, the House votes 355-21 to start an FTC investigation into GTA Coffeegate, meaning a large number, and broad spectrum of legislators are concerned about the issue, and who gets the /. headline? Hillary. Because no other politician has concerns or motives.
No, actually Hillary gets singled out, because some people are programmed into a crusade against her.
Agreed. For similar evidence of this mentality, check out any article about HP. The amount of completely off-topic posts bashing Carly Fiorina is stunning. I'm not saying that she was a great, good or even terrible CEO - but she is villified more than Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Michael Robertson combined. She's probably inching toward Darl Mcbride.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
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.
It's still all about you. It's not about making anyone else feel better, it's not about doing the right thing for its own sake, it's about you making yourself feel better.
And you want others to tell you how wonderful you are, or you wouldn't have fucking said anything in the first place.
Talk about being selfish, egotistical, and short-sighted. You freaking own that territory.
I have had it up to here with people knocking at Hilary Clinton for her role in the whole Hot Coffee/ESRB thing. What shocks me most are the people who start talking politics here more-so than ethical standards discussions and GAMES! I came here because I was under the impression that this was part of the Slashdot games section, but apparently I've been hoodwinked and led to the politics part. (Wait, I AM in the Politics section?! How did THAT happen!?)
But no matter, as I intend to NOT discuss politics or anything of the like here, but speak as a student who has been studying the game industry in pursuit of a career there as a Creative Director.
What's a Creative Director you ask? This is the person who is considered the BRAINS of the game, the author of a book or director of a movie if you will! The game is considered this person's baby and when the credits role, this person is usually the first one listed. Right now, we have several different parties thrown in here for what's going on with this event, but the Creative Director is not one of them! So who is involved in all this:
The Game Makers:
Take-Two Interactive
Rockstar Games
The Political People:
Hilary Clinton
Jack Thompson
Leland Yee
The Video Game Lobbyists:
ESA (Entertainment Software Association)
ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board)
IGDA (Independent Game Developers Association)
VSDA (Video Software Dealers Association)
IEMA (Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association)
Quite a few more people on the side of games than I bet most of the folks here expected! Not surprised though as they are usually very quiet in regards to their actions and rarely peak on the headlines, if in the news at all!
But they are there, and they have been challenging legislation left and right in regards to censorship and overly strict legislation on video games.
Hot Coffee is not the current fuss that has the attention of these groups.
The current fuss that's going on is the law in Illinois that requires state enforced labels on video games and places a large fine on stores that sell state-considered "Mature" games to minors. This law is slated to go into effect on the first of 2006, but that gives lots of time for the groups to challenge the law, and most likely win!
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?st ory=6018
Already similar laws have been overturned in Washington State, Indiana, and Missouri. The laws have been marked as "Unconstitutional" and violate first amendment rights. Rightly so, since treating video games different from movies, books, comics, and television is a major hypocrisy. So why video games? Because it's the newest media to earn the ire of the government because of its "new-ness" and the lack of knowledge held by people in power.
That's not to say that there are no politicians on the side of video games. Quite a few listen to the ESA, ESRB, and take measures as necessary.
Hilary Clinton is NOT an avid anti-video game fanatic like Jack Thompson is. One look at her website, and you can see that she focuses on lots of topics regarding human well-being, and does a lot for her New York constituents. But then what DID she say regarding the video game business then?
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details. cfm?id=240603&&
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details. cfm?id=241138&&
And that's all she wrote! The fact that this is ALL she has to say on the matter is actually COMFORTING to me as a gamer! She does NOT claim that the ESRB is a faulty institution, and applauds it for taking action on GTA:SA.
I AGREE with the ESRB with their ratin
and you have a NAÏVE spellchecker.
This thing with these videos games is to the point of annoyance. A video game is a release and an escape. They require a tremendous amount of brainpower to work correctly thus the gamers benefit. There are more important events and issues for our government to work on than video games. The gist of my point is get over it and move on...a video game debate is unnecessary when there are bombings in London and people starving in my neighborhood. Now, why would football actually influence kids to carry out violent acts? The answer is simple to me: the culture. Football has its own culture of macho values. It cuts off the weak and rewards the strong. It tells you to be a good player means to be a violent and mean player. It encourages peer pressure and the rise of leaders in a system that is barbaric once examined. In short, it encourages the stereotype of being a man. A man that is tough and unafraid and a leader and feared and thus admired. Those who fall victim to believing in this set of values are those who are more likely to pick fights, follow what is known as the "pecking order", and give into pressure for fear of being labeled a "pussy". All of these things are more likely to lead to violent acts than a fantasy game or GTA. GTA is not real or passed off as real. It does not create a culture that has been passed down from generation to generation...the culture has created the game. GTA has really done the world a service by offering a nonviolent outlet for violent thoughts and feelings. And, finally, it is better to role-play a violent dick than actually being one.
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 relatively socially liberal. She's a big fat target because this appears to be blatant political posturing for the 2008 presidential election. Adding to this, she is a high profile democrat (mainly because of who she is married to), and is pretty outspoken. She is also a target of many conservative republicans for various reasons (yes, gender is likely a big fat one).
So why would so many people tear into her for an issue like this? Perhaps many were expecting someone a little more socially liberal to champion their cause. Modern republicans tend to beat the 'morality' drum, and this is has become expected behavior from them. This is merely speculative, as I can't speak for everyone else, but I'll tell you how I feel. I'm neither a liberal nor conservative. I may go some ways on some issues, and a different way on other issues. That being said, I think that the point of Hillary Clinton's recent push for video game legislation has nothing to do with personal beliefs, but more to do with showing moderates that she can go the other way on some social issues. In the process, she has sold people who are affected by censorship of this media a little short...and I'm one of them. I am fully aware that she is not the only Democrat pushing the issue -- Chuck Schumer is pretty outspoken about this as well (I think that he called for a ban on a recent game prior to its release). As a registed voter in New York state, I've sent both of them letters and have informed them both that if they continue to pursue this course of action, that they will lose my vote permanantly.
Is it because she has a vagina? For some people...perhaps they will never see past gender. However, my criticism of her has nothing to do with her gender and more to do with the issues mentioned above.
Can I turn this around to you with another question: Should her gender excuse her from criticism?
-Turkey
if you decide to use them. Given GTA's open ended gameplay and physics engine, you can use tactics if you so choose. If the objective is to kill someone, you can either go the normal way with guns, or you can steal a car before hand, park it near the mission's start point, steal the car onces the mission starts, and run the person over without risking getting shot. Likewise, you can legally win street races, or you can get out of the car while the race is on, shoot the wheels of the other cars, and win without much trouble. Sure, some might consider this cheating (nothing wrong with that in a game where you murder prostitutes for fun and profit) since it goes against the normal way of winning, but given the complexity of the game it tends to be more fun than the normal approach.
This kind of behavior might be looked down upon in multiplayer, but it's not a problem in single player when the point is for you to have fun.
Aside from the massive adrenaline rushes during shootouts in some of the better FPS games I've become addicted to during the last few years, the claim that video games lead to laziness and obesity is misleading.
Yes, if you don't ever leave the computer and have nothing else requiring physical effort during the rest of the day then it's likely you'll end up a big, fat slob. But this type of person probably already started out that way and would behave the same whether it was a television being watched or just paint drying on a wall.
The constraint placed on physical involvement in video games is only as significant as the available peripherals and the associated programming by developers. Examples like Dance Dance Revolution, Silent Scope, or a golf simulator all show how adding a physical component makes the game better and provides a way to get exercise if so inclined. But rather than allow the industry time to develop the necessary peripheral devices and necessary control software our legislative branch has decided to place more barriers on an already extremely competitive market.
Result: Gamers get the same recycled games from the big developers like EA where the game's only selling point is some controversial bit of content. Meanwhile smaller companies get displaced since they don't have the resources to develop both the technology and the code themselves.
For the Libertarian Party, which is run by extremists who aren't interested in forming a viable party. I actually think that a normal libertarian party, with libertarian ideals that campaigned on practical matters could win elections... HOWEVER, the Cato Institute, which is the libertarian think tank, has found a home in the modern GOP.
Here is the basic split: urban / rural
Suburban/Exurban are 75%/25% or 25%/75% of those characteristics.
Urban Votes: extremely concerned about their neighbors
This makes sense, when I was living in Boston, everyone was ON TOP OF EACH OTHER. They tend to be socially conservative, economically "authoritarian" (modern liberal), tending to want lots of regulations
Rural Voters: wanting to be left alone... somewhat "libertarian"
On social issues, they tend to be personally conservative, more governmentally libertarian.
This breaks down in the modern sense of "civil rights" which aren't really straight civil rights. Even anti-discrimination laws aren't straight civil rights because they take away an individual's right to discriminate in the venue of "what is right." This is what the modern liberals are missing. Argue for the rights of individuals to do what they want (gay couples forming legal relationships) and you'll win these votes, demand "marriage" and other social constructs and you freak these people out.
The modern parties, however, represent neither of those.
The GOP is an alliance between intellectual free-market libertarians and social conservatives. The votes come from the social conservatives, but most of the polciies from the libertarian wing. GOP Judicial Groups like The Federalist Society are HARDLY socially conservative the way the GOP base wants, they aren't going to push regulating personal lives... HOWEVER, they want to stop the Federal Government from interfering with the states abilities to do it, which is why the alliance holds.
The Democratic Party is a loose collection of intellectual "statists" (the so-called elites that believe that they know best), and a collection of individual special-rights cases with unusual claims. The votes come from these collection of groups. What is killing the party is that the funding comes from these groups, so they are led by their kooks. The GOP has an advantage that their libertarian wing picks up the tab while their social wing brings the votes, so each side has a balance of power.
With regard to the boomers... we're in trouble, because they learned in college that they can vote themselves money, and they are constantly voting themselves money, and are going to become worse and worse.
It will be interesting to see how Gen-X turns out as voters over time now that more and more of us (and I'm 1979, so the end of that generation) are married parents.
Idealism and Ideology are luxuries from people with time on their hands. It is extremely common among college kids (lots of free time) and single urban professionals (lots of money on their hands), but less common among the "normal" parts of the lifecycle (the period of time between 18 and whenever your first kid arrives between ages 22 and 35 is a modern invention). We'll see what happens.
But there will be NO small government while the boomers are a large voting block, because they have NEVER believed in personal responsibility and have ALWAYS as a group believed in the nanny-state. That is why both parties have gotten this bad, the largest voting block wants it. As youths they wanted free education, no responsibility for fighting the nation's wars, low taxes, tax breaks to buy expensive houses and have investment accounts, and then the next generation to pay taxes to support them, and the while deciding that things like "children" (those future tax payers that they want to support them) are optional and should be done in small doses.
Having a smaller generation than the previous one is a TERRIBLE thing that is relatively unique to that generation. When you stop being "fruitful and multiplying" then it becomes very easy to only focus on yourself and make increasingly unreasonable demands.
Alex
99% of the people here on Slashdot voted for a candidate who is pro-censorship abd anti-gaming. In the US, everyone is too cought up in the football-style rivalry between two almost identical political parties to actually vote against politicians who threaten to ban video games, or rap music, or any other thing enjoyed by a minority of the people.
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.
- Football - Yes it is violent, aggressive, dangerous etc. but parents presumably know this before they allow their children to play
- GTA San Andreas - Violent videogame that may *surprise!* have pornographic scenes. If parents knew this I think many of the posters might never have gotten the game.
Of course if you can purchase your own videogames, who cares what the ratings are. Just don't be deceptive to those who do -- allow parents to make an informed choice.A good solution to the politicians wasting everybody's time with this bullshit is to just leave. Go to Europe where what you think actually matters and you have a say.
I take issue with the suggestion that the LP is more like the GOP than the Dems. Just because most members are older and the party is pro-free trade and gun rights doesn't mean they're closer to the GOP. In fact, if they are not squarely between what the two parties historically represent, I would say that they were closer to the Dems because of their beliefs in social freedoms. Republicans are much more against abortion choice, drugs, and non-Christian religions than the Dems are against guns and private enterprise (in my experience). The "center" between Republicans and Democrats, especially when viewed compared to other countries, is right of the actual "center", whereas the LP would be on the true "center", therefore closer to the left. If that makes sense.
Is he refering to the poem by Lewis Carroll or the sub-par Monty Python production of the same name? If it's the latter, I have to say it'll be more than just the ladies rolling their eyes. Yech, what a horrible flick.
Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
Some highlights:
There are hundreds of other cases listed. And that's at the high school level. The college level is even worse.
Not only does football make rapists, multiple rape coverups involving high school, college, and NFL officials are on record. It's time for a serious crackdown.
Protect the children from steroid-enhanced monsters!
The crucial event in Ayn Rand's life was the day her father's apothecary shop (think drug store) in Petrograd was seized by the Bolsheviks. Her entire philosophy coalesced on the spot from there. Understand that, and everything else about her and about Objectivism kind of takes shape from there.
A lot of her weirder ideas came from her addiction to methamphetamine. The meth was prescribed for her as a "diet pill." She apparently used it right up until she died.
Combine that early trauma in her life with meth and its side-effects (paranoia, etc.) and you get The Gospel According To Rand.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
What does it say that my wife quotes Jabberwocky better than I ever will?
Times have changed
Our kids are getting worse
They won't obey their parents
They just want to fart and curse!
Should we blame the government?
Or blame society?
Or should we blame the images on TV?
No, blame Canada
Blame Canada
With all their beady little eyes
And flappin' heads so full of lies
Blame Canada
Blame Canada
We need to form a full assault
It's Canada's fault!
Don't blame me
For my son Stan
He saw the darn cartoon
And now he's off to join the Klan!
And my boy Eric once
Had my picture on his shelf
But now when I see him he tells me to fuck myself!
Well, blame Canada
Blame Canada
It seems that everything's gone wrong
Since Canada came along
Blame Canada
Blame Canada
They're not even a real country anyway
My son could've been a doctor or a lawyer, it's a-true
Instead he burned up like a piggy on a barbecue
Should we blame the matches?
Should we blame the fire?
Or the doctors who allowed him to expire?
Heck no!
Blame Canada
Blame Canada
With all their hockey hullabaloo
And that bitch Anne Murray too
Blame Canada
Shame on Canada
Ohhh...
The smut we must stop
The trash we must bash
Laughter and fun
Must all be undone
We must blame them and cause a fuss
Before somebody thinks of blaming us
"Feed Us A Fetus" was a great song.
And yes, I do think abortion is an alternative to facing an unwanted kid, years later, armed with a hand gun and needing my wallet cause his mama's too broke to pay for his $99 sneakers.
No as good as contraception, but thats' what the demographics have shown us. If you can't take care of them, they grow up to be really nasty and pissed off about it.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I'm surprised how easily everybody seems to be won over by the corporate response to what is really a case of fraud. This is not about the sex and violence in the game. It's about defrauding the ESRB.
Hillary is not trying to ban violent games. Nor is she trying to ban porn. But the game industry agreed to police themselves with the ESRB. Now we have an example of a game company lying to the ESRB, getting a rating that will let them sell games in Walmart, but putting porn on the disk anyway.
The FTC investigation is not "Is there sex and violence in games?" The investigation is: "Did Rockstar knowingly defraud the ESRB, and how can we stop companies from doing this in the future?"
And for those who would blame the parents, remember that the ratings are supposed to help parents pick the right games for their kids. You can hardly blame the parents for using the tools that are given to them, especially when those tools are subverted by the industry.
I blame Rockstar for engaging in questionable business practices and potentially ruining it for the rest of us. This whole argument about "how bad is violence and sex in games?" and "creative freedom" is really beside the point, and put forth by the game industry to divert attention from the real problem. Nobody is trying to stop anybody from writing any game they want. But you can't wrap an X movie in an R rating and shrug your shoulders and say, "Gee, how did that get in there?" Give me a break.
No one complaining about a Congressman?
What the hell planet did YOU just step off of?
You just can't buy this kind of publicity. Now I wish I'd bought an extra copy to sell next year on ebay as a collectible.
Where the even-handedness here?
You must be new here.
There is altruism, and there is emotional hedonism. If you are kind to others because you want to derive pleasure, then you are not being altruistic.
An Example:
About a year ago, I was sitting down on the bus, when an old woman came on. She had nowhere to sit, and was just standing there. She seemed so tired and old that I felt sorry for her and let her sit in my place. After that, I felt really good.
So, half an hour later, I saw someone who was searching for something he had dropped. I saw the thing he was looking for on the ground, and I thought, "If I help him, I will feel good." I helped him, but it didn't feel good because I was doing it only for myself.
It all depends on why you do it.
Qxe4
Their attempts at indoctrinating me came to nothing when I discovered that Camus thought the ultimate question was whether to commit suicide or not. "A philosophy so impoverished," I thought, "that it thinks about suicide isn't worth considering."
I feel much the same when I read the Ann Ryan sort of libertarians on Slashdot ranting, with their pre-puberty squeaks, about how their "right" to this, that, or the other trumps all else.
Again, my response is disgust. Any political system that's obsessed with getting, particularly getting at the expense of children, isn't worth considering. I prefer a political philosophy that's for grown ups.
That's why I like Tolkien. Even his fun-loving, child-sized hobbits show responsibility. From his letters, it's clear that Tolkien loathed big, intrusive government, but he had enough sense to also loathe the immature 'live for me" twits.
--Mike Perry, Untangling Tolkien
I SAID that all motivation boils down to selfish motivations. My point was that some types of selfish motivations, like the kind that people traditionally call selfish, are plain STUPIDER than other types of selfish motivations (like the ones people traditionally call altruistic.)
So to put it in words a dumbass like you can understand: altruism is selfish but smart, while pure selfishness is selfish and dumb. Of course altruistic people are selfish, it's the only thing anyone can be, but we aren't stupid.
Like I said, I'll defend your right to be purely selfish, but I'm going to call stupidity when I see it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
There is an academic theory, that people vote for the candidate that most closely represents their views. In a parliamentary system, where the equivalent of the US Speaker of the House is head of state (in method of election), you tend to get more "pure" candidates running the country, because they need to win a majority of THEIR party, not the country. Therefore, a "liberal" candidate just needs to be conservative enough to get a majority of THEIR PARTY's elected leaders.
In a presidential system, the academic theory of moving to the middle is that whoever can grab enough turf to get 50% + 1 vote of the populace wins. Therefore, the system encourages centrism.
The fallacy is that we don't elect platforms, we elect people. In addition, the theory assumes that all voters are equally. In reality, the voter pool with 90% turnout is TWICE as valuable, per person, as the voter pool with 45% turnout.
The democrats keep moving to the right to win elections, but they suffer from this de-energizing their base (and with dozens of special interests groups that comprise the Democratic party's base, this is tough), which COSTS you votes MERELY by lowering their turnout from 90% to 70%... That was why the GOP LOST with moderates like George Bush and Bob Dole, and WON with conservatives like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
However, MORE than ideology is leadership. The US Republic was established where the people would choose leaders, but ideally choose wise leaders to make the decisions. The Constitution wasn't set up to support Litmus tests, you were supposed to choose leaders whose judgement you trust. Hence the masses choose the house, but the Senate was chosen by their elected leaders (double buffer), and the President chosen by electors chosen by the state. The IDEA of the system was to choose people who could make the decisions.
You should choose a candidate based on whether you trust their judgement, and that is what has been helping the GOP.
The last two Democratic Candidates, Al Gore and John Kerry, failed in that account (we can quibble as to whether Gore should have won the race, but coming down to a virtual tie in a state where your opponent's brother is the governor is screwed up, and bad strategy). People didn't trust them. Al Gore, as the moderate Technocrat that pushed Clinton's agenda when he had one should have won easily like George Bush did in 1988 on the prior leader's coattails, that fact that it was close was telling.
The "middle voters" don't have an ideology, that's why they are independents. Right-wingers vote Republican, Left-wingers vote Democratic, and the determination is TURN OUT (whose troops are more enamored) AND middle-voters, and middle voters care about individual leadership.
The Democratic Party needs to keep their academics out of strategy and choose leaders with leadership, not based upon ideology. Bill Clinton was NOT a hard-core left-winger, but he was much more left-of-center than he governed after losing the Congress. He won because of personal leadership strength, NOT ideology. George Bush ALSO won on personal leadership strength. Ronald Reagan did as well.
The secret to being a two-term president is probably personal leadership, which the modern Democratic party has abandoned... hence the view that John Kerry was electable because of a few months of battle experience.
Alex
Well very well written and articulate reponse. Thank you.
Should her gender excuse her from criticism?
No.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Do you really imagine that the author is trying to get football banned? Rather, he is trying to put videogames in perspective. It is easy to pick on modern videogames because they are novel, and for older adults, unfamiliar. The comparison points out in a humorous way the fact that our society rewards and even celebrates a number of highly aggressive sports that are frequently associated with real, serious injuries up to and including death. So it is stupid to attack videogames merely because they are associated with aggression. To indite videogames, one must show that they are in some sense more likely to yield to aggressive or violent behavior than, for example, watching or participating in a contact sport such as football or boxing.
Where the even-handedness here?
You must be new to Slashdot. The quickest why to get your post modded insightful here, is to call anyone with an (R) after his name an asshole.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I have to say that I think her real motives here are just to gain back some support from the people in the middle who have mostly been lost to the Republicans. And that's a damned good motive to have.
That said, I don't agree with her. But I understand.
"A male congressmember can be an asshole and nobody complains, but as soon as Senator Clinton gets uppity, you all call her a bitch. Where the even-handedness here?"
Democrats and Slashdotters love moral relativism, anything goes, while Hillary is now championing moral values through banning violent/sex ladened video games.
Democrats and Slashdotters hate the Iraq war. Hillary supports it.
Democrats love to abort babies because they may be inconvenient, while Hillary referred to abortion as a "sad, even tragic, act""
Get the pattern yet?
Let me spell it out, unlike the republican senators, Hillary is slowly abandoning her own beliefs just to be President. You know where republican senators stand, but what about her? Where will she stand after she's elected president?
I was never told by any of my coaches to hit another person "as hard as you can".
8 7&cid=13178611
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1571
Blocking is a technique, shedding a block is a technique, tackling is a technique, and gang tackling is a technique, taking a hit is a technique, and recovering is a technique. At no point in me being taught how to perform any of these techniques was I told to hit a player "as hard as you can". This would be stupid, counter productive even. The object of a good block, a good hit, or any physical encounter in football is almost always to "stay square" and "keep your feet underneath you". Yes there are diving tackles, and "chop blocks"* but those are not as common as highlight reals make them look. Teams win games not injuries. Your opponent was always a person, some kid with a mom and dad, and not a running bulls-eye. Football is all technique, if you throw that out you're a liability to your team, not an asset. I hate to quote my football coach it seems cliche, and lame at the same time. But what the hey, at least once a week he would tell us:
"We'll teach you everything you need to know to win the game. We'll make sure your physically prepared. We'll call the plays, all you need is to know are your jobs, not make any mental mistakes, and I guarantee you we'll win."
What's a "mental mistake"?
Offsides - mental mistake
missing your block/read/rout/responsibility - mental mistake
Late Hit - mental mistake
Face Mask - mental mistake
If you did one of those last to intentionally your ass was grass on Monday because both of those could end in injuring the other player. None of my coaches ever wanted to see that. Sportsmanship, was always also a big portion of it. We were taught to analyze the situation, break it down, and use what we had learned to dictate how we would react to what was in front of us.
Look I appreciate the wish to compare "violence" in GTA with "violence" in football but they're not the same, not even close. I'm probably not the right person to talk about this because I really don't think GTA is all that violent. After all it's a TV video game. I've done things way more violent than that as a kid than shoot at pixels on a TV screen. I had a BB gun, much to the dismay of many a lizard. Magnifying lenses, and ants, melted plastic straws and ants, hell we used to play sniper, and set up mini army men forts with Link'n Logs in my back yard, and snipe them with a BB gun. That's just as realistic as shooting some guy in any FPS. In our imaginations they would run around the base in terror, not being able to find us while we doled out death one soldier at a time. We imagined getting the congressional medal of honor for killing the most "Non-Americans" in a single sniping mission. we were kids, we were idiots what do you want from us. We used to catch grasshoppers in my yard, and throw them into spider webs to watch them get attacked by the spiders. These things were fun, and cool to us. M-80's were the ultimate in fun, and cool though... I think the problem with GTA isn't the violence, it's the fact that kids are playing it instead being outside, making friend, playing real games.
This is in no way an endorsement of letting kids play with dangerous items. If I had me as a kid I would of locked him in a room and bought him a Playstation.
Enough ranting
-manno
* chop block is when an offensive line man dives at the ground to try totrip up the defensive lineman's legs, and hopefully cause him to trip-up, the name sounds violent, but it just another technique.
The GOP at least uses libertarian rhetoric. They talk about free trade, small government, right to bear arms, local control, etc. They may not act libertarian, but they do talk like libertarians.
A Republican from Texas (Ron Paul) even once ran as the Libertarian Party presidential candidate!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I would agree with you on the rhetoric, until the Neocon days started. When they started is debateable, but one thing is certain - this isn't Abe Lincoln's, or even Ronald Reagan's, GOP.
Engineers that got partial credit build bridges that collapse.
The article focuses on Clinton, and since whoever started this thread posted that article, the people on here are focusing on Clinton. I have to commend you in a sense: you're getting close to the problem by noting the lack of even-handedness. Personally, I don't care for the positions of a vast array of other politicians either, but the fact is that Senator Clinton gets an enormously disproportionate share of media time. I study policymaking issues, and I still couldn't name the majority of senators based on media exposure, but every time she swats at a fly, Clinton gets media. She's gearing up for a presidential run, or at least those in the media are hoping for it, because she's certainly getting more attention than your average Senator, or even your average spouse-of-a-former-president Senator, in my opinion (though it's admittedly hard to compare on that last scale).
Well historically Republicans have been for personal freedom and economic freedom. It isn't until recently that the neo-con branch has really taken control. It always seemed to me as though abortion was really the issue that drove this initial wedge. As most Republicans free loving and not were against abortion on freedom of the fetus grounds. While the average Republican gave up the fight against abortion around the mid 90's realizing that it had pretty much become defacto law as well as a personal choice dispite its problems. Radical conservatives continued with the issue and expanded into many other moral issues, driving a wedge in the party and forcing themselfs into leadership. Most right of center people, me included no longer consider themselves belonging to the Republican party because of this, though they still generally vote Republican in most elections.
Hillary, or any other Congress critter wasn't complaining about the sex or violence in the game.
They were complaining about the fact that this stuff was found in a game that had been rated Mature, when it should have been rated Adults-Only based upon the hidden content. Their complaint is that Rockstar games LIED to the consumers.
Why? Because we put the ratings on the bloody games so that parents knew what their kids were doing.
The question of whether or not kids are exposed to violence, or sex is not what these congress critters are arguing. That's up to the parents. If a parent doesn't care if their kids are exposed to sex or violence, then they can purchase these games, take their kids to movies, etc.
Notice the R rating in the movie theatre? What's the rule... "No children under 17, unless accompanied by a parent."
It's the parents, stupid.
Hit some of the lefty blogs.
Some Centerists, the ill-informed, and "a woman should be pres" feminists like Hillary, most liberals hate her, of course that doesn't mean that she wouldn't get the liberal vote if running against Frist or some other neocon... If she wins the democratic primary, it will be purly on "electability", which is the best way to get somebody who pleases nobody...
P.S. Liberals hate Joe Lieberman too...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Children dont have to buy GTA and if they do, no-one is forcing them to play any part of the game they dont want.
... wasnt he in the news awhile back.
The right wants to live thier life and yours too.
The issue with GTA and the Sims is a "push".
They want people to think there is a need to regulate and control the games they can buy and play on thier computers.
Once they introduce legislation to stop games from being developed -- without the game developers constantly thinking what they think/want, it will never go back to being free.
Steam comes out of a kettle; it doesnt go back in.
Once there is one fence, more are built. Fences are not removed.
They simply tap into the idea that more control is good. Elaboration on existing ideas is good -- it validates.
They want the same thing that most people you see in the news. They want...demand attention; people must pay attention to them -- even if they dont want to -- or there will be consequences. The right use policemen and prisons; others use bombs.
Isnt Hilary the wife of Bill
Set-up.
I'm 99% sure that I got my bright idea to steal one of the college's golf carts from hours of Vice City.
How come no one said much about the extreme violence in the game but as soon as it shows someone having pleasure people freak out. Why is sex always considered worse than violence? Frigg'n hypocrits.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Parents make decisions based in part on the ESRB's rating. If a game company is suspected of deceiving the ESRB and (thereby parents) then it's the role of gov't to step in and investi>gate.
GTA, as sold, has the correct rating. If someone downloads and applies a patch, that is not from the manufacturer of the game, how can that be the manufacturer's responsibiltiy?
I could download a smurfs video, and splice porn into it, does that make the smurfs X rated? No. It makes the video that I made X rated.
GTA doesn't have a sex game in it, unless somebody modifies the game to put it in.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
The fact of the matter is: the gaming industry makes billions of dollars which helps boost the economy. There's no way Sen. Clinton or anyone else could kill it, just like there's no way anyone could really kill the tobacco industry. Cigarettes have been proven to actually KILL people and are still legal: a great deal of money is spent to make sure it stays that way. So unless video games are proven to be far worse than cigarettes AND the gaming industry stops paying legislators to keep it that way, video games are here to stay. The worse Clinton and other like-minded politicians could do is criminalize violent video games for anyone under 18, and kids would just find another way to get the games anyway: most of them know more about technology than their parents anyway. So what are you all complaining about? This is a non-issue.
The only sexists I see are the people making a discussion regarding the public position of the politician in question about her vagina. She could be a he and if the article were about him, the same thing would happen. Since the person in question happens to be a female, and you happen to be a fucking idiot, you see this as an attack on women. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of politically-related discussion and lambasting involves male protaganists on this site. Yes, it's a true travesty against women that one of the few times that they happen to be the subject mentioned on this site, it's because they're being retarded. Every other post about the DMCA, PATRIOT act, war, movie made by Michael Moore, or anything else being completely filled with flaming of prominent males is completely meaningless. Apparently because this site is 97% male, to please assholes such as yourself means going through the trouble of flaming every idiot that takes a position in public that's found offensive by people here.
Please crawl off and die. People like you hurt the feminist movement by making it look retarded.
Yeah, the whole violence/sex thing is important. But what I really wish the ESRB would focus on is the character of the people in the video games.
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.
The Internet is generally stupid
On the other hand, if you said that Iraq was in violation of its UN mandated disarmament requirements, that Iraq was supporting terrorists, and that Iraq posed a threat to our national security, those were not lies because they are all true.
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?
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Wow, people are opinionated about that woman. Why is it necessary to have an extreme opinion of her? Her vision isn't perfect, she got some things wrong, she got some things right. She doesn't need to be deified or demonized, just taken with everything else that we take in.
On the point presented here, there really is such a thing as an occupationally induced mindset. The classical example of this is with strippers. Most of the men that they meet are the type who readily give money at the sight of bare flesh. They wind up socializing with a lot of that kind of person, and other women who see a lot of that kind of person. It's a self-reinforcing environment that encourages women to believe that men are good for nothing except handing over money, and that there is no real affection except that which is bought and sold.
Politicans have a similar problem. Their job is largely to deal with those segments of the population who aren't responsible enough to save for retirement, aren't smart enough to examine their purchases, and aren't wise enough to avoid addiction to anything that's even vaguely appealing. These three things may not apply to any one person, but years of dealing with these types and socializing with mostly others who have to deal with these types becomes a self-reinforcing environment that convinces them that the world is entirely populated by (a) their friends, and (b) people who display all three of the above listed qualities.
I'm not going to give my speech on altruism because we can't agree on a definition.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Sideshow Bob: Because you need me, Springfield. Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king. That's why I did this: to protect you from yourselves. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a city to run. Judge: Bailiffs, place the mayor under arrest. Sideshow Bob: What? Oh yes, all that stuff I did.
...except most Slashdotters have never been inside a box to begin with.
...and the Democrats will justify it as "Oh, I don't like it, but we must beat Bush, he is worse".
:)
I get your meaning, but just a small point here. Since Bush is in his second term, if he is on the ballot in 2008 we will likely have a lot bigger problems to consider than the candidates stance on the first amendment. Like how to goose step in formation and dodge the secret police.
I think it is more of a goverment knows what's best for your children because we want them growing up dependent on us so we can become more powerful... And typically a liberal view...
No.
That is an evil view.
Actual liberals have peoples best interests at heart.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Which is why the Republican part is starting to strain. The libertarian and small government side is trying to get away from the social conservative big government side. There's even a strain in the "religious right" between these two forces, as enough of them realize that replacing Jesus with Caesar is not wise course of action.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Another big event was the publication "The Fountainhead", which is basically a rape fantasy centered around Frank Lloyd Wright.
Anybody who doesn't recognize the characters doesn't know much about the Stanford White era of American architecture. There is no attempt to disguise them.
The imagery in the video (which, incidentally is included on the "Bowling for Columbine" DVD) is all from a high school football match. It's brilliant-- it illustrates how we condemn MM for "encouraging violence" with one side of our mouths, while the other side cheers on the hundreds of thousands of boys who spend hours every day after school practicing the best ways to knock each other down.
But one kind of violence is "good" (sport encourages conformity and alligiance, and distracts from spending energy on real problems) while the other is bad (refusal to conform or obey or be diverted).
Not that all MM listeners are enlightened freedom fighters or anything. Most are just as brainless as the jocks they despise, they are just "differently conforming" out of the ubiquitous teenage desire to form a singular identity.
But when the PMRC asks "Why are our youth so violent?" they should be more honest and ask "why are they choosing random, existential violence over planned, state-sanctioned violence?"
Lawyers like Thompson sue game makers.
Legislators like Clinton write the laws which make it possible for lawyers to sue game makers and win.
If American football actually encourages real aggression, then Australian Rules footy must be a breeding ground for mass murderers
You never catch me alive
I work at a nation-wide video rental store that claims to have a "family enviroment." At least, that was the reasoning behind not carring any X-rated titles. A few days ago, when the GTA porn hack went "public", we pulled all our copies off the shelf and called customers asking them to return the game for a full refund.
To me thats bull. I mean, if you're already renting a game where one can kill hookers, steal cars, and shoot up police, whats a 30 second porn scene that requires a patch to activate!?
By the way, I must also note, we still have all our copies of the Playboy Mansion game on the shelf. Yet, it seems to be much less popular then GTA.
This is stupid. Why are all you idiots pinning the blame on Clinton, when plenty of other government representatives are involved, including Republicans.
We expected her to be smart enough to know better.
No. The problem is in people who like to generalize and use hyperbole, similar to you saying "99% of the people here on Slashdot voted for..."
If you don't like it don't do the exact same thing.
eTrade SUCKS
We send people to war to make the person on the other side die, however the conclusion still holds, with War, we make people die. People dying on our side is just collateral damage/nonsurvival of the unfit.
I don't understand why those dying people in Africa have children, nor why we should contribute to such a situation.
Once you're capable of staying alive, none of those people who fight for you to be alive cares at all about the quality of your life, whish is why I find all of them pathetic and want nothing to do with them. Such people should be dealt with in some manner!
For as much as we hate George W. Bush, at least nobody of his gender has ever rolled their eyes when we quoted Jabberwocky!
Yeah, but they have punched us in the face, given us a wedgie, and stolen our lunch money...
Open source isn't charity. We don't give code to the community because of our big hearts. We give code away because its so cheap to produce that no one would bother paying us for it and because we hope to recieve praise from people who use it. Thats why the communism argument doesn't stick to open source -- because it isn't remotely related to anything in the communist philosophy.
What amazes me is why candidates always run to the center. The Republicans started winning when they laid off that nonsense, and the Democrats are still doing it.
When are the Democrats going to notice that Kerry is pretty much gone, but Clark and MoveOn are still around? Isn't that a hint that the "base" they've been taking for granted wants a liberal, not a fence-sitter?
"A plan's just a list of things that don't happen" -- Mr. Parker, "The Way of the Gun"
No, that was last year, I'm sure, that the Republicans were telling people that disagreement with their leaders was treason.
Also, that you should never ever ever believe that Christianity might have bad parts and Islam might have good parts.
Apparently, "obvious" means something different to some people.
I'll assume you're male, but for all the females out there, young men tend to have this uncontrollable urge to break things and hurt people. It is probably related to the fact that they are overdosed on certain hormones. When the urge comes, the vision clouds, the mind flies away, and the young man turns into a monster that doesn't pay attention to reason and only relies on raw emotion and instinct. We are part animal, and we can behave like sharks that smell blood if we allow it.
Young men must learn to control this! It is absolutely critical to do so otherwise the young man grows up to become an animal. If they learn to control it, then the young man becomes a useful and productive member of society.
The best way to control this is to put them in an environment where they can safely and constructively beat the heck out of each other. A large part of football isn't violence. The most time is spent on careful practice and exercise, and teaching young men how to control their rage and direct it. There's a right time and a place for rage in football - after the ball is hiked and before the whistle blows. And there's a wrong time - any other time, even scrimmage. The coaches know what they are doing, they are teaching basic anger management skills to these boys. There's a reason why only men seem to succeed in coaching men. Women don't get this part of male nature, and I don't think they ever really can.
The military (at least, the US and civilized militaries) teach control as well. When you are in a fight, you go in with both guns blazing and your testosterone and adrenaline in high gear. When you get the order (or when the rules of engagement dicate) to violence, you do it with such efficiency and prejudice that even the devil cowers in fear. When you are under stress, when failure is not an option, you kick up your rage and emotion and adrenaline and achieve superhuman abilities. But outside of that, anger, rage, emotion, etc, are not allowed. It's not allowed in the barracks. It's not allowed in the classroom. It's not allowed when the sarge says its not allowed and when the rules of engagement say its not allowed.
You also learn to train that animal to behave properly. We can teach dogs to jump, fetch, lie down, and roll over. We can teach our inner animal basic tasks and allow our animal nature to handle that when it is right. Have you ever heard of army guys saying, "then the training kicked in." When you get that burst of rage, emotion, or adrenaline, your "animal training" kicks in. You become like a dog, unable to reason or think, only able to do basic tasks that have been drilled and drilled and drilled.
If we try and raise our boys to be perfect all the time, never having a proper, condoned outlet for rage, we are damming up a river without allowing a controlled amount of water to pass through. Eventually, the dam will break, and that young boy won't know when it's time to stop. Then people get hurt or killed uselessly. The ancient Greeks knew this. The Romans knew this. Every successful society has an outlet where boys can go be boys and break things and move their body and be vicious to one another. We call it "sports" today.
We have to teach boys: There IS a place for violence. It's not in the classroom. It's not in civilized society. It is for self-defense, national defense, and to defend your neighbors. It is for the football field and the basketball court and the baseball field. It is for high-stress situations where people's lives are at stake. You learn to take your rage and emotion and hormones and control it so that you do something useful and productive with it, and when you grow up to be a real man, you'll learn how to use that to do day-to-day tasks with superhuman abilities when the need arises.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Oh, he was talking about Python. Better, also, not to ramble on about swallows with women unless you are sure you are funny.
The "center" between Republicans and Democrats, especially when viewed compared to other countries, is right of the actual "center", whereas the LP would be on the true "center", therefore closer to the left. If that makes sense.
Left, right... pfft. That's just one dimension! At least go for two. Or, *spooky music*, three dimensions!
There is a hilarious send-up of Rand in the Illuminatus! trilogy, a great book I keep buying and lending and never seeing again. Here's a sample of the book-within-the-book:
Briefly, then, Telemachus Sneezed deals with a time in the near future when we dirty, filthy, freaky, lazy, dope-smoking, frantic-fucking anarchists have brought Law and Order to a nervous collapse in America'. The heroine, Taffy Rhinestone, is, like Atlanta was once herself, a member of Women's Liberation and a believer in socialism, anarchism, free abortions and the charisma of Che. Then comes the rude awakening: food riots, industrial stagnation, a reign of lawless looting and plunder, everything George Wallace ever warned us against-- but the Supreme Court, who are all anarchists with names ending in -stein or -farb or -berger (there is no overt anti-Semitism in the book), keeps repealing laws and taking away the rights of policemen. Finally, in the fifth chapter-- the climax of Book One-- the heroine, poor toughy Taffy, gets raped fifteen times by an oversexed black brute right out of The Birth of a Nation, while a group of cops stand by cursing, wringing their hands and frothing at the mouth because the Supreme Court rulings won't allow them to take any action.
In Book Two, which takes place a few years later, things have degenerated even further and factory pollution has been replaced by a thick layer of marijuana smoke hanging over the country. The Supreme Court is gone, butchered by LSD crazed Mau-Maus who mistook them for a meeting of the Washington chapter of the Policemen's Benevolent Association. The President and a shadowy government-in-exile are skulking about Montreal, living a gloomy emigre existence; the Blind Tigers, a rather thinly disguised caricature of the Black Panthers, are terrorizing white women everywhere from Bangor to Walla Walla; the crazy anarchists are forcing abortions on women whether they want them or not; and television shows nothing but Maoist propaganda and Danish stag films. Women, of course, are the worst sufferers in this blightmare, and, despite all her karate lessons, Taffy has been raped so many times, not only by standard vage-pen but orally and anally as well, that she's practically a walking sperm bank. Then comes the big surprise, the monstro-rape to end all rapes, committed by a pure Aryan with hollow cheeks, a long lean body, and a face that never changes expression. "Everything is fire," he tells her, as he pulls his prick out afterwards, "and don't you ever forget it." Then he disappears.
Well, it turns out that Taffy has gone all icky-sticky-gooey over this character, and she determines to find him again and make an honest man of him. Meanwhile, however, a subplot is brewing, involving Taffy's evil brother, Diamond Jim Rhinestone, an unscrupulous dope pusher who is mixing heroin in his grass to make everybody an addict and enslave them to him. Diamond Jim is allied with the sinister Blind Tigers and a secret society, the Enlightened Ones, who cannot achieve world government as long as a patriotic and paranoid streak of nationalism remains in America.
But the forces of evil are being stymied. A secret underground group has been formed, using the cross as their symbol, and their slogan is appearing scrawled on walls everywhere:
SAVE YOUR FEDERAL RESERVE NOTES, BOYS, THE STATE WILL RISE AGAIN!
Unless this group is found and destroyed, Diamond Jim will not be able to addict everyone to horse, the Blind Tigers won't be able to rape the few remaining white women they haven't gotten to yet, and the Enlightened Ones will not succeed in creating one world government and one monotonous soybean diet for the whole planet. But a clue is discovered: the leader of the Underground is a pure Aryan with hollow cheeks, a long lean body, and a face that never changes expression. Furthermore, he is in the habit of discussing Heracleitus for like seven hours on end (this is a neat trick, because only about a hundred sentences of the Dark Philosopher survive-- but our hero, it t
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
You t hink that's bad - an otherwise level-headed guy I used to know wouldn't permit his kids to have a Rubic's Cube because it was also known as the "Magic Cube". Wouldn't even let one into the house. He was a strict Roman Catholic and strongly believed in the Biblical view on witches, magic, Satanism, etc. Don't think I'm painting all RC with that brush - I'm not, just this particular guy. Anyways, I never managed to get a straight answer from him about his position on those big, fat, felt tip pens commonly known as "Magic Markers"... Personally I think he felt threatened anyone smart enough to do the Cube, because he couldn't.
Give me a break. LA Times is about as good as NY Times. Both are crap and couldn't break a story if the story was a toothpick.
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.
You are dead wrong. That mentality is what is going to keep the libertarian party a small collection of gun nuts. The American political system DEMANDS compromise. Period. This is not a parliamentary system. You can't run on some nut job extremist position and expect get 50% of the vote. You can't just slink by with a small percentage of support. In the US, you need a majority to get the ball rolling, and a super majority to run with it. Libertarians will never get that in any of our life times.
Libertarians could do more then intellectual bitching on the side lines if they just compromised a little. Libertarians are for making drugs legal. Instead of starting with crack, why not just start with marijuana? Libertarians want to reduce taxes. Instead of promising to abolish the IRS they day they get into office, why not offer a flat tax system and a steady reduction of taxes? Instead of promising to decapitate the government on the first day in office, why not fight for a balanced budget amendment?
Hell, there are even positions they could take to advance libertarian ideals that everyone could at least begin to agree on. You can't argue to abolish taxes and get anywhere, but what if they started taking taxes out of the hands of politicians to spend? Pass a law that takes 5% of your income tax and lets YOU decide where to spend it. Hell, everyone could get behind that and you could starve a few pork barrel projects along the way. People might even get a test for not letting the majority decide how to spend their money.
Libertarians might feel all warm and fuzzy bitching loudly each election, but feeling warm and fuzzy is roughly all they are accomplishing. If libertarians wanted to make a REAL practical difference, they would table their proposals that are far off the deep end and take a reasonable party platform. Take a lesson from the Republicans and Democrats. They too have their extremist nut jobs that don't think even incestuous rape is a good time to get an abortion or that we need to workers revolution to sweep away the capitalist swine. The difference is that they can let their personal ideologies lead they way, but can keep their mouths shut about it long enough to push politics in their direction.
Libertarians need more "mostly" libertarians. "Mostly" libertarians might not abolish public school on the first pass, but I bet they would be a hell of a lot more inclined to try out a voucher system. Given the choice between the two, most "fully" libertarians should prefer the later. As it stands, no one is even discussion the issue, despite a solid 30 years of bitching from the libertarians to the contrary. Take a hint - it isn't working.
When a "towel head" pulls a homemade bomb out he should be meet with Smith & Wesson.. Knowing in a random group of 200 people 5-6 could be carrying .45's & not afraid to use um would be a pretty big deterrent! You'd think and administration from TEXAS could appreciate that!!!
Hell, I'd bet it was a factor in Christ's execution too. Nah, it's because he was interfering with the plan to institute conservative values in a Mid-East country against the will of its occupiers. ;)
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
It's been proven mathematically that that assumption is wrong. There are a class of problems where the unselfish choice results in a better or best possible outcome, and the selfish choice often the worst possible outcome. One example is the prisoner's dilemma. Another is the tragedy of the commons. It's this class of problems that forces government regulation of certain aspects of capitalism, or environmental protection: Most people can understand it and act altruistically on their own, but all it takes is one ignorant or overly selfish bastard to ruin it for everyone else.
Altruism doesn't exist because people derive pleasure from kindness (that is, perhaps, an evolutionary consequence rather than a cause - a selective factor for encouraging altruism among organisms). Altruism exists because in many social situations, the group as a whole derives greater benefit when some or all of the individuals sacrifice and act selflessly. Intellectually, most "do-gooders" realize this and choose to act for (what they perceive to be) the greater good, rather than for their own self-benefit. It's why the environmentalist pays more to drive a cramped and noisy hybrid or electric vehicle. It's why parents save to send their kids to college instead of blowing it on a vacation. It's why I bothered to type all this up instead of doing the work I need to get done done so I can go home early - my hope being that maybe you'll read this, understand, and become a better person who contributes more to society for it.
And for the record, I know plenty of woman...
Dude, stop lying. This is Slashdot. You don't have to pretend.
coercion.
"Maybe she's not tied to her party lines, and instead is saying what she actually believes?"
Hillary Clinton? Not tied to her party? Are you serious? When she gets a shoe-in Senatorial vote in one of the most Democrat laden states in the US (New York)? Nice try at deflecting the real core issue...
OK, if noone is going to refute what I've said in my parent post, then riddle me this... Where's the outcry from Democrats and the Democratic Party on Hillary's stance?
For example, could you imagine what Democrats would say if SCOTUS nominee John Roberts called abortion a "sad and tragic event"? OMFG, Democrats would portray Roberts as the next AntiChrist! Yet, when Hillary says that, feminist groups line up behind Hillary and say "boy, isn't she great and says what she believes in"??!?!?!
I could give tons of examples such as this, but why do Democrats look at Hillary's republican rhetoric and say she's represents the Democratic Party and be our next President? Do Democrats want to put a Democrat president so badly that they're willing to abandon all their beliefs (at least until Nov 2008)?
Your right, I'm sure a suicide bomber fears death... oh wait... he was going to kill himself anyways. Tell me, when a bomb's wired to explode wether he pushes the button or dies, and someone already talked the guy into walking into a crowd of civilins and killing them and himself, how is 5 people with guns going to stop him?
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
Oh believe me, I agree. However, as the debate was only between dems and republicans, and both are pretty equaly authoritarian, I didn't even mention that.
I'll check the "3D" link, haven't seen that one, thanks.
Actually, it does.
It happens.
Suicide bombers, at least in Israel, tend to avoid the military.. because there's a chance they'll be shot and killed before they reach their target. They are thus driven to a secondary, tertiary, or whatever, target. Somewhere where they can get into the thick of a crowd with no worries about being killed before they're in the thick of it.
Oh, and by the by. Setting a bomb up to detonate when the wearer dies is pretty damn difficult. Best way is to have the trigger an on-release, not on-press trigger. The drawback? You can't very easily act like a normal person squeezing on something like that. Sorta makes you stand out.
I won't suggest this, or imply that I would participate... But if things got bad enough, what's to stop the population from going on the offense? About 650 well placed bullets and you've pretty well shut everything in DC down. It needen't even be done there. A decentralized attack on multiple locations (homes) could cripple the government instantaneously, and there's no reasonable defense against it.
Unless they make everyone resort to spears and arrows, the fight is on the people's side. Let's not forget that the only reason our nation won its independence was through *not* following the established rules of engagement of the period-or rather-the rules that England would have preferred to use. When they burned villages, our men targeted officers. When they lined up for battle, our men hid in the forest.
Just like in Iraq, you can't use Apaches, laser/GPS guided 2000lb bombs or any of that sort of thing against civilians without seriously screwing the pooch--making everyone hate you and take up the fight on their own. All of that stuff is only useful for crippling 2nd and 3rd world opponents--and it was designed to be used against the soviets. The only short term method to win a war against entrenched fighters is to not fight it.
If it came to a situation where we, the citizens, would need to form an insurgency against our own government, having guns would at least allow us the means to begin the process of overthrowing the government. Look at Vietnam, Afghanistan, or even the current situation in Iraq - advanced weaponry doesn't make you unbeatable. Sometimes small arms, organization, and ideology will do the trick.
</civil libertarian>
Read this book:
Unintended Consequences [non-referral link]
I HIGHLY recommend it.
The author does a very good job of guiding the reader along that very same idea.
hrrm.
....defend themselves against a goverment that had spun out of control....
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.
All theory is gray
You said girlfriends, slashdotters would have to have girlfriends to beat them. You made a funny!
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
1. If I were a restaurant owner, I would simply not allow that Consumer Reports person to inspect my kitchen.
Consumer Reports does everything anonymously, including when it purchases cars. The dealers/sellers/resturaunt owners have no idea who is buying or when the buying of their products is done.
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).
Consumer Reports refuses any and all compensation (even in the way of free goods to test). They get no money and no consultation fee from the manufacturers/producers/etc... Everything is paid for by the subscription fees.
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.
$26 a year for a subscription. As for cheaper? Depends on how you calculate it. Over all cost will most likely be higher. I can't think of anything the government has done that is cheaper than when a non-profit does it. As for how much you pay? That depends. If you are in a higher tax bracket it is going to cost you more than if you are in a lower one, if you even pay taxes at all. All said and done, I'd rather have it not part of the government for a variaty of reasons. Among others, because it keeps the government smaller and is not as easily affected by government corruption. Actually, on that note, name me one government agency (that has been around longer than 10 years) that has not had corruption in it yet. I'm sure I can find some non-proffits that haven't.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
"Unfortunately the end result of this is that the rich are much better represented than the poor, when it's really the poor that need the representation.
"
Not true. You think the EFF, labor unions, etc. don't hire lobbyists? Special interest groups are more than just "rich people". Special interest groups represent anyone with a special interest, as long as there are enough people with the special interest.
Vote for Pedro
I find it really interesting to watch a gamers' hands as they play. Just seeing the precise movements reminds me of some sort of crazy dance. Just focus on the keyboard and mouse and tune out the monitor. Noticing the movement and colour from the screen sort of gives you a context of what the hands are doing.
Of course some games are more suited to this. FPS is particularly interesting. Oh and of course, you should be watching an experienced gamer do this.
Don't be too sure of that.
Recall the conditions that led to the rise of Hitler in the first place: Following the Great War, The US, Great Britain, and France decided to pump over Germany, and instead of helping them rebuild, destroyed their economy and national pride. Hitler only gave the German people what they needed: full employment, food in their children's mouths, and a restored sense of national pride. He also, unfortunately, gave them a scapegoat.
Non tam praeclarum est scire Latine, quam turpe nescire
-- Cicero
> composed of PEOPLE, ordinary Americans who would have to be somehow be persuaded to use that awesome weaponry against their fellow citizens.
Wouldn't take much. Just take a look at some of the comments on this thread against "liberals." They're nearly communists, according to most, so most certainly, they should be put down like dogs. Or wasn't there some such Republican propaganda saying that Liberals were Terrorists? Sure - there's probably a few people who might have a calm head, but with the right conditions, those calm heads might be found on a pole.
I am the kid who plays the shooter video games, and I haven't been prone to any violence.Fairy tales are more likely to cause violence than shooters. You hear tales at a very impresionable age, and they are mostly about violence, cutting tales off mice, beating children, eating entire families (and when the wolf is cut open, they are all fine, killing them won't hurt them!) and more. So instead of banning a form of entertainment, maybe they should be burning books! Or they could just accept that shooters are one of the lowest contributers to violence and let us be happy, parents can look at the label and limit there children as they see fit, that is not the governments place.
Um... just dump the marines in California and tell them that it's some strange, far-off land full of dangerous terrorists.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Modern Republicans seem pretty dissimilar to Libertarians, however parts of the LP creedo is pretty close to that of Republicans of a century ago. I don't know much about the old Republican stance on civil liberties, but traditionally, it leaned towards states' rights, smaller government, and geared towards business friendly policiess.
The other issues that you mention sort of represents how the Republicans have evolved to appeal to the socially conservative voters. With this, issues like abortion choice and religion/morality are pushed to the forefront of some of their policy. Regarding the issue on drugs, both parties major parties have pushed the drug agenda pretty hard, and to me it seems that this is primarily out of fear that the party/politican appears soft on drugs. As an example, the Clinton administration on drug spending was higher than any other administration before his. Consequently, marijuana posession arrests also hit their all time high. This does not say that Clinton was necessarily a huge drug fighter; IMO, he just didn't want to appear weak on the issue. Both parties will continue to escalate their efforts becuase (again, IMO) politicians would rather be outspoken about more popular issues and avoid political suicide.
For an interesting chart on the political "spectrum", and where the LP feels that they fall on it, check out the world's smallest political Quiz. According to the chart, the spectrum is not quite linear. I suppose, however, that the chart (and the questionaire) are oversimplified, but it is interesting nevertheless.
-Turkey
Americans are not the obedient kind of lemmings that the Germans were under Hitler.
As a proud American who knows many others who are not lemmings, I can still say quite surely that the majority of our population is no better than the people who supported Hitler. That is, they are easily manipulated and able to ignore things they don't like. Of course, jumping to Hitler isn't usually considered a good tactic in debates these days, but since you brought it up.
What makes you think that most of the people in the US army won't follow orders if they are told that a particular portion of our society is undermining America's security? All that has to be done is to tell a couple stories about how group X is unpatriotic and inhuman, and that the leader rapes women and kills children. WIth enough repeated assertions like this, lacking any proof, it would be very likely that enough of our armed forces, police, and various security agents would fall in line and do whatever they were told to stop the enemy... whoever the enemy was.
I don't think we're anywhere near this happening, but I just wanted to call into question your assertion that Americans are somehow immune to this type of manipulation. We are not. Nobody is. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Against all threats; internal and external. Internal probably being the more important.
Cheers.
I thought you meant Hillary
I keep wanting to like Hillary because I actually think it's an important phase for the US to have a non-white-male president. That may seem stupid and even racist/sexist, but there's surely some non-white-male person who would be good for the job and it would be an important symbolic bit of progress. But this makes her look like an idiot. I'll see what else she comes up with.
Bah.
Possible differentiation? Well, the Army had cannon. Big difference.
especially a cannon loaded with a double-charge and a good supply of shot, screws, nails, and other various and sundried small bits of metal at hand.
Also, criminal activity was probably FAR CLOSER at hand (think: Highwaymen, wandering robbers, the savage Indians, etc) than it is now, as well as Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh No! (for those who lived close to the urban fringe or past it).
The reality is that guns were an essential tool for life for most semirural and rural people.
If you know a girl well enough to know that she knows that poem by heart, you're way outside the slashdot mainstream.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Football teaches you good wholesome American values, like stealing other people's land by force, and wearing tight pants while you do it!
It would be histerically funny if somebody creates a Hillary Clinton character for GTA, plays the sex game and releases some screenshots.
that you think it is is kind of proves my point. Nothing encourages aggression and violence in the under 18s more than joining the army. High school football has nothing on it.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
I don't think we would need anything more than what we have available now should there ever be a need for some insurgency against the government. Handguns and hunting rifles are more than effective.
My Sysadmin Blog
I agree with most of what local man says except I believe we are much closer to a war waged on the populus than you might think. It will be out of a climate of preservance than out right dictatorial aspirations. What I mean by that is our planet is in for some tough times ahead due to our inability to continue oil production at it's current rate. A decrease in production equals economic depression (unless a viable substitute is implemented). As a way to protect the population from rioting, etc. the government will wage a war of control and domination in order to minimize the effects of civil unrest. Keep your eyes' open, you'll be bombarded by fear from the media (even moreso than now) and an increased police presence. Who knows what else they have planned...
Yes, a number of times I've written to my Congresspeople decrying one issue or another, and they send back a form letter stating that they support the exact opposite view that I hold. No indication that even a staffer acknowledged that I disagreed with them at all. If I had said I believed the opposite they could have simply sent the exact same letter.
.....As a way to protect the population from rioting, etc. the government will wage a war of control and domination in order to minimize the effects of civil unrest. .....
The primary purpose of any government is to keep individuals or groups from violating the rights to life and property of other individuals and groups. Any government that fails to do so is no longer fulfilling its function to protect the rights of those governed. As the declaration of independence correctly states, these rights are inalienable, given by the Creator, not by the grace of any other individual, group or government. Therefore, if some segment of the population decides to riot, thereby violating the rights of others, the charter of the government is to stop the riot. After that, the people as a whole, at least still here in the USA, may express their displeasure at the ballot box.
All theory is gray
I disagree with smoking bans, banning games, music, or movies. As a parent you should be watching these things. I work in the bars as a karaoke host in minnesota. They instated a smoking ban basically to legislate behavior. Know they are doing it again only it is more of the dumbing of the youth, to ban a game that has a hidden sex scene that you have to mod the game to find anyway, that is rediculous. What about the fact that one of minnesotas largest strip club is right across the street from the family court court house and you can see it from the windows. I don't here them complaining about that. Just let the parents make the decisions, or myself as being of age.
explain all these terms "Liberals", "Conservatives", "Republicans", "democrats" and all the other combinations of these words to somebody who does not live in America?? It gets pretty confusing you see!
Believe me, as I mentioned in another reply to this thread, I am well aware of the World's Smallest Political Quiz. In fact, it is originally what told me that I was a libertarian, which I proved by researching further. I also thought I was a republican but was actually left of center if anything on the standard line, go figure. Nevertheless, I didn't even bring it up because the post I was responding to merely discussed Republicans and Democrats. The point you and the other person made is very valid, and I think everybody should take a few of those little quizzes at some point (maybe in high school civics) to see where they really fall, not where they think they do based on shiny candidates they support based on rhetoric.
HAH! Do you really believe that?
;)
Hitler's government was National Socialism. A Socialist government cannot "give" full employment or well-fed children to its constituents any more than a Republican Democracy (or Democratic Republic, as you wish) can. The difference and the problem is this: a Socialist government thinks it can, and its chosen tool to accomplish this is always totalitarianism. This makes for powerful governments and obedient people. For a while.
As Konrad Heiden pointed out in his 1944 "Der Fuehrer", Hitler engaged in a particularly destructive political campaign against unemployed German coalworkers in the Ruhr valley on his rise to power. He did not give them jobs, although he could have supported incentives and conditions favorable to local employment. Instead, he spiked such efforts, dooming them to failure, and casting the coalworkers' hopes to the winds. Why? Because satisfied people are more difficult to motivate.
The only thing Hitler ever "gave" the German people was a swift kick in the ass, which most people in the world today could use, including you. He was in the business of taking, not giving, and I find your arm's-length equation of America with Hitler's Germany to be intellectually lazy at best, reprehensible at worst. America has hotly contested elections and vividly contrasting schools of political thought. All are openly expressed, and even the odious American Nazi Party exists as a legal organization.
The GP was absolutely right to say that "Americans are not the obedient kind of lemmings that the Germans were under Hitler," and your coughing disagreement ("Don't be too sure...") is frankly out of order.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
It is, really. Everyone's all uppity about videogames causing violence, but lets face it, football's more prone to cause it. In fact, I would venture to say that adolescence causes teen violence.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
You have the coolest army ever if the people in that miletary can just day they do not want to do a task.
We are going to storm a farm in Waco. "Sorry, I do not believe that is the right thing to do." No problem, lets take a vote.
Yeah, right. In every interviuew I have seen with (ex-)milletary people the trend was: we just follow orders, politics is for other people. If they ask us to do a task, we do it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Americans are not the obedient kind of lemmings that the Germans were under Hitler.
Really?
(quote: "based on a true incident that occured in a high school history class in Palo Alto, California, in 1969.")
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
...Don't be too sure of that....
The entire background and culture of the USA is very much different than Europe in general and Germany in particular. The Germans had emerged from centuries of feudal servdom and a upper and lower class system. The masses were used to doing what the noble ruling class dictated. The nobility system is expressly forbidden in the constitution and therefore a heredity based ruling class has never developed. The conditions of Germany was worse than the depression era US, but mainly because the American psyche has never had the subservient inclination of the Germans, the strong leadership and programs of FDR never degenerated to a Hitler style dictatorship.
Of course, the future generation of Americans, having gotten used to being sold all sorts of goods and services by the media, may buy the political goods proffered by media. In the last election though, even in spite of the best efforts of the liberal media, a majority of voters, still thinking for themselves, rejected the media blitz and voted for the candidates the media were largely against.
All theory is gray
"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."
People, yes, but people who have opted to support the actions of the government, and those who the government allows to have such deadly force. We're not talking about a broad cross-section of the people, but a "select corps" in the words of the Federalist Papers, "composed of the young and ardent," and described as something to be both respected and feared. It's why we have a constitutional bias against standing armies as well as allowing the states to maintain separate militias for their own defense even while denying them the right to maintain their own armies.
Of course, federal conscription that sidesteps the state militias and federal involvement in the nomination of state militia officers breaks down most of these defenses, while showing the powers of the federal government in cherry-picking who gets to serve in the federal forces.
Actually they had to have begun in a box.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Forgot some important words in my last post, so I'm reposting. Added words in bold.
>>>Since when is 17 a kid? In a couple months, they can vote, marry, serve in the military, smoke, buy guns and fuck legally.
Actually, I think in most states (or maybe just mine) you can legally fuck and marry at 16. So, yeah, you're allowed to have sex, but see it in a video game, horrors!
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Gore won the popular vote (50,999,897 to 50,456,002), so in my mind, that should have made him president. Yes, Bush got the electoral vote, and yes, we've used the electoral college since the founding of our country, but, IMHO, it's a stupid system that never should have been invented in the first place. You want to talk about "cutsie [sic] games with statistical fluctuations"? That's our electoral college for you. Why we couldn't have put the man in office that got the most votes is beyond me.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
They practiced all that stuff because it happens all the time during games. You need to be able to deal with slamming as hard as you can into someone and getting nailed into the ground without being knocked out.
That's a valid point, but what happens when the government refuses to relinquish the powers granted to them via martial law? How do you take down a modern government equipped with extremely advanced electronic survailance equipment and other tools used to wage a non-lethal war? I suggest you take a look at infowars.com.. The evidence they produce is very difficult to refute. The guy (alex jones) has made several documentaries (damning for the govt.) that are laiden with conclusive and irrefutable evidence regarding this topic.
You might want to read up on the bonus army, especially the part where Douglas MacArthur vastly exceeded orders in his zeal to attack fellow WWI veterans.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
yet again
Then no one would do Hot Coffee
It's "well-regulated" militia not "well-armed." Which is a key linguistic point that many people miss.
Does it really need to be said that football enduces violence, and agression? Leave it to a Clinton to be the last to catch the obvious. :>
When will we learned?