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The People Vs. Common Sense
Mogg writes "GamerGod.com has a new article up entitled "The People Vs. Common Sense, A Citizen's View at Michigan's SB-0146 Law," commenting on the new Michigan state video game law. "Have we made absolutely certain books and movies are not degrading the minds of our children and video games and all computerized representation of violent and sexual acts are the cause of an increase of depraved sociopaths??" Very nicely written piece.
"Have we made absolutely certain books and movies are not degrading the minds of our children and ... representation of violent and sexual acts are the cause of an increase of depraved sociopaths?"
Thank God there's nothing like that in the Holy Bible!
my parents didn't let the government raise me. none of my friends' parents let the government raise them. if my parents deemed an R rated movie or M rated game ok for me, regardless of my age, they let me view/play it. if they deemed a PG-13 move or T rated game NOT ok, they didn't.
-- lol pwned
Blaming TV and movies isn't going to get you votes. Almost all polticians are out to appease the voters, not solve problems. Not only do the television and movie industries have huge lobbies, these are two things nearly every parent enjoys themselves. It's much easier to target video games as an evil when no parent understands what it is all about. And when as a politician you have the opportunity to spin your wheels over something and make it look like you are saving the children, you take it or someone else will.
"visualize the poignant tide of human thought", "While endeavoring to bequeath our exclusive equities unto the world, we are often chagrined by remonstrations..." It's sad when someone has to turn to looking up every second word in a thesaurus to sound like they have an intelligent arguement.
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. -- Attributed to Socrates by Plato
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
By creating such a law aren't they making it easier for criminals to claim that video games warped them and as such aren't responsible for their actions?
The entire article is in dire need of an editor. "Nicely written" indeed...for an 15 year old. Myriad spelling mistakes any spellchecker worth a damn should've caught, run on sentences, a writer far too obsessed with his thesaurus, and writing that is obviously intended to sound "important" but ends up sounding "pretentious."
In the 80's, it was the PMRC under Tipper Gore that was leading children away from the path of suicide and darkness brought on by music. Easy target, musicians don't tend to contribute as much to political campaigns as Hollywood types. Life was good. Then the "extreme" music of the day became more normal, and all we've got is some warning labels. Aside from Lieberman during the 2000 elections, I don't know of any politicians really speaking out on it these days.
New target possibilities? Lessee... Video games. They're easy. P2P technologies... That has the bonus of getting your Hollywood and corporate buddies to apprieciate you more AND gives you something that doesn't require a lot of money or work on your part. Ain't politics grand?
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
The real question to ask is if there actually has been an increase of "depraved sociopaths", or if it is meerly percieved to be so because news coverage now picks out these rare incidents wherever and whenever they happen and sensationalize it and parade it around for weeks to get rating. Scaring people enhances news ratings.
From TFA:
Allow me to present Michigan SB-0416, the latest attempt by the American government
The Michigan state government is not the same as "the American government" which would be the label for the Federal government. This is a good example of something that individual states *do* have the ability to regulate even if a lot of us think it's silly. All the people in Michigan who don't like it should direct complaints to their state legislator and not blame a vague "American government". All people who *don't* live in Michigan should direct comments to their respective state legislators insisting that our state should not enact similar.
...piece of proposed (or even passed) anti-video game legislation.
Serioulsy though, like it was mentioned in the article, these politicians are attacking video games because a lot of parents really aren't doing their job, and a lot of parents don't understand video games. By the time that the kids who were young when Nintendo first hit America (people like me) become the normal voting population, politicians will have to target something new because we'll all tell them that it's a load of crap.
In the meantime, I can only hope that enough states hop on the anti-gamer law bandwagon that Jack Thompson can't keep up with all of them. Then in the future, these laws may make it into the halls of www.dumblaws.com, pending we don't become a police state ^_^
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
Newsflash: there are bad things out there in the world
What (IMO) often seperates children who grow up to "good" and those who do "bad" is how they are guided through events & situations that occur in their lives. If no-one is around to explain what is right, to explain why you should do the "good" thing; how the hell can you expect the children to learn?
These parents who are say too busy working to bring in an income to feed their children and keep a roof over their head. Perhaps they should just take a wage cut, get a job with less hours. Less money correct; less money to just keep spending money on video games with no social interaction. So to offset that lack of money, sell off the expensively large TV, cable and the games console (which AREN'T essential) and spend some actual time with the kids.
A new study concludes that parents should parent their ****ing kids!
If you have kids, they're your responsibility, parent them. If you don't want to do that, don't have kids. It's not society's fault if your kid is a mindless twit who's never been brought up correctly.
Stop punishing the rest of us for the faults of dumbasses who can't teach their kids right from wrong. Decent society does not come from rules and restrictions. It comes from doing yer damn job as a parent.
Who is it that has successfully framed this time as an era of high crime? Crime is at a 30 year low.
Just because the media likes to report stories about people doing bad things to other people doesn't mean it is happening more often. Information about far away places is more readily available these days and we are just hearing about it more often because we apparently like to hear about it. They wouldn't report it if it didn't get them higher ratings.
Maybe you can explain why christian ethics directly contribute to the problem?
That is not the point...
If one thinks we should ban violent media to protect children, then we should ban the bible. The hypocrasy of those who would ban games and "unworthy" books while allowing "worthy" books is the point.
Additionally, the bible has been causally related, more often and more demonstrably, to more killings than every video game on the market combined. From the crusades to psychopaths, the bible is often used as justification for violent acts...
Frankly, I do not blame the media owner or employees. Both are too inept. They just chase ratings. The fault lies with human nature, or at least the many people who are overcautious or like being scared.
It's not society's job to determine what's detrimental to the well being of minors - it's the parents. Laws and regulations will never make a dent in behavior. However, it does make for a nice bank account ballance for the lawyers.
Laws and regulations just shift responsability from the one's that have the most direct impact in a child's life (the parents) to "society". For some reason everyone thinks it's better whan it is "our" problem.
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
From the phrase "Allow me to present Michigan SB-0416, the latest attempt by the American government..." I was turned off by the lack of journalistic professionalism.
Rhetoric is for propaganda, not news. Get your facts straight before you start "reporting." Oh, and uh... look up Federalism while you're at it.
Again, I'm not religous but I find ethics fascinating. Your argument is a common one, and not without merit, but it...
(i) makes the assumption that without organized religion these fundamentalist wouldn't be finding other reasons to kill each other. Using what we know if human nature, I suspect they would.
(ii) ingores any existing benefits chrisian ethics may have on existing practising societies. In other words, if the a moral doctrine says at times to kill and others times to not kill, how do we find out its net effect on the murder rate? Abrahamic religions allow violence in a few corner cases, but the overall very strongly discourages it.
These religions and also secular moral doctrines are tools, they have no conscious. Billions of people use these tools to pass along net beneficial ethics, moral doctrines, ideologies between generations.
Can you justifiably suggest that they abandon this approach because of the few Osama Bin Ladens of the world?
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
I think the parent's point was that often the people who fight against violent games etc which supposedly make children/adults violent are the same people who say America has lost it's 'good old fashioned Christian values'.
But this is false. Some of the anti-violence crowd, it is true, are indeed the same old "family values" people who've been boycotting Disney since the 1990's over gay rights issues.
There are two completely different groups of people trying to take away your violent games. They may currently be allied against you, but eventually they will turn on each other, as they are still natural enemies.
The other ones are plain old socialists and hippies and other liberals. Violent games are bad because they go against the peace-and-love worldview. These people who want to remove violence from culture and ban guns and ban even remotely violent sports like (American) football... the guns and the football is where they part company with the right wingers.
You see the same two groups opposing porn. One hates it because it's a sin, the other hates it because it's sexist. Never forget or fail to note which one you are arguing against at any particular time.
where there's fish, there's cats
So, banning and restricting access is supposed to protect our children? Great, except that like alcohol and drugs, kids will get a hold of what they want to, especially without parental guidance. Yet another law will not protect children from irresponsible or careless parents. It's like banning sex education in the hopes that the teen pregancy rate goes down - all it does is increase the incidence of STDs.
Incidentally, video games have become more violent, and pornography is easier to access than ever. Perhaps this is a release of the violent or preverted urges, and as a result violent crime is at its lowest rate ever. Sure it's become more sensational, but the statistics don't lie. In terms of sexual crimes, the reporting rate is better than what it was, and the numbers across most western nations are still lower than ever. (Source: DOJ )
- - - Non Caffeine Drink or Drink Error
When they kill us, they're sinning heathens.
... don't define the action as "good" or "bad" ... define the actors.
The critical point is
A "good" man is NOT one who does not kill.
A "good" man is one who believes in "god" and kills according to his belief as to whom "god" wants killed (as long as the rest of the winning society believes the same).
A "psychotic" man is one who believes in "god" and kills according to his belief as to whom "god" wants killed (but the rest of the winning society does not believe the same).
A "bad" man is one who refuses to kill as "god" dictates OR who kills the "good" people because he is fighting for the wrong "god".
Witness wars and executions for real world examples of the above.
The issue is not violence or sex, I believe both have their place....to me, the issue is "degradation & abuse"
I believe sex is a wonderful thing shared between people who love each other. Even in terms of pleasure shared amongst friends or consenting casual acquaintances for the more liberal thinking.
Nor am I an absolute pacifist, I believe violence should be avoided when possible and used as a last resort. But I believe there are times when one must be violent; when one must defend themselves against the school playground bully. I believe there are times one must be violent to protect the weak from abuse.
A violent game like DOOM caused little issue for me. Shooting monstrous demonic creatures....no problem. Shooting each other in a gladiator style arena. Still not much problem. Not much reality there.
But there is a big difference between such and a game which exemplifies, even glorifies, the rape/killing or other abuse of prostitutes. That degrades women as objects. That outlines a fundamental philosophy that stealing/killing is acceptable.
I do not have children, but when I do, I want to instill in them that sex is a good thing...but to enjoy it wisely. That violence is a last resort but that there are times you need to raise your fists. Likewise, I do not want my son to be abusing & degrading women. I want him to be the type to respect women. I want him to be the type of guy who refrains from violence, but at the same time would be willing to use it to prevent some scum from being violent and degrading to a woman or anyone for that matter.
The issue, is "right vs. wrong" "good vs. evil" sure it get's grey sometimes. But how often is "rape" a grey issue? or mass genocide? or racism?
There is a difference between playing a character in a game such as a cop stopping violent criminals with violence, or even a vigilante who does such to protect more innoncent individuals than say "playing" the perpetrator. Sure "Wolfenstein" was violent with lots of gruesome death. But you were killing NAZI's and their evil creations.
So, no, I don't want my children (which I do not have) playing a game that displays such behaviors....not until their sense of morality and right vs. wrong has matured. Likewise, I don't even really want other children to play such. If I have a daughter, then no, I don't think I'd be too keen on a game that had kids "rampaging" a school shooting classmates and raping girls in the school bathroom. I'd be afraid of what influence that might have on a teenage boy and what risk that could pose to my daughter. Now, I don't think we're at a level were such a game would be tolerated by society. But it does pose the question of where does one or where should one draw the line?
I think most parents bringing up such issues are not concerned about their children, (as they're probably not letting them play GTA) but are more concerned about their children encountering children influenced by such games - and being harmed.
Now, is there conclusive proof of an association of violence. No...but it does not mean we should wait till there might be.
So my point in this....I don't know if there should be a law. But IMHO, would it really be wrong to list certain games as Mature and denote that such require the purchaser to be 18+ ??? This was commonly accepted for film.
The following is just my personal opinion:
General Audience (means content acceptable for all)
Teen (denotes violence, guns, deathmatch, etc.)
Mature (denotes strong sexual content, immoral violence, illegal acts (ie: drug usage - not powerup mushrooms but use of real life drugs), essentially, anything that is portrayed in a virtual environment of our modern day society which is illegal & felonious to the extreme. (ie: driving very fast would not be listed but driving drunk would, murder, rape, etc)
All of this is to say "there is a difference" between say a game called "8mm" in which a character plays a detective (a.k.a. Nicholus
Thankfully, the pretentious writing slacks off after the first two paragraphs or so. It would be nice if people would bother to learn that:
...and cut it out with the pretentious writing. You're not fooling anyone when your writing is chock-full of grammatical and spelling errors -- even if you try to throw in a fistful of PSAT words.
1. Media is the plural form of medium.
2. Effect and affect are not interchangeable.
3. Use spell check! How hard is this?
4.
ingores any existing benefits chrisian ethics may have on existing practising societies.
Most stable societies have prohibitions on murder, robbery, and rape. It's not a religious thing.
Can you justifiably suggest that they abandon this approach because of the few Osama Bin Ladens of the world?
I don't think anybody is seriously suggesting we ban the bible (though I'd like it if we abandoned religion). What we're doing is pointing out that the bible fails to meet the standards put forth for video games.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"