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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.
"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??"
... [just a sec] ... Sorry, my mom just came in my room with my breakfast, I tell her to knock but she just doesn't listen
... anyway back to what I was saying, I've been playing video games religiously for 30 years and it has not affected my social development in the least
I have been an avid video gamer for 30 years and it has not
"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 band Scatterbrain, aka Ludichrist, had a song called Goodbye Freedom, Hello Mom about 15 years back, sounds like they weren't far off...
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:)
We'll ban that book and T.V. show,
Forget that movie, no you can't go.
Can't sell that record, don't like that song.
We know what's right we know what's wrong.
Can't have abortions, what's yours ain't yours,
Just obey the laws.
Too young to drink, say no to drugs
Bikers wear helmets, cars safety belts
You might hurt yourself.
We're watching out, We're watching out
We're watching out for you...
Well the new right's been at work some time
They ain't so new no more
Can you hear 'em knockin'
Knockin' down your door.
1984 has past, forget about Big Brother,
Welcome to the 90's where the government's your
mother.
They'll tell you - don't do that.
They'll try and tell you - it's for your own good.
Big Mother is watching you
Mother's protecting you
Mommy knows what's right for you
Goodbye Freedom, Hello Mom
The Bill of Rights just disappeared
There it is - whoops it's gone!
Goodbye Freedom, Hello Mom
All your rights just disappeared
Everybody stay calm.
Good stuff
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
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
and from another time
"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint" (Hesiod, 8th century BC).
When you're too old to know what it is to be young, it seems, you'll inevitably subscribe to an orthodoxy that sees children as wild and at risk of being irrevocably corrupted.
Kids are leaky hormone sacs. What you see them up to in public is nothing compared to what they do in private.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
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.
But the punch line comes at the end of the article, where the inflated language is dropped. It adds to the effect. If you didn't read all the way to the end, you missed the payoff.
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.
Much like the MPAA ratings, the ERSB ratings were put into place to arm the parents with the tools they would need to protect their children from inadvertently partaking in games that should rightly be marketed and sold to adults. Until the Illinois law went into effect, the public appeared to manage rearing their children just fine on their own. Law makers such as Senator Alan Cropsey, given the amount of thought, time, and taxpayer money that has gone into enacting laws that allow for punitive repercussions, have gone to great lengths to insinuate that parents have indeed failed their children by allowing them to do as little as glimpse at the packaging in which violent video games are sold. Is it that those parents are not doing their part, or that the ERSB has failed to properly warn parents about products which are appropriate for their children?
In a word, Yes. I've always felt that parenting should be active instead of passive. Children don't learn right and wrong from TV, music, or video games, but from parents. It's too bad that good parenting has been lost on this generation.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
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
I wish I had time to search for a quote, but Socrates also bashes poetry and art for being corrupting forces in a couple dialogues (notably the Republic, IIRC). POETRY. Yes, old people are blaming video games for corrupting the youth. A few short years ago, they were blaming music. Elvis used to be evil. Well, thousands of years ago, they were blaming *poetry*! And not Jack Kerouac poetry, but things like the Illiad. You know, that boring stuff that they make you read in school? Hell, Socrates was executed for corrupting the youth with *philosophy*.
So lets make a holy grail video game full of blood and guts, but with gay crusaders!
Problem solved (heh)
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
On the other hand, the youth of Socrates' time were suspicious of Democracy, and after the Peloponnesian War set up a fascist government that attempted to kill remnants of Democracy, as well as anybody who disagreed with their rule. Government head Critias was Socrates' associate and pupil and widely hated by Athenians, and his relation (and the entire movement's relation) to Socrates was probably the reason Socrates was later executed by the state. This relation to a much-hated movement would continue to be held against Socrates, much like (say) Mao's role in the Cultural Revolution would weigh negatively on anybody studying his writings or poetry.
Plato idolized Socrates, and was using the quote to disassosiate Socrates from a reign of terror that everybody hated. Without knowing your history you seem to interpret it as "ah shucks, even Socrates 2500 years ago could be an old codger!" which isn't at all the case, Plato wasn't one to tell gee-whiz anecdotes.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
He used two "?" and you want *more* punctuation ?
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!
Government imposition is becoming increasingly more prevelant in our society. "We must protect the children..." is cited in most or all of the cases. Well, I realize that this has been said 99,000 times alerady, but I repeat: WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?
Children need to be governed and protected by their parents, not the Government! In most cases you will find that the root of the problem are the parent(s), sure, there are genetic dispositions that might make someone more succeptable to commiting violent acts, but for the most part, the way they deal and react in every situation is learned at a very early age and age where most kids are not playing video games. Unfortunately, the kids are thrown into daycare and the parents are too busy working late so then can pay off their $40,000 SUV. So, realy parenting is out of the question..
Where are the parents when these kids are playing the games? The kids are in front of their baby sitter, a video game or the television!
Enter the Governement..."We'll take it from here"
Parents! Pay attention to your kids! spend some time with them instead of shuffling them off to soccer, ballet, etc... and spend some time with them. What a simple concept!
It's not my fault!
What a common theme on our society, I got a question, if it's not your fault, than whose is it?
"It's your fault, or his fault, or her fault, or their fault!"
Enter some government official with an agenda ready to make hasty decisions and judgements about a situation without completely understanding it. "I dont' care whose fault it is, your both wrong"
The problem and the blame and the responsibility needs to be the parents and it is not the Governements job to raise our children.
Poor Video Game Developers...yeah, right!
Here is where I will more than likely get slammed, citing; "You can't be on both sides of the fence", well, yes I can.
There are some real crap video games out there! Grand Theft Auto is Useless. I've played it, I am a gamer, it is completely unecessary killing and violence and everything else rolled into a first person experience. Children should never be allowed near this kind of crap, however,it it not the Governments' job to decide this, it is the PARENTS.
Senator Dinosaur
Lastly, I will make this short and to the point' People over the age of 40 should not be able to make or propose ANY legislation that involves technology! More often than not, they do not understand it, they don't understand the implications, and they are incapable of making an educated decision, so they apply their old school, antiquated ideals and sometimes, bring innovation to a screeching halt.
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 big difference for me lies in whether one regards morality as being inherent to things or not. Either actions are morally right and wrong owing to inherent qualities that make them so, or they're morally right or wrong because an external authority figure has decreed them to be so from above.
The latter position is essentially authoritarian; it's an argument from (God's) strength, not one about inherent justice or morality. The all-powerful God has said X is good and Y is bad, and our role is to follow orders, not to use our consciences to try to figure things out.
As a result of taking that stance, religious movements like American "fundamentalism" wind up talking a lot more about authority -- God's authority, which they claim for themselves based on interpretation of the Bible -- than they do about morality. My Southern Baptist relations' church sermons aren't about the struggle to figure out what's right and wrong, they're essentially about obedience and fulfilling a sort of contract for eternal life they think they have with God. I've sat through them, squirming.
The results can seem pretty arbitrary as they lurch around, can't they? One never knows what odd target their righteousness will light upon next. Will it be single mothers? But then the authority they claim is essentially arbitrary too. It's based on arbitrary force.
Of course, since this is exactly what you do when you adopt a Christian moral code, a Christian studying the Bible will naturally take away a completely different lesson than a non-believer.
It really isn't true that all Christians take the Bible in the way you're suggesting. Christianity is a big place. Every "book" religion has this tension about fundamentalist readings of the text, too.
Somehow my Southern Baptist relations have made Jesus into a figure shutting out everyone not in their congregation; they actually manage to have periodic schismatic breaks within their tiny, small town congregation. (The most recent one was about the role of women. Ugh.) My parents' Northern Baptist church couldn't be more antithetical to that narrow vision, and the sermons and forums there are truly about trying to be morally awake and alive. Both Christian.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
If you're looking to dismiss people of faith as simple-minded peons who have no understanding of logic and who rapidly embrace hypocrisy, then your understanding of that verse is sufficient.
It's true that the King James Version of the english Bible translates that passage "Thou shalt not kill" but the NIV, NKJV, NASB and others translate that passage "Thou shalt not murder."
There's a distinct difference between murder and killing. God ordered the Israelites to kill the people in the promosed land because they rejected God and did what was evil. There was no hope of their turning to doing what was right, and God knew that the only outcome of leaving them alive would be to draw many of the Israelites away from God.
You don't have to agree with what God ordered them to do, but there's no direct contradiction between Exodus 20:13 and God's orders to His people.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
about a troubled guy in a disfunctional family who kept playing GTA. One day, this guy decided to rob something, and the police caught him on the spot. He took one officer's gun to try to cuff him and run away, but the officer began yelling, and the guy shot him because he got scared.
The point in the article was that the "shooting officers" was an automatic response, something he had learned by playing GTA.
And this makes me think that we've been tackling the violent videogame issue from the wrong viewpoint: It's not that certain videogames make us violent - violence is something we learn at home, but that we are more prone to repeat the actions learned in videogames, when we become violent. This is, learned behavior from the videogames. This contrasts with movies,books and TV, where we are only spectators and no automatic-actions (such as shooting someone) are learned.
And it makes sense now: Home/Family learned violence + Videogame-learned violent actions = dangerous person.
In other words, it means that videogames such as GTA, which portray realistic violence (against fictional violence like "Street Fighter II") can turn an already violent person into a potential murderer.
Opinions anyone?
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
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.
WTF does socialists and liberals have to do with peace-and-love? I think you got your wires crossed...
Most "Socialist and liberal" countries have MUCH more relaxed sex and violence censhorship on entertainment.
Hitler was neither a Christian, nor an Atheist. He believed in Aryanism which is certainly not what Atheists believe - nor is it what Christians believe. His beliefs, the beliefs of the Nazi Party and the Thule Society were very strange and were certainly "religious" in the sense that they had no basis in scientific or historical fact.
I do not think his beliefs are relevent to arguments about Chrisitianity vs. Atheism.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
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"