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Jack Thompson Weighs in on Oblivion
Robotron23 writes "Jack Thompson has commenced his attack on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion by seeking appearances on several talk shows. A press release announcing his availability speaks of Take Two not having 'learned its lesson' over the Hot Coffee scandal, before continuing to detail the issues surrounding Oblivion's re-rating, in particular regarding nudity - concluding that the game content will spawn 'an even worse disaster' than occurred during Hot Coffee."
He likes to instigate things. He likes attention. Everyone knows his stance, which you either agree with or don't (hopefully it is the latter). Can we just be done with him now? Honestly, the best course of action is to ignore him.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Gah, this is nothing but Troll bait.....We can't stop Jack Thompson from talking to the press. We can't stop the press from listening to him...so why do we even bother to post these. All we get are comments ranging from the useless to the insane (yes threating JAck with violence is an excellent way of proving he's wrong *sigh*). This post included ;)
This is just ridiculous. If you're going to make an accurate model of a human character, of course you're going to have to start with a naked form and build up from there.
I can understand people getting offended at "Hot Coffee", which was explicitly sexual, but this is just silly. People are naked beneath their clothing. It's true! Take-Two showed more no skin than you'd see in the world normally, but they made the horrible sin of starting from anatomically correct base. You might as well ban mannequins.
How can user mods be prevented, also how can a developer be held resposable for a non-sanctioned mod (something that would void any warenty on the product)? That is the real question.
The "Lesson" is that Hillary Clinton is a stooge or at least bottom feeding to get conservative votes and people like Jack Thompson have declared war on an entertanment industy accusing it of erodeing our morals. Media reflects our culture not the other way around, "fix" our culture and the desire for simulated violence will go away on it's own.
Just my 2 cents...
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
First, get a bunch of gamers together. Give half of them the most violent video game you can think of, and give the other half a bunch of articles/rants by Jack Thompson, and tell each group to play/read for an hour. At the end of that hour, administer a few tests to see how violent each group is.
I guarantee you that the Thompson group will be much more prone to start bashing in heads, particularly Mr. Thompson's.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
It doesn't even look like a real nude woman[1], it's not even close to anatomically correct. It's less realistic than a Barbie doll with the clothes stripped off. Last time I checked, Barbie dolls didn't have an 'M' rating -- they didn't have a rating at all!
:)
[1] Or like the pictures and videos we've all seen, for those of us who lack a basis for comparison
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
He graduated from an accredited legal program and passed the bar, all of which can be accomplished without demonstrating that one has any ability to think critically and run an ethical lawyering practice.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
"Last summer the video game industry was rocked by revelations that Take-Two Interactive, the makers of the hyper-violent Grand Theft Auto games, had illegally embedded in GTA: San Andreas graphic interactive adult sexual material."
Illegally imbedded? Since when is depicting nuidity in a work of art/literature/film/video game illegal? Pretty sure we can do that given the first amendment. The rating system is not law either, so not showing the ESRB all content is no more illegal. Seems his attitude is a bit skewed.
"It is also clear that Take-Two corporately and its senior officers, including CEO Paul Eibeler, individually, must now be prosecuted criminally for the knowing distribution of "sexual material harmful to minors" which is a felony in most states and nationally. The undersigned intends to work toward that end immediately"
Again, the ratings system is not law. Because a game is rated teen does not mean it is intended to be marketed towards kids. If anything, get on the ESRB for misrepresenting the game. Why not sue every publisher who puts out sexually explicit books. It's not the publisher's responsibility to dictate who should buy their material. His statements are outrageous.
Lets face it. One part of most boys development is to make liberal use of our adrenaline & testosterone. Some people play sports, some play video games, some get in fights, some go on murderous rampages, some break things, some hike, et al. The point is that it happens. Now, if there's a better outlet to fast-paced violent video games, then lets find it. IMHO if it means that some bored teenager wants to do -something- I'd rather it be beating the crap out of some virtual enemy than against a real person.
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I think the real issue with the 'older' audience is that they've forgotten these key periods in a young boy's life. I say boys because in general people aren't afraid about girls morals being eroded. Its like there's a magical shield around girls that say they can't be violent offenders or mass murderers. Thats another flaw in their logic.
Not only that, they've mistakenly attributed the realism in video games as an increased threat to our childrens morals than the 'harmless' nature of games in the old days, like double dragon (The sole activity of the game is killing people).
If Jack really wanted to solve the problem, he'd come up with a new teenage pass-time that they actually want to do more than games.
Just to end this thought:
"Part of the research challenge is to try to learn what positive changes affecting children born most recently are associated with the reductions in both victimization and offending"
Quote relates to the severe decrease in crime from teenagers recently.
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/new/releases/americas_ch
Bye!
And nudity is bad because...?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The best thing to do is just let him keep on ranting publicly, in the press and in court rooms. He does a great enough job making an ass out of himself, much better than anyone else could do to him. For added effect, maybe he can piss off another judge and get a contempt charge.
Jack is a troll trying to get publicity and popularity by attacking a scapegoat. It's an old trick, with Adolf Hitler being propably the most famous real example and Emperor Palpatine the most famous fictitive example. That's the peer group Jack belongs to. Joseph McCarthy and Fredric Wertham are other good examples of this morally banckrupt tactic of sacrificing innocents for profit.
For the benefit of Google Spider, let's put it all into a single sentence: Jack Thompson is using the same tactic as Adolf Hitler, Joseph McCarthy, Fredric Wertham and Emperor Palpatine used: victimizing innocents for his own profit.
Jack Thompson, Adolf Hitler. Jack Thompson, Senator McCarthy. Jack Thompson, Fredric Wertham. Jack Thompson, Emperor Palpatine.
Any other way we can make the poor spider link the man to his proper context and peer group ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
>I think the real issue with the 'older' audience is that they've forgotten these key periods in a young boy's life.
I disagree: I think most people remember *exactly* how they were when they were younger and, now that they're older and more mature, are appalled by their own behavior and want to prevent other people from making the mistakes they made. It's just like stage mothers. One of my best friends is a hardcore Christian who is against drugs, homosexuality, and sex before marriage. Know why? Because when we were in college together she was spending every weekend drunk and coked out of her skull, screwing other girls. I keep pointing out to her that she wouldn't be where she is now if she hadn't done those things -- in fact, if she hadn't she'd probably be more like me, raised low-key liberal Christian with no particular urge to bust loose during college, and now as an adult completely permissive towards other people's rights to do whatever they want and vaguely agnostic, rather than who she became: right-wing Christian woman. Needless to say, she does not agree with me at all, because she, like Jack Thompson, thinks she has the right to tell other people how to live their lives. Which is, fundamentally, what this is all about: people who don't think you should know or live what they know or have lived. Santimonious bastards.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Hitler claimed that Jews were out to destroy Germans, that there was a huge Jewish conspiracy out to destroy Germany. He then painted himself as the savior of German people, who would exterminate Jews and rid Germans of them.
McCarthy claimed that there was a huge communist conspiracy trying to destroy the USA. He then painted himself the savior of USA, who would exterminate communism and rid USA of it.
It's the same thing. Both destroyed people to boost their own careers. The main differences were that Hitler was a lunatic who believed at least some of his own garbage while McCarthy was just a morally corrupt liar; and that Hitler succeeded in getting supreme power in Germany while McCarthy failed to ascend past senatorship.
True, McCarthy didn't start death camps. However, he did his best to destroy his victims lives, so the lack of camps had likely more to do with lack of power than lack of malice.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.