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Congress Sets Sights on Videogames
boarder8925 writes "According to CNET, Congress has set its sights on 'the purported problem of violent and sexually explicit video games.... A U.S. House of Representatives committee on consumer protection says it will hold a hearing on the topic later this month, with a focus on 'informing parents and protecting children' from the alleged dangers of those types of games.' " The article goes on to describe seven bills under consideration that either attach fines to the sales of Mature titles to children, or study "the effect of electronic media on youths." Five of them are sponsored by Democrats.
Or... write in "No Confidence."
I think the fines and restrictions are totally unnecessary and possibly unconstitutional, but I'm 100% in favor of the studies. We've heard enough about violent and sexual video games warping children and turning them into serial killers; let's shine some light on it. Ultimately it's an empirical question with an accessible truth value. I suspect we'll find that video games do not damage children in any statistically significant way, and I think that'll go a long way to deflating this particular political football. If I'm wrong, and it turns out that video games do damage children, then I'd be first in line to regulate their sale. Either way, we're better off knowing for sure.
Does any of the bills address the Pentagon's usage of video games as a recruitment tool? Last I heard, the military can't even wait for students to get out of middle school before signing them up.
study "the effect of electronic media on youths."
What does this even mean? Electronic media is SO broad! They intend to study the effects of television, motion pictures, music, video games, and the interweb on children? What meaningful research could possibly come from this? That kids like electronic media more than the anolog alternatives?
The problem is you won't turn out to be right or wrong. You'll be both alleged right and alleged wrong because each side will pay for biased studies. It's not that good science is not done, it's that bad science is done, too.
See Ron Rivest's very interesting paper on chaffing and compare his theory of security through what amounts to a formalized and theoretically sound notion of smokescreen with the way the market is going.
I think in the end it will be something where people make up their minds and we just have to vote and hope. But I would hope we vote for freedom if we're unsure because freedoms lost are hard to get back. There probably is some occasional effect of violence in movies against weak minds, but the effect of lost freedom is not without tangible cost and I weigh the latter more heavily in my own book of public accounting. No scientific survey will ever sort that out.
For most of us, though, video games still come down to choice. Does letting someone pull a trigger not also let them not pull it? Rather than removing violence, maybe we should focus more on seeing the consequence of violence. In the studies I've chosen to believe (heh), the idea of consequence-free violence is closer to the root of problems than the mere choice of violence.
The Sims, for example, is full of ways to torture people to death with no consequence to the player. I might argue that practice, bloodless as it is, was worse than a game with guns that lets you rescue a princess or save a hostage or a nation, which some might argue instills basic values.
And what about movies, which offer no choice but force you to just ride the course. How is this better than sitting in a movie where you want the violence to stop but can't make it stop without leaving the people you came with. At least a video game gives you a choice at each moment.
It might be kinda cool, actually, if some movies were more videogame-like and you could press a button saying "no more of this kind of scene please" and it would dynamically tone things down for either just you or for the whole of an audience if everyone voted likewise... Then seeing the movie multiple times would give you a different experience every time, too, which would be great for the movie houses...
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Game makers should just cover their asses and make an agreement/disclaimer that pops up before the game can be played that says,"By pressing the button, you agree that you are playing a game and understand that any violence in the game is for entertainment purposes only. You also agree that the author is not liable for anything detrimental you do in real life as a result of playing this game." Even if people don't read it, at least the game makers won't get in trouble for it.
This stuff never worries me.
the wedge issues:
abortion
race
gay marriage
sex and violence on tv
etc..
they will never go anywhere because there are always large numbers of people representing each side, but theyre nice little red herrings to drag up and grandstand upon during elections.
meanwhile, the real issues get swept under the rug so the incompetent can remain in office.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
So you'd have no objections to hard-core porn and Iraqi executions being broadcast on free-to-air TV and printed in newspapers then?
After all, you can always turn it off, right?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Incredible. So sneeringly condescending, yet so naïve...
So many of us would love to vote them out. We would gladly cast votes for candidates who don't propose legislation based entirely on the bleatings of focus groups, and who doesn't put popularity above common sense.
The problem is, you're preaching to the choir, bruthah. (If by "preaching" you mean "being alienating and insulting.") We're not the problem. The problem is that there is no shortage of candidates who do just that--they've literally made a science out of fooling as many people as possible into thinking that they represent their best interests while doing little but muddy the waters and sully their station. And there's no shortage of induhviduals who eat up the FUD with a spoon in each hand because they think they're voting for their man.
Personally, I think the situation needs to get significantly worse. Slave-labor-camp worse. RIAA-rent-a-cops-shooting-to-kill worse. Eminent-domain-gone-wild worse. American-Idol-gets-preempted-three-straight-weeks- by-the-President-saying-everything-is-improving worse. Only when they start to notice that something is amiss, when they, or their children, or their relatives is finally inconvenienced to death, will they be ready for a long-overdue sea change.
Now, how can we make it worse?
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
You sort of need parents to actually parent in order for your plan to work. Sadly, parents (yes, a gross stereotype but bear with me) are more than happy to let the government parent for them. Lawyers and politicians are better parents anyway, according to some.
Your point is more insightful than many will give you credit for. Where exactly ARE there parents?
My wife is pregnant with our first child and I'm scared that by the time (s)he grows up, I won't even be given a say. I hope this trend doesn't continue, although I'm sceptical at best.
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Actually, the government should stay the fuck away from someone teaching their kids any of those things. I believe that the right to think and believe whatever you want is still present in America? Right? Or have them liberals* taken that away?
Teaching your kid all white people should be shot is different then shooting white people.
you can go right ahead and buy it for them.
Why should not being allowed content be the default position? What if I have a problem with talking animals and think it's the spawn of satan? Should I bribe^H^H^H^H^Hlobby the government to make that illegal?
*Conservative being someone who upholds the ideals upon which America was founded upon, a liberal being someone who introduces ideas contrary to those ideals.
While only a small fraction of violent criminals are even familiar with video games, nearly all of them have been exposed to the Bible, a book containing and glorifying torture, genocide, incest, and many other despicable acts. Furthermore, many murderers have explicitly stated that they were motivated by the Bible.
(I'm only semi-kidding; I think the Bible cannot be banned, and most criminals would be criminal with or without it. But the Bible really is a horrific document and it really has been used to justify more killing that any other single document. And while the Bible contains some parts that promote moral behavior, large parts of it can only be described as abhorrent and reprehensible.)
Remember the saying "The devil makes work for idle hands"?
It often seems to me that the reason politicians come up with these madcap ideas is that they have nothing better to do.
It's depressing.
The republicans have nothing. tax cuts. That's about the extent of it. There are more radical ones that are racist and some that are pro-life (still a minority) but that's it.
the democrats have nothing. They can say W is stupid, but he is better educated and probably smarter than the guys they ran against him, it's a feel good thing to say but he's probably smarter than he appears, just like clinton. Tax cuts trump "he's stupid."
Neither party represents anybody. Both aren't looking to the problems that we really have. If one party takes on the list below, they will win my votes.
The rest will fall in to place. I think someone should get in to Detroit's head that if they reduced the size of their deisel motors and put them into cars we could run bio-deisel and ethanol in them in th 75% of the US where hybrids and electrics don't save much energy. (Run your prius on the interstate sometime if you don't believe me, a civic gas only is more efficient)