Slashdot Mirror
Blair Bullied Over Bully
Following up the banning of Bully by British retailers, UK BM Tony Blair faced criticism from Parliment members over the Rockstar title. During the daily 'Question Time' the PM faces, Leicester East's Keith Vaz called for a meeting on the game, and investigation of the title. From the article: "'I know that the Minister for Creative Industries and also the Minister responsible for the industry are very happy to meet with him and stakeholders to discuss it. It's obviously an important issue. I know there's a lot of concern about it. It is, I think, right to say that the video games industry, or certainly a very substantial section of it, have made significant strides and advances over the last few years, but he's quite right, it's important that's maintained,' Blair said."
Blair Bowled by Bounders Bashing Boffo 'Bully'!
Dark Reflection
Whackjobs like Jack Thompson have a huge impact. He has convinced the media, politicians, and alot of the public that this game is some horrible, extremely violent game about a kid killing schoolmates. Of course that's not even remotely close to reality, but the people wanting to ban it are never going to actually try playing it. I keep hearing gamers say we should just ignore Jack, because responding to him makes him seem credible. Ignoring Thompson is not the way to go, we need to loudly, publicly and frequently tell people the truth about whatever game he's attacking this month. People find him credible because they aren't hearing the truth.
You get penalized in this game for resorting to violence at all--and that violence amounts to fisticuffs. The game is about outwitting bullies and coping at a dysfunctional school, not about being one. In fact, it's one of the most interesting game concepts to come out in a while. These people are reacting because of its name, and because it was made by Rockstar, who also make the GTA titles. Beyond that, they haven't a clue.
Once again, another example of politicians grandstanding with no idea of what they are talking about. Did you know, by the way, that the premise of the terrorist plot which recently hit the headlines--the plan to mix chemicals on the plane to produce explosives--was completely unworkable? You need a reasonably well equipped lab to control the reaction, keeping it at low temperatures, otherwise the chemical mixture will go off prematurely and all you'll get is a loud, smokey fizzle--enough to draw a lot of attention to yourself, but not enough to actually kill anyone, let alone bring down a plane. But none of the politicians could actually be bothered to ask a chemist about that, either. So now people can't bring any liquids on a plane, because our leaders are just too fucking lazy to do a little research...
1) Ask the citzenry what should be done. 2) Do it.
Yeah, because the majority is always right. ::rolls eyes:: Oh damn, what the majority believes changes every week. Well, that's OK, the government should just keep passing / reversing a law as the opinion polls change.
How about this: The government leaders ignore the ignorant masses and do what they think is right, and we periodically either reelect them or we don't depending on the outcomes or how we like the decisions they make?
Sorry, lost my head for a second. You're right, the mob is always right.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
At least we'll have no one to blame but ourselves in that case.
Personally, I'd rather have a specific person be responsible for the credit or blame for a decision, rather than a mindless abstract concept like 'ourselves'.
On the other hand, maybe I'm wrong -- if all we have to blame are 'ourselves', then no one ever gets personal blame! Wow, what a great world that would be -- no personal blame! Sign me up for that deal!
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.