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German Minister Seeks Jail Time For FPS Players
GamePolitics has the somewhat unbelievable news that German Minister of the Interior Gunther Beckstein is seeking jail time for violent game developers, publishers, and players. MSNBC has further coverage of the issue, which has pro gamers in Germany quite worried. From the article: "The draft law, a reaction to a school shooting that shook German public opinion last month, will come before the upper house of parliament next year. But it is already sending shockwaves through the 2m-strong German online gaming community. 'We have among the most drastic censorship rules for games,' said Frank Sliwka, head of the Deutsche E-Sport Bund, an umbrella federation for German online gaming teams. 'Now we are being labelled as a breeding ground for unstable, dysfunctional and violent youngsters.'"
Referring to the world wars generally isn't Godwinning something, you have to invoke Hitler directly. And I've seen it done in headlines a number of times, this is plodding by comparison.
he (Beckstein) is not the "German Minister of the Interior" but the one of Bavaria (german: Bayern). Bavaria is the most conservative state in germany, ruled for nearly 60 years by the same party. He has been joined in his attempt by the minister of interior of lower saxony.
The core of the prolem is the definition of "killer games". Since nearly all major politicians are 60 or older, they have nearly no understanding of the topic. They believe e.g. that Counterstrike is played with a joystick and the goal of the game to be "killing hostages". Usually, hearing them, i'm torn between laughing and crying.
Regards, Martin
AFAIK, Germany has no codified freedom of speech clause. Certainly there's quite a bit of censorship -- bans on nazi propaganda, for instance. In Germany, if a bill like this passes, it's probably enforceable. Whereas here in the US, it would be challenged on first amendment grounds.
E N/Federal-Government/FunctionAndConstitutionalBasi s/BasicLaw/ContentofBasicLaw/content-of-basic-law. html/cen//
From article 5 of the german constitution aka Basic Law:
"Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing, and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship."
Read it sometime, especially the first 20 articles, it's actually quite good:
http://www.bundesregierung.de/nn_22672/Webs/Breg/
Playing cards online is perfectly legal. Gambling, on the other had, is not.
Best Slashdot comment ever
"Why don't they ban "tag" while they're at it, a game which encourages *actual* attacking of another human being in the game." We're one step ahead of you... http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-06-26-rec ess-bans_x.htm
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061018-114713- 2243r.htm
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/art icles/2006/10/18/attleboro_elementary_school_bans_ tag/
He is the Minister of Interior of Bavaria, and Bavaria is just one of 16 states (Bundesland) in germany. That's like calling Arnold Schwarzenegger president of the united states.
And besides that, he isn't even very popular in germany (at least outside bavaria).
To give you a picture of his political position: The conservatives (CDU) are the largest party in germany at the moment, althouth they are only supported by about 35% across germany.
In bavaria, things are a lot different. Bavaria is so conservative, that the more moderate CDU is split into two partys. The party in bavaria is called CSU, so the rest of germany does not link the radical positions of the CSU to the conservatives outside bavaria.
That works incredible well: the CSU dominates bavaria around 60% for decades, with political statements like the above. And Mr. Beckstein is often the one saying the radical statements.
Shall I mention that Mr. Beckstein is a huge fan of the Bush administration whereas most germans are not?
Silly, trans fats come about because we decided animal fat was bad for us. So we all decided we should eat fats from plants instead. Problem is, plant fats are mostly liquids at room temperature, and we like our butter to spread. So Crisco invented hydrogenation and instead of being a trace component trans fat became the norm.
By the way -- they're saying butter is better for you than margarine now.
It's also important to remember that Beckstein is the Innenminister for Bavaria, not Germany. It's akin to the attorney general of Texas, not the AG of the USA.
And yes, Beckstein's a git. It's taking him far too long to realise that he is one of the most unpopular politicians in Bavaria, now that Monica ("my daddy used to OWN this state!") Hohlmeier has been run out of town in disgrace.
You don't seem to have any idea of what Godwin's Law is. It does not prevent further discussion, or stop information from being "free." It is simply a statement of probability. This is what Godwin's Law says:
It says nothing about such comparisons being valid or invalid. It says nothing about discontinuing the discussion, or winning an argument - as so many people mistakenly argue. It just says that lengthy online discussions are more likely to contain comparisons to Nazis than brief discussions.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Crap, man, pick up a history book, please.
Germany ended up divided because the western Allies didn't like the Soviet plan for making a unified Germany out of the four occupation zones (which would have been "neutral" at best, or more likely ended up a Commie satellite state, like the GDR), and the Soviets of course didn't like any of the plans the western Allies had (which all involved Germany not becoming a satellite state of the Soviet Union).
There were plans for breaking up Germany, but they were all discarded. The final result wasn't a solution someone came up with, it was the end result of the winners not being able to agree on one solution.
Of course, even the Jargon File goes on to say:
:-D
"'As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.' There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups..."
Technically Godwin's Law does no such thing, but the codicil of application of Godwin's Law ending/losing a thread is now so firmly attached to the original that it's pretty pointlessly pedantic to argue against the idea.
"Godwin's Law" in popular usage therefore indicates both Godwin's Law and the associated tradition of it ending threads.
You can argue about the "meaning" of words or phrases all you like, but words have no intrinsic meaning - they're just collections of sounds we've arbitrarily drawn a ring around and decided to call "a word". If the majority of people use a word to mean X, the word now means X, irrespective of what it meant before. C.F. "gay/cheerful", "gay/homosexual", "gay/bad".
"Godwin's Law" now includes the codicil about ending threads. We can now call a halt to pedantic dick-waving competitions the world over.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself