Slashdot Mirror
The War Against Virtual Beer Pong
Michelle Shildkret, 360i on behalf of TIME.com writes "JV Games was all set to release 'Beer Pong' for the Nintendo Wii when parents and lawmakers got a whiff, forcibly renaming the game to Pong Toss and filling its pixelated cups with water instead. But the game is still rated 'T' for teen, and anybody who encounters it will be able to draw clear conclusions as to its intended purpose (drink and get drunk)." Lesson: Don't play games that simulate drinking before you play games that simulate driving, or larceny.
WTF? Just play real beer pong.
Maybe not
The US has some of the most stringent laws amongst western nations for limiting alcohol access to young adults. You can be taxed, vote, fuck and die for your country, but you can't drink beer until you're 21. Yet, amongst its peers, it ranks close to the top in terms of alcohol abuse and related activities like drink driving.
Similar hypocricy abounds in other spheres of life. The 'most free' nation in the developed world, yet a higher fraction of its population imprisoned than anywhere else. Abstinence only, but the highest rates of teenage pregnancy.
All of these are symptomatic of the US's prohibitionist approach to life -- a trait that can be traced all the way back to the pilgrims, who fled England not to be free from religious persecution, but so that they could themselves persecute without interference.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
We really need to kill off this nanny state we live in before the next generation is too afraid to go outside at all.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
All the time these parents spend writing angry letters could be put to use parenting . Talk to your kids about things they shouldn't do (like drink alcohol) and why they shouldn't do them. If you don't want your kid playing that game in the house, don't buy it. If you don't want them playing it at a friend's house, know your kids' friends and their parents. If they are reasonable people, they will honor a request that certain things not be on the activity list when Jimmy comes over to play. And if you've done a good job parenting so far, playing virtual pong isn't going to turn your kid into a hooligan.
Didn't your mother teach you not to do things you would be ashamed to see on the evening news?
Just wait. Soon bars won't be allowed in games. If there's a bar (or worse, smoking) the game will get rated (AO) adults only.
The new prohibition movement has already gotten smoking banned in bars and the "legally drunk" alcohol level has been changed from "actually drunk" to "imperfectly sober". They've done this even though the lower alcohol levels are not associated with a high risk of crashes. They can seize your car and sell it to fund their agencies though.
The media war has already begun. PG-rated movies can't have smoking in them.
A lot of people want the government to be your mom and make your choices for you. People vote for it because they think they're in the ruling class. When they find out they're actually "little people", it will be too late.
Write angry letters (not e-mail, honest to God hand-written letters) to your politician about how this is ridiculous and absurd. use the following hard facts:
1. Drinking is a part of our culture. Hiding a part of culture from someone until they're well over maturity creates a dangerous situation, because people haven't yet learned how to handle these things. Aliens, there's xenophobia (kill the evil dangerous things!); covering up all violence, people lose self-esteem and confidence and crumble under stress (ohgod he's threatening to break my arm give him whatever he wants *cry cry* don't even THINK about helping someone else in trouble either way too dangerous wtf); alcohol, they'll seek out the contraband as kids and get into car accidents, or become alcoholics as adults.
2. Companies can market what they want. Parents need to control their kids; without actually raising kids, you can't control them. Imagine if parents simply didn't bother with keeping their kids off drugs; now imagine schools censored all things about drugs. Oh, what's this magic dust? It'll make me happy? Hmm... :) Even with school lectures, kids only really pay much attention to their parents when making decisions like that.
3. I find it offensive that you can breed without a license. I have to learn all the important points of driving (traffic signs, danger and hazard conditions) to drive; you should need to learn all the important points of parenting to have a kid. You need a license to get married already, but no training; put dick A in pussy B.
Really, what the fuck is so hard about this? "Angry parents whine to congress/nintendo about how they don't want to have to keep something away from their kids or try to teach their kids what that something might deviate them into doing" okay so "Angry parents bitch at congress/nintendo about this gross distortion of responsibility and accountability."
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Thank god I can still play all sorts of games where I steal and kill all sorts of things. It's probably a good thing I can't play those games after playing beer pong, too, since getting tipsy might through off my aim. Better still, if I make a game where kids vote in an election, will I need to change it from a presidential election to a student council election? I wouldn't want to teach any kids to break the law by voting underage.
The new prohibition movement has already gotten smoking banned in bars and the "legally drunk" alcohol level has been changed from "actually drunk" to "imperfectly sober". They've done this even though the lower alcohol levels are not associated with a high risk of crashes. They can seize your car and sell it to fund their agencies though.
Don't worry kid, by the time you're 25 you'll be partied out and vote for higher cigarette taxes and tougher drunk driving laws, too.
Advice: on VPS providers
No there are no black choppers.
The new prohibitionists and censors are real. That's why this story is on Slashdot. Because they are censoring a beer pong video game.
While his screed does skew a little away into the Lone Gunmen territory, he is essentially correct. MADD et al have made it essentially illegal to do anything but stand in one place and drink, while the rest of the "think of the children" movement is continuing to try and make live as safe and sterile as possible in the US. MADD itself, as an organization, is quite insane and desperate to make itself continually relevant, leading to its metamorphosis into a neo-prohibitionist lobby group.
Remember, just because someone sounds insane, doesn't mean that there isn't some truth there.
I'm over 25, and I vote against EVERY vice law, since I find the very idea absurd. I'm not a libertarian (I'm a nutbag socialist, or moderate), and even I find that the government regulating my leisure activities absurd. If no one gets hurt, then it isn't their business.
While the poster is probably wearing his tin-foil hat, I agree with the general premise, America is becoming more and more neo-Puritanical as time goes on. We've decided to all announce what we think would be good for others, and collectively vote for it, ignoring the fact that the simple answer is just not doing it ourselves (free will, and all that archaic baggage). And these self-righteous idiots don't even play a fair game, they resort to dirty tactics since "they know better" than the rest of us, it has become a game of the ends justifying the means, which is NEVER a good position.
Looking at my home state, Arizona, which just banned all public smoking; some people put a sensable law on the ballots, banning it all non bar or bowling alley establishments (which still stretches things), and to fight this, another group (who I call niconazis) made another bill to ban it everywhere, period. This was not happenstance, it was a genuine political effort at confusion. A bar by my house found a loophole, and ran with it (with a couple million in lawyer fees), so the state decided to throw all their guns at it to make them comply, not just the legal ones. The received daily visits from the health department, and the liquor board, none of this was contained as a consequence of non-compliance with the law, it was just the state "out to get them" for not playing with the popular cause.
As a note: I don't understand how the state can tell businesses how to run themselves. Let places decide if they want smoking (or drinking, even), or not, and let the market decide.
This goes beyond the state level, the WHO frequently bans studies that find the link between second hand smoke and cancer negative or non conclusive, as do most modern Western health institutions. Its like an unpopular mirror of global warming. I, personally, think there is a link, but that still doesn't justify censorship of scientific studies that don't find things your way, and thus aren't allowed to be counted towards policy. (I also believe in global warming, and condemn all censorship that finds the opposite)
As for drinking, we're approaching the same level of insanity. My friend almost got arrested once for WALKING to her car while intoxicated (0.08). She wasn't going to drive, she was getting a camera. The police didn't want to believe her. This was a bar that offered free cab rides home, and to the bar the next morning, so there wasn't even a reason she would have driven, not to mention she didn't even have her purse. The law also ignores that alcohol affects people differently. I can drink all night, have a high blood alcohol percentage, and not be affected, while others can be well under the legal limit and be severely impaired. Biological differences FTW.
And then we bring on our war on boobs. We're an absurdly prudish and puritanical country. My mind boggles at the fact we find overt violence healthy for youth, but not natural biology. I almost got kicked out of college for mentioning the "nipples" on a nude bronze on campus, as it might offend someone. Everyone has them, how can it be offensive? I also almost became a registered sex offender in high school for saying something lewd to girl friend of mine (inside joke) and someone overheard it. If the target of the comment isn't offended, then how can a bystander who doesn't understand the context be?
Its very odd, as we become more politically liberal, we become more culturally conservative. Look at the idiotic gay marriage debate for example... It makes no sense outside of a narrowly bigoted religious context (which most of my religious friends don't agree with, anecdotally), but still we are willing to regulate peoples bedroom life, and their rights based on who they want to practice these rights on. As long as no one is harmed, it isn't societies business.
Sorry for the rant. Getting sick of idiocy today.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The arrogance of smokers who complain of the smugness of people who want to enjoy themselves without breathing in smoke the whole night is incredible. Your disgusting habit is making the air dirty, giving me a headache, forcing me to wash my clothes, and raising my risk of cancer. If you want to do all of those things to yourself, fine. Just go do it outside where everyone else doesn't have to deal with your stupid habit.
Like I said before, don't bother with the crap about something else killing me. So I should go walk on the highway because I'm just as likely to die falling in my bathtub as I am by getting hit by a car? Give me a break. Anything that is clearly proven to unnecessarily and not accidentally kill tens of thousands of people, without even considering how many are sick for years before dying, is totally indefensible. Tobacco kills, it kills people around those who use it, and it's an ugly death no matter how it strikes. Do you think people should be allowed to drive drunk? Speed to their heart's content? Why not? Maybe because they might injure or kill somebody else, and sometimes do?
Spend some time with a relative who is dying of emphysema or cancer. Volunteer at a hospice. Maybe it will give you something to think about.
I'm very glad that parents and lawmakers are spending so much time on kids getting virtually drunk, virtually running over old ladies, and virtually killing hookers.
Clearly, with global warming, increasing corporate consolidation in every industry, multiple wars and genocides planet-wide that we are either funding indirectly, directly, or directly a part of, a decline in the middle class that is readily apparent, a national debt that spiraled out of control under Reagan, and is now MUCH worse, species going extinct across almost every ecosystem, increasing levels of obesity, heart-disease, cancer, and genetic disorders, bread inflating in price over seven fold while the dollar deflates into toilet paper, irregular voting results, procedures, and a subsequent media black-out, questions about building seven, huge set-backs in education, a completely broken health care system, bogged down freeways and corporate toll roads, the sub-prime start of a NEW great depression, cameras on every street corner, and astronauts claiming there is higher intelligence in our region, it is refreshing to see that parents and lawmakers care about the important stuff, like virtual beer-pong. Clearly, their priorities are very much in order.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to having a conversation that is being listened to about how my friend was practically raped at the airport by the DHS on my over-priced corporate cell phone that is giving me cancer. Have a nice fucking day.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
That's just the point, noone HAS to deal with it. Stop going to bars that allow smoking and the market will force certain bars to ban it.
The government didn't censor or ban the video game. The publisher wussed out because some idiots complained. They didn't value their own speech enough to even maintain it in the face of .. other speech. Why should I care what happens to them, when they don't?
As for banning the actual drinking game, I do think that's a bad idea, and I oppose it. But there are other things going on there, too:
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