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UK To Mull High Video Game Taxes — To Fight Knife Crime
chareverie writes "The Prime Minister of the UK is being urged to impose high taxes on violent video games in an effort to reduce the number of knife-related crime. The request comes from Richard Taylor, who argues that young people 'feel that the law has no control over them. They just feel that they can go on the streets and do whatever they like.' He doesn't have a definitive number on how much to tax on the offensive video games, but says that they should be 'very high.' Rap music is also voiced to be a concern due to the alleged negativity and language. Taylor's son, Damilola Taylor, was killed in November 2000 at the age of 10 by knife stabbing."
Correlation is causation! Mwahaha.
People spending more time playing video games have less time to stab people.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I fucking know who this makes me want to stab.
Didn't we deal with this kind of stuff already in America in the 1990s?
Now that they've done away with all gun and knife crimes, they need to fight shillelagh crimes. Shillelagh crimes have been steadily on the rise, doubling from one to two in just ten years. Even worse, some oafs are starting to hammer nails into their shillelaghs, just so they have metal pokey-bits to inflict more damage.
We need to tax all carpenters and lumberyards in the UK, or our youth will pay a terrible price in violence and fear.
If raising taxes is a method of fighting crime (it's not, but supposing it is) then why not raise taxes on the sale of knives ?
The youth of Britain apparently feel that the law has no control over them (something I agree is probably the case).
So you solve that by... raising taxes? It doesn't even matter on what, it might as well be rutabagas for the good it does you in terms of solving the problem. How is making video games that thugs want more expensive so they have to knife four more people to get the funds really going to help?
Instead, how about imposing some more forceful law over those that feel the law is irrelevant to their actions? When actions start having real consequences, people can and will change.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
, you know, knives?
Gotta love the British who enact law simply because one person has a tragedy that might have been averted.
They pulled this a few years ago with violent porn, where some woman was raped and killed, and the cops found some violent porn in his house, and proceeded to outlawing the porn, to prevent the porn from causing the feelings of rape in the guy, or something like that. Makes no sense to me.
if they would put police on the street. Apparently, spy cameras don't deter knife crime unless someone actually gets arrested for it.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
... but one our Govt probably will give credence to in order to be seen to be doing the right thing by middle-class voters unimpressed by recent performance on the economy.
In other news, the Chancellor announces a tax on tails to discourage them from wagging dogs...
Why not, if we must permit them to beg the question, tax knives instead?
Because it's just a tax-grab, that's why.
Athy, athier, athiest.
The British gov't has systematically distorted statistics and selectively presented data in order to advance its own agenda.
This latest ploy probably has little to do with crime, and more to do with bringing in more cash to fund the gov't's pet projects. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7780057.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7781030.stm
K
How can anyone seriously expect it to hold sway over anybody else? The kids are only following the examples set by their leaders. Especially disheartening as we discover how deeply the corruption permeates everything.
What?
Some people in the UK are also calling for the ban of any pointed chef's knives. These people claim that there's no possible reason for a knife to have a point to it except to stab people. Now, I'm not a chef, but I've done my share of cooking. I will often use the pointed tip of my knife to "stab" a food item if the food (like, say tomatoes) resists my initial slice attempts (e.g. looks like it's going to squish instead of slice cleanly). What's next? Ban scissors? Box cutters (not just from planes but any possession of)? Swiss Army Knives?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Putting a high tax on legitimate sales of games and rap music just provides a huge incentive to copy them without respect for copyright.
Sin taxes, like prohibition, simply provide a market for "illegal" action to bypass the restrictions.
England, what the hell is wrong with you? I understand you guys got chavs and all, but between CTV and the nanny state stuff I actually feel like I'm in safer and more sane land in the US than the few times I've gone to the UK.
Perhaps giving your youth some say in their lives and something to do besides play video games and stick people with knives might get them more involved with positive influences. Teens are rebellious largely because they are ignored as children when they want to do something as an adult, but held to adult responsibilities when they try to act like children. Give them an outlet for their raging hormones and a way to actually use the skills you're drilling into their heads in school rather than those they pick up from video games.
Don't they know that for a long time now you don't run faster with a knife?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
better to fine anyone that calls a knife a "weapon".
its a potentialy dangerous tool if missused.
atm kids in the uk are raised being told knives are for crime / stabbing ppl so your not allowed to have one.
so of course when they get one what do they think its for?
most ppl raised with knifes being an every day tool treat them with respect as they have cut themselves in the past and have an understanding and respect of the harm they can do.
Is anyone surprised that the chavs and yobs running around with knives are powerful, and the defenseless British public are scared and powerless? This is exactly what happens when the criminals lack fear because the British people have been completely disarmed. What is a person supposed to do now against someone who has a knife? Ask politely for them to stop?
While the timing of this article, and response, is very poor given the two horrendous gun crimes yesterday and today, perhaps it is time to revisit the anti-weapon stance that has gripped England since the Scottish school massacre. Take away the guns, then only criminals will have them. Outlaw knives, and only criminals have them. Outlaw video games next?
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
There should also be a huge surcharge on Mario Kart applied to the uninsured motorists accident fund. While we're at it, America's Army could be taxed to fund the new push in Afghanistan, and the Bee Movie game could be taxed to find a cure for the honeybee diseases. Let's get creative. In this recession we need to find new ways of extracting money from people. Gamers obviously have too much.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
If you can't see the causal relationship between video games and stabbing hookers, then you've never played Hello Kitty Island Adventure.
Hahahaha... to be fair I doubt this will happen it's just same insane idea from a thinktank being reported in the Torygraph.
Regardless, it would just increase video game piracy. The title is sensationalist btw, I very much doubt this will happen it's just some loony thinktank.
Plus there is the minor side issue that most video games use guns, not knives to inflict damage. It sounds like the proponent of this tax are yet another example of knee-jerk reactionaries with a hate-on for video games and rap music. Why is it that such nutbars are even heard by government, much less seriously considered?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Far be it from me to suggest that people RTFA or question the correctness of a summary title, but the father of a murdered boy urging the Prime Minister to tax violent games is a pretty big fucking step from the "UK To Mull High Video Game Taxes - To Fight Knife Crime " in the summary title.
Just for clarity - the UK government aren't doing anything like what's being implied. One man, rightly or wrongly, is suggesting this.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
Explain to me how making games more expensive will make people less likely to stab others? If anything it'll raise stabbing incidents because people will have to take up robbery to afford the video games. Then they'll just wind up in prison, and it's nothing but stabbing in there.
I have nothing compelling to say
they need to head off spoon crimes. I recommend SPOOOOOOOOONGUARRRRD!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
All the rich criminals who fire thousands of employees causing them to get desperate to the point of prostitution, robbery, suicide and more because their stock price went up a few bucks for that week and they cashed in millions.
Just a thought...
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
The proposed idea is definitely ineffective, but the problem of knife-crime is real. I can see how this individual truly feels as if the government *must do something* owing to his loss. However, he needs to take a much closer look at the causes of crime perpetrated by youth.
...that some deranged turd will use WHATEVER weapon he can get his hands on to do WHATEVER he wants...
outlaw guns, use knives
outlaw/outtax knives, use baseball/cricket bats
outlaw bats, use rutabagas
You can never prevent crime, just certain tools used to accomplish it. Even if they have to resort to bare handed strangulation, that's what they'll do....
Twin or more? ITA
Apache/Spring/La
I see you're taking after America and it's horrible system of taxation, Britain, along with the justifications for doing so. Have you considered applying for colony status with us? We're still accepting new member states. Granted, our 401k and stock options are crap right now, and there's no health coverage, but you'll make it all back with smugness, and on your first day you get a large bat and combat boots as well as a welcome gift. /grinning, ducking, running
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I heard Jack Thompson over at the pub commenting that the degradation of society has a strong corollary with the development of more violent games. Remember Pong? You could scarcely kill someone with a pong machine as it took the strength of 10 geeks to lift it. Now when cartridges came by there was a critical paradigm shift which resulted in a switch from 'death by console' to 'death by cartridge'. If we use the same measure it takes .005 geeks to lift and swing a cartridge with deadly force. Yet this was the equivalent of using an animal bone until the advent of optical media. Coupled with the introduction of bad asian ninja movies it took very little for young minds to substitute throwing star with cd. Now it seems perfectly reasonable to tax the hell out of games.
The child abduction and violent crimes against kids are down.
Largely because of: a) more indoor playing from video games, b) increase in homework, c) increased amount of supervised time (school, extra-circular stuff, etc...).
Of those video games is a major factor. It is no-brainer to me that video games playing would reduce incidence of stabbing not increase it.
If that was really the goal, they should give kids a BBC xbox channel full of free quality games and issue rebate coupons to people to buy their kids consoles.
This is what happens to a country that takes people's guns away.
I propose a 278% tax on all history books. History has long been known to contain scenes of bloody violence, sexual deviance and disregard for authority. It is time that the government and parents started to take a stand against the corruptive influence of history.
He was stabbed by a gang of 11 to 14-year-olds. The boy's mother had complained repeatedly to the principal about bullies, yet he did nothing.
Bullying is the real problem here which should be addressed.
sig: pv qid
'feel that the law has no control over them. They just feel that they can go on the streets and do whatever they like.'
If that was true why do they resort to stabbing before trying some shoplifting. It sounds like the guy is abusing his position to push some legislature through. He should step back and ask what is better for the general public. Heavy taxation on an industry or social programs, like sports, clubs, technology competitions, that would get those kids off the street and being more active members of society.
Does NRA membership cause low IQs, or is there merely a correlation?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Well, it depends on what you consider to be "real". There have always been horrible stabbings, and there will always *be* horrible stabbings. The media have decided to get hysterical about this type of crime (which has been occurring for millenia), and have magnified each recent incident as if it's some kind of new mysterious killing technique that was invented in south london by black teenagers.
The good news for us gamers is that the government is unlikely to risk upsetting the UK game development gravy train, as at the moment it's one of the few industries that's actually doing ok considering the current climate.
An easy way to combat street crime would be to put more uniformed plods on the street, but such a plainly obvious solution is beyond this government (and doesn't supply a source of easily abused funds).
OK, so nobody is seriously going to believe that taxing video games is going to stop knife crime.
But if they used the tax money to pay for better education and ameneties for kids, then why not?
Of course, that will never happen...
Sooo, they put a tax on video games and how does that cut down (no pun intended) on knife crime?? Do they use that money to hire more cops to patrol, or do studies on the relationship between gaming and knife crime?? Seems to me like they are just looking for another revenue stream, and vilifying video games usually seems to be an easy target, especially when its being done for the greatest of all causes, for the children.
My head just exploded.
"A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." Hayek
They need salt.
... soon criminals will only have knifes. What's next? Sticks and stones?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
He has a point. After a few rounds of capture the flag in my favorite First-Person Knifer, I sometimes just want to go outside and stab some hobos.
Everybody is talking about violent video game control. Got to control the violent video games. Fuck, that, I like violent video games. No, I think we need some knife control. I think every knife should cost five thousand pounds. Five thousand pounds for a knife. Know why? Cos if a knife cost five thousand pounds, there'd be no more innocent by-standers. That'd be it. Some guy'd be stabbed you'd be all 'Damn, he must've done something, that other guy put 5,000 pounds into stabbing his ass!' And people'd think before they stabbed someone 'Man I would cut your fucking head off, if I could afford it. I'm gonna get me a second job, start saving up, and you a dead man. You'd better hope I don't get no knives on lay-away!'
Taylor's son, Damilola Taylor, was killed in November 2000 at the age of 10 by knife stabbing."
So this guy's channeling Pat Pulling?
I believe that it is a self rectifying problem.
Two guys have a knife fight, one brings a game.
I just don't see the need to worry about it, eventually the gamers will get smart or diminish via attrition.
If I lived in the UK, I'd have to go with a crossbow.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
There are rules about selling excessively violent games to children, and the problem is these rules aren't followed by parents and retailers. The tax should only be charged when games are illegally sold to children.
Stabbings occur with knives! Not Video Games. It's the knives that they should be taxing!!!
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
"[young people] feel that the law has no control over them. They just feel that they can go on the streets and do whatever they like"
It's a sad and dangerous day when "knife crimes" are seen as bad because they are disrespectful of the law.
(To spell it out, knife crime are bad because they hurt innocent people, not because bureaucrats say they're 'illegal')
\u262D = \u5350
...since they also 'feel that the law has no control over them'.
... let`s put a tax on GETTING stabbed. When people wake up in intense care with a sidewalk washing bill, maybe they`ll be more careful next time about letting young whippersnappers stab them while on a video game fueled rampage.
Is Richard Taylor the UK's Jack Thompson?
The request comes from Richard Taylor, who argues that young people 'feel that the law has no control over them. They just feel that they can go on the streets and do whatever they like.'
No different than kids were when I was one of them, and there were no such things as video games back then.
Rap music is also voiced to be a concern due to the alleged negativity and language.
Don't you Brits have freedom of speech? Offensive speech is the only kind that needs protecting!
Free Martian Whores!
I still don't get this. Why is knife crime suddenly such a big deal here in the UK? It seems like every other day some newspaper or TV news or something is talking about it. You hear phrases like "knife-crime epidemic" bandied about.
See 2008 crime figures:
Nothing to see here. Move on. Stop whining, and yes, Daily Mail editors, I mean you.
Ban rap, make video games untaxable. Better world begins.
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
How about they require gun ownership from all of their citizens. I'll bet that would do more good.
Here's my evidence, where's his? http://www.rense.com/general9/gunlaw.htm
Assuming for a minute that it's because the youth feel the government has no control over them that they're stabbing people, why wouldn't they just steal the games and/or music that causes they're behavior?
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Why stop at video games? Why not cops and robbers, cowboys and indians. or even army men and dinosaurs. Do not forget the lincoln log and lego forts used as cover.
One of many violent crime trends
The UK's slightly different trend
Note the fact that violent crime was MUCH MORE prevalent (in the US) before first person shooters became popular (Wolfenstein 3D in '92, Doom in '93, Quake in '96, etc.). Based on real data, there is a clear INVERSE correlation between the number of violent video games readily available and the number of violent crimes taking place for any given year.
If I were to use garbage statistics to come up with stupid taxes, I would tax men between the ages of 16 and 24. Simply being a young adult male, across all cultures and for as long as humans have existed, is the biggest risk factor for committing violent crime. Vote Man Tax!
Mod Parent Up! Parent has a very valid and insightful post.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
This might work if they took the tax money from video games and applied it to things that really would reduce violent crime. Of course, things like reducing poverty, increasing literacy, and providing drug treatment for people who want to get off drugs won't get you as many headlines as bashing video games.
I thought all crime was supposed to cease in England when they banned firearms.
So, now it's knives?
Next, they will come for the pointy things.
Eventually, everyone in England will be required to be lobotomized in order to prevent anyone from taking any actions whatsoever that might be harmful to someone else.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Arm all young people with guns and there will not be any more stabbings.
Sure, there'll be plenty of shootings, but the stabbings will go down.
They made knives available and cheaper to the lowest common denominator of society. Plus easy credit made it possible to order with express shipping! So it's MasterCard's fault too! And the TV stations that broadcast these calls for slaughter!
Don't forget your local/national/international package delivery service for allowing dangerous, dangerous knives to be dropped off at the homes of young, impressionable children. It's called "The Postman Always Rings Twice," not "The Homicidal Maniac Always Rings Twice."
And the parents, such horrid parents, for using knives in front of their children, cutting meat and chicken like so many innocent bystanders.
Home kitchens should have all utensils tethered to the walls like in prisons. I've seen it on TV. I've never heard about anyone getting stabbed in a prison kitchen.
Now how much would you pay? In dollars or the souls of your victims?
I prefer the good old days of clean cut television. Wholesome programming like "Leave It To Beaver." But can anyone help me remember what Beaver's last name was?
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
"The children now love luxury; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are tyrants, not servants of the households. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize over their teachers. I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint."~attributed to Hesiod (8th century B.C.)
So, what's new? In Hesiod's case, I don't think it was video games that were causing this behavior! Young people act rebellious -- get over it!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
If you think punishment of any form is not a deterrent, then talk to the guy who wrote the proposed law since he's the one saying youths have no regard for the law and that is a problem (again, how it relates to his proposed solution is not clear but whatever).
Punishment is not a 100% deterrent, but that does not mean punishment is never a good answer to get some level of prevention.
In particular, note that negative consequences are even more powerful. Fear of capital punishment is remote in someone's mind, but fear a target may be armed is much closer to someone's mind as a criminal. That's why areas with fewer gun control laws have all sorts of better crime statistics in general, especially when you factor out criminal vs. criminal crime (like turf wars).
If you truly believe utter lack of punishment and personal responsibility makes for a great society, I encourage you to move to the UK in a small town with some of the "Youths" in question and see how you feel in two years.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Taylor's son, Damilola Taylor, was killed in November 2000 at the age of 10 by knife stabbing."
Actually, although it doesn't make it any less tragic, I'm pretty sure he was stabbed with a broken bottle...
Before you ask, in the UK bottles are only taxed heavily if they contain alcohol.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
this sort of thinking, this law will probably end up stabbing the brits in the face.
I would postulate that knife crime and video games are mutually exclusive.
Everyone knows that kids that are obsessed with video games will never leave the house voluntarily.
If raising taxes is a method of fighting crime (it's not, but supposing it is) then why not raise taxes on the sale of knives ?
That is a damn good idea. And to stop rape, we should tax penises. By the pound.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
most ppl raised with knifes being an every day tool treat them with respect as they have cut themselves in the past and have an understanding and respect of the harm they can do.
Obligatory Family Guy Quote:
"That hurts! My God, is that what I've been doing to people? I belong here."
I will often use the pointed tip of my knife to "stab" a food item if the food (like, say tomatoes) resists my initial slice attempts (e.g. looks like it's going to squish instead of slice cleanly).
Offtopic, but you either need to sharpen your knives or use the right knife. Probably both. :-)
A freshly sharpened chefs will cut tomatoes, but not for long. Using the steel hone will prolong this, but it's still not the right blade for that. I pull out a scalloped or serrated blade, and that works wonders. Even so, I need to get mine sharpend.
The result is there's no clear distinction, possible between a stream of governemnt income and an expenditure. If they wanted to spend more on fighting knife crime, they could do it now - it's just that something else would take a cut (pardon the pun). Likewise, the extra revenue from videogame taxes could just as well be spent financing another illegal war somewhere.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
seems I remember this phenomenon occurring a few years back with shark attacks. Several shark attacks were reported nation wide on the news, and all of a sudden everyone is fearing for their lives if they stick a big toe in a large body of water... then a short time later, it comes out that, well, the number of shark attacks reported for the year were far less than previous years... it was just sensationalized by the media, so it sounded worse.
They just feel that they can go on the streets and do whatever they like
and
Taylor's son, Damilola Taylor, was killed in November 2000 at the age of 10 by knife stabbing
Why would he allow his ten year old son to go on the street and flaunt the law?
What happened to his child is a sad and tragic thing. However, by his own logic, the kid was doomed anyway. I think this is why they created the word 'absurd'.
Take away his position and this guy is just another nutbag on the corner shouting while holding a crudely drawn cardboard sign.
Richard Taylor is one of the proponents of this tax. He is the father of Damilola Taylor, who was killed with a knife or broken bottle. Danny and Rickie Preddie, aged 18 and 19, were ultimately convicted of the crime and sentenced to 8 years youth custody. The Taylor family was awarded £11,000 for their son's death. I can certainly understand Mr. Taylor's desire to prevent the same thing from happening to other children, but taxing video games is a pretty weak preventative measure. His target audience doesn't even pay for the video games, their parents do. The whole system reeks. I would offer my idea of justice for Damilola's death, but I doubt it would be well received. Instead to Mr. Taylor I offer my condolences and prayers that he might find peace.
10: PRINT "Everything old is new again."
20: GOTO 10
Knifes don't kill people, people kill people!
While I have every sympathy for the poor man, it's not a good idea to let the victims of crime determine how to prevent it. Their judgement tends not to be the most balanced.
He doesn't know what the causal relationship is between knife crime and games, nor does he have any idea what the effect will be on demand for games should they be taxed (it's possible that the publishers would end up swallowing a large part of it because games are presumably at the price which maximises profit*number of sales).
It's that England is a hellhole. And the big cities, especially, are just awful.
Everything is old and dirty and depressing in England. And, frankly, they like it that way. But it does start to affect the populace after a while.
Not to be rude or anything, but maybe he shouldn't have named his son Damilola? With a name like that, the kid was doomed to be either the victim of a gang or the leader of a gang...
Seriously though, there's too many things wrong with the whole story to do more than begin to point them out. He's trying to legislate his grief, which has been a bad idea since the beginning of time (and the reason a lot of humanity has gotten away from the idea of kings). And in the process, he totally missed his mark. If he wants to legislate something, he should consider what went wrong in the schoolyard.
Why, with the UK's omnipresent surveillance and nanny state, did no one notice that a pack of kids had gone all Lord of the Flies on the playground? Could it be that the surveillance of everything DOESN'T WORK? That it induces a sense of false security on the part of adult supervision, eliminates the idea that personal responsibility should be inculcated in kids, and does absolutely nothing to address any of the root causes of gang violence? Could it be that by passing law after law after stupid assinine law that a contempt for the law has been bred into the citizenry? And now he wants to add another stupid assinine law...
A certain Biblical quote is apropos: You reap what you sow.
Someone shot people with a gun, so the UK outlawed guns. Crime went up anyway, only now they're apparently using knives. Take away knives, and they're down to blunt instruments.
An intimate encounter with which is the only plausible explanation for loonies like the ones running the UK thinking that they can control every part of a person's life in the name of security.
Thomas Jefferson said it best:
"A government big enough to give you all you need is big enough to take away all you have".
Tonight I'm going to start on a flash game. Basically your an intoxicated youth, you run around knifing people in town centres trying to stay off CCTV (because that's what youths do I understand), you need to steal bottles of liqour and syringes as power ups. If you drink too much your screen blurs, you fall down and The Fuzz get you, if you sober up, you go back to school get a job and the game is over. Watch out for the CCTV. What shall I call it? "Tax This!"
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Murders are NOT a hard figure as the article seems to claim. Disappearances are NOT murders. If an illegal immigrant disappears no statistic will reflect this.
As for the known murders, maybe they were down. Serious crime tends to go through periods of calm and upheaval. That can seriously upset the murder average. So of those murders that the article presents as a simple number HOW many are so called senseless violence?
And how many attempts of murder stopped short of murder because advancing medical science saved the victim?
Any figure, no matter how simple can be massaged to tell the story you want to and NEVER is this more evident then like in this article when the author tries to let a simple figure with no details tell a major story.
Remember about crime that the powers that be are always pushing their own angle and constantly changing their metrics.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This story is a load of rubbish and should be treated as such. Because:
A. This is not government policy, some guy called Taylor, is going to "advise" the prime minister to do something. Well lots of people advise the prime minister to do something, it does not mean he does it or that it is government policy.
B. This government constantly announces policies which sound snappy or eye catching. They are however not real policies, they are only designed to get on the news a night, so people think the government is doing something about an issue. Very often the policy comes to nothing and is forgotten about within a week. Or even more commonly, the policy is a re-announcement or something that has already happened.
C. I am even more suspect, because it said "Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is set to announce fresh Government plans this morning to cut the number of knife crimes" Well they have been in office for around 11 years so it is a bit late to announce "plans" when you only have just over a year left in office. (i.e. it is just another eye catching announcement)
Having said that, this government sometimes does not forget about there crazy ideas and tries to force them in to law. E.g. detention for 42 days with out trial.
So I am sceptical, and I just hope they all get kicked out of office soon so we don't get there nasty ID cards and uber database of all our e-mails.
Make it illegal to stab people. Problem solved.
Come to the knife fight packing a gun - so the saying goes...
I've been playing TF2 and have killed hundreds of virtual representations of real people.
I've even made maps of real places and put cops in them to kill. Hrmm, I must be getting ready for a real killing spree now.
That, or maybe I'm just going to go out and teach people about the scriptures.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
Enact laws which require all guns and knives to be replaced by walkie talkies
Of course being that we have advanced much since those times I suppose cell phones are more likely.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
What use is a tax when people don't even buy stuff anymore?
I thought it was only the Royalty who was inbreeding.
"Hey guys! We've got a generation of angry men who are feeling downtrodden and oppressed by growing government intervention in our lives and limited financial means. They're taking out their impotent frustration with violent crime. I know! Lets limit their access to the media they like, and reduce their effective disposable income! Oppression ALWAYS works against violent demographics!"
It's been a long time.
Here in the states, idiots don't attempt to link video games to knife crimes at all. I suspect if handguns were outlawed in the US, we wouldn't have issues with video games at all. On a serious note, though, these clowns are going to link anything they can to video games.
They destroyed industrial communities. They gave the police virtually unlimited powers to stop and search young people. They established a foreign policy of might-makes-right and went out of their way to antagonize and alienate immigrant communities. They lied, took bribes, started wars, incited racism, crushed civil liberties, and they are still standing trying to talk like statesmen.
And computer games are to blame when the kids go berserk? Fucking retarded.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
There's about four stories a day that use "mull" in the headline. Go get your thesaraus and look up some synonyms! "Considers," "looks at," "thinks about." Stop saying mull!
Make sure you can supply it from abroad or over the Net, and then do some astroturfing in the Sun (one of the UK screech papers) to decry it as a threat to the children (etc etc, just use the Sun as a sample) so that it gets banned in the UK.
There is no better ad for the game possible - soon you'll be rich.
At which point that bank collapses too.
Insert
Is illustrating dumb statistical mistakes useful somehow ? I obviously assumed that there are no statistical mistakes involved in the relevant studies.
Obviously you need sufficient data, over a sufficiently long period of time.
(and to be honest I can imagine hurricane damage necessitating government savings, and therefore teacher layoffs, so a (very) weak correlation is indeed not out of the question)
It only shows _some_ connection, which may be very convoluted (but always real) between 2 data SETS (and 1 data point, like you gave, obviously proves nothing, there are rules about that) (and before you say it, one studies equals obviously exactly the amount of data points they claim to have researched, excepting fraud)
Hi Vlad,
You could study criminology and learn what I'm about to tell you. You could study sociology and learn what I'm about to tell you. You could read Dickens, Hugo or Moore and learn it, or you could teach high school and find it out the hard way. You could even blacksmith for a while, hammer on some metal, learn what they mean by "work hardening" and learn what I'm about to tell you by metaphor.
Raising penalties doesn't stop bad behavior. It just makes the game meaner.
By raising penalties, you're hoping the alter the "risk/reward" calculation in the offender's head. The problem is, most offenders don't expect to get caught, so their risk is always zero. If you're trying to wrap your head around that, think of it in terms of how the young think they're immortal. I personally didn't really know, in my heart, that I would die one day until I was forty.
It usually takes a few iterations of "offense/punishment" until the offender changes their behavior. If you really want someone to change, you have to use the carrot as well as the stick. You have to pull them as well as push. "That's the wrong way, here's a better way."
You want to empty the prisons of young people? Give them hard, meaningful, responsible work that pays them well and garners the respect of the community. You want them to show you respect and responsibility? Then you have to GIVE them respect and responsibility. I don't mean flipping burgers and taking abuse all day. Put them to work doing jobs they can be proud of, and the prisons will empty of all but the most recalcitrant.
The problem is the carrot costs money. It costs the top economic tiers easy profit. And worst of all, the carrot doesn't give them the sick raging wife-beating hard-on that the stick does.
The stick makes them feel powerful. It makes them feel mighty. It feels GOOD to be able to MAKE people do what you want. "Steal a candy bar? LOSE A HAND!" It's quick, it's easy, it seems cheap (at least out the outset). Hell, in America, you can even make a profit off of it.
And it's totally counterproductive.
When some kid steals a candy bar and loses a hand, he knows there's no such thing as justice, only power. He learns he was punished not for theft, but for insulting the powerful. You lose all possibility of rehabilitation, and have made an outsider, an enemy of society for life.
Study your history. The harsher the penalties, the faster your prisons flood until eventually you come to a Vlad Tepes world where there are no "soft" moves left. You lose all nuance, and with penalties and offenses both set to their extreme, life expectancies begin to drop precipitously.
Crime is a function of the economy, and trying to suppress it through increased punishment merely tightens the release valve on the pressure cooker. If you want to lessen crime, you have to increase meaningful employment. Telling me I can't carry my Leatherman is just "security theater" that doesn't even begin to address the problem.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Banning video games and knives is not sufficient. Clearly we need robots to "to serve and obey and guard men from harm".
[Insert pithy quote here]
All this is going to do is drive up piracy. More expensive computer games won't stop people getting them, it will just make more people decide they dont want to pay £50 or whatever they will charge for them, and download it instead.
Truly fantastic idea...
A good smack to the back of the head and a foot to the face can kill someone too. why don't they ban boxing, karate, and hands while they are at it.
(imagine's brits with nubs) Aren't they being too hasty?
Hum...and according to this article, the kid died from an injury caused by a broken bottle...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damilola_Taylor
beyound that, it looks as if the Bobbies were about as competent as the Keystone Cops...
Interesting read about the system trying to chew gum and walk at the same time...failed at both.
regards
dave
In the UK, the parent of anyone murdered is allowed to create one new law, preferably something dumb, against whatever they suppose it is in the murderer's life that offends them.
For details of the process, ask Liz Longhurst
Ten year olds should pay through the nose for video-games, sure. Oh, and hey: is this something that can be self-regulating like the ESRB? Game retailers can charge ten year-olds double, even triple, the normal price. No need for taxes to get involved, I'd certainly be willing to do my part by charging extra for any used games I sell to ten year-olds.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Let's follow the legislators logic. They want to tax violent video games so that game producers have less profit and less incentive to make violent games, right? So let them make pirating such games legal and DRM illegal. Voila! Two birds with one stone!
I do believe I've found the root of this problem. Please urge parliament to begin taxing all new NES games to put an end to this nightmare.
http://www.i-mockery.com/romhacks/knifeboy/
There probably is a relationship between playing violent video games and those likely to knife people and be violent, however people rarely seem to consider the direction of the relationship. Isn't it that violent people prefer to play violent games, rather than violent games make people suddenly that much more violent? Nobody can deny they do have an effect, but one that is on par with a competitive game of paintball, for example.
So UK, how are those gun control laws working out for you? Guess what guns don't kill people - people kill people. You now have knife stabbings now what? Ban knives too? How about quit blaming guns, video games, music and look at the real problem PEOPLE.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
The UK will become a nation of sporks.
You shouldn't need to stab tomatoes if you're using a proper well-sharpened 8" chef's knife. Don't listen to the kooky armholes who try to convince you to use a serrated knife for that purpose. (or really any purpose except bread) Just keep a steel by the knife drawer and use stones every couple of uses, or get a bunch of knives and take 'em to the supermarket every couple weeks.
I don't know if the points are actually necessary for anything (fruit cup maybe?), but they're also a by-product of sharpening the knife. Even if you manufacture a blade with a rounded tip, it's going to develop a point after a few sharpenings.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I would put a tax on all people who stand in water!
Also, all foreigners living abroad.
Haven't lived in the UK. Have spent a lot of time in Compton and Venice in LA. Does that count?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
"young people feel that the law has no control over them. They just feel that they can go on the streets and do whatever they like." Well, isn't that the reality of the situation? The law serves as a punishment more than a deterrent. That is how it has always been.
This might be alarmingly straightforward for the British masters of nuance, but how about allowing people to defend themselves from nutters with knives?
Why not knife taxes?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Hi Vlad,
And with that display of stunning intellect, I stop reading your post and can feel safe in calling you an utter twit.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In my honest opinion, reading about knife crime in newspapers induces fear in young people, potentially resulting in their getting knives to protect themelves.
Maybe we should tax the violent newspapers!
Surely it would make more sense to reduce the cost of video games? I know more people that have been the victim of violent crime purely by kids mugging them for that xbox or game the kid couldn't afford.
- Dan
young people 'feel that the law has no control over them. They just feel that they can go on the streets and do whatever they like.'
Seing that Mr Taylor is the father of Damilola Taylor, who was murdered, I almost feel ashamed to disagree with him. After such a painful loss it is not diffifult to understand that he will desperately want to see something, almost anything, done. But I don't think this is the right way - young people don't oppose the rules or disrespect the law simply because they don't feel that breaking them has no consequences. If that were the case, then harsher penalties would really work and prevent crime - which unfortunately they don't.
I think the problem is that some grow up feeling they are not part of normal society - they don't feel they receive the benefits of society and don't feel they owe society anything; so why follow the rules? Harsher punishments or taxing things does not address this problem - it would make more sense to try to find a way to integrate young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into society. They are perfectly able to follow the rules of the group or gang they belong to.
But, money is a man made concept. It's just paper, or bits on a computer. How can there possibly be a lack of money?
The problem is then with the nature of money.
Silvio Gesell has an interesting take on the subject.
Deleted
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
Thomas Jefferson
... but we could start repealing the various laws and precedents that steadily erode any necessity to take personal responsibility for the consequences of your actions.
At a massively high level, the various bailouts; a perfect example of how to profit from taking massive risks and not lose anything when the result goes against you
At an individual level a person sues because they tripped on the pavement; what on earth makes people think that the pavement is perfectly flat in the first place such that they don't need to watch where they're going?!
Instead of picking a single arbitrary source as the root of all evil, why not try shifting society so that people consider consequences of their actions, short term and long term?
The UK outlawed the ability of it's own citizens to defend themselves and therefore made sheep out of men and helpless herds for the wolves of society. Taxing video games won't solve the issues resulting from British societal suicide; allowing folks to defend themselves would be a significant step towards leveling the playing field. Most criminals have a sense of self-preservation and won't attack someone if they think they can actually defend themselves - and that the law would be on the defenders side. If they are going to tax, make it so the money goes to training folks how to protect themselves and giving them the means to do so!!
... this kid got stabbed by a video game or what? I'm confused....
Young people don't think they can go in the streets and do anything they like because they listen to rap or play violent games. Young people go in the streets and commit violent crime because they feel frustrated and disenfranchised by the actions of the aristocracy and self righteous people like Richard Taylor! It's an act of rebellion against candy coated repression.
If you want to do something about the problem of violent street youth. Open a resource center providing services to homeless and disenfranchised youth. And for God sakes, stop listening to idiots like Richard Taylor.