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Turkish Ministry Recommends Banning Minecraft -- Over Violence
An anonymous reader writes: Minecraft is known for a lot of things. It's a fantastic creative outlet and the digital sandbox of youngsters' dreams, for instance. The game has also been known to raise the ire of unrelated companies who somehow think all that creativity by gamers is something that can be sued over. It's known for amazing user-generated content, including games within games and replicas of entire cities. The nation of Turkey is known for very different things. It's a country that absolutely loves to censor stuff, for instance. And, thanks to recent developments, Turkey is also known as a great place to get a front-row look at the incredible violence done by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. But the Turkish government has a plan to keep its youngsters from witnessing too much violence: it is calling to ban Minecraft.
Adults tend to get nervous about insanely popular trends or hobbies with kids that they don't exactly understand. They're banning it because it's so stupidly popular with kids, not because it's violent. The problem is that it's such an inherently non-violent game that they end up looking rather silly describing it as such, essentially proving the point that they have no idea what the game actually plays like.
Of course, they'd look even more foolish if they told the truth, which is "We don't know exactly what this Minecraft thing is that our kids are spending all day playing. So, we decided to ban it just to be safe."
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Are you sure, it's the COUNTRY that absolutely loves to censor stuff - and not its (elected) government?
Turkey is a large and very diverse nation - been there twice so far and absolutely loved the parts around Istanbul we visited and the people we met. I just don't think it does the normal people there any justice to leave statements like "their country loves censoring" unchallenged.
While here in Europe there were some long post 9/11 discussions on whether muslim headscarves should be banned - at the same time in (muslim) Turkey, there were demonstrations against the government, because their government wanted to LIFT a headscarf ban at Turkish universities.
This.
If the backwards Turkish government has proven one thing time and again then that it has not the slightest clue about technology and makes even look US senators like the next gen legislator from the future.
Seriously, any time you're embarrassed about how little your legislator knows about technology and how to use it, just look towards Turkey and you instantly feel better.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The interesting thing about Turkey is that there is (was) a more or less common belief / acceptance of in the secular state as founded by Kemal(Atatürk), with the military having a specific charge to defend that secularity if necessary. They have stepped in before when things got a bit too religious, but the ease with which Erdogan has swept aside those military, cultural and constitutional defenses shows how hard it is to actually defend against a popular leader with followers united through faith. It's also a valuable lesson on the fragility of democracy. Erdogan purportedly said: "Democracy is like riding a tram: once you reach your destination, you get off"; now he may not have actually said it, but he is certainly acting it.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
That doesn't make me feel better; it makes me feel worse. It's like when my neighbor let his dog run rampant over my lawn for a few months; the fact that there was a major oil-spill destroying thousands of square miles in the Gulf at the time in no way made me appreciate the "good fortune" of having dozens of dog turds scattered about my property.
Rather than take hidden pleasure in somebody else's misfortune, I'd rather we just get rid of the dog turds in our own government. *That* would make me feel better.