Slashdot Mirror
Brazil Bans Doom, Duke Nukem and 4 Other Games
CaptainCarrot writes "This story at Yahoo has the details. Apparently the police there think that some nutcase who went on a shooting spree in Sao Paulo last month was copying a scene from Duke Nukem. That he was also a coke fiend seems to be besides the point. "
I just think that this blaming of games for peoples actions in getting way out of control. I'm gonna go play some smash brothers. Does that mean I feel like taking a hammer to my best friend? Blame the game! It's not my fault!; I'm being influenced by pixels and colors.. It seems the world is in a sad state when it can blame computer games for peoples actions.
Anyway thats enough 2 cents from me for a while. I feel like playing some quake and then going out and commiting random acts of crime. When I get caught I will blame it on quake. Or plead insanity.. whichever I can get away with
OK, DOOM is really really bad, but Quake, Quake II, Quake III, Daikatana (did that ever get released?), Unreal, and who knows how many other games are perfectly OK? What the hell?!?!? At least they could try to be consistent with their censorship.
:) If you like dark comedies and FPS, you'll probably like Blood. The literary references are great, and there really is a lot of humor throughout the game. Also, the continuity between levels is better than any FPS I've seen before or since.
However, I've got to admit it, Blood is a very violent game. If you ever get a chance, play it.
closest I been so far
Was not made my 3d realms...
Wow!, I guess authorities must get up to date with video games.
I wonder how many copies of these games are still sold. Even en Brazil this games are really oldies.
The measure seems to match the age of the games: really outdated.
At least that leaves us about 4 years of Q3 to play before they ban it.
No, I don't like sigs
Hell, he was most likely just frustrated with those crappy DN controls; I sure feel more aggravated having to deal with that wretched excuse of a game. Another fine example of your tax money at work.
Interesting, this was posted as game news, not as a censorship article...
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E2 IN2 IE?
> However, this is only a version of the >prosecution, which also stated that Meira had >traces of cocaine in his blood and had in the > >past been treated for stress-related problems.
:) 3am on 4 hours of sleep :)
When I was in high school, some kid in a nearby town slammed his car into building, killing himself. There was a note about how all his hard work had been for naught and all that sort of stuff and that's why he decieded to take his own life. When the police interviewed his friends they learned that in a recent game of Dungeons and Dragons, his character who he had worked on for nearly a year had fallen victim to a fatal curse or something like that.
When they interviewed other people they learned a injury was forcing him to miss out on his Senior year of high school football, and his girlfriend had just left him.
Guess which one that Media picked up on and blamed? Being in a town just a short ways away, we felt the impact a lot. I play RPGs a lot and during this time I was insulted a few times and even talked to by teachers at school, didn't like being called a satanist much either.
Almost all of the people who spoke to me had read the original news report which stated that D&D possibly caused this sucide run, very very few people read the later articles which started to point towards his other, real world problems.
Point I'm trying to make (in a long round about way and what is probably beaten to the ground by now:)) is this: how many of these cases where Video games have been blamed initially have actually turned out to be "not the whole story"?
I think there's just a whole idea of media and people as a whole who just run to the first thing they see and say "That's the reason!!"
Sorry for the ramble
The article refers to the game "Armageddon", which I have never heard of. The description sounds a lot like Carmageddon... Always a good time!
One error I noticed in the story...Brazil had previously banned the car racing game "Carmaggedon" which the article refers to as "Armageddon"
One final note...I think this too shall pass. Does anyone besides me remember about 9 or 10 years ago, when Dungeons & Dragons was all over the news because some kids had used a sword to kill one of their neighbors and they played D&D all the time? This same type of hysteria and irrational attacks that focus on video games now focused on D&D then. Quite a few schools banned it from being played. Guess what? D&D is still here. 10 years from now, violent video games will still be here, and the level of detail will be incredible. Check here if you want to see what level of realism video games will be attaining next summer.
This hysteria shall pass, and shall come again some other time. Kinda like Halley's comet, only more frequent and quite a bit more annoying.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
I can't beleive this.. it is really idiotic.. using this logic they should ban all movies/books/novels that have killing, fighting and/or violence..
btw, is there any one still playing Doom these days ??
So I was runnin around fraggin people and I saw this story and I just had to put my gun down. I said "Yo, what the !@#$^&? That's FUBAR, they have gone AWAL! Somene call the MPs to get those crazy Brazilians outta here!" After this I picked my BFG back up and started killing my enemies.
Did you notice how that was, like, FICTION?! HELLO! Wake up you Brazilian freaks! I mean aren't you the ones doing those military experiments on people and stuff? Sheesh!
yeah
Sigh. It makes me so mad to see that people can blame everything but the system. "Hey, not everybody is a maniac running around shooting people. What could have caused this person to go on a killing spree? Hmm." Then insert your usual scapegoat reason. TV, movies, video games.
Maybe it's because mommy and daddy didn't raise this individual correctly.
But, what does logic have to do with it?
I think people find it hard to pinpoint if these games are the cause of increased violence in society or the symptom. I believe they are certainly a perpetuation of the desensitization towards violence but it is pointless to classify them as symptom or cause since the genie is already out of the bottle. Unfortunately the media and politicians like an escape goat and these are very easy to target. It is easy to blame an outside source so that you will not have to look to yourself. If we as society blame the games then we do not have to blame ourselves for the violence.
Why should a harmless game be baned? whats the use of doing that when theres probley mroe violence on the news now days then there is in games like doom, doom is a simple fantasy game, if you can't tell real life from a game then your a) too young to being playing that game or b) have a mental problem of some sort. i use to play doom, duke 3d, mortal kombat etc all the time and i'm a perfectly normal person now, i still get a kick out of snipering someone in a game of action quake but that doesn't mean i'm gonna take a drive down to the gun shop and buy a rifle and start shooting people at random...
You know, it's really hard to kill three people and wound eight with an automatic handgun if automatic handguns are illegal.
Let's how long it takes for the gun nuts in the audience to moderate this down.
When gunmen attacked a bar on the southern outskirts of Sao Paulo last weekend, killing four women and three men in a hail of bullets, perhaps the most terrifying feature of the incident was its sheer normality. It was Sao Paulo's 28th multiple shooting so far this year, and such carnage is a familiar weekend event in several other Brazilian cities.
[...]
The Justice Ministry estimates that the country's 160m people hold perhaps 20m guns, of which only 1.5m are registered. According to a recent United Nations report, 88% of murders in Brazil are committed with firearms, a higher figure than in any other country.
Duke Nukem is virtual. If you live in Brazil, you play the game for real.
He felt like kicking ass and chewing bubble gum...
:)
But he was alll outta gum!
Kicking ass works just as well.
... bring in the Katz. (time for sleep)
I am constantly growing tired of hearing about "such-and-such" caused "so-and-so" to do "this-horrible-deed". When are people going to be held responsible for their actions? Blaming sick people's actions on anything from games, to TV, to (even our beloved friend) the internet has been a nice skapegoat for the press and people to say "Well, I'll be sure to look out for that." I'm sure that whoever that man was, he would have done the same thing regardless of whether he had played alot of duke nukem or doom, etc, etc. Plainly, this man was sick.. Instead of governments, parents and societies blaming people's actions on things that (i beleive) have no relevent baring on their own "free-will" actions, other steps should be taken. The Brazialian governemt has wasted time, money and manpower on banning things that are just going to become easily attainable through the internet anyway. Why not instead do they invest more time, money and manpower into finding ways to help people who are afflicted with these sorts of mental illnesses. I remember when Ice T's "Copkiller" album was released, and it was banned through-out a large portion of North America.. Any police shootings that happened afterward were then blamed because the shooter "had an Ice-T album." Wake up. People do horrible things because they want to, not because they see or hear them in games, TV music, etc.
Note how the people quick to jump up and say "violent video games don't make people kill each other" will still say "drugs make people kill each other". Maybe no inanimate objects are at fault for what people choose to do.
No doubt...hey Jon, where the hell are you? Aren't you going to come and tell how this relates to the Chicago riot of '68...I'm just asking 'cause I know how you like to take old news, relate it to your current crusade and then babble like a whiny little bitch about it...
Incredibile. In Brasil there are Death Teams, that kills children without a home, in the streets.
D&D killed my dog, you bastard!
It's people like you that make me sick.
Come on doctors now, smile on my penis, everybody piece it back together... right now, right now, right... now.
My first reaction was: those fucking brazilians are stupid, who cares about them. Then it occurred to me that a few hours ago my own Quebec government had banned smoking in the work place... for similar reasons. Smoking's bad for you vs violent games are bad for you... where's the difference?
Moral of the story: It can happen to anyone.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
Lets see,about a thousand different times and places.Computers are just a good scapegoat nowdays.chat on 'em if you want,but if anything goes wrong no matter what it is,blame it on a computer.Y2K hasn't been a huge help either...
Yeah, I still play it (using Zdoom.) Even though I have Quake 1 and 2, and Unreal tournament, Doom still has unique qualities and a level of fun equal to or greater than the new games. Plus, it's cheap and it will run on almost anything.
Banning theese games seems like a gross over reaction, the games are certainly not the real question here. However, the games reflect, in some way, the society as a whole, and that should be bothersome..
;-)
I haven't played games for a while (Quake II proably the most recent), and one have to wonder - where is the fun in games like Postal? It seems that fast 3D games have become synonyms for fast gory violent games. Seems unessesary to me.
(Go Tetris! Go Boulder Dash! Go nibbles!)
// Simon
Make no mistake about it. Games do influence kids in a major way. Warcraft, for example, can lead kids down a corrupt path of illegal logging, which is a very big concern in Brazil. And do we really want our young fishermen to have unrealistic expectations of fish sizes when they delve into games like Trophy Bass Fishing?
were going to ban a video game because it "trains" people for violence or some such I would ban Rogue Spear. I jump back in my seat when I get nailed in that game (due in part to my speakers turned to maximum). The realism of Rogue Spear train people for tactical situations alot more than Quake with its rocket jumping and plasma guns. Video games are the LAST reason people kill other people unless you're a fscking camper out on the up on the quad damage platform. I suppose video games are being banned because coke and selective fire weapons have already been banned. Or so it goes.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Robin, would you like something to wash down that foot? The Brazilian government chose to make violent video games the scapegoat -- you made it cocaine.
People like to draw conclusions that match their personal convictions and blame the problem on something else. If you like violent games, you blame cocaine, and vice versa. Personally, I think it's got everything to do with boredom, watching overdubbed American sitcoms on Brazilian TV. We'll never REALLY know why it happened -- trying to find the WHY and pointing the finger elsewhere isn't going to do any good.
Speaking of futile quests to find meaning in things that have none, I feel another JonKatz article coming on...
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E2 IN2 IE?
Why must such tragic things such as this be blamed on video games? It seems even more common now, with the Columbine situation, than in the past. I'm assuming the media and governments need some place to put the blame, rather than themselves, and video games seemed to meet the criteria. I've yet to come across a game that will get me so worked up and enraged, that I will decide to go on a shooting spree in public. Also, one question in regards to the article, since when was DOOM published by 3D Realms? I thought GT Interactive did the old id publishing... w3rd.
SYSOP ('sih-sop) n.: the guy laughing at your typing.
Well.. nevermind. Looks like they might have actually completed the game. Two years behind schedule.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
It is not so much that we fear what we do not understand, as that we scapegoat what we do not enjoy. That which may be scapegoated may be suppressed; that which we enjoy ourselves we refuse to live without.
A recent poster mentioned a case in which, faced with the choice of blaming a suicide upon either a high school breakup, a sudden injury ending a football career, or a loss of a Dungeons and Dragons character, the media placed blame firmly upon the latter.
One can complain about the unfairness, or one can analyze it to determine the source of its absurdity in utterly plain terms.
Suppose, for a moment, that the media had chosen to scapegoat the breakup as the cause of the suicide. Immediate result--teen relationships deemed dangerous, parents advised to keep close watch on their out-of-control youth...but it doesn't work, because parents both remember their own, non-suicidal relationships and directly experience the estrangement caused if they meddle in teen relationships. Similarly, the many teens that had survived and moved on after a breakup realize the inaccuracy of blaming all breakups for the results of one breakup, and wouldn't care what their parents said anyway.
What's interesting, is while all parties involved in this scenario could *understand* the suicide in terms of a breakup, it's an ineffective scapegoat, and is thus curiously unsatisfying. If you can't suppress anything, the theory goes, you haven't done anything. It Could Happen Again.
What's really sad is that it's a direct consequence of being unable to put a dollar value on life! After all, if you absolutely *have* to do something, and you're not willing to take "acceptable losses" on the life side, you have to do something: Find non-life "acceptable losses" that are, of course, as little of a loss to you as possible. Teen dating is just too familiar to eliminate, so it's unsatisfying to blame.
And what of the two remaining options--football and D&D? Football's an American tradition. Only satanic freaks play D&D(note the distinct lack of understanding). Guess which makes the better Acceptable Loss.
And the real tragedy? Isolation is the real killer, but nobody wants to be forced to incur the "acceptable loss" of being friends with the isolated.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Really, does anyone think this is going to work? Brazil is a country beset with many problems. Drug abuse, AIDS, miscegenation, murder, infantcide, and alcoholism. How can these problems all be blamed on computer games? These problems existed in Brazil for many years. In the 1940's when Orson Welles tried to make a movie titled It's All True exposing this corrupt hedonistic society, it was deemed too sensational for American tastes. The studio cut off its funding, destroyed much of the footage, and would not let it be released. It would not be until 1993, 51 years after it was filmed (and after Welles's death), that salvaged segments of this shocking film could be released. So you can see that the problems of 1942 are still there today. And who could blame DOOM in 1942? Digital Computers were just being conceived. Brazil's problems are with its people, not with the games they view on their computers.
Well, banning those games is one sure way to make them more popular. Speaking for myself, anything that is made illegal by a bunch of arrogant, spineless, and simple-minded politicians is something that I'm going to try, and definitely something that I'm going to support.
How long do you suppose it'll be before there's sites to download these games all over Brazil? If they try to shut down those sites, how hard do you suppose it will be to find a place in the US or elsewhere else to make the games freely available?
Prohibition does not work! It failed in the US against alcohol, it's failing against marijuana everywhere in the world, and it will fail against this, as well. Unfortunately, the people that run for office are rarely of a calibre that can learn from history, and almost invariably doomed (sorry for the pun) to repeat it.
Cocaine is their number 1 cash crop. Can't crack down on the guys who grow that stuff. 'Sides which they kind of run the place. And shoot you if you try to crack down on them. So blame the video games. Much safer. No one was ever dragged from their car and shot execution style by a pissed off video game cartel.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Ok I agree I've spammed a little this past week if thats what you want to call it. Yah, I slipped my link into practically every message that I wrote. Basically all I was trying to do is let people know that there are some good deals out there and I think we're offering a pretty damn good deal. We are just starting out (as of oct.1999) so we are a tiny little company of four who can barely make ends meet let alone pay for a t1 line. You have to understand who we are competing against... Multi-million dollar webhosting companies and domain registrars like Network Solutions. We don't have the manpower nor the money to produce the kind of advertising that they compete against us with. So I figured maybe I could get the word out by posting a few comments in slashdot. Now I realize I was wrong in trying to advertise on Slashdot. So I won't do it again. The reason I gave my personal email account is because I didn't want to clog up our business account but you can send your two bits to it if you want at: nathan@npsis.net Sorry for the annoyance.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Have you seen the new version of "Frogger" (really)? It is awesome.
I noticed the above was moderated down. Let me say this: I WILL NEVER SAY WHAT THE MODERATORS WANT ME TO SAY. I will speak my own mind and not give a FUCK for what moderators think.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
It beats out Los Angeles by a wide mile. I don't have the exact figures, but it is in the thousands yearly.
The "theatre massacre" had an enormous repercussion in Brazilian media. The first move from the ministry was to restrict "The Fight Club" to sessions after 10PM and to adults only. Not a good deal IMHO -- the shooter is an adult, and it happened after 10PM anyway! Besides, the shooter declared that he didn't watch the movie before acting. What if it happened in Disney's "Tarzan", and if the guy was addicted to Civ or Tetris? Would they ban that too?
Last month a bank inside my school was robbed. The day after, they checked everyone's badges to enter the school. What's the idea? Would the bank robbers return using bad badges or something?
There's a clear difference between a guy that is already a psycho and happen to have certain (very popular) games in his computer, and all the rest of game players. How many of you slashdot readers have played Doom or DN and went to the streets exploding barrels and shooting people?
Brazil is a funny place indeed.
and that's exactly what I wanted you to say!
(Posted anonymously 'cause I want the moderation to stay that way.)
Moderation as trolling.
I love it.
OK, computer games, or violent movies or X does not cause people to go out on a shooting spree.
However, will someone admit that by playing something like Quake, the player's aim in reality may be improved?
Can we keep saying that computer games, or violent movies, or X are 100% completely innocent? How about 99.99% innocent?
Does anyone understand what I'm trying to get at here?
The uncapitalized "y" is the very height of ironic commentary. It's really sad that whoever moderated this didn't realize that it was an extremely sublime attack on attitudes held by almost every poster so far on this article.
Ah, what I'd give for a few moderators who "get it"..... Not that I ever write anything that intelligent, but I'd love to see it get the recognition it deserves.
Brazil blames the games, Rob blames the coke, the rest of you blame the guns. What the hell, I'll blame Bill Gates. Murder is nothing new. I don't recall Cain ever playing Doom, snorting coke, or owning a Smith and Wesson. Maybe I missed that chapter.
Officer: Why did you do it?
Dude: Nerf Arena Blast made me do it.
Cain didn't do coke!
He did crystal meth!
...never accomplish through analysis of a situation what you can cover up by a good knee-jerk reaction.
-- the opinions stated above aren't those of my employer. in fact, they're probably not even my own. you know what, ju
This is so fucking sick. When I was in the army, we had this dude in our room who listened to all sorts of speed and death metal and the like, you know "ddddieeeee, kill muahghaghhu kill mghghhghm" sung with a low guzzling sound. We played beat-em-up Playstation games on our free time. We had some athlete types pumping creatine and some other shit (steroids?) before they went weightlifting. It was winter so we had people drinking cough syrup with DXM and very little sorbitol in it. We hated one of our trainers. So there were all the elements: violent music, "drugs", violent games, guns and hate.
Then we went shooting with assault rifles and live ammo. And guess what? Nobody got killed!
Had we played Doom or Quake or whatever, I don't think the situation would have changed, not one bit.
If this is really true, someone hand me a BFG and I'll show 'em all. ha ha.
The above post was humorous... video games do not cause people to kill, perhaps the reverse is true, violent people are attracted to violent video games, thus they already possessed the desire before playing the game.
Get a clue brazil or the next time i'm playing x-pilot I'll make sure to bomb the hell out of your country.
1) This is a federal judge ruling. It will, probably, be overturned.
2) Some one here blamed guns for the shooting. The gun he was using is illegal here. So much for gun control.
Maybe they just banned these to quiet down the folks who must have something "external" to blame. Forcing retailers to remove these from the shelves probably didn't make many retailers too upset. They didn't make them do anything with Quake II, Quake III, Rainbow Six, Unreal, etc... This way, the gov't was able to do what gov'ts are good at. Satisfy the whining ignorant masses without upsetting the people with the bucks.
The police and justice here (I live in Sao Paulo - Brazil) are "TWO PIECES OF S**T", and if a crazy guy goes to a theater (the movie was Fight Club) with a Machine Gun and shoot lots of people, they have to do something just to "show" they're doing something. So what would be better than banning some old famous games they found at killer's house? (hey! it'll put then on TV!) If they try to ban some "new games" they'll make the big stores unhappy (who wants this ?).
In fact banning games will not stop people playing them. About 80% of the games here are pirated copies. Here, you easily can buy an "unoffical" game CD for R$10-R$15 (US$5-7) while the offical one may cost R$100 or more (US$50+)
PS.: when I say crazy guy I really means CRAZY (NUTS, BRAIN DAMAGED). The guy was under psycho treatment.
PS1: I don't think it's cool to buy or sell pirated games.
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sorry about my poor spelling
I'm Brazilian. I even live in São Paulo. I submitted this the day it happened. I was rejected. Now that it's old news, it gets posted.
I used to trust /. to inform me. Guess it's time to get on with my plan of a news site, now that I have the server.
</rant>
No, no comments on the story. I even have some, but I'm too disappointed to remember them.
Oh, actually I do have an update. They later added a lot of other games to the list, including Quake. Nice thing to do on the week before Xmas.
Anyone remember Bed Bugs - for the C64 I think.
Whew. Sorry for the long post...
Go home you rectum ranger.
However, let's put things in perspective - Brazil would never ban a game for nudity or sexual depictions. As wrong as this action is, it should be compared with American tolerance - even mainstream celebration - of hardcore violence, couple with their puritanical fear of sexuality (as if people aren't supposed to be sexual before the age 21!) Despite the wrongheadedness of the approach, I think Brazil has its priorities right.
Coincidentally enough, I'm in Rio do Janeiro at the moment.
More clueless, uninformed clowns in places of power making decisions they are not even remotely qualified to make. That's my definition of government and again it applies..
Why are you asking for confirmation of your questions? Either you know why you think and believe the way you do or you are just parroting something taught by others. Consensus doesn't mean correct.
The theme presented in the article is that some Brazilian officials believe that the games had some influence on the man. That Brazilian officials were most probably ( I can't know for sure ) motivated by their fear of the press. The people in the theater just want to know why some unstable freak was allowed to kill them without provocation.
My belief is that different people have different weaknesses. This fellow may have had a weakness for believing that aliens were attacking Brazil and needed to be stopped. I know people that have had weaknesses for ladies other than their wives, alcohol, drugs and money. Some of them no longer have to worry about their wives ( or their houses, cars, etc..) or their old jobs. Just because one person has a weakness dosen't mean that everyone has the same problem.
Your question: "However, will someone admit that by playing something like Quake, the player's aim in reality may be improved?"
This question probably seems valid if someone hasn't fired a gun. Its more like assuming that someone who has played TombRaider must be able to swim because Lara goes swimming in each game. Or that someone must be able to ride a bicycle because they watched re-runs of The Brady Bunch(tm) or be able to play basketball because they are tall.
Moving a dot around and clicking a mouse button aren't the same thing as firing a real weapon. The games help some people to improve their hand & eye coordination.
And about your "Can we keep saying that computer games, or violent movies, or X are 100% completely innocent? How about 99.99% innocent?" questions.
How can a game be guilty or innocent? If a book describes a bank robbery, is the book guilty of something? A person can be guilty or innocent but not an object. If this were not the case, then my car would be the one guilty of speeding, not me.
People make choices everyday. I usually choose between lunch choices, but I have never chosen to kill someone. Some people have chosen to take the life of another person. The killer made that choice, it didn't just happen without any responsibility.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
That's what microsoft WANTS you to believe ;-))
(Cartel, monopoly, what's the difference?)
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SCO employee? Check out the bounty
So in Brazil Quake et. al. are now even cooler underground games you have to smuggle in, with clubs you have to know the password to get into, like Prohibition era US 'speak easy's' with Gangsters make loads of cash. Certainly the Brazillian mafia is pleased - another black market to exploit. Boojum
Oh, come on now, this "political correct" language has gone too far! According to what I read in the news, that guy had been interned at a mental hospital for treatment of schizophrenic paranoia. He had delusional persecution ideas. He was released because there are laws in Brazil saying that a person who has not commited any crime cannot be held at a mental hospital against his or his family's wishes.
Well, a wacko is a wacko, he had been diagnosed by psychiatrists as a wacko. If the law says he is not a wacko, just someone with a "different perspective", then the law has been proved wrong by this guy's actions.
As for gun control, he was using a gun that is illegal in Brazil. However, that gun can be readily bought in some states in the USA, so it's not hard at all to get, just add the price of an air ticket to the USA. And don't think that outlawing the gun in all of the USA will help, if it can't be outlawed simultaneously in all the 165 (180? 195?) countries of the world, gun control will not work. The Brazilian police has caught drug dealers carrying made-in-USA Armalite M-16 rifles that, according to the serial numbers, had been used in Vietnam. How can you stop one of the poorest countries in the world from exporting its war booty for some badly needed cash?
Just as drug control doesn't work. This guy had taken cocaine, which is illegal everywhere (except in the marxist guerrilla dominated regions of Colombia), but he was a fifth year medical student, with ample access to any kind of legal drug.
So, what is the answer? Discrimination, of course, as in "the act of observing a difference". We should stop trying to treat everyone as equals. Everyone should have equal *opportunities*, but this does not imply equal *results*. You should have exactly the same chances as everyone else, but if you fuck-up, well, then fuck you.
from my story submissions page...
1999-12-13 11:26:44 Another country jumps on banning bandwagon (articles,news) (rejected)
wtf? My msg even posted the exact same damn url for the news story. this news is ~4 days old...
and while i'm at it.. i hate a browser that auto-selects the submit button when you hit the return key by mistake (micro$oft pos...)
-'fester
I have been at both cities. People in Medellin just take violence for granted, in São Paulo they are still trying to do something about it. But I have never seen barbed wire rolls ("concertina wire") above walls anywhere in Brazil, as I have seen in Los Angeles, New York, London, and Paris.
I think they should ban violent books/movies, too.. Maybe they should even go so far as to make violence itself illegal. That way, someone caught shooting people would already be in trouble---instead of finding our what media forced him to do it and then have to make that media illegal.
Ok, this is something that makes my blood boil - blaming everything but the individual for a violent act or crime. These idiot politicians and all of their idiot constituents who buy what they say - "the problem is guns" or "it's the video games that caused it" or "it's the violence in films". From time immemorial, there have been violent people, period. These people will commit violence no matter what the atmosphere, no matter what weapons are available or what video games are on the store shelf, or what violent movies are or aren't playing at the cinema. Some people just have problems, or are mentally unstable. Certain politicians (or political viewpoints) believe that every person can be happy, and well adjusted with the right social engineering in place, or the right goverment programs. That won't ever be the situation, in reality. Some people are just hosed, evil, mentally deranged, rotten, etc. They're born that way, and can't be changed. They just need to deal with these people as individuals, not get distracted as to "why" - just deal with the person. Stop wasting time with lengthly court procedures and then country club prisons for incarcerations, and then letting them out of prison before there sentence has ended. If an individual is a problem, put them away, or execute them if they're muderous, remove them from society. Don't make everyone else suffer by taking rights away from the rest (and majority) of law abiding society. It's funny but annoying, that the same politicians who are proponents of policies that assert being soft on crime and criminals are the same politicians who push for controls and restrictions on the rights of law abiding citizens when the same criminals they were soft on to begin with, commit violent crimes or go on a shooting spree. We really just need "stupid politician" control!
Hmf... I try being polite for a fellow AC and look what I get... From now on we are enemies... you and I...
Actually,its not hard to kill and wound,were handguns illegal.
This is what the foolish governments that disarmed
their citizens are finding out.Criminals have no
trouble aquiring weapons.Crime rates have RISEN.
Its far easier to force your will on an unarmed
citizen than one who may or may not be carrying.
Think about that last sentence;was it meant from the point of view of a criminal or government,the
point is,it doesnt matter.
Video games arent going to be hard to aquire
either.Sadly though when a child does aquire one,
what will the penalty be?This is a country where
in the capital,the police have no trouble hunting
and killing homeless street children in order to
keep them from begging,picking pockets and otherwise
hassling tourists.What will be the penalty for
owning/distibuting dangerous video games? I hate
to think about it.
When a single armed citizen could have brought this nut down,there was no need for so many to
pay with their lives or health.
So arm yourselves,educate yourselves and practice so you will be effective and an asset
rather than a burden.
When this FAD of political correctness and
thoughtless liberalism fades(and it will)as
generation x grows up and discovers reality,
we can all breath a sigh of relief as we drop
that Quake cd into the tray,knowing that we are free to do so.Free,because an armed citizenry
has nothing to fear from its gov't. and gives its gov't.the only powers it will have.
So think before you vote Socialist(democrat),do
i want the freedom to play whatever games i choose?
Shall i trust Big Brother to legislate more
"politically correct"choices for me for the
"common good".Remember,there is no such thing as
"Social Justice",its just a PC way of saying
socialism and socialism is just a convenient way
for the few to rule and abuse the many.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I was playing in the sandbox, and came across a gooey substance.
To my recollection it was playdough, but now that I think of it... cat poop?
The human mind is something that no one realy knows how it works. Do I belive that this games, movies and the like that are violent could make a person go out and kill? Yes and no. This games could influence them as much as tetris or any other game for that matter. Any game have the ability to frustate a player, you probably already felt this way by one or two games. This is also true for movies, a movie could trigger something in one person that wouldn't exist in almost everyone else. A romantic movie could trigger a frustation of a viewer.
Should tertris or the romantic movie be banned? My answer is no, since the danger is in the person and not the game or movie that trigered the reaction. Ban one triger and other thing would trigger the feeling is just a matter of time.
--
"take the red pill and you stay in wonderland and I'll show you how deep the rabitt hole goes"
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
Anyone remember the environmental summit a few years back in Brazil? The city they had it in used to have a lot of extremely poor homeless street children livin gin it. that is until the summit came. they magically vanished. governments dont care about death or violence, they only care if someone else is muscling in on their action. This whole 'video games are bad' thing is going to pave the way for a total withdrawal of freedoms including speech, assembly(cant have a LAN party...), and who knows what else. hitlers germany started with gun control laws.
While I don't think that it's the best course of action for Goverments to ban certain games I think this will start happening more and more. While I doubt that it would ever happen in the US, I think certain governments will, out of desperation, try banning certain violent games.
Up until recently, games have been relatively unrealistic. To be honest, while Quake III arena and Unreal Tournament have stunning graphics & AIs, they just don't look real to the average person. The problem is, that it's not the average person that is getting a gun and starting a rampage at the local (insert place here). Somehow, certain people are just not able to distinguish between a game and reality. This is where I think the problem is. As graphic get more and more realistic the line between reallity and fantasy is going to become thinner and thinner and for those select few, the line will disappear all together. This in turn will cause certain governments to regulate what is available to their public. In the end, it still won't solve the problem.
I love to play Q3A and UT. I can distinguish between fantasy & reality, but can you say that about everyone you know?
they have lots of sex in media but there are laws restricting violence. IMHO that is preferable to the way the US does it (the opposite).. anyhow im too lazy to find a url, go search for 'doom' 'germany' 'violence' 'games' 'quake' whatever
in this century the governments of the world have murdered millions and millions of unarmed civilians.. most often their own people. China, Germany, Russia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, etc. Do you think those people would be happy about the gun laws? Do you think they would feel safe? Do you think anti-gun laws would save their lives? Some people say 'well governments have changed since then...' im sure lots of Muslims living in Yugoslavia thought the same thing in 1992... Im sure they changed their opinion once Milosevic started raping and murdering their families. There is a reason some leaders, like Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, encourage the people to get guns.. why? because Ghana had 5 military coups since 1957 and he doesnt want some insane military dictatorship murdering his people.
It seems that people around the world are following America's example of censoring/banning video games because of the "extreme" violence case. The fact of the matter is that there has been so much violence BEFORE real video games. All it is is people that are afraid and dont know what to do but they think that they DO know. At least people in Japan are enjoying their daily dose of violence blood and guts with REAL American-Like wrestling, Anime, and other television shows alike. They've accepted the fact that the shows arent harmful to the young people in their county and thats why it hasnt been banned. People in America and everywhere else that is trying to emulate america should open their eyes and minds and see that it really isnt video games that are screwing us, but the god damned system. Well, and Microsoft.
these sorts of insane fear-mongering rumors are as old as society... we pretend we are immune from this garbage because of our computers and videos... but we are not...judging from the number of people ejaculating over the situation. if u look at newspapers from 1900 they focus on the same thing 'wife kills husband b/c he leaves her' etc. meanwhile people are being slaughtered by the millions by corporations and governments, and they dont get a story in the entire paper, let alone the front page. i can only assume this has now come to be a tool of the media-savvy power elites such as james carville... who can mold any story to increase their power over normal people and use our own fears to stomp our souls into the ground as their slaves.
YOURE SO STUPID IM GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU VIDEO GAMES DONT MAKE PEOPLLE VIOLENT I GET SO PISSED OFF HEARING THAT YOU FUCKER! IM GONNA SHOOT YOUR STUPID ASS TO IMPROVE THE GENE POOL!
"It is not the first time Brazil banned popular computer games for excessive violence. Some time ago, it prohibited sales of ``Armageddon'' car race game, where players rack up points by running over pedestrians rather than setting speed records."
The game is called Carmageddon. The movie about the end of the world due to meteors was Armageddon. Although the end of the world is called The Apocalypse. Armageddon is the war to end all wars.
-PovRayMan
----------
Check out my blackbox styles
How does this get labled `Redundant' hen it is comment #3 and the first 2 amount to `First Post'. Perhaps `Troll' would be a better moderation, I must say that `Redundant' certainly dosen't fit, though.
JM
I quote, "Duke Nukem and Doom have been designed by 3D Realms Co." Last time I checked, Doom was designed by id Software.
Go figure.
These games are pretty much leading edge stuff in Brasil. Considering that computer hardware is at roughly four times the cost there than in the states, the typical gaming machine is a Pentium 200 with 32 MB of RAM, if people have gaming computers at all. Not everyone can just go to the local Comp-USA and pick up a PIII 600 for ~1500 USD.
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
You know, the real problem here is society's lack of understanding of coke fiends. The coke fiends at the local high school are picked on mercilessly by the jocks, the girl scouts and the geeks. And then people wonder why they go on murderous rampages.
Oh the horror of being a misunderstood cokefiend in our modern world.
Maybe in a barbaric, corrupt country like those in the American continents there is a semi-rational case for unrestricted access to firearms.
I'm just glad I don't live in such a cesspit.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
... you wouldn't know what socialist was if it jumped up and bit you on the bottom.
Your Democrats are fairly right-wing by everyone else's standards, and as for the Republicans, you might as well just call them the "American National Front" for want of something better.
Socialist is a bit more left-wing than moderate right-wing liberalism. In fact over here, socialist is every bit as unpermissive as the extreme right.
You have your liberals and your socialists all muddled up!
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
There's a difference between the reality of "traces of cocaine in his blood" and the hype "he was also a coke fiend." Typical Slashdot overreaction, blaming irrelevant details for a deeper problem.
Axes to grind? We don't have no stinkin' axes to grind!
--
I moderate at +3, Highest Scores, and I always mod down.
If you don't like it, vote me off the island.
Doom is a 5+ year old game! Is it even on the store shelves anymore!? It is not taking a very hard stance on violent games when you ban a game that is so out of date the graphics and playability make it laughable! What's next? Why not ban Wolfenstein 3D!?
I wish America would take such a hard stance. We're getting slack for putting bums in jail to keep them from freezing to death on the streets in the winter! Nobody wants to go downtown and see the lights and do any shopping at the stores down there if there are bums asking for change on the street. Personally I think they should either lock them up or put them in a forced labor camp. Their choice. Either that or just shoot them (quietly and dispose of the bodies.. no one will miss homeless people).
I don't recall a foreign invader ever setting foot in my country or even attempting. What about yours?
Gotta have that mandated canadian content. Radio stations, TV, pr0n mags and web sites. Why not with games too? Of course the monster's nationality is hard to prove. Maybe they they could just replace Doom's background music with something by Celine Dion?
Well, we did all but wipe out the indiginous Americans.
As for setting foot in my country, that's what we have an army, navy and airforce for.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
Don't forget that in Quebec the game must be in both official languages: FRENCH and english. The french monsters must be twice as large as the english monsters. Something for the Canadian Slashdot readers.
No. The point is, that we already knew it was gay.
Aenema
Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will.
I sure could use a vacation from this
Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks
Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.
Fret for your figure and
Fret for your latte and
Fret for your lawsuit and
Fret for your hairpiece and
Fret for your prozac and
Fret for your pilot and
Fret for your contract and
Fret for your car.
It's a
Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks
Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.
Some say a comet will fall from the sky.
Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves.
Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still.
Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits.
Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will cuz
I sure could use a vacation from this
Silly shit, stupid shit...
One great big festering neon distraction,
I've a suggestion to keep you all occupied.
Learn to swim.
Mom's gonna fix it all soon.
Mom's comin' round to put it back the way it ought to be.
Learn to swim.
Fuck L Ron Hubbard and
Fuck all his clones.
Fuck all those gun-toting
Hip gangster wannabes.
Learn to swim.
Fuck retro anything.
Fuck your tattoos.
Fuck all you junkies and
Fuck your short memory.
Learn to swim.
Fuck smiley glad-hands
With hidden agendas.
Fuck these dysfunctional,
Insecure actresses.
Learn to swim.
Cuz I'm praying for rain
And I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way.
I wanna watch it all go down.
Mom please flush it all away.
I wanna watch it go right in and down.
I wanna watch it go right in.
Watch you flush it all away.
Time to bring it down again.
Don't just call me pessimist.
Try and read between the lines.
I can't imagine why you wouldn't
Welcome any change, my friend.
I wanna see it all come down.
suck it down.
flush it down
And you want us to cower and hide and let the government take care of everything? The government might be your savior, but we Americans believe in taking care of ourselves.
Grand Theft Auto, Banned In Brazil. Perhaps they are just trying to be more like the Terry Gilliam movie? As to this, well, Brazil is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there (unless their government becomes more sane).
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
get a fucking clue.
millions of people have used coke. they didn't go on rampages.
millions of people play video games. they don't go on rampages.
many people who have gone on rampages never used drugs or played a video game.
these stupid legislatures, in the finest western tradition, are trying to fix something they don't even understand. so, they are fixing it wrong.
folks, it's probably going to be decades until someone really starts understanding the intricacies of the evolved primate brain and how to help the people with tendencies to go off like this, before they actually go off.
people have been doing this shit for a long time, it's not that new of a behavior. even chimpanzees freak out sometimes and start killing their own. Why? No one knows.
We can't fix something without understanding it! These fools are only making it worse with their "Control Freak" mentalities!
--SMALL DICKED, ANGRY, DRUNKEN IRISH MAN
...what kind of people are you?
Can you offend other people, saying things from other country that you know only some stereotype like "Carnaval", "Samba", "killing children" ?
Where is the Slashdot moderator ?
If for you discrimination and offense is a normal thing like it seems, thanks God for living in Brazil.
They go out to ban these things because a few people can't handle them... when you turn around and then there's hundreds of people who play these every day and are perfectly normal, gentle people that wouldn't ever shoot someone in real life.
look guys i leave in city where there happen to have a millitary base and i can claim taht this is non sence! c'mon the still blame videogame for violence and thing like this , scuz me but when i am on a killing spree on q3 i hit stupid key as fast as possible with as much mouse presision i can manage. Mmmmm and there are those human the state train with real weapon and real fighting style who's half wited so called the millitary who are never blamed for anything , c'mon ! . the military are in my point of view the most violent person in the dam world and of the most stupid ones . but who blame those killer boys when they dight throw the streets till 5h am ? nobody but I am a dangerous killer cuz i run in a mase with a mouse and keyboard at the sound of hardcore music .. something not quite right here !
It was not were Hitler went after war , it was were Menghelli (one of hitler s assisstants) went. Hitler commited suicide before the soviets invaded his bunker.
I wouldn't want to live in Brazil if their government is as arbitrary as it seems to be, but I used to know a Brazilian girl named Paloma who was really great. I also have a semi-family member living their, (my God-father's sister) and she seems happy.
Still, I guess unless I could switch hobbies from gaming to sex, I wouldn't be happy in Brazil ;-) As far as I know, there just aren't that many good games that are mainly about sex from a gamers perspective. For example, Japanese "girl games" in my experience have a really crude interface that makes the original King's Quest look state of the art. Of course, I suppose that the latest games of that type have a hard time making it out over here. I admit Three Sisters Story is ok... but it's not the kind of thing I could see anyone basing a lifestyle around like Quake, Doom, or a lot of other types of games.
On the other hand, I can legally buy Three Sisters Story in the US, just as long as I don't expect to pick it up at the local Babbages, but I won't pretend that American attitudes about sex don't cause a lot of misery and idiotic laws. Still, it would seems that seen through the narrow lens of gaming, the US is preferable to Brazil.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Ooosp, I meant outside of Sao Paulo, not Buenos Aires.
You may be right about people getting sick of playing 3D games. As a brazilian citizen, I would like to say you're completely wrong to say "Brazil is nuts", just because a judge, a single judge, decided to ban games, based on a crime (the details, you get by yourself). What if I said "America is nuts" because some Texas judge banned games like, say, Blood, because of the Unabomber? Although I know there is a lot of discussion in US about your so called freedom... I am pretty sure we get a lot more of freedom (even if outlawed) here, in the nuts country, than in your rich, civilized country.
Excuse me, "Anonymous Coward" (that really made sense now!), but since I don't know where are you from, let me say that we do have laws here, and media whores such as this judge that banned the games (no matter how old they are, I don't give a damn, for I believe this is a case of freedom in all of its ways, not of how elite the game is, or how cool are its graphics, ...). There are instances of courts here. Yes, just like in the US. You know what I mean. Your thought is the most common between people that know nothing about foreign affairs. You called Brazil "they", like if it was a common, public and voted decision by the brazilian people. No, it was not. Most of us do not agree with that. We are not against the freedom of speech, acts, and will. We have pollitical parties, ranging from liberals to communists. What I mean, after all, is that the decision was taken by a single person, with its (stupid, btw) thought that the killer was inspirated on duke nukem 3d (it could have been grand theft auto, if it was a car theft, who knows what these kind of people can think). The judge is very uninformed about the case and all he/she got was popularity. We were shocked with such a stupid, and, btw, unconstitucional decision, and will FIGHT these kind of acts. I hope you understood what the situation is.
What is the point? I can't understand why you and all those many many people who know nothing about why did that took place, what happened before the judge banned the games, etc etc. The judge (and me, btw) didn't give a damn for the reality of the games. They really are all violent. Quake 1/2 is violent. Quake 3 probably is/will be violent. But that's NOT the point of this discussion! We cannot rate if that is nice or not! Ok, rate the games 18 years only (like it should have been forever), becuase they are violent, but banning them is stupid, because people can do whatever they want of their lives, as soon as this is legal! And freedom IS legal in Brazil! (at least, thats what they say in our constitution, but, unfortunately, that goes to the pollitical scene, beyond this kind of board). So, I hope you ALL stop posting stupid things about the games themselves.
If, by 'my country', you mean the USA you don't recall it because you are a child and thus too young to recall such a thing.
Being a child is, however, no excuse for ignorance. Go to the library. Read a history book or took. The USA has had to deal with foriegn invaders more than once. Washington D.C has been taken and burned.
There is more to history than what you have seen and overheard others of ignorance say.
OK, so it's not Columbine-league "11 dead after several hundred rounds, dozens of shotgun shells, and a pile of bombs, where most of the kills were still at pointblank range in the library" scale of ineptitude, but it's still piss-poor marksmanship!
The fact that he is a coke fiend is beside the point too...
Don't give your opinion on subjects you aren't into. There are state-of-the-art computers here for the best price you can get from our broken economy. The common computer here is an AMD K6 300/400, at least. (I got one P200MMX for free from a friend upgrading to Pentium II, btw.)
For Sale: Colt New In Box preban AR15 carbine, 14.5" barrel w/Vortex flash suppressor to qualify as a non-NFA weapon. Collapsible stock, flat-top w/Aimpoint Comp-M. Comes w/10 30 rd. hi-capacity mags. $2500. Ship to FFL only. Not for sale to anyone in Kalifornia. Gun Safety is no accident.
The above is not really for sale, but instead to illustrate how stupid these gun laws are I advertised the going market price for a $600 rifle--$600 if not for the 1994 assault weapons ban which, the 1934 National Firearms Act, and an endless list of miscellaneous stupid laws that have been loopholed around.
Choose freedom!
Thanks moderators for tolerating racism.
..
"We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom."
Bitchslapped? Give Rob a bitchslap from bitchslapped.com.
This is a tiny example on what DUMB judges can do with a pen. The pathetic decision to prohibit these __VERY__ old games here are simply a warning to all of us who depends on Computer World. Whats the next step ? Shutting down the Internet to avoid Quake tournaments ?
Its very SAD and a real shame that they can do these crap. Ive seen on Slashdot similar weak decisions from ppl who doesnt live on the scene and simply doesnt matter on who or what their speech can affect!
Im brazillian, from Sao Paulo too and believe me folks, these game-prohibitting-crap is just another media influencied DUMB decision from our weak courts. Its a shame!
Its called sarcasm, and the point he was trying to make is that if someone is going to disobey laws against killing people, they aren't likely to obey GUN CONTROL LAWS.
Am I the only person who would rather read so-called "karma whore" postingings than whines about said same postings?
Karma isn't really working out...ah well..
Oh..btw, I've enjoyed every post I've seen of Dan's.
Grand Theft Auto was banned at the same time as Carmageddon.
(moderate this up please)
The firearms he used were obtained illegally. Brazil has stricter gun control than the US.
See... I'm from brazil, and I have to say something about this. Justice here is stupid and ignorant, but nobody gives a shit. The government is so demoralized that no one seems to care for what it says, and I really doubt that those games will leave the stores' shelves. (actually, most of those games AREN'T for sale sice they're too old !) So anyway... Censorship here in Brazil was never taken seriuosly. A bunch of church-fascists (is this redundant ?) are trying to ban Dogma from being released in january. But I doubt anyone is going to bother. All this stupidity is being copied from the united states... In the past people copied everything but this kind of shit. There is no limit for imperialism.
>What if I said "America is nuts" because some >Texas judge banned games like, say, Blood, >because of the Unabomber? We would agree with you, because the judge's decision would get shot down within weeks for being unconstitutional. We have this odd thing called freedom of speech.
'Nuff said on subject!
Cesar Cardoso can be found at cesar at zyakannazio dot eti dot br (or at least I believe so)
...the police there think that some nutcase who went on a shooting spree in Sao Paulo last month was copying a scene from Duke Nukem...
Gee, so he turned himself into a 2-D character, buffed up his muscles and started to run around with an automatic weapon that seems to hit whatever target you want regardless of where you shoot it?
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
because it is. Or are you maligning the gentle coke fiends of the world?
Uh, I can't seem to figure out what you're trying to say. Are you flaming the last guy or do you agree with him? Part of your post seems to be telling him off for grouping all Brazilians together, which he didn't. Then the rest seems to be a rant against stupid public figures who subscribe to the kneejerk philosophy of government which is so popular today. That is what the previous poster means by they.
Michael Gentili
- He's just some guy, you know?
You have it all wrong. Hitler escaped to Brazil in a private plane. Since then, he's been manufacturing FPSes and releasing them under the pseudonym of John Carmack. His ultimate plan is to persuade the malleable Brazilians into becoming a master race of superfighters (they gain the superfighting powers from playing so much DOOM). Then he will get all of South and Central America to band together. They will cut off the drug supply to the rest of the world, and then attack while they're still geeking.
i live in colorado, and i remember that back in the days of columbine, EVERYTHING those two kids did was banned or seriously taboo'ed. doom was accused, the trenchcoats were accused (my main coat is a trench and i still get funny looks), guns were an obvious ploy, and even the net. what struck me as funniest was that they had whole special reports dedicated to the studies of the impact of FPS on someones firearm accuracy in real life. the point ? people want to explain the unexplainable. and they will ruin anything they have to in order to do it.
Coke Addled Gun Wielding Psychos don't kill people, Video Games Kill People.
Score one for the perenially stupid.
What the hell does what drug that person does have to do with shooting sprees? I'm not a big coke fan (it's way too boring, IMO) but drugs take the blame for this sort of thing WAY too often. I've been doing drugs all my life and have never once had the desire to go on a shooting spree. If anything at all, they make you LESS likely to do something like this, since most of them relax you and make you feel better about the world and the people in it.
You think automatic hand guns ought to be banned?? You take that back. NOW. Take it back or I'll blow your fucking head off! Then I'll gun down your houseplants! That's right! Your fucking house plants! Any socialist liberal that tries to take my guns away is gonna get filled fulla fucking holes. I'll be in my bunker. You assholes come and get me. Jeremiah 12:17 says "Yea, they will try to disarm you, but you must remain strong and have fortitude, and blow their fucking heads off if they try." (KJV) That is exactly what I intend to do!
I'm the NRA, and I vote!
Ok--- I was too subtle. I suppose that if one is too tongue in cheek, then one might be mistaken for speech impediment.
I made a conscious effort to use "they" as a mockery of idiocy and I was referring to legislators everywhere, not just Brazil. The point was to demonstrate irrationality of banning video games---you know, compare to banning books, etc...
Very, very irreverent, but insanely funny! :)
Heh. Just try it. They're decentralized organisms, motherfucker, and they can take a lot of punishment while they're digesting your sorry ass. You think they've got a spinal column? Think again. You think they've got a notochord? Think again. A brain, heart, liver, lungs, any weak point at all? Not a chance.
And you should have kept reading until you hit Jeremiah 12:23, which says: "And of them, seven of every ten shall be of the Enemy; and one of ten shall have known the love of men in their youth".
Go on, brag. But they aren't armed with an Uzi submachine gun and a truckload of 9mm clips. I'll take them out; mark my words, I will take them out. And they'll suffer, too. Your plants will scream the screams of foliage as I pierce their precious roots with the stacatto rat-a-tat-tat of my harmonious automatic gunfire. They will suffer plenty.
As for your supposed "Scripture quotes", I must point out that they were invented by the liberal Catholic infrastructure, and they are not to be trusted. Are you familiar with the Books of the Apocryhpa? These are Liberal Catholic Books that were added by man, not by God. "Bel And The Dragon?" Give me a break! The Liberal Catholic additions to the Bible are not tolerated by decent human beings.
Anyway, kiss your plants goodbye.
Exactly what scene was the nutball trying to replicate from the Duke Nukem video game? Do Brazilian cops look like pigs? Are there even any innocents in that game that you can harm (ahem: Carmageddon) besides the strippers of course! hehe "shake it baby!" Do they have strippers in Brazil?
Get a life!
It's not because some moron minister says some
bullshit that it is likely to go anywhere.
I'm sure it'd be good to have some good games
in French but the odds are that they'd be
speaking some weird dialect from France that
no French speaking person here in the USA or
in Canada could understand. Any ban of English
only games would create a huge black market.
Most kids in Québec know enough english to play
just about any American games and almost no
one know the weird slang used in France.
The Québec prime minister is married to an
American lady and I would be surprised if he'd
want to deprive his kids of good American games.
Which is yet another reason you'll never see this "nigger" go any farther south than Chicago.
At least you figured out what the subject line was implying -- you must be one of those "smart" people in Alabama who know how to read.
Is the state of the U.S. space program a surprise to anyone? It's run entirely by the intellectually and culturally enlightened people in the South!
--
E2 IN2 IE?
would they have banned all Hollywood movies?
:)
actually, that wouldn't be such a bad thing
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
I see a MAJOR fallacy with your argument. Video games are something that people do for recreational purposes and are fairly well removed from reality. Drugs, however, have a VERY pronounced effect on ones mental facilities. Now that it not to say that the cocaine was what caused this guy to go postal, but I feel VERY confident in saying cocaine would be the more likely instigator of the two.
Have you ever fired a gun? Be it handgun, rifle, shotgun, or anything of the like.... It is NOTHING like playing Quake. Being able to rail someone from across a map will NOT help you to make a shot with a rifle at 500 yards. Not in any manner, shape, way, or form. As for handguns.... here is the ONLY possible link I can see. PLaying shooters increases hand/eye co-ordination, which in turn would (theoretically) help someone to make quick shots with a handgun. Two problems with this though.... The first is that when actually firing a handgun, it is not an instinctive rapid-fire thing like you see in games and in movies. If one tries to shoot a handgun the way Duke Nukem does, they would miss and likely cause themselves wrist injury. The other problem is that if you accept the increased coordination aspect, you open up a whole new can of worms. Almost ANY sport increases hand-eye coordination over time (as do MANY other activities). Should we then ban any activity which may theoretically increase hand-eye coordination? Would we then feel safe after society is composed of drooling gimps who have a hard time finding their own asses when trying to wipe them? No my firend.... I see no reason to concede that video games increase one's accuracy with a firearm, because it is BLATANTLY and TOTALLY false.
You didn't point out any fallacy. You just disagreed.
If you're going to pick out which is the more likely instigator among two unlikely ones, then yes, drugs comes out ahead of video games.
You said nothing to support your apparant claim that the "very" pronounced effect drugs have on the mind is so serious as to cause people to go on muderous rampages.
Funny, we too.
Okay, I understand that certain point now.
This is stange before i read this article, i think this is ID Software who has create DOOM but now it's 3D Realm?
In Germany they're banning this kind of games faster than you can develop them. OOOh, look there's blood. Censor it, censor it, it must be evil, it will turn our kids into homicidal manicas, censor it, never let those kids come into contact with death, the sight of even one iota of blood will make them a psychotic, censor it, censor it, move along, there's nothing to see here, there is no evil in Germany, what you are not allowed to see can't possibly exist, censor it.
I just saw an interesting television show tonight.
After the second world war, somebody conducted some studies of soldiers from that war and discovered that apparently only 15% of the men actually fired on a man coming towards them.
Between that time and the Vietnam war, the military began to use conditioning. This consisted of having the men fire at man like targets while being trained, thus conditioning them to fire on man like shapes without thinking.
The same study technique was used on soldiers from the Vietnam war and it was discovered that 90% of the soldiers in that war fired on an enemy soldier.
No, video games couldn't possibly have a shred of influence on anybody's behavior.
----------------------
That being said, there is a difference between video games making it easier for someone to kill, and making them go out and kill.
In fact, the only "weird French dialect" is being spoken in Canada.... ;)
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
> We have this odd thing called freedom of speech.
Not for very long, trust me.
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cousture/FRAN C2.HTM
Read this page if your not familiar with Quebec french, it is a very good source of information and context. And also the people here from Canada can read and understand why it is different to be Quebecois than Canadian.
-"Vive le Quebec Libre!"
Charles DeGaule en 1967
Geez, someone needs to get Sheila Brovloski down there stat.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Currently, in California, there is a gas additive called MTBE which is poisoning the water supply. The state passed a law banning it. The company which makes MTBE is suing under NAFTA as a restraint of trade.
Essentially, we could do the same to Brazil, get the WTO to claim banning video games is a restraint of trade.
"Duke Nukem and Doom have been designed by 3D Realms Co."
Duke Nukem is developed by 3D Realms, and its sequel Duke Nukem Forever is in development at 3D Realms now.
Doom is developed by id software. Wolfenstein 3D, developed by id software, is distributed by Apogee Software. 3D Realms is a 3D game development division of Apogee Software.
For further information, please visit www.3drealms.com. There is a very informative (and accurate) FAQ there describing the genesis of shareware and PC action gaming.
Mr. Joe Siegler, our webmaster, can probably straighten this out better than I can.
Corrinne Yu
3D Engine Programmer
3D Realms/Apogee
Dudes,
First of all I know how slashdot uses the word "karma" and I'm not sure if I really like it. Do you know where Karma comes from? Its roots are in sanskrit. I realize that we English speakers like to bastardize other peoples' languages and use their meanings for our own purposes but in some cases [as in Karma] this is not necessarily very noble. It can breed ignorance of the true meaning of very simple, yet profound ideas. Just look at the bastardized, fundamentally flawed, partial interpretations of "tao", and the t'ai chi principle of "yin-yang."
karma n : (Hinduism and Buddhism) the effects of a person's actions that determine his destiny in his next incarnation Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University
Of course this is not the only definition of Karma but slashdot acts as if Karma is some kind of one sided "do good and you'll go to heaven" type thing or "if you sound smart enough then you are kool."
As far as I know, the only time I have heard of gaining Karma is when one does something "bad" [I'm gonna say that word and point out that I realize the eastern philosophical trap.] And one "works off" karma by doing "good" deeds?
What I so loosely characterized as good and bad is actually not what we westerners think of as good and bad in a moral sense. The good and bad in relationship to karma are related to dharma [loosely: The principle or law that orders the universe. The individual conduct in conformity with this principle. And the essential function or nature of a thing.] So something "good" is something that goes along with the principles of the universe. Something bad is something that goes against the true nature of the universe.
I have heard it used differently in both traditions [hinduism and buddhism.] I'm not really sure, but I think that Karma is not really used in the sense of "good karma", and "bad karma" outside of colloquialism [colloquialism n : a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University ]. I'm not sure if a buddhist or hindu would place a moral value upon karma as some of us are so fond of doing. I'm not sure if it would even be considered a philosophical possibility. If someone knows more about this please elaborate [my main interest lying in tao rather than buddhism or hinduism, though "dharma" in some ways resembles tao.. hrmm]
Dan, I loved the post. I am happy to see that some people who read this site are fluent and are very constructive thinkers. For those of you who claim to not understand it and claim to know what karma is; go read some books. Become literate. Learn what a sound, constructive argument is.
Why do all of the ignorant people who can't hold their attention span for more than a three word sentence seem to think that the only things worth reading can be written in under three minutes?
"Dude, Linux Rulz."
"Down with Microserf."
"Reading is hard."
"huh, insightful arguement?"
"correct grammar yes?"
"Three word sentence?"
Tip of the day: If you don't know the word use "www.dictionary.com"
I'm not attacking anyone, but why is it that those who don't really seem to care about anyone or anything attack those who seem to have a little insight? Is it a backlash against intellect, spirituality, and anti-ignorance or is it jealousy? Oh, this post is also in response to many of the other bandwagon jumping iliterates who posted below.
Random Task
"wu-wei" man "we-wei"
Feel free to correct my grammar if you think it proves some point.
"I can hoist a Jack. I can lay a track. I can pick and shovel too. I'll do anything you hire me to." - John Cash "Legen
Yahoo is a news source? Oh please, how many idiots think they can report the news now? We've seen broadcast TV news fail miserably in gettting it right, and now Yahoo comes out with this. They call Carmageddon Armageddon, credit 3D Realms instead of ID Software for Doom, and GT Interavtive, the publisher, not a development company, with Blood instead of Monolith. I read this crap and am disgusted by the lack of fact checks done on this crap "news."
Those killings ocours in the following way: In the very poor part of the city (we call then "favelas") there is much drug contraband. There is where the coke fiends buy their coke. Those killings ocours in such places when someone tells something for the police or don't pay the drugs he brought. So the gunmen (usualy two or three) go to a bar or wherever they can find such persons and kill him, together with everyone who watched the crime. They usualy use .38 handguns (they call then "treizoitao" which can be translated as "big third eight").