Various posters have said that the psych folks believe looking at porn will eventually turn you into a rapist. Similarly, playing violent games or watching violent films turns you into a murderer.
The problem here is that we have a prime example to trash this theory. Japan has _vast_ quantities of porn and violent comics, books, films, etc available to anyone. Manga cartoons depict graphic sex and violence, and are read openly by all levels of society. And Japan has about the lowest incidence of violent crime of any country in the world.
So is it the porn, or the violent vids then? Obviously not. The problem, although they can't say it, is that parents no longer care enough about their children to look after them and teach them VALUES. They all seem to rely on others - librarians, teachers, legislators, etc - to do their job for them. Parenting carries a responsibility which these idiots can't handle, so they shift the blame onto someone else. Values are learnt in the first few years of life (think of the old Jesuit saying "give me a child up to the age of seven, and he will be mine for life"), and if the parents don't do anything then, it's too late! If you let your kid go out on the street with his big brothers in a street gang, what sort of values do you get? After that, all the teachers, school psychologists and legislators in the world can't help you.
And that's why the inner-city problems are self-perpetuating. Lots of folk in the world are poor, but they don't necessarily resort to drugs and guns. Now the only way I can see to sort that out is mandatory training on bringing up children for every parent - anything else is just plastering over the problem.
Various posters have said that the psych folks believe looking at porn will eventually turn you into a rapist. Similarly, playing violent games or watching violent films turns you into a murderer.
The problem here is that we have a prime example to trash this theory. Japan has _vast_ quantities of porn and violent comics, books, films, etc available to anyone. Manga cartoons depict graphic sex and violence, and are read openly by all levels of society. And Japan has about the lowest incidence of violent crime of any country in the world.
So is it the porn, or the violent vids then? Obviously not. The problem, although they can't say it, is that parents no longer care enough about their children to look after them and teach them VALUES. They all seem to rely on others - librarians, teachers, legislators, etc - to do their job for them. Parenting carries a responsibility which these idiots can't handle, so they shift the blame onto someone else. Values are learnt in the first few years of life (think of the old Jesuit saying "give me a child up to the age of seven, and he will be mine for life"), and if the parents don't do anything then, it's too late! If you let your kid go out on the street with his big brothers in a street gang, what sort of values do you get? After that, all the teachers, school psychologists and legislators in the world can't help you.
And that's why the inner-city problems are self-perpetuating. Lots of folk in the world are poor, but they don't necessarily resort to drugs and guns. Now the only way I can see to sort that out is mandatory training on bringing up children for every parent - anything else is just plastering over the problem.
Yep. The point of natural selection is that left unchecked, a single species would consume all available resources and then die of starvation. Media's only requirement for survival is that the facilities exist to store it. So long as we've got big enough hard drives and fast enough net connections, we're sorted.
As for information overload, well that just comes of trying to do too much. There's so much information out there, you just can't know everything. If you subscribe to every newsgroup, then sure you're going to get more than you can handle. I don't know why this seems a strange concept to Jon (or to the author of the book) - does he consider it sensible to order every tech magazine and newspaper in the world and try to keep up-to-date on them all?:-)
The Matrix is just one of many films which have a distinctly average plot but are saved by vast expenditure on F/X. The Matrix purely survived by demonstrating the current state-of-the-art in F/X and giving some new types of F/X shots we'd not seen b4 (the time-freeze shot, for instance). More examples of films which took an average plot and overlaid it with top-notch graphics? Say, Star Wars and Jurassic Park as the best examples. A bit off-topic, but anyway...
As for RWR, I think I could live without that. The book is great as a concept of what could happen, but as a novel it's dry as dust, and converting it to an interesting film might require enough new plot to make purists scream and shout.
In fact, that's a general fault with Clarke. He's a genius at thinking up new ideas, and possibly the best futurologist of all S/F writers - trouble is, he's not the world's greatest writer. Michael Crichton has a similar problem - concepts like Jurassic Park are marvellous, but the actual implementation is rather run-of-the-mill.
Right... So my company has every right to order me to go out to a foreign country and shoot up the locals?;-)
Grab.
So what do you suggest, Jon?
on
Planet Gattaca
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· Score: 1
Great rant, but light on solutions. So you don't like genetics? What's your solution for curing all the various genetic disorders then? Is it ethical to say, "Well, give it another couple of years research and our scientists could cure cerebral palsy, motor neurone disease and spina bifida. But we don't think it's right to let them do the research, so we're going to let you die, and instead we'll spend the money on financing heart transplants for obese smokers who've got themselves into their situation." ???
I find it quite funny that on SlashDot you find a comprehensive flame of the Y2K disaster movie extensively, but articles _for_ the genetic "Frankenstein" hysteria! I think it just goes to show, ppl are only scared of things they don't know anything about or can't understand, and that software folk are as prone to irrational paranoia as anyone else. And that well-known ppl are just as prone to the hysteria as us mere mortals...
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Various posters have said that the psych folks believe looking at porn will eventually turn you into a rapist. Similarly, playing violent games or watching violent films turns you into a murderer.
The problem here is that we have a prime example to trash this theory. Japan has _vast_ quantities of porn and violent comics, books, films, etc available to anyone. Manga cartoons depict graphic sex and violence, and are read openly by all levels of society. And Japan has about the lowest incidence of violent crime of any country in the world.
So is it the porn, or the violent vids then? Obviously not. The problem, although they can't say it, is that parents no longer care enough about their children to look after them and teach them VALUES. They all seem to rely on others - librarians, teachers, legislators, etc - to do their job for them. Parenting carries a responsibility which these idiots can't handle, so they shift the blame onto someone else. Values are learnt in the first few years of life (think of the old Jesuit saying "give me a child up to the age of seven, and he will be mine for life"), and if the parents don't do anything then, it's too late! If you let your kid go out on the street with his big brothers in a street gang, what sort of values do you get? After that, all the teachers, school psychologists and legislators in the world can't help you.
And that's why the inner-city problems are self-perpetuating. Lots of folk in the world are poor, but they don't necessarily resort to drugs and guns. Now the only way I can see to sort that out is mandatory training on bringing up children for every parent - anything else is just plastering over the problem.
Graham.
Various posters have said that the psych folks believe looking at porn will eventually turn you into a rapist. Similarly, playing violent games or watching violent films turns you into a murderer.
The problem here is that we have a prime example to trash this theory. Japan has _vast_ quantities of porn and violent comics, books, films, etc available to anyone. Manga cartoons depict graphic sex and violence, and are read openly by all levels of society. And Japan has about the lowest incidence of violent crime of any country in the world.
So is it the porn, or the violent vids then? Obviously not. The problem, although they can't say it, is that parents no longer care enough about their children to look after them and teach them VALUES. They all seem to rely on others - librarians, teachers, legislators, etc - to do their job for them. Parenting carries a responsibility which these idiots can't handle, so they shift the blame onto someone else. Values are learnt in the first few years of life (think of the old Jesuit saying "give me a child up to the age of seven, and he will be mine for life"), and if the parents don't do anything then, it's too late! If you let your kid go out on the street with his big brothers in a street gang, what sort of values do you get? After that, all the teachers, school psychologists and legislators in the world can't help you.
And that's why the inner-city problems are self-perpetuating. Lots of folk in the world are poor, but they don't necessarily resort to drugs and guns. Now the only way I can see to sort that out is mandatory training on bringing up children for every parent - anything else is just plastering over the problem.
Graham.
Yep. The point of natural selection is that left unchecked, a single species would consume all available resources and then die of starvation. Media's only requirement for survival is that the facilities exist to store it. So long as we've got big enough hard drives and fast enough net connections, we're sorted.
:-)
As for information overload, well that just comes of trying to do too much. There's so much information out there, you just can't know everything. If you subscribe to every newsgroup, then sure you're going to get more than you can handle. I don't know why this seems a strange concept to Jon (or to the author of the book) - does he consider it sensible to order every tech magazine and newspaper in the world and try to keep up-to-date on them all?
Grab.
Saucer of milk for table 3... ;-)
Grab.
The Matrix is just one of many films which have a distinctly average plot but are saved by vast expenditure on F/X. The Matrix purely survived by demonstrating the current state-of-the-art in F/X and giving some new types of F/X shots we'd not seen b4 (the time-freeze shot, for instance). More examples of films which took an average plot and overlaid it with top-notch graphics? Say, Star Wars and Jurassic Park as the best examples. A bit off-topic, but anyway...
As for RWR, I think I could live without that. The book is great as a concept of what could happen, but as a novel it's dry as dust, and converting it to an interesting film might require enough new plot to make purists scream and shout.
In fact, that's a general fault with Clarke. He's a genius at thinking up new ideas, and possibly the best futurologist of all S/F writers - trouble is, he's not the world's greatest writer. Michael Crichton has a similar problem - concepts like Jurassic Park are marvellous, but the actual implementation is rather run-of-the-mill.
Grab.
No, that's just crap management, which happens everywhere.
Grab.
Right... So my company has every right to order me to go out to a foreign country and shoot up the locals? ;-)
Grab.
Great rant, but light on solutions. So you don't like genetics? What's your solution for curing all the various genetic disorders then? Is it ethical to say, "Well, give it another couple of years research and our scientists could cure cerebral palsy, motor neurone disease and spina bifida. But we don't think it's right to let them do the research, so we're going to let you die, and instead we'll spend the money on financing heart transplants for obese smokers who've got themselves into their situation." ???
I find it quite funny that on SlashDot you find a comprehensive flame of the Y2K disaster movie extensively, but articles _for_ the genetic "Frankenstein" hysteria! I think it just goes to show, ppl are only scared of things they don't know anything about or can't understand, and that software folk are as prone to irrational paranoia as anyone else. And that well-known ppl are just as prone to the hysteria as us mere mortals...