...instead of being disruptive and smarmy with the guys you could have had a simple friendly conversation and not had any of this 'issue' arise.
Please hold on the 'Its his right to abstain from common decency' comments, its not like I don't know the sentiment of a few slashdotters that think the world is all about pushing the limits of written law.
What I meant was that you obviously have plenty of knowledge about violent video games -- and from that I inferred that your 10 year old is playing them -- and from your own definition of what is BAD for kids, you're failing as a parent.
If all of your experience w/ violent/bad/gory video games is of your own experience and not for your child, then ignore the inference. (Another side discussion that I will try to avoid is how all that you have observed and played has not impacted your own life and actions. Kids call their parents hypocritical when they find these things out.)
Back to the main point... What you're suggesting is limits to freedoms that have very little to no impact on you or your child's life. Should I bring up Rambo/Terminator/Star Trek? Ok.. back on point... PARENTING is *THE* answer here, not some supporting element, not some option. And I'm not talking about the parent that says a bit, feeds the kid, and drops them off at school on time. I'm talking about the parenting where you stay in contact with their interests, follow their development, and spend a lot of your time with them --- all the while teaching (aka TRAINING) them to be good, thoughtful, and able individuals.
Like I was saying, banning a type of game won't keep it from your kids' eyes. Banning hasn't kept coke, porn, guns, racism, and a thousand other bad ideas away, so I doubt video games will be the first place it works.
Every safe choice I made was based on a foundation that my parents gave me through solid parenting.
Sure, we could all get strapped into the matrix and fed a 24/7 stream of disney movies with a feed tube of only the most ideal perfect foods for our bodies... But what is life without freedom? What is life without choices?
You have the power to choose, and you also have the power to teach/parent your child to make decisions you feel may be important. But contrary to that power, your approach desires to limit freedoms and choices of others out of convenience, not because it is invariably wrong.
What if I feel your religion confuses and scams people? What if someone else feels your house makes the neighborhood look ugly? And honestly, what if you decided to have a beer? That evil ethanol, those detrimental religions, those property values!!! Freedom is amazing, and drawing the lines for limitations is a very difficult task. So difficult that people have had revolutions over limitations...
So step back and really think about how far you want to push a limit to a freedom that does not have any notable impact on you. Think about how much 'life' you have been able to experience while the getting was good, before the nanny-ist movement has(and will) perpetuated limits on your freedoms. Think about how you didn't kill anyone with a pistol today, even though it was legal. Think about how to teach your child not to do so. And when he/she is 18 years old, you'd better hope you did a good job because he/she will hit autopilot and there is NOTHING you can do about it.
I'm a parent of a 4 year old child, I play GTA4, L4D, Fallout 3, COD4.... you name it. She may play some violent video games before she is 18. But, just as my father taught me when I saw Robocop and Aliens before I was 10, I will teach her how to respect others, how to protect life, and how to enjoy entertainment for what it is.
Blowing some noobs' heads off doesn't trivialize and diminish the seriousness of murder/war; rather it simply makes my success in our competitive game look really cool. Now, a main character shooting up heroin... that would be kinda messed up and disgusting. Allow that into my home? No. Tell those making the game what to do? No. Everyone wins.
What is the purpose of amassing knowledge without thought, logic, and application? In your studies, I hope you ultimately found a place to understand ethics. The reason so many ethical concepts fail is because they cannot maintain logic in universal application. Simply 'knowing' that doesn't enrich the mind to any greater value unless you use that knowledge to make better decisions, such as finding belief in ethical concepts that do make sense in universal application.
I take it that you don't believe in Rawlsian ethics, but rest in caution at a point of simply amassing knowledge. Safe, but it does not defend your original point.
In a more recent example where knowledge without thought has failed, you were talking about a diversity of morals to explore in a video game where morality is variable-- in any ethical concept that I've studied there is the defining line that places an act on the GOOD (ethical) or BAD (unethical) side. It would have benefit you to think before posting about the variety of possible ethics and noting that each possibility is still definitive of Good or Bad. And thus, by thinking, you would not have simply amassed knowledge of a number of 'options' to throw at me, and rather extrapolated the obvious: that in all cases, the player will face decisions of good or bad attribute.
Even Relativism has rules that place the person on one side of the line or the other.
Thinking even further into it, would it make any sense to develop a game of ethical concept complexity for the public when most people have little to no understanding of ethics philosophy and simply go with gut feelings and religious doctrine?
Ahhh.. You must have missed the part where they say that the most widely accepted ethical model is from John Rawls' philosophy.
The last few weeks of the course were the best because it is when they stop giving you ethical models that they punch holes in (utilitarianism, relativisim, etc), and deliver something to actually believe in. Did you show up or drop out?
And so your answer is simple: Be a good parent (by your definition) and do the parenting necessary to make sure your 10 year old is not involved in these video games...
Something about the level of knowledge you have on the matter tells me you're failing at parenting and pointing at others to feel better about it.
Has your 10 year old found cocaine yet? What about BDSM? What about the Book of Mormon? What about Hacking? There are a million ways to distort what you wish for your child and the laws wont stop it, you will (but only if you truly care enough to give the parenting).
Aha, but Morals are based on Ethics. And Ethics is quite definitive.
Thus, if the choice is ethical, it is moral (good). If the choice is unethical, it is immoral (bad).
Fortunately in Fallout 3 they give you many opportunities to go either way, but contrary to your idea, morality is much closer to True/False than some subjective gradient.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. And if you don't want you or your kids to experience it in any way, play an active parenting role in their lives and enforce their abstinence to use of the material.
This is not unlike alcohol, tobacco, guns, knives, poisons, pornography, or even simply "INFORMATION".
Parents can cry and lobby and try to prevent the world from producing things they do not like, but that will have very little impact. Somewhere, somehow, those knives and porn will be made and blackmarketed to your kids' neighborhood... All that pissing and moaning and banning for nothing....
Be a PARENT. Man up to the job and TEACH your kids, take the extra effort to CARE about them and have a conversation with them daily. They are people too and you will not always have the benefit of standing over their shoulders. If you wish the best for them, give them the best you can.
Which is the more realistic approach? Attempting to limit free will and hoping it works? Or, teaching your kids values and responsibilities, and respect for their elders' wishes?
Sure, you can be a shitty/lazy parent and take the easy way out by pushing paper around. But I can almost guarantee you that without proper parenting, your kid will find the games, guns, porn, and drugs despite all that effort you made on paper.
I don't think the author of this entry is entitled to define exactly when and how the 'Big Brother' example/metaphor can be applied in language.
Yes, the Big Brother in Orwell's 1984 has specific definitions, but in reference/example/metaphor, people apply abstractions and generalizations that are not necessarily definitive of the original context. In such context, only elements or small aspects of the original concept may apply and it is usually up to the reader to bridge the relationship through active thought.
Samzenpus (the Big Brother in this case) is trying to tell us all how to live!
I love your post and I agree with all of it. But until you've raised your gun to prove yourself otherwise, you've called yourself a coward.
Or maybe you're like me and even though you really care about something and would really like to do something about it, you're still happy to be standing on the side of the fence with the greenest grass with the best ice cream cone in your hand --- realizing that life elsewhere is much harder, that the majority of people on this planet live with less and often have difficulty trying to address needs (leaving very little time to be concerned about 'wants').
I'm not passive because of cowardice, rather I am passive because I'm too happy to frown; and rightly so.
I think a lot of people with drive, education, and creativity are waiting for that big cash lump sum to fall into their laps.... so they can retreat to some mountain home, set up a work environment they can do on their own time and pace.... and relax...
Fingers will be stumped, penises removed... You know.. to prevent the rapes and the sexual harassment..
Soon they'll find use for the banned sporks and start scooping out eyes from sockets at birth --- to prevent people from seeing things that they *might* interact with in ways that *might* have negative outcomes.
It will only end when The Matrix is fully developed so nobody can actually be harmed.
Ban fire, it won't save your house. Ban weed, millions don't give a shit. Ban guns, the innocent lose power to fight for their rights, criminals blow a line and move forward w/ guns like it never mattered.... Ban piracy, all your songs are now belong to soundcat.
Ban words, people still say them. Ban religion, like that would ever work... Ban skittles, some jerkoff with a recipe will *STILL* make them and teach his kids how to do it out of spite and our human nature to do whatever we truly want to do.
Ban meteors... Ban terrorism... Ban lies... Ban polygamy.... Ban swine flu.
I swear, you could ban Dick Flavored Pizza and somewhere, somehow, in S. Korea, a guy will get a pizza that tastes like a dick.
Banning paintball guns and airsoft won't bring 16 people back to life. I'm sure anyone involved wants to be noticed for caring (hence this stupid law idea)... But sometimes its ok to say 'such is life' and move on. Yes, bad things happen. Sympathize, accept, move on.
Just don't let all that emotion force you to forget to think.
Sure it is. FIS agents, if caught, will be tried for their crimes.
I called that an "intelligence" attack in my previous post.
The world is involved in intelligence wars, but I am sure the players are working independently of the'response in kind' combat model and are more in the realm of 'fuck me? I already fucked you!'.
How is it insane to begin regarding cyber attacks as equal to any other already-addressed form of attack (such as military, terrorism, and intelligence)? Cyber attacks are damaging and disruptive to a degree that SHOULD be taken seriously.
Let me guess, you will care when the internet faces intermittent shutdowns and your investments are dropping because the companies you've invested in have suffered massive database damages and cannot maintain progress...
If I deleted all your digital photos, or I go to your house and stole/burned all your photographs I could find.... Whats the difference?
I don't think Fox is the only org to have dishonest journalists. Everything else you said is obvious; thanks for delivering nothing yet attempting to assume I am stupid.
My post had the word 'policemen' AND 'police', and also discussed possible restructuring of the whole force. To anyone with half the sense make an attempt to understand instead of attempting to attack, the point was probably quite obvious.
Don't get so upset about it... (lol.. 'should have fucking said it'). Have a beer and a smile.
Fox News was involved in a court case that ultimately prevailed to allow news corporations to completely lie about anything they want because (despite what the majority of people viewing *think* they are seeing is honest) it is only entertainment.
And I cannot hate them more for being the pointman on that policy producing monster.
Look it up... keyword "monsanto" and "posilac".
Yes, your kids or your friends, or at least your fellow citizens drank milk that was dangerous, and it was misrepresented in media thanks to Fox News.
The missed concept here, on Murdoch's part, is that people don't even think they 'pay' for the news now in electronic media formats.
Sure we sometimes pay for channels on TV, but pretty much every channel that offers news is offered for free over the airwaves. How is it funded? ADVERTISEMENTS/COMMERCIALS. You hear about OJ, then you see a commercial from Gerber... Etc...
This is actually how most news websites seem to operate right now, which does not appear to be failing.
I'm not sure what premium content Mr. Murdoch thinks he can offer for a fee, but as posted earlier, people will simply choose the source that doesn't charge. Maybe we will have to 'pay' by trying to ignore penis enlargement banners and the new Ford car model... But I think we're all pretty well adapted to doing that anyway.
Fuckem. Let the proof be in the pudding. I hope he takes Faux news along with him to the fail party.
Air/Hydro Electric Generation. Hell, with the 2TR we've spent on Iraq, we could be ridiculously energy independent with electricity by now... But... I mean... If you still just want to combust shit because it sounds cool... Well.. I mean, we can always say the seagulls won't like getting hit by windmill blades and pretend its just as bad.
That's what people do to keep these stupid archaic systems (and the money behind them) in place -- make efforts to change small things that have relatively no *real* impact, while finding small things to point at and smear the image of an option that would have dramatic impact.
Get your facts from science and the actual state of technology we have today. We could seriously build robots to detect and sort all of the worlds waste dumps and basically recycle all of the things we thought would just remain as filthy trash... We've had the ability to harvest amazing electric potential, cleanly, for over two decades -- it is your level of ignorance and susceptibility to $$$-driven information that will determine if you understand or not.
Slashdot Mirror
...instead of being disruptive and smarmy with the guys you could have had a simple friendly conversation and not had any of this 'issue' arise.
Please hold on the 'Its his right to abstain from common decency' comments, its not like I don't know the sentiment of a few slashdotters that think the world is all about pushing the limits of written law.
you know its dirty filthy material, the lot of em!
(lol)
read what I wrote, but also refer to this post regarding a similar topic.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1227031&cid=27885105
What I meant was that you obviously have plenty of knowledge about violent video games -- and from that I inferred that your 10 year old is playing them -- and from your own definition of what is BAD for kids, you're failing as a parent.
If all of your experience w/ violent/bad/gory video games is of your own experience and not for your child, then ignore the inference. (Another side discussion that I will try to avoid is how all that you have observed and played has not impacted your own life and actions. Kids call their parents hypocritical when they find these things out.)
Back to the main point...
What you're suggesting is limits to freedoms that have very little to no impact on you or your child's life. Should I bring up Rambo/Terminator/Star Trek? Ok.. back on point... PARENTING is *THE* answer here, not some supporting element, not some option. And I'm not talking about the parent that says a bit, feeds the kid, and drops them off at school on time. I'm talking about the parenting where you stay in contact with their interests, follow their development, and spend a lot of your time with them --- all the while teaching (aka TRAINING) them to be good, thoughtful, and able individuals.
Like I was saying, banning a type of game won't keep it from your kids' eyes. Banning hasn't kept coke, porn, guns, racism, and a thousand other bad ideas away, so I doubt video games will be the first place it works.
Every safe choice I made was based on a foundation that my parents gave me through solid parenting.
Sure, we could all get strapped into the matrix and fed a 24/7 stream of disney movies with a feed tube of only the most ideal perfect foods for our bodies... But what is life without freedom? What is life without choices?
You have the power to choose, and you also have the power to teach/parent your child to make decisions you feel may be important. But contrary to that power, your approach desires to limit freedoms and choices of others out of convenience, not because it is invariably wrong.
What if I feel your religion confuses and scams people? What if someone else feels your house makes the neighborhood look ugly? And honestly, what if you decided to have a beer? That evil ethanol, those detrimental religions, those property values!!! Freedom is amazing, and drawing the lines for limitations is a very difficult task. So difficult that people have had revolutions over limitations...
So step back and really think about how far you want to push a limit to a freedom that does not have any notable impact on you. Think about how much 'life' you have been able to experience while the getting was good, before the nanny-ist movement has(and will) perpetuated limits on your freedoms. Think about how you didn't kill anyone with a pistol today, even though it was legal. Think about how to teach your child not to do so. And when he/she is 18 years old, you'd better hope you did a good job because he/she will hit autopilot and there is NOTHING you can do about it.
I'm a parent of a 4 year old child, I play GTA4, L4D, Fallout 3, COD4 .... you name it. She may play some violent video games before she is 18. But, just as my father taught me when I saw Robocop and Aliens before I was 10, I will teach her how to respect others, how to protect life, and how to enjoy entertainment for what it is.
Blowing some noobs' heads off doesn't trivialize and diminish the seriousness of murder/war; rather it simply makes my success in our competitive game look really cool. Now, a main character shooting up heroin... that would be kinda messed up and disgusting. Allow that into my home? No. Tell those making the game what to do? No. Everyone wins.
What is the purpose of amassing knowledge without thought, logic, and application? In your studies, I hope you ultimately found a place to understand ethics. The reason so many ethical concepts fail is because they cannot maintain logic in universal application. Simply 'knowing' that doesn't enrich the mind to any greater value unless you use that knowledge to make better decisions, such as finding belief in ethical concepts that do make sense in universal application.
I take it that you don't believe in Rawlsian ethics, but rest in caution at a point of simply amassing knowledge. Safe, but it does not defend your original point.
In a more recent example where knowledge without thought has failed, you were talking about a diversity of morals to explore in a video game where morality is variable-- in any ethical concept that I've studied there is the defining line that places an act on the GOOD (ethical) or BAD (unethical) side. It would have benefit you to think before posting about the variety of possible ethics and noting that each possibility is still definitive of Good or Bad. And thus, by thinking, you would not have simply amassed knowledge of a number of 'options' to throw at me, and rather extrapolated the obvious: that in all cases, the player will face decisions of good or bad attribute.
Even Relativism has rules that place the person on one side of the line or the other.
Thinking even further into it, would it make any sense to develop a game of ethical concept complexity for the public when most people have little to no understanding of ethics philosophy and simply go with gut feelings and religious doctrine?
Also, in case the movies have distorted your understanding, most people convicted of espionage are local to the nation they spied against.
Ahhh.. You must have missed the part where they say that the most widely accepted ethical model is from John Rawls' philosophy.
The last few weeks of the course were the best because it is when they stop giving you ethical models that they punch holes in (utilitarianism, relativisim, etc), and deliver something to actually believe in. Did you show up or drop out?
nice post.
And so your answer is simple: Be a good parent (by your definition) and do the parenting necessary to make sure your 10 year old is not involved in these video games...
Something about the level of knowledge you have on the matter tells me you're failing at parenting and pointing at others to feel better about it.
Has your 10 year old found cocaine yet? What about BDSM? What about the Book of Mormon? What about Hacking? There are a million ways to distort what you wish for your child and the laws wont stop it, you will (but only if you truly care enough to give the parenting).
Aha, but Morals are based on Ethics. And Ethics is quite definitive.
Thus, if the choice is ethical, it is moral (good). If the choice is unethical, it is immoral (bad).
Fortunately in Fallout 3 they give you many opportunities to go either way, but contrary to your idea, morality is much closer to True/False than some subjective gradient.
I'm a real adult, but I also play video games in many ways, some being for 'self indulgence' that I first experienced when I was juvenile.
Your statement is false.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. And if you don't want you or your kids to experience it in any way, play an active parenting role in their lives and enforce their abstinence to use of the material.
This is not unlike alcohol, tobacco, guns, knives, poisons, pornography, or even simply "INFORMATION".
Parents can cry and lobby and try to prevent the world from producing things they do not like, but that will have very little impact. Somewhere, somehow, those knives and porn will be made and blackmarketed to your kids' neighborhood... All that pissing and moaning and banning for nothing....
Be a PARENT. Man up to the job and TEACH your kids, take the extra effort to CARE about them and have a conversation with them daily. They are people too and you will not always have the benefit of standing over their shoulders. If you wish the best for them, give them the best you can.
Which is the more realistic approach? Attempting to limit free will and hoping it works? Or, teaching your kids values and responsibilities, and respect for their elders' wishes?
Sure, you can be a shitty/lazy parent and take the easy way out by pushing paper around. But I can almost guarantee you that without proper parenting, your kid will find the games, guns, porn, and drugs despite all that effort you made on paper.
I don't think the author of this entry is entitled to define exactly when and how the 'Big Brother' example/metaphor can be applied in language.
Yes, the Big Brother in Orwell's 1984 has specific definitions, but in reference/example/metaphor, people apply abstractions and generalizations that are not necessarily definitive of the original context. In such context, only elements or small aspects of the original concept may apply and it is usually up to the reader to bridge the relationship through active thought.
Samzenpus (the Big Brother in this case) is trying to tell us all how to live!
I love your post and I agree with all of it. But until you've raised your gun to prove yourself otherwise, you've called yourself a coward.
Or maybe you're like me and even though you really care about something and would really like to do something about it, you're still happy to be standing on the side of the fence with the greenest grass with the best ice cream cone in your hand --- realizing that life elsewhere is much harder, that the majority of people on this planet live with less and often have difficulty trying to address needs (leaving very little time to be concerned about 'wants').
I'm not passive because of cowardice, rather I am passive because I'm too happy to frown; and rightly so.
I think a lot of people with drive, education, and creativity are waiting for that big cash lump sum to fall into their laps.... so they can retreat to some mountain home, set up a work environment they can do on their own time and pace.... and relax...
I know that is one of my dreams.
Fingers will be stumped, penises removed... You know.. to prevent the rapes and the sexual harassment..
Soon they'll find use for the banned sporks and start scooping out eyes from sockets at birth --- to prevent people from seeing things that they *might* interact with in ways that *might* have negative outcomes.
It will only end when The Matrix is fully developed so nobody can actually be harmed.
Ban fire, it won't save your house. Ban weed, millions don't give a shit. Ban guns, the innocent lose power to fight for their rights, criminals blow a line and move forward w/ guns like it never mattered.... Ban piracy, all your songs are now belong to soundcat.
Ban words, people still say them. Ban religion, like that would ever work... Ban skittles, some jerkoff with a recipe will *STILL* make them and teach his kids how to do it out of spite and our human nature to do whatever we truly want to do.
Ban meteors... Ban terrorism... Ban lies... Ban polygamy.... Ban swine flu.
I swear, you could ban Dick Flavored Pizza and somewhere, somehow, in S. Korea, a guy will get a pizza that tastes like a dick.
Banning paintball guns and airsoft won't bring 16 people back to life. I'm sure anyone involved wants to be noticed for caring (hence this stupid law idea)... But sometimes its ok to say 'such is life' and move on. Yes, bad things happen. Sympathize, accept, move on.
Just don't let all that emotion force you to forget to think.
Sure it is. FIS agents, if caught, will be tried for their crimes.
I called that an "intelligence" attack in my previous post.
The world is involved in intelligence wars, but I am sure the players are working independently of the'response in kind' combat model and are more in the realm of 'fuck me? I already fucked you!'.
How is it insane to begin regarding cyber attacks as equal to any other already-addressed form of attack (such as military, terrorism, and intelligence)? Cyber attacks are damaging and disruptive to a degree that SHOULD be taken seriously.
Let me guess, you will care when the internet faces intermittent shutdowns and your investments are dropping because the companies you've invested in have suffered massive database damages and cannot maintain progress...
If I deleted all your digital photos, or I go to your house and stole/burned all your photographs I could find.... Whats the difference?
I think you meant to say "... who ignorantly commits crimes and thinks he should not be responsible for his actions."
Know what you are doing or don't do it.
I don't think Fox is the only org to have dishonest journalists. Everything else you said is obvious; thanks for delivering nothing yet attempting to assume I am stupid.
I think you missed my point.
My post had the word 'policemen' AND 'police', and also discussed possible restructuring of the whole force. To anyone with half the sense make an attempt to understand instead of attempting to attack, the point was probably quite obvious.
Don't get so upset about it... (lol.. 'should have fucking said it'). Have a beer and a smile.
Fox News was involved in a court case that ultimately prevailed to allow news corporations to completely lie about anything they want because (despite what the majority of people viewing *think* they are seeing is honest) it is only entertainment.
And I cannot hate them more for being the pointman on that policy producing monster.
Look it up... keyword "monsanto" and "posilac".
Yes, your kids or your friends, or at least your fellow citizens drank milk that was dangerous, and it was misrepresented in media thanks to Fox News.
But just wait... We've got to get all the faux news viewers to come on here and regurgitate false memes about how it won't work.
The missed concept here, on Murdoch's part, is that people don't even think they 'pay' for the news now in electronic media formats.
Sure we sometimes pay for channels on TV, but pretty much every channel that offers news is offered for free over the airwaves. How is it funded? ADVERTISEMENTS/COMMERCIALS. You hear about OJ, then you see a commercial from Gerber... Etc...
This is actually how most news websites seem to operate right now, which does not appear to be failing.
I'm not sure what premium content Mr. Murdoch thinks he can offer for a fee, but as posted earlier, people will simply choose the source that doesn't charge. Maybe we will have to 'pay' by trying to ignore penis enlargement banners and the new Ford car model... But I think we're all pretty well adapted to doing that anyway.
Fuckem. Let the proof be in the pudding. I hope he takes Faux news along with him to the fail party.
Air/Hydro Electric Generation. Hell, with the 2TR we've spent on Iraq, we could be ridiculously energy independent with electricity by now... But... I mean... If you still just want to combust shit because it sounds cool... Well.. I mean, we can always say the seagulls won't like getting hit by windmill blades and pretend its just as bad.
That's what people do to keep these stupid archaic systems (and the money behind them) in place -- make efforts to change small things that have relatively no *real* impact, while finding small things to point at and smear the image of an option that would have dramatic impact.
Get your facts from science and the actual state of technology we have today. We could seriously build robots to detect and sort all of the worlds waste dumps and basically recycle all of the things we thought would just remain as filthy trash... We've had the ability to harvest amazing electric potential, cleanly, for over two decades -- it is your level of ignorance and susceptibility to $$$-driven information that will determine if you understand or not.