As a side note, I'm amazed that you haven't realized the flimsiness of this argument. Not only does a lack of direction after we discount god not really mean that he does exist, but there's a lot of philosophy directed toward how we should live and interact with others, with ideas ranging from "live to optimize the pleasure you experience" to "try to do what brings the most happiness to others" (hedonism and utilitarianism respectively).
How naive, thinking that it still works like that...
It doesn't. At all. If somebody abuses it, it'll likely go on for months before somebody finds out that can do something about it.
To be honest, I'm more worried about who mans these cameras. If it's local citizens, there are FAR too many ways to abuse this system, and if it's a computer, than there's no way to take the context of the situation into account, which is the main problem I have with red light cameras and the like (they always give tickets, while cops might be more lenient depending on the situation).
I mean, seriously, "Mission Accomplished!" is still a huge joke with some of my friends to this day. Throw it in during an unrelated conversation, I know at least one or two people that will snicker.
It only counts as brainwashing if it..... you know.... brainwashes.
For that matter, it's probably true to an extent of all those old, old games with 8 and 16 bit graphics. I mean, I can remember being just as enthralled playing Doomdark's Revenge on the Spectrum as ever I've been playing Oblivion. It's not as if you take the pictures on the monitor for actual reality: the graphics just provide the outline of a scene: the player's imagination fleshes out the details.
I wouldn't be so quick to say that, in my opinion. This generation of gamers can get by with it easily, due to the fact that they've played those games before, and they're comfortable with that level of graphical presentation. Newer gamers, however, don't really have that advantage and probably wouldn't be able to sit through NES or SNES generation games for more than a few minutes before getting bored, unless they're clued in to the quality behind the games before hand.
I, for instance, was raised on the NES and the Genesis, but I pretty much skipped over the N64 generation. As a result, I have difficulties taking any game put out around 2000 seriously, with a few exceptions, despite the fact that I love a large number of sprite-based games, as well as everything on this side of the graphical divide.
No, it's not a mature approach to gaming. Being completely unable to appreciate graphics for what they make a game is more or less a slap in the face to the developers who put all that elbow grease into making the game pretty and immersible.
Now, granted, the opposite view, that graphics make a game, can be just as much a slap in the face, and is definitely an immature way to judge games, but that doesn't really raise it's counterpart into the realm of legitimate views, it just means that the ideal, mature way to judge games is somewhere in the middle.
Graphics are important for many games - they add a sense of realism. Far Cry 2, for instance, was a decent game. It had a barely average plot, absolutely painful voice acting on all characters, and the vehicle mechanics were awful. At the same time, though, I could spend hours just playing with the fire mechanics, something that wouldn't be possible with, say, 2004-level graphics.
That's not to say that graphics make a game - many games are, in fact, good without good graphical presentation, but just as good game play or a good story can save a game, so can good use of graphics and special effects.
If desensitization is the main problem you have behind violent video games, you may want to rethink your argument.
Desensitization happens through a wide variety of means in a wide variety of areas. Were we actually concerned about desensitization, not only should we focus on the widely referred to horror and action films (which often go far further than games are ever reasonably allowed to go) but also many other forms of media, pornography chief among them (and probably far more pressing, to boot, considering how quickly porn can desensitize, and how much wider a range of taboos it includes).
But.... desensitization really isn't that big of a deal. Yeah, you might be slower to help people, or some BS like that, but at the end of day, being able to sit through a violent video game or horror movie without feeling as much horror as other people really isn't that terrible. There are more pressing issues that can be fixed without the need to censor media or restrict a valid art form.
Assuming by "realistic" you mean more blood, guts, and polygons, while ignoring the universally unappealing aspects of death, as most game marketers seem to take it.
In this context, though, it doesn't mean more gory, it means more tangible and more believable. Video games have a tendency (as they should) to strip out the undesirable parts of the aspects they cover. As an earlier poster said, video games don't have you run out of breath if you try to run for too long, or stub your toe every once in a while, and the same goes for deaths - the truly unappealing aspects are usually stripped out, either purposefully or because of the lack in technology to convey them, to keep games fun.
True, but at the same time, you can't say that video games are causing violence when violent crimes haven't increased since video games became violent.
I mean, unless you find some root cause of the decline in violence that can offset negative trends normally caused by video games and still cause a decrease in violence (possible, but unlikely) then there's really no reason to tinker with the system until it stops working again.
Consequences for killing people in a game world - fun, pretty red blood splatters.
Consequences for killing people in the real world - jail, loss of (unrecoverable) life, social backlash, etc. etc. etc.
It's to the point where pretty much anyone over the age of 4 (as well as many, many 4 and unders) can grasp just why we shouldn't kill people in the real world, even though it's OK in games.
Unfortunately, the resources alloted to a presidential CANDIDATE far outstrip those alloted to the president, in some senses.
Although Obama had vast sums of money at man power at his disposal, that's mostly because he wasn't already in a position of power, but rather fighting for it tooth and nail. Once you reach the presidency, although some semblance of the man power and money remain, it mostly goes away due to the fact that it's not as vital once you've reached the top.
You'd have more of a case were you arguing this during the election cycle, rather than 3/4 of a year after the fact.
The logic behind the argument is that, if he's avoiding discussion now, it's not because he disagrees, but because he wants to put it off until he can address the issue without as much backlash (I.E. losing another 4 years in office), and that, if he did disagree, he'd just come out and say it rather than hide from the issue due to the fact that it probably wouldn't really affect his chances at being elected (he has the democrat nomination for president in 2012 in the bag as is, due to his current position, so there's not as much to worry about political backlash on his side, especially this early in the game).
I don't necessarily agree with the argument, but there's sound backing for the idea.
I agree, but it's still a bit of a dick move on their part.
It probably would have been a better idea to give the people they were ditching a firm notice ahead of time, rather than ditch them after only a "probably at some point" type warning.
No, there is very little needed to discover why men don't like condoms.
They rob feeling, they're ugly, greasy, and usually cost money. They're not always handy, they kill the moment, and they make the whole thing seem less intimate (for the romantic types who notice things like that) and so on and so forth. The reason why men don't use them as often as they should? Hormones, availability, laziness, and alternate contraceptives.
As for why some men use them all the time, and others rarely to not at all, that can be explained by how much a man is concerned about his partner getting pregnant, as well as how well he plans ahead, and how much self control he has.
If you want to fix these problems, increase condom availability (via handing out condoms, or some other such method), find ways to make them thinner, more sensitive, and easier to use, and other such things.
The problem with the research is not it's intent so much as the fact that it's getting information that could be gleaned from an Internet survey, and that it's money that could be put to better use, rather than finding out something that's common knowledge to anyone whose used a condom and had sex a few times.
A public service announcement for all citizens of the US of A: stop mutilating your children's cocks.
Seriously, what is the matter with you nutjobs? The idea that circumcision promotes cock health is long since disproven. Put the knife down. Step away from the cock. Thank you.
Sheesh. We "nutjobs" would take you guys a lot more seriously if you stopped calling this practice "mutilation" or "child abuse." It's long-ingrained in many cultures that love and dote on children.
I'm circumcised and enjoy sex a lot. Maybe I'd enjoy it "more" without it, but I don't really care.
Circumcision may have only slight health benefits for men in the Western world today, but it also offers only very slight risks as well. Lots of us do it for religious or cultural reasons, and to my knowledge there's no greater incidence of sexual dysfunction or other problems like that in societies where that behavior is prevalent.
Albeit, the exaggeration may not be warranted, but you really shouldn't project your apathy onto the general population.
Fact is, circumcision takes away a lot of feeling, and although you may want to do it for religious reasons (health benefits aside - there are better, less expensive, more responsible ways to gain those) or for tradition, if the kid doesn't see things the same way as you, or even outright ditches your religion, or just doesn't want to follow family traditions, he's screwed over because of a choice YOU made for him.
Granted, this does present a bit of a catch 22 (circumcision after the age of 3 is ridiculously painful, more expensive, etc) but, at the same time, it's not fair to make someone's choice for them when it can't be reversed, and it'll affect them throughout their life.
Of course, if, tomorrow, we come up with some stem cell magic to repair the foreskin to ~as good of condition as before the chop, I'd be all for circumcision at birth for those who are wealthy enough to afford to regrow it for their children if needed. It does have some valid benefits (namely, decreased rate of contracting STDs) and there are probably a lot of people out there who don't mind the decreased sensation for religious, traditional, or health-based purposes.
But, we don't have that yet, and it's not looking like we will in even the remotely near future, so, until then, that argument is moot.
Because were I in the position of my parents shortly after my birth, I wouldn't have made the same decision as them.
I suppose it's not as big a deal as most people are making it, but, really, genital mutilation without the consent of the one being cut up is never cool, regardless of how socially acceptable it is, or the inability of the one being cut up to give consent.
I'm not sure whether that's supposed to read "I'm off to spend my intellectual resources on more intelligent people" or "I'm off to spend my physical resources on high school girls".
Normally I would take the former, but, then again, it is/..
Half Life 2: Lost Coast does not count as a full game by any measure ever... not even an expansion pack. It's 20 minutes of game play, tops, with about a half hour-ish of commentary on the graphics system. It is, at best, a glorified tech demo.
Point still stands, but it's more than worth clarifying.
Which is larger and more powerful, the lobbies protecting gun rights, or the lobbies protecting gay rights, freedom of the press, et. al?
The ACLU is the NRA of the first, fourth and fifth amendments. If you don't want to support them because of that, that's fine, but for the sake for the poor servers hosting Slashdot, stop your bitching.
Slashdot Mirror
Hitler
/argument.
As a side note, I'm amazed that you haven't realized the flimsiness of this argument. Not only does a lack of direction after we discount god not really mean that he does exist, but there's a lot of philosophy directed toward how we should live and interact with others, with ideas ranging from "live to optimize the pleasure you experience" to "try to do what brings the most happiness to others" (hedonism and utilitarianism respectively).
That's not going to be the case, though, just as it isn't now, with Ubuntu-based netbooks costing ~ the same amount as an identical Windows netbook.
Its only the end if we can't tolerate different lifestyles and differing viewpoints.
Dammit, it's the end of the republic.
That's the thing about IR though - you can see both.
How naive, thinking that it still works like that...
It doesn't. At all. If somebody abuses it, it'll likely go on for months before somebody finds out that can do something about it.
To be honest, I'm more worried about who mans these cameras. If it's local citizens, there are FAR too many ways to abuse this system, and if it's a computer, than there's no way to take the context of the situation into account, which is the main problem I have with red light cameras and the like (they always give tickets, while cops might be more lenient depending on the situation).
Who believes that shit, though?
I mean, seriously, "Mission Accomplished!" is still a huge joke with some of my friends to this day. Throw it in during an unrelated conversation, I know at least one or two people that will snicker.
It only counts as brainwashing if it..... you know.... brainwashes.
For that matter, it's probably true to an extent of all those old, old games with 8 and 16 bit graphics. I mean, I can remember being just as enthralled playing Doomdark's Revenge on the Spectrum as ever I've been playing Oblivion. It's not as if you take the pictures on the monitor for actual reality: the graphics just provide the outline of a scene: the player's imagination fleshes out the details.
I wouldn't be so quick to say that, in my opinion. This generation of gamers can get by with it easily, due to the fact that they've played those games before, and they're comfortable with that level of graphical presentation. Newer gamers, however, don't really have that advantage and probably wouldn't be able to sit through NES or SNES generation games for more than a few minutes before getting bored, unless they're clued in to the quality behind the games before hand.
I, for instance, was raised on the NES and the Genesis, but I pretty much skipped over the N64 generation. As a result, I have difficulties taking any game put out around 2000 seriously, with a few exceptions, despite the fact that I love a large number of sprite-based games, as well as everything on this side of the graphical divide.
No, it's not a mature approach to gaming. Being completely unable to appreciate graphics for what they make a game is more or less a slap in the face to the developers who put all that elbow grease into making the game pretty and immersible.
Now, granted, the opposite view, that graphics make a game, can be just as much a slap in the face, and is definitely an immature way to judge games, but that doesn't really raise it's counterpart into the realm of legitimate views, it just means that the ideal, mature way to judge games is somewhere in the middle.
Graphics are important for many games - they add a sense of realism. Far Cry 2, for instance, was a decent game. It had a barely average plot, absolutely painful voice acting on all characters, and the vehicle mechanics were awful. At the same time, though, I could spend hours just playing with the fire mechanics, something that wouldn't be possible with, say, 2004-level graphics.
That's not to say that graphics make a game - many games are, in fact, good without good graphical presentation, but just as good game play or a good story can save a game, so can good use of graphics and special effects.
I don't think 2 Girls 1 Cup was made to turn people on.
It's called shock porn for a reason.
Oh psh, it happened like, what, a week ago?
By now, it's fair game.
Ads? On MY Slashdot?
It's more likely than you think.
And as a side note.... $500 is never "cheap" unless we're talking cars, houses, real jewelry, or very powerful computers.
If desensitization is the main problem you have behind violent video games, you may want to rethink your argument.
Desensitization happens through a wide variety of means in a wide variety of areas. Were we actually concerned about desensitization, not only should we focus on the widely referred to horror and action films (which often go far further than games are ever reasonably allowed to go) but also many other forms of media, pornography chief among them (and probably far more pressing, to boot, considering how quickly porn can desensitize, and how much wider a range of taboos it includes).
But.... desensitization really isn't that big of a deal. Yeah, you might be slower to help people, or some BS like that, but at the end of day, being able to sit through a violent video game or horror movie without feeling as much horror as other people really isn't that terrible. There are more pressing issues that can be fixed without the need to censor media or restrict a valid art form.
Assuming by "realistic" you mean more blood, guts, and polygons, while ignoring the universally unappealing aspects of death, as most game marketers seem to take it.
In this context, though, it doesn't mean more gory, it means more tangible and more believable. Video games have a tendency (as they should) to strip out the undesirable parts of the aspects they cover. As an earlier poster said, video games don't have you run out of breath if you try to run for too long, or stub your toe every once in a while, and the same goes for deaths - the truly unappealing aspects are usually stripped out, either purposefully or because of the lack in technology to convey them, to keep games fun.
True, but at the same time, you can't say that video games are causing violence when violent crimes haven't increased since video games became violent.
I mean, unless you find some root cause of the decline in violence that can offset negative trends normally caused by video games and still cause a decrease in violence (possible, but unlikely) then there's really no reason to tinker with the system until it stops working again.
Well, let's see...
Consequences for killing people in a game world - fun, pretty red blood splatters.
Consequences for killing people in the real world - jail, loss of (unrecoverable) life, social backlash, etc. etc. etc.
It's to the point where pretty much anyone over the age of 4 (as well as many, many 4 and unders) can grasp just why we shouldn't kill people in the real world, even though it's OK in games.
Unfortunately, the resources alloted to a presidential CANDIDATE far outstrip those alloted to the president, in some senses.
Although Obama had vast sums of money at man power at his disposal, that's mostly because he wasn't already in a position of power, but rather fighting for it tooth and nail. Once you reach the presidency, although some semblance of the man power and money remain, it mostly goes away due to the fact that it's not as vital once you've reached the top.
You'd have more of a case were you arguing this during the election cycle, rather than 3/4 of a year after the fact.
The logic behind the argument is that, if he's avoiding discussion now, it's not because he disagrees, but because he wants to put it off until he can address the issue without as much backlash (I.E. losing another 4 years in office), and that, if he did disagree, he'd just come out and say it rather than hide from the issue due to the fact that it probably wouldn't really affect his chances at being elected (he has the democrat nomination for president in 2012 in the bag as is, due to his current position, so there's not as much to worry about political backlash on his side, especially this early in the game).
I don't necessarily agree with the argument, but there's sound backing for the idea.
I agree, but it's still a bit of a dick move on their part.
It probably would have been a better idea to give the people they were ditching a firm notice ahead of time, rather than ditch them after only a "probably at some point" type warning.
No, there is very little needed to discover why men don't like condoms.
They rob feeling, they're ugly, greasy, and usually cost money. They're not always handy, they kill the moment, and they make the whole thing seem less intimate (for the romantic types who notice things like that) and so on and so forth. The reason why men don't use them as often as they should? Hormones, availability, laziness, and alternate contraceptives.
As for why some men use them all the time, and others rarely to not at all, that can be explained by how much a man is concerned about his partner getting pregnant, as well as how well he plans ahead, and how much self control he has.
If you want to fix these problems, increase condom availability (via handing out condoms, or some other such method), find ways to make them thinner, more sensitive, and easier to use, and other such things.
The problem with the research is not it's intent so much as the fact that it's getting information that could be gleaned from an Internet survey, and that it's money that could be put to better use, rather than finding out something that's common knowledge to anyone whose used a condom and had sex a few times.
A public service announcement for all citizens of the US of A: stop mutilating your children's cocks.
Seriously, what is the matter with you nutjobs? The idea that circumcision promotes cock health is long since disproven. Put the knife down. Step away from the cock. Thank you.
Sheesh. We "nutjobs" would take you guys a lot more seriously if you stopped calling this practice "mutilation" or "child abuse." It's long-ingrained in many cultures that love and dote on children.
I'm circumcised and enjoy sex a lot. Maybe I'd enjoy it "more" without it, but I don't really care.
Circumcision may have only slight health benefits for men in the Western world today, but it also offers only very slight risks as well. Lots of us do it for religious or cultural reasons, and to my knowledge there's no greater incidence of sexual dysfunction or other problems like that in societies where that behavior is prevalent.
Albeit, the exaggeration may not be warranted, but you really shouldn't project your apathy onto the general population.
Fact is, circumcision takes away a lot of feeling, and although you may want to do it for religious reasons (health benefits aside - there are better, less expensive, more responsible ways to gain those) or for tradition, if the kid doesn't see things the same way as you, or even outright ditches your religion, or just doesn't want to follow family traditions, he's screwed over because of a choice YOU made for him.
Granted, this does present a bit of a catch 22 (circumcision after the age of 3 is ridiculously painful, more expensive, etc) but, at the same time, it's not fair to make someone's choice for them when it can't be reversed, and it'll affect them throughout their life.
Of course, if, tomorrow, we come up with some stem cell magic to repair the foreskin to ~as good of condition as before the chop, I'd be all for circumcision at birth for those who are wealthy enough to afford to regrow it for their children if needed. It does have some valid benefits (namely, decreased rate of contracting STDs) and there are probably a lot of people out there who don't mind the decreased sensation for religious, traditional, or health-based purposes.
But, we don't have that yet, and it's not looking like we will in even the remotely near future, so, until then, that argument is moot.
Because were I in the position of my parents shortly after my birth, I wouldn't have made the same decision as them.
I suppose it's not as big a deal as most people are making it, but, really, genital mutilation without the consent of the one being cut up is never cool, regardless of how socially acceptable it is, or the inability of the one being cut up to give consent.
I'm not sure whether that's supposed to read "I'm off to spend my intellectual resources on more intelligent people" or "I'm off to spend my physical resources on high school girls".
Normally I would take the former, but, then again, it is /..
Half Life 2: Lost Coast does not count as a full game by any measure ever... not even an expansion pack. It's 20 minutes of game play, tops, with about a half hour-ish of commentary on the graphics system. It is, at best, a glorified tech demo.
Point still stands, but it's more than worth clarifying.
And frankly many of its members are crazy gun nuts, though that is really more of a strawman.
You're thinking ad hominem.
Which is larger and more powerful, the lobbies protecting gun rights, or the lobbies protecting gay rights, freedom of the press, et. al?
The ACLU is the NRA of the first, fourth and fifth amendments. If you don't want to support them because of that, that's fine, but for the sake for the poor servers hosting Slashdot, stop your bitching.