People often watch things to be informed or to experience a wide range of motions. It's absurd to pretend that a game where you play the sniper killing Kennedy is about anything more than entertainment
What about a game like I described above about 911? Or the kinds of games used by the armed forces for training? What about a movie like "Team America," which is obviously meant to be "just entertainment," yet portrays in what some would say is a very offensive way the current US war on terrorism as an ignorant and murderous enterprise?
I think almost the opposite of what you say above -- it's absurd to think a video game, or a movie, is ever only about entertainment. There is always something else going on -- information is conveyed, ideas are presented, arguments are implicitly and explicitly made. In fact, I don't think you would be offended at all if you didn't agree with me at some level - the reason this bothers people is they object to what the video game implicitly is arguing for -- some kind of implicit support (perhaps) for the Kennedy assassination. I think it's a little different - it's support for a particular conspiracy theory about the assassination -- but either way, the point is, it is more than just "entertainment."
I've got mixed feelings about all this but let me play devil's advocate for a sec:
1) Tens of millions of people were killed in WWII. The sheer number of deaths depersonalizes the victims. (Unfair as that may be)
Arguably, a game that desensitizes participants to the slaughter of thousands of faceless combatants is worse from a moral perspective than one that targets a particular individual. In any case, I have seen games that focus on individuals -- Hitler, for example. And again, the Kennedy assassination is an important piece of history -- I think it would be different with say a game that focused on the murder of Joe Blow from Indiana or whatever.
Time, WWII was two generations ago, the Kennedy murder was one.
I see the point, but who decides when enough time has passed? There are WWII vets alive today who are probably offended by WWII games. Besides, what about games that depict (and even celebrate) the slaughter of vaguely defined swarthy terrorist-types from the middle east? We have wars going on right now that some games portray (with varying degrees of specificity). I think the real difference is that American culture recognizes one as an "enemy" and it's ok to slaughter enemies.
3) Morality. All but the strongest pacificts would agree that killing another armed man in war is one thing and murdering an unarmed civilian is another.
Political assassination, however, is a third case. I think you're right that we shouldn't see games reenacting the gas chambers or Columbine or whatever, but I'm not so sure about an event that involves heads of state (especially when the past 40 years of popular culture have been obsessed with the details of this particular head of state's assassination).
I don't see that being a 'historical event' is much of a mitigating factor.
The problem is actually that you do see being a "video game" as a mitigating factor in the other direction. The fact that this is a historical event is important for the same reason that it is OK to write a biography exposing the sexual escapades of a President while it is not OK to write one exposing those of your next door neighbor. As a public official, his death is a matter of public interest and insofar as there has been intense public speculation about the circumstances of it, well, this is just another form of expression for that speculation. I agree with many that this is in poor taste, but I don't think it's beyond the pale, at least no more so than a documentary about the Kennedy assassination.
So was 9/11, and I think most people would be quite offended if someone were to make a 'hit the twin towers flight simulator'-type game out of it.
They already did -- some company called Microsoft made it - in 2000. As far as a post-911 game like that being offensive -- I think the bigger problem for many people would be the game's use as a training tool. There is no way this game could be used to train for assassination unless you're planning something in Dealy Plaza. But I don't think there would be as much objection to a post-911 game that simulated the collapse of the WTC or the Pentagon in order to cast doubt on the official story -- some sort of physics simulation of the buildings coming down or the Pentagon collapsing that implies that there is no plane or whatever. That's a more apt analogy.
Such a simulation would be too "serious" though; I think the real problem people have with this is that it is billed as "entertainment" rather than "education" or "advocacy," but we've got to recognize that many things are both.
Nah, if Bobby participated in any coverup, it was because the wool was pulled over his eyes, at least I think that's what the conspiracy buffs say. Remember, he got himself killed a few years later, so you'll be told this is all connected. If I sound skeptical it's because I am; I agree with the parent poster that it's unlikely that RFK participated.
According to the author of Case Closed, Bobby did stonewall the Warren Commission in its efforts to investigate some things (esp. Cuba) but he argues it had more to do with protecting his brother's reputation.
This is probably not meant to achieve validity; only persuasion. This will be very convincing to some people. It won't matter if it doesn't prove anything.
I don't play enough video games to know what it is called but I recall a WWII video game where at least part of the time you were an assassin, and you had to kill specific people. You still got shot at by guards and so forth so it wasn't just a massacre, but there were rooms where everyone was unarmed and you could just pick them off.
I agree that a game portraying Jews thrown in graves would be more offensive but it's also not that far removed from a visit to the Holocaust Museum or the Museum of Tolerance, where the conditions of Jews are recreated in rather direct ways. The difference there of course is that in the museum you play the role of the victim.
It's an interesting question and I'm not sure where I fall on it but I can't say I'm too offended by this, especially given the explanation someone else posted that the videogamemakers want to prove that the Warren Commission hypothesis is not possible. If that's the case, then there is little question that this is a form of political speech and even historical research, poor taste or no.
This isn't the recreation of just any murder; it's the murder of a U.S. President. Sure, Kennedy family members will find this offensive, but they likely find many things said and portrayed about the JFK murder offensive. But JFK's murder is an important piece of history (and the trajectory of the bullets and so forth have been foregrounded in many accounts of that history). There are a lot of debates in the press and so forth about Kennedy's murder, and these details are of consequence. I could see how conspiracy buffs would love this game. I could also see how the Kennedys would be upset about it, but that is one of the costs of being such a significant part of history. This is only slightly more offensive than Oliver Stone's movie, for example. I would agree with the idea that the FPS-reenactment style video game is more than a touch gruesome, but there is a market for that, and the game makers are well within their rights in satisfying that market, and they are only slightly outside of the accepted boundaries of good taste (at least in the US).
The parent comment asked why it was any different from a WWII reenactment game. All three conditions would certainly apply. And there are hordes of WWII games, and there is no uproar.
This is a historical event, and while all three things are probably true for many recountings of such historical events, I'm not convinced that video games should be treated differently from any other historical account. Certainly the game is there for entertainment, which makes it different from a documentary (for example), but not so different that it isn't still (at least implicitly) a narrative about an important historical event.
Great. Now the Swift Boat Observatory folks, emboldened after GWB won, are going after GRBs, questioning the connection between them and black holes. Karl Rove is behind all of this, I tell you!
Complaints aside, it's clear from the post what the problem is. You seem to be running Firefox with the Windows Operating System. In order to fix the problem, simply uninstall Windows, and install Linux or BSD, or, better yet, throw your windows machine out the nearest window and purchase a computer capable of running MacOS X. Then install Firefox and you will find your problems disappear.
Man that shit is complicated. No wonder we Americans never adopted the metric system. If I want to measure a yard, I don't need no fancy lasers. Just a yardstick!!
oh please; I was joking. Read my posts and you'll see I don't really think like that. It may have been a dumb joke but I found it funny. Sorry to have offended you....
Some will, yes. The smarter companies will develop alternative energy resources and clean-burning fuel solutions, knowing that they will outlast the companies that jump from country to country making a quick buck on a dying business model. As someone else in this discussion pointed out, there are BILLIONS of dollars here, and many companies (esp in European countries) are already investing heavily in that direction. True, those who cling to creating massive amounts of pollution as their way of producing energy will be hurt economically by this in the short term. Things change, and this is a change that has been far too long in coming. Kyoto is not the answer - but it does give one good incentive to companies to find alternative energy sources faster. Transitions take time, and they will be painful for some. But if we want to survive as a species on this planet for longer, we will have to deal with this transition sooner or later.
Please indicate where in the treaty you see anything like this. China will enter "Annex I" in a few years and will be considered along with the rest of the big polluters. So, no, they are not exempt for being Chinese.
By what measure do you find greater polluters (in terms of CO2)? The US contributes 1/4 of the world's greenhouse gases; that is more than anyone else. Someone else posted a list in the discussion below. Who do you think the largest polluter is?
That is FALSE. Have you read the Kyoto protocol? Do you see the word "China" even mentioned? Countries are categorized by how much they pollute, not by whether or not they are Chinese. When China out-pollutes the US, they will move to the "Annex I" country list, and will no longer be "exempt."
A lot of this discussion would be cleared up if people actually read about the Kyoto protocol rather than repeating Rush Limbaugh's summary of it.
Please show me where in the Kyoto protocol the words "China" or "developing countries" appear. Oh, I see, they don't appear in the treaty at all. Because the categories of countries are based on how much pollution those countries emit, not based on whether they are "developing" or whether their human rights record is bad enough to exempt them. When China pollutes as much as the US does, they will move to the same category as the US.
First, it's not dead, that's the whole point of this story. Second, what is unfair about the treaty? It's only "not in our interest" because we are the world's biggest polluter. When another country out-pollutes us, then it will not be in *their* interest to ratify it. It's also not in a theif's interest to have laws against stealing -- that doesn't make the laws "unfair."
It's amazing you can get +5 insightful for empty posturing about the treaty without even giving a reason to back it up.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't wait for them to come out with the FPS game in which you kill iPods!!
What about a game like I described above about 911? Or the kinds of games used by the armed forces for training? What about a movie like "Team America," which is obviously meant to be "just entertainment," yet portrays in what some would say is a very offensive way the current US war on terrorism as an ignorant and murderous enterprise?
I think almost the opposite of what you say above -- it's absurd to think a video game, or a movie, is ever only about entertainment. There is always something else going on -- information is conveyed, ideas are presented, arguments are implicitly and explicitly made. In fact, I don't think you would be offended at all if you didn't agree with me at some level - the reason this bothers people is they object to what the video game implicitly is arguing for -- some kind of implicit support (perhaps) for the Kennedy assassination. I think it's a little different - it's support for a particular conspiracy theory about the assassination -- but either way, the point is, it is more than just "entertainment."
1) Tens of millions of people were killed in WWII. The sheer number of deaths depersonalizes the victims. (Unfair as that may be)
Arguably, a game that desensitizes participants to the slaughter of thousands of faceless combatants is worse from a moral perspective than one that targets a particular individual. In any case, I have seen games that focus on individuals -- Hitler, for example. And again, the Kennedy assassination is an important piece of history -- I think it would be different with say a game that focused on the murder of Joe Blow from Indiana or whatever.
Time, WWII was two generations ago, the Kennedy murder was one.
I see the point, but who decides when enough time has passed? There are WWII vets alive today who are probably offended by WWII games. Besides, what about games that depict (and even celebrate) the slaughter of vaguely defined swarthy terrorist-types from the middle east? We have wars going on right now that some games portray (with varying degrees of specificity). I think the real difference is that American culture recognizes one as an "enemy" and it's ok to slaughter enemies.
3) Morality. All but the strongest pacificts would agree that killing another armed man in war is one thing and murdering an unarmed civilian is another.
Political assassination, however, is a third case. I think you're right that we shouldn't see games reenacting the gas chambers or Columbine or whatever, but I'm not so sure about an event that involves heads of state (especially when the past 40 years of popular culture have been obsessed with the details of this particular head of state's assassination).
I don't see that being a 'historical event' is much of a mitigating factor.
The problem is actually that you do see being a "video game" as a mitigating factor in the other direction. The fact that this is a historical event is important for the same reason that it is OK to write a biography exposing the sexual escapades of a President while it is not OK to write one exposing those of your next door neighbor. As a public official, his death is a matter of public interest and insofar as there has been intense public speculation about the circumstances of it, well, this is just another form of expression for that speculation. I agree with many that this is in poor taste, but I don't think it's beyond the pale, at least no more so than a documentary about the Kennedy assassination.
So was 9/11, and I think most people would be quite offended if someone were to make a 'hit the twin towers flight simulator'-type game out of it.
They already did -- some company called Microsoft made it - in 2000. As far as a post-911 game like that being offensive -- I think the bigger problem for many people would be the game's use as a training tool. There is no way this game could be used to train for assassination unless you're planning something in Dealy Plaza. But I don't think there would be as much objection to a post-911 game that simulated the collapse of the WTC or the Pentagon in order to cast doubt on the official story -- some sort of physics simulation of the buildings coming down or the Pentagon collapsing that implies that there is no plane or whatever. That's a more apt analogy.
Such a simulation would be too "serious" though; I think the real problem people have with this is that it is billed as "entertainment" rather than "education" or "advocacy," but we've got to recognize that many things are both.
You're a pissed off high school student wasting your classmates with heavy artillery.
Nah, if Bobby participated in any coverup, it was because the wool was pulled over his eyes, at least I think that's what the conspiracy buffs say. Remember, he got himself killed a few years later, so you'll be told this is all connected. If I sound skeptical it's because I am; I agree with the parent poster that it's unlikely that RFK participated.
According to the author of Case Closed, Bobby did stonewall the Warren Commission in its efforts to investigate some things (esp. Cuba) but he argues it had more to do with protecting his brother's reputation.
This is probably not meant to achieve validity; only persuasion. This will be very convincing to some people. It won't matter if it doesn't prove anything.
I agree that a game portraying Jews thrown in graves would be more offensive but it's also not that far removed from a visit to the Holocaust Museum or the Museum of Tolerance, where the conditions of Jews are recreated in rather direct ways. The difference there of course is that in the museum you play the role of the victim.
It's an interesting question and I'm not sure where I fall on it but I can't say I'm too offended by this, especially given the explanation someone else posted that the videogamemakers want to prove that the Warren Commission hypothesis is not possible. If that's the case, then there is little question that this is a form of political speech and even historical research, poor taste or no.
This isn't the recreation of just any murder; it's the murder of a U.S. President. Sure, Kennedy family members will find this offensive, but they likely find many things said and portrayed about the JFK murder offensive. But JFK's murder is an important piece of history (and the trajectory of the bullets and so forth have been foregrounded in many accounts of that history). There are a lot of debates in the press and so forth about Kennedy's murder, and these details are of consequence. I could see how conspiracy buffs would love this game. I could also see how the Kennedys would be upset about it, but that is one of the costs of being such a significant part of history. This is only slightly more offensive than Oliver Stone's movie, for example. I would agree with the idea that the FPS-reenactment style video game is more than a touch gruesome, but there is a market for that, and the game makers are well within their rights in satisfying that market, and they are only slightly outside of the accepted boundaries of good taste (at least in the US).
This is a historical event, and while all three things are probably true for many recountings of such historical events, I'm not convinced that video games should be treated differently from any other historical account. Certainly the game is there for entertainment, which makes it different from a documentary (for example), but not so different that it isn't still (at least implicitly) a narrative about an important historical event.
Where can I find these $100 powerbooks you speak of?
That's crazy talk. This place is spam free. And your website can be spam free too! I'll show you how for just $19.95!!
Great. Now the Swift Boat Observatory folks, emboldened after GWB won, are going after GRBs, questioning the connection between them and black holes. Karl Rove is behind all of this, I tell you!
Well, it does beat the crap out of the mouse-brained human overlords we seem to have now!!
Complaints aside, it's clear from the post what the problem is. You seem to be running Firefox with the Windows Operating System. In order to fix the problem, simply uninstall Windows, and install Linux or BSD, or, better yet, throw your windows machine out the nearest window and purchase a computer capable of running MacOS X. Then install Firefox and you will find your problems disappear.
Man that shit is complicated. No wonder we Americans never adopted the metric system. If I want to measure a yard, I don't need no fancy lasers. Just a yardstick!!
And this is different from TV ads how?
That's a version of the software custom made for the California Governor's office.
oh please; I was joking. Read my posts and you'll see I don't really think like that. It may have been a dumb joke but I found it funny. Sorry to have offended you....
Some will, yes. The smarter companies will develop alternative energy resources and clean-burning fuel solutions, knowing that they will outlast the companies that jump from country to country making a quick buck on a dying business model. As someone else in this discussion pointed out, there are BILLIONS of dollars here, and many companies (esp in European countries) are already investing heavily in that direction. True, those who cling to creating massive amounts of pollution as their way of producing energy will be hurt economically by this in the short term. Things change, and this is a change that has been far too long in coming. Kyoto is not the answer - but it does give one good incentive to companies to find alternative energy sources faster. Transitions take time, and they will be painful for some. But if we want to survive as a species on this planet for longer, we will have to deal with this transition sooner or later.
Please indicate where in the treaty you see anything like this. China will enter "Annex I" in a few years and will be considered along with the rest of the big polluters. So, no, they are not exempt for being Chinese.
Why do you hate America so much?
By what measure do you find greater polluters (in terms of CO2)? The US contributes 1/4 of the world's greenhouse gases; that is more than anyone else. Someone else posted a list in the discussion below. Who do you think the largest polluter is?
A lot of this discussion would be cleared up if people actually read about the Kyoto protocol rather than repeating Rush Limbaugh's summary of it.
Please show me where in the Kyoto protocol the words "China" or "developing countries" appear. Oh, I see, they don't appear in the treaty at all. Because the categories of countries are based on how much pollution those countries emit, not based on whether they are "developing" or whether their human rights record is bad enough to exempt them. When China pollutes as much as the US does, they will move to the same category as the US.
It's amazing you can get +5 insightful for empty posturing about the treaty without even giving a reason to back it up.