Shouldn't you at least have to proof that there was at least some damage? The RIAA has failed to prove any damage whatsoever, how can you claim damages for an action which has not been proven to cause damage?
Perhaps people might take your words with more heed if you could correctly use the word perjure. I would have also accepted "commit perjury". Thanks for playing. =)
How about the many artists who release all their music under the Creative Commons Share-Alike NonCommercial license? Who make their livelihood on donations, people buying merchandise, and ticket sales to live shows?
The same people who view the sharing and downloading of their music as free publicity. Paul & Storm and Jonathan Coulton just to name a couple.
I guess someone should inform the entire fashion business that there's no monetary incentive to create what they do and that there is no value in their artistic creations because copyright doesn't cover clothes....
Copyright infringement through file sharing isn't like having your car "copied." It's more like having your car keys copied.
Wrong. Because the "lawful exclusive right" you are talking about involves depriving the owner of the use of his car when the person who copied the keys uses it. However, if I download a song. I do not deprive the author the ability to distribute the song while I listen to it. I don't deprive anyone of listening to it while I listen to it. In fact, when I listen to a song I have downloaded there is no difference if I don't listen to the song or don't download it. Nothing is deprived and nothing is removed.
In the case of your Car keys argument. Copying the key can be arguably similar to a copyright infringement if you don't use the key, unless you also copy the car. See, using the key you have copied would deprive the owner of his car for the time period that you have it. This is nothing like "illegal downloads".
It's already been proven that in general, those who pirate the most music also spend the most money on music. Most pirates who actually pay for music will only pay when their money goes directly to the artist. It is also a view I have taken up too. I've gone to many live performances, and I'll purchase music from the artist directly especially because they are unsigned. I'll donate money directly to the artist, just because I want them to keep making music
It's simple economics really. If the music is good, people will want to hear more of it. In order for people to hear more of that music, they will give money to the artist by way of ticket sales, donations, purchasing music and merchandise, etc. If the music isn't good, then people won't care if they hear more of it or not and thus won't give money to the artist.
Exceptional artists will make money and be able to continue to make music. At least this is how a capitalistic society SHOULD work.
As an example, some of my favorite artists release all their music under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share-Alike License, which essentially means you can share the music with whoever you want, whenever you want as long as you don't make money off of it and make sure to correctly attribute the music to them. They make good money by live performances and people buying music and merchandise and donating. I've done all three myself along with thousands of other people.
Just wanted to point out that only under a very specific definition of family are children implied. Otherwise under no way are children implied when someone says "family" I would consider a married couple to be a family as would many other people.
Nevermind the huge difference between violence and pornography.
Where is the big difference? Both have alleged negative effects on a children's development, but neither really has clear proof behind those claims.
For one thing, there is a history of "protecting" children from pornography or 'obscene' material in the US. There is no such history with violence. Not to mention the subjectiveness of it all. It has been fairly simple to codify what is considered 'obscene' and pornographic. The english language just isn't precise enough to be able to distinguish between violence that is ok and violence that is supposedly bad for children. It would either be so restrictive as to have large enough loop holes as to do nothing or it will be too encompassing that bugs bunny cartoons would be illegal to sell to children.
Not to mention the actual difference between pornography and violence being that one is 'salacious' and is intended to elicit a sexual response. You can easily say that if there are people engaging in a sexual act, nudity intended to elicit a sexual response, or what not, it's a safe bet that you can't give it to a minor. Where is the line drawn for violence? Would this outlaw simple fighting games like street fighter? Would it outlaw all first person shooters, or only some of them? Does shooting someone constitute maiming? Is a game where you slice demons who look human in half the same as a game where you slice humans in half for the same reasons? Who gets to draw this line? A government organization? A jury? In this current day and age do we really need to be spending police manpower on fining video game retail clerks? It's just way to vague and there is no way to be precise enough.
and then promptly ban it.
It is not a ban to begin with, it is mandatory age restrictions, which many stores enforce already anyway, so the practical effects should be rather small if any at all.
First: the fact that you said 'it is not a ban to begin with' scares me. First it's attempting to get a mandatory age restriction, then it's banning. Attempts have already been made to ban certain games, this would give a precedent to help those who would want to ban specific games.
As mentioned before, since it is impossible to easily define what would or would not be illegal to sell to a child stores just wouldn't carry these games to avoid the hassle. This means that adults, who the games are intended for, would not be able to acquire the games except for more specialty stores. Which means they wouldn't sell as well due to not being carried by retailers, which would result in the games not being made. It would essentially force developers to censor themselves. Did you see what the 'comics code' did to the comics industry? This would essentially muzzle the creativity in the video game industry.
The flip side to this, would be to use the ESRB ratings as basis of the mandatory restrictions, but that would be giving legal teeth to a voluntary rating system. Essentially turning the ESRB organization into an arm of the government. Not exactly a good idea. As Justice Scalia joked during the oral arguments, "California could set up some office to deal with rating these games. They could call it the California Office of Censorship." Because that's what it would be. Censorship. Even more, having two separate rating systems to deal with would cause further confusion for parents who actually do want to be informed about the contents of a game.
If this were being proposed for movies or books, far less people would take it seriously. Why single out video games? There isn't a shred of evidence comparing them to other media. Why carve out an exception for video games when we don't regulate violence in any other media? We should not throw out exceptions to the First Amendment simply 'just in case'. Show me concrete evidence. If you don't have any, then stop trying to censor it.
You have already conceded that you can't prevent them from doing it due to going to friend's houses, school, etc. So you know they'll still play the games. All you have done is give them a reason to hide something from you, rather than be open with you about it. If you were correct in your opinion that somehow video games would warp your kid's sense of values, then you've eliminated yourself from the equation to even discuss with them what they are seeing in the game and framing it in a way consistent with your values.
Censorship just fosters desire to rebel and see what all the fuss is about..
The problem with this legislation is that even your child has a right to free speech that may not be infringed upon by the government.
Except that selling porn to minors is already outlawed by the government and handling violence the same as porn doesn't sound all that far fetched to me.
Nevermind the huge difference between violence and pornography. Nevermind the fact that there was already a tradition of regulating pornography in the country when that idiotic exception was dreamed up. No, instead we should take anything we can get enough people to say we don't like, make an analogy to porn with it, and then promptly ban it. What happens when this extends to your favorite horror movie? Your favorite action movies? Books?
My reasoning is fairly simple - amounting either to language issues (that I know kids hear at school, but again, why should I have to put up with it in my own home?), and/or if it revolves heavily around notions that happen to be morally reprehensible to me (such as violence, drugs, etc).
Much highly important classical literature revolves heavily around notions that happen to be morally reprehensible to many people. One would never seek to prevent a teenager from reading Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" simply because they find cannibalism to be reprehensible as it is a cornerstone in teaching social commentary and satire. While many people believe that games cannot possibly reach the artistic level of movies/comics/books, many games are excellent social commentaries and satirical looks at many subjects. These same games would be classified as "repugnant" or "reprehensible" by people while not seeing the point of it all. Would you prevent your child from reading Shakespeare due to the sex, violence, and drugs that are evident in it? Mind you my intent is not to compare all video games to Shakespeare, yet some can be considered by some people to be just as much art as one of his plays.
As for why such values are important to me... well, I know that they are deeply ingrained parts of my psyche, so it's hard for me to extract the underlying reason.
Honorable, and for the record I was not questioning your values nor claiming they were in any way wrong to have or that it was in any way not honorable to try to ingrain them into your children. Also for the record, we have similar values. The difference is that I don't believe that a child brought up to understand these values and hold them close cannot play a video game that exemplifies them without being 'tainted' by it. You've mentioned your kids are teenagers, do you trust them yet to know the difference between right and wrong? Do you trust them yet to know the difference between a video game and reality? If so, what does it matter what game they play? If you trust them to know these differences, then no amount of video games will change them. If they know that the behavior is not acceptable and would be punished, doesn't the video game serve as an outlet for these tendencies? Allow them to see what happens within the game world without consequences outside of the game world.
Now... why do I not seem to particularly care how they feel about my values? Well, because human beings are creatures of habit - we tend to develop a preference for the things we are accustomed to, and if they aren't playing the sorts of games I would object to simply because even if only because they know I have the means to prevent it, the chances are much better that they aren't simply going to want to be around that sort of stuff on their own eventually anyways.
The problem is that if they understand that they have your values, and they do not act inappropriately and they understand that no amount of playing a violent game will change their opinion (ie. it's fun to play out a fantasy), they aren't going to understand why you don't want them to play the game. For the record, I wasn't asking why you don't care how they feel about your values, I asked why you don't care how they feel about your opinion towards video games. It's a very different question. Your obvious opinion is that you believe that playing these games will affect them negatively. You provide no evidence for this. You assume that because humans are 'creatures of habit' that exposure to these things will cause your kid to behave like them. Yet you do not know this to be true. Essentially, you don't trust your kids to know the difference between fantasy and reality. If you're really lucky they might listen to you for the sake of listening to you because you are the parent. More likely, your desire to ban these games from their home will push them towards trying to find out what is so bad about them, which will then l
If they know that the games aren't playable at home, they won't buy them in the first place. I'm content with that.
Well, in 90% of cases, they wouldn't be able to buy any of these games you don't want them to have (depending on where they go to buy the game, 100% of cases). Which means the only real ways for them to acquire the games are either for an adult to have purchased it for them or to get it from a friend. The former is obvious, the problem is not the kid. The latter is something that you'd have to deal with regardless. In addition, not being able to play them in the home doesn't do anything because they could acquire the game simply to be able to play it with a friend somewhere else.
From my experience, if you want your kid to give a damn about how you feel, they have to understand why. From their perspective you're just "out of touch" and "unreasonably" demanding that they do not play these games that all their friends can play. So they aren't going to care if you say that you know better if they can't see any reason why they should believe it in this case. Regardless if you are right or wrong. To this end, it feels to them that you don't care how they feel nor what their opinion is, and you admit this is true. Blind authoritarianism will just sow resentment, hence since you don't care how they feel, they don't care how you feel.
If the game console is in the family room, not in the bed room, then the fact that you could be home any minute creates a risk/reward for the kid to decide whether to try to play the game or not. It will definitely reduce the likelihood of the child playing the game in your house.
If I may ask, why don't you want a specific game played in your house? It obviously isn't "to protect them" or else you wouldn't want them playing it even at a friend's house. You don't want to have to "confiscate undesireable games like they are some sort of contraband" yet you are treating them like contraband. Like they are this horrible thing that will destroy the kid's life. One of the things I fought most with my parents about was when they were telling me that I had to or couldn't do something and gave no real explanation as to why. So I would argue, question, and reason with them as to why it was important that I do or not do a specific thing. In most cases, after logically explaining away all their reasoning, it boiled down to "because I said so" which was not a valid reason to me. I would never use 'because I said so' as a reasoning to a kid because they'll just disregard it. Perhaps your reasoning boils down to 'because I said so' in their minds and that is why. And, no offense, but as far as I can tell that is all your reasoning is since there is no evidence of any kind that proves causation between violent games and aggressive behavior.
Just as an aside. I'm very glad that your kids are pretty decent. It's great to hear, and rare. From the way you speak of them, I would agree with your assessment that you are not a bad parent. Perhaps, in this case, you just need a little help dealing with this specific issue. It sounds like you have a pretty decent amount of trust with your kids so I ask again, why is it you don't want these games in your house? You know they'll play them anyways, wouldn't you rather them play a game like this in your home than have to smuggle it around like a drug and play it behind your back? Wouldn't you rather know what your kid is doing than having them hiding it from you?
I never said, nor do I believe, that they would watch a movie and then shoot up a building or have their entire life destroyed by a few nightmares because of a game.
Nightmares can have lasting effects on children. Not the least of which would be the lack of sleep they'd get for a while. In addition, there's having to deal with a crying and screaming child repeatedly for several nights. If you told them they weren't allowed and they did anyways, that's one thing. It becomes a lesson of believing the parent when they tell you something and listening to them. I think it's cruel for the parent to not avoid intentionally giving the child nightmares. Because that also might give the impression to the child that the parent doesn't care or is not protecting them.
You are basing your entire opinion off only your own life experience rather than any knowledge of how psychology works or children. You assume that all 'normal' children are just like you and will have no problem with discerning these concepts.
Do you think there is no value is allowing a child to believe in some fictional concepts like Santa for a while? Not only that, but it is not always obvious that the child believes the character is real without specifically asking. Also, if they can believe a fictional character from a movie is real, why not the character from a game?
I'm not saying it's wrong to allow your child to play whatever they can. I'm not saying it's wrong to have the opinion that some things are inappropriate for your child. All I'm saying is it's not black and white. Parents should be able to make their own choice on how to raise the kid without government needing to step in. You want to let your child play whatever, that's great. All the power to the kid. You obviously believe that he is mature enough to play whatever (regardless of the fact that you believe ALL children are. That's your opinion). However don't believe that you have the right or responsibility to berate someone else because they believe their child is not mature enough. They are not harming the child and thus they are entitled to raise them as they see fit. Regardless whether or not you or I agree.
For what it's worth. I've been having fun playing devil's advocate with you. I personally believe that unless a child is disturbed they should be allowed to play whatever. However, I have more compassion than you apparently do and would not willingly allow a child I was taking care of to play something I knew would give him nightmares. If they played it anyways and got nightmares, I'd be the first one to tell the child that they should have listened to me and they deserved it, but I would also be the first one helping to explain that it isn't real and there as nothing to be afraid of.
How about a little more carrot and a little less stick? =P
Average child doesn't grasp the finality of death until between 6 - 11 years old.
Where did you get this from? Every friend I had growing up knew that video games, movies, and other media weren't real.
Oh nostalgia. You must be pretty young to so easily remember being 5 or 6 years old so vividly. I'd wager a guess that your average child isn't going to understand that their favorite hero isn't a real person until around age 6 or 7 or so. Some may take longer some may understand it sooner. Depends on the child. Take a child to Disney world and they're convinced that the characters they see people dressed up in are the actual characters. The same thing would hold true if they saw someone dressed up as a character from a video game. They may understand that the part they play, controlling them, may not be real but the understanding that the character themself is not real? A child that young might not full grasp it it.
While I can't speak for the ease or difficulty of parental controls to be bypassed, as far as I know they all allow the parent to enter a password to specifically bypass it for the child to play a game until the next time the console is started up.
I agree that better parental controls would be helpful to some people. FWIW I believe that parental controls are unnecessary and the fact is that your child can simply go to their friend's house and play the game. The solution is to not purchase the game for your child. Don't allow them to borrow the game from their friend if you don't like it. Keep the game console in the family room so unless your child is home alone, whoever is watching them always knows what they are playing.
The most important thing to do is to talk to your child, that way they know how to frame what they are seeing and experiencing. If you trust your child, there's nothing to worry about from any kind of violent media.
The law doesn't base it's decisions of what is or is not appropriate to sell to minors on the ratings system. It bases it on a vague set of criteria that is not well defined at all. As a result retail stores would stop selling any M-rated or higher games that might possibly fall under the scope rather than risk being fined as just because something is M-Rated doesn't mean it will or won't be legal to sell. It's not a risk that they'd be willing to take that they were shown a fake ID and not recognized it or whatever.
Currently, all major retail stores in the US do not sell games above their ratings and require ID to sell an m-rated game. In the tests done by the FTC there was a success rate nation-wide of over 85% with some individual store chains having success rates between 95% - 100% of enforcing the ratings system voluntarily. I fail to see how this law is helpful in anyway other than needless censorship.
Sure it does. It gives them less control over their own lives and a perceived lack of power.
At 5 years old or whatever, this doesn't even factor into the equation, it's that insignificant because there's tons of things they are or are not allowed to do based on their parents rules.
I answered it soon after.
You didn't, you mentioned you smacked your own hand with a hammer. Guess the fact that it hurt didn't make you learn your lesson huh?
They aren't. Nightmares are small-time and temporary.
You apparently know nothing of child psychology.
As it turns out, most of the mentally stable ones who haven't been indoctrinated by insane parents (like anti video game activists) are, however.
Except, not. Most children at that age have only just grasp the difference and might still believe that some of their favorite characters are actual real people.
How could they not? It only takes a few words to clear it up for them. You cease to live.
Once again, you show a complete lack of understanding of child psychology. At this point in their development, if you said that they wouldn't understand what you meant. They don't understand the concept of live versus death. Yes you can explain it to them, yes it isn't extremely difficult. However it is definitely more complicated than telling them 'you cease to live.'
The best thing to do would be to tell the truth rather than lying
Where did i say anything about lying? Asking why the pet won't wake up is because to a child, the dead pet is just sleeping. They have no concept of death. Eyes closed and motionless = sleeping to them. You've apparently never had to explain this to a child, or if you have I feel bad for the child.
Most sane children already know the difference
A 5 year old child, unless it has been explained to them, will not know the difference and is not insane. Just something they haven't experienced or had explained to them.
I just find people criticizing google for sniffing unsecured wireless networks by driving around to be idiotic. If you don't want anyone to know what you're doing, secure your wireless network. It's not difficult anymore.
While I agree with the sentiment that authority must always be questioned (got me into a lot of trouble as a child =P), it's still not wrong for a parent to deem that the child shouldn't be exposed to it until they are older. Especially because the parent knows the child better and thus will be able to better gauge how they will be affected by it. For example, a game with 'scary' hell hounds that give a child nightmares could cause the child to have an irrational fear of dogs. Not exactly a good thing. At that age, parents do have authority over the child. Since preventing them from playing the game does not harm them, there is no reason for the parent to not have the authority to deny the child the game.
At the age of 5, how would you know that?
I smashed my hand with a hammer before while pounding a nail into a block of wood. Go figure.
Nice way of deflecting my question. I'll ask again, if you saw a 5 year old with a hammer about to smack himself in the hand would you just let him or would you stop him?
Sounds like a good idea. But we are talking about a video game, not getting run over by a truck.
Right, which means you get the opportunity to talk to them afterwards instead of the child being dead. You seem to believe that children cannot be lastingly affected by anything they see or experience. While I believe it is nowhere near as powerful the people who back this law do, I understand that emotional development is shaped by experiences. A child who is not mature enough who plays a game can be affected by it they aren't going to turn into a murderer or anything of the sort, but it can give them preconceptions ideas and in the case of very young children the desire to emulate like smacking around their siblings or whatnot.
I'm not saying the child doesn't know a game from reality, I'm saying that if they watch Dante running around with his scythe killing demons and play that for a while. They may want to act it out and grab a toy that looks similar to a scythe and pretend their brother is a demon and run around the house smacking him. As amusing as this sounds (and it really does sound like something I would laugh at =p) do you really want your 5 year old running around at someone else's house pretending they are Dante and smacking that person's child thinking they are just playing a game? Or any other number of things that can happen.
If the parent thinks the child is mature enough to play the game without it affecting them, thats fine. If the parent believes their child is not mature enough to handle it and would develop a phobia, try to emulate the game causing a problem, <insert other child issue here>, then they should prevent their child from playing
Not every child is you or I. In fact, most children would be too scared even play any of the violent games we're thinking about. In addition at a very young age, they may not understand death very well (like when your child asks what happened to the family pet and why can't they wake up), it's much better to speak to them about this. Majority of children will have no problem grasping this concept if you talk to them about it, describing the difference between the use of the word "die" in the context of the game and in the context of real life.
While the rating itself is voluntary, governments at ALL levels make *laws* the sale of items based on these 'voluntary ratings'. So, yes, the ratings are voluntary, but how those ratings are used is by governments in law across the country. In california (and many states) the selling of 'X' rated material to minors is illegal, and this has stood legal challenges, so I see no difference why this should be different than video games.
Only pornography has been upheld as illegal to sell to minors. In addition, simply being rated 'X' is not enough for it to be illegal to sell to a minor. It must pass the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test to be considered illegal to sell to a minor. This would apply to anything, including video games, movies, comics, magazines, or books. It is not based on the rating system at all, rather, the 'X' rating is attempting to base itself on this test. If the rating body believes that it would be illegal for minors due to obscenity laws, then it will be given an 'X' rating.
i would most definitely want the same people (MPAA) who rate movies to apply teh same standards to movies as to video games.
I agree that we should have the same standards for movies and video games as far as ratings go. Whether I'd want the MPAA rating my video games is something else entirely. I believe that the ESRB has done a very good job in rating games, in general.
That said, I think the standards applied to movies are bogus, BUT, games shouldn't get a special exemption. If you want to change things, then change the system. It's bogus to carve out special exemptions for games.
Then you should not support this law because it is attempting to carve out a special exemption for games to be covered by law.
AS a separate issue, I'm quite willing to discuss that point -- since the body of information involving people viewing violent acts goes back to the 70's and the results are **universally** consistent involving children (which is who these laws would affect).
Could you please cite this universally consistent results? I have only ever at most seen a correlation, at worst studies that were completely unscientific and invalid.
The brain doesn't fully mature until in *some* areas until the mid 30's, which is why the minimum age for president was set at 35.
Interesting that our founding fathers would have enough of understanding of brain chemistry and development to be that thoughtful. Could you cite this? It was my understanding that the ages of candidacy were a way to help encourage people to be a Representative first, then a senator, then try for president, since thats the way the ages go. 25 for a Representative, 30 for Senator and 35 for President. I doubt the the forefathers had any understanding of emotional development and brain chemistry.
But the issue of whether or not exposure to violence affects subsequent behavior is NOT relevant to the idea of making the laws for restricting 'minor's[sic] access to material deemed "potentially harmful" (including attending strip clubs, and maybe even ingestion of potentially harmful substances (alcohol, tobacco), **CONSISTENT** makes a great deal of logical sense that is really hard to argue against (at least form a logical point of view).
I agree with you that in general, laws restricting minor's access to material deemed 'potentially harmful' should be consistent. However the issue of whether or not exposure to violence affects subsequent behavior is DIRECTLY relevant because if the exposure to violence does NOT affect subsequent behavior, the video games are not potentially harmful in anyway and thus should not fall into the same category as alcohol and tabacco. In addition, there is the argument of whether the current decisions on those substances makes logical sense also. For example
Considering we're discussing the constitutionality of a law in the US and that we're discussing whether laws exist in the US that do this, a law from Australia is irrelevant to this discussion.
Thankfully it didn't. The parent's opinion should have weight.
Really? You draw your information from where, exactly?
Experience? Having known many 5 year olds. Hell, I've known 15 year olds who don't know what is appropriate for them, and even older. Should the child have a say? Sure. However, at 5 years old they are more likely to simply state "because it looks cool" or "because I wanna" or some other equally unconvincing reason. Could there be a 5 year old who is mature enough to know what is appropriate for them? I'm sure it's possible, but responsibility lies with the parent.
Do you want to know why I wouldn't smash my hand with a hammer at the age of five? It fucking hurts!
At the age of 5, how would you know that? The only way you would is for you to have done it and learned from the experience. If you see a 5 year old about to smash himself in the head or the hand with a hammer, would you just stand by and watch saying 'he'll learn from this mistake'? Or would you stop him and take the hammer away, explaining why it was bad?
I don't need a parent telling me how I feel.
At 5 fucking years old, the child doesn't know how they feel other than simple emotions like happy, sad, angry, etc. Besides that, this has nothing to do with a parent telling you how you feel, and everything to do with a parent warning you about something that is bad. Nightmares suck, is it wrong to try to prevent the kid from having a nightmare? If they do it anyways and have a nightmare, then yea they've learned. If they listen to you and don't do it, then that means they trust you and believe that it will be bad. Same thing happens.
What about a 5 year old who plays a video game like Dante's Inferno and has severe nightmares for a long while, then refuses to play anymore video games at all for fear of more nightmares. Essentially believing what those who support this law think, that all video games are scary things. Now they've sworn off an entire medium of creativity and expression because the parent didn't do anything. It's possible. Now, this can be prevented if the parent actually talks to the child, but if you believe that the child will just 'learn from their mistake' by having a nightmare, I doubt you're the type to try to comfort the child and talk to them about it to frame it in the right context.
Sorry, it's just not so black and white as you make it out to be.
If they get nightmares from it, it's their own fault. They should learn from their own mistakes, not be pointlessly restricted.
How very Darwinian of you. I applaud the 'survival of the fittest' mentality, but have a bit more compassion than that. If the child wants to disregard the parent and play the game anyways, then yes they deserve the nightmares. If the parent wants to protect the child from having nightmares, I see nothing wrong with that. Don't punish the child if they play the game and get nightmares, just talk with them about it not being real and comfort them. They'll learn from this mistake that if you warn them about something, then you're probably right.
Not to mention the parent is the one who will repeatedly get woken up in the middle of the night to comfort the scared and crying child who just had a nightmare.
A 5 year old shouldn't play Dante's Inferno, they'll get nightmares. However, a mature 5 year old whose parent thinks they are old enough and won't get nightmares would be fine to play it.
Depends on the five year old. I was watching extremely violent movies and playing violent video games at no older than the age of five yet I never got nightmares. Automatically assuming something about someone is never intelligent.
You quote me, then completely disregard what I said. I Explicitly stated that a mature 5 year old who won't get nightmares would be fine to play it and I wouldn't have a problem with that. Who is the one doing the assuming here?
That depends on the parent and what they believe their child is mature enough to handle.
It depends on the child and what they are going to risk by playing the game.
Fine, if you prefer different wording. It depends on the child and whether the parent believes they are mature enough to handle the game.
The point is that it is up to the parent to determine what is and isn't appropriate for their child.
It's up to the child to determine what is appropriate for them. Imagine some random stranger (or family member) disallowing a full grown adult from watching a movie because they often get nightmares (even though it only affects them). Would you support this, or would it a bad thing simply because of age?
A 5 year old, can't determine what is appropriate for them. A 12 year old can determine what they like, but may think that something they are not mature enough to handle would be appropriate for them. At which point it is up to the parent to exercise judgement. Should they allow the child to play the game on their own? Should they allow the child to play the game only with the parent there so they can properly frame things that the child is not mature enough to handle? Should they prevent the game entirely? It depends on the child and how mature the parent believes the child is. They may be wrong, it is still a responsibility that lies with the parent.
As for a "random stranger or family member" disallowing a full grown adult from watching a movie because they often get nightmares. Would I support this? Well, is the random stranger of family member in a position of authority to be able to disallow the adult from doing something? When I was 10, I did what my mother told me to do (mostly. I was rebellious in some aspects) because she was in a position of authority over me. Now, I may or may not heed advice from my mom. She, however, no longer holds a position of authority over me and thus cannot disallow me from seeing a movie. Same thing as, say, a babysitter. See the problem is not whether it is good or bad, the problem is whether they can enforce this "disallowing". A parent can punish the child for disobeying them and watching the movie. The fear of punishment/fear of nightmares/desire to please/etc. would be reason for the child to obey the parent and not watch the movie. In the case of disallowing a full grown adult, how would they disallow the person from watching the movie? Forcefully? by threat of punishment?
It depends on the situation. A parent has the right and responsibility to determine what is appropriate for their child, thus they are allowed to determine that a movie or game is inappropriate. I may disagree with their decision, but they have the right to make it. If you do not have the right/responsibility to determine what is appropriate for someone, then you obviously shouldn't try to forcefully disallow the person from watching the movie. It's not about age, it's about maturity. The point is for the parent to watch their child mature and not be blind to it. If the child is mature enough, let them watch it, they're going to watch it anyway eventually why not let them do it while you're around to properly frame it?
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Shouldn't you at least have to proof that there was at least some damage? The RIAA has failed to prove any damage whatsoever, how can you claim damages for an action which has not been proven to cause damage?
Perhaps people might take your words with more heed if you could correctly use the word perjure. I would have also accepted "commit perjury". Thanks for playing. =)
How about the many artists who release all their music under the Creative Commons Share-Alike NonCommercial license? Who make their livelihood on donations, people buying merchandise, and ticket sales to live shows?
The same people who view the sharing and downloading of their music as free publicity. Paul & Storm and Jonathan Coulton just to name a couple.
I guess someone should inform the entire fashion business that there's no monetary incentive to create what they do and that there is no value in their artistic creations because copyright doesn't cover clothes....
Oh....wait...
Copyright infringement through file sharing isn't like having your car "copied." It's more like having your car keys copied.
Wrong. Because the "lawful exclusive right" you are talking about involves depriving the owner of the use of his car when the person who copied the keys uses it. However, if I download a song. I do not deprive the author the ability to distribute the song while I listen to it. I don't deprive anyone of listening to it while I listen to it. In fact, when I listen to a song I have downloaded there is no difference if I don't listen to the song or don't download it. Nothing is deprived and nothing is removed.
In the case of your Car keys argument. Copying the key can be arguably similar to a copyright infringement if you don't use the key, unless you also copy the car. See, using the key you have copied would deprive the owner of his car for the time period that you have it. This is nothing like "illegal downloads".
It's already been proven that in general, those who pirate the most music also spend the most money on music. Most pirates who actually pay for music will only pay when their money goes directly to the artist. It is also a view I have taken up too. I've gone to many live performances, and I'll purchase music from the artist directly especially because they are unsigned. I'll donate money directly to the artist, just because I want them to keep making music
It's simple economics really. If the music is good, people will want to hear more of it. In order for people to hear more of that music, they will give money to the artist by way of ticket sales, donations, purchasing music and merchandise, etc. If the music isn't good, then people won't care if they hear more of it or not and thus won't give money to the artist.
Exceptional artists will make money and be able to continue to make music. At least this is how a capitalistic society SHOULD work.
As an example, some of my favorite artists release all their music under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share-Alike License, which essentially means you can share the music with whoever you want, whenever you want as long as you don't make money off of it and make sure to correctly attribute the music to them. They make good money by live performances and people buying music and merchandise and donating. I've done all three myself along with thousands of other people.
Just food for thought.
Perhaps come up with something new?
Wait, what was I thinking....Of course we have to recycle and rehash. No one creates anything new anymore...
Just wanted to point out that only under a very specific definition of family are children implied. Otherwise under no way are children implied when someone says "family" I would consider a married couple to be a family as would many other people.
Nevermind the huge difference between violence and pornography.
Where is the big difference? Both have alleged negative effects on a children's development, but neither really has clear proof behind those claims.
For one thing, there is a history of "protecting" children from pornography or 'obscene' material in the US. There is no such history with violence. Not to mention the subjectiveness of it all. It has been fairly simple to codify what is considered 'obscene' and pornographic. The english language just isn't precise enough to be able to distinguish between violence that is ok and violence that is supposedly bad for children. It would either be so restrictive as to have large enough loop holes as to do nothing or it will be too encompassing that bugs bunny cartoons would be illegal to sell to children.
Not to mention the actual difference between pornography and violence being that one is 'salacious' and is intended to elicit a sexual response. You can easily say that if there are people engaging in a sexual act, nudity intended to elicit a sexual response, or what not, it's a safe bet that you can't give it to a minor. Where is the line drawn for violence? Would this outlaw simple fighting games like street fighter? Would it outlaw all first person shooters, or only some of them? Does shooting someone constitute maiming? Is a game where you slice demons who look human in half the same as a game where you slice humans in half for the same reasons? Who gets to draw this line? A government organization? A jury? In this current day and age do we really need to be spending police manpower on fining video game retail clerks? It's just way to vague and there is no way to be precise enough.
and then promptly ban it.
It is not a ban to begin with, it is mandatory age restrictions, which many stores enforce already anyway, so the practical effects should be rather small if any at all.
First: the fact that you said 'it is not a ban to begin with' scares me. First it's attempting to get a mandatory age restriction, then it's banning. Attempts have already been made to ban certain games, this would give a precedent to help those who would want to ban specific games.
As mentioned before, since it is impossible to easily define what would or would not be illegal to sell to a child stores just wouldn't carry these games to avoid the hassle. This means that adults, who the games are intended for, would not be able to acquire the games except for more specialty stores. Which means they wouldn't sell as well due to not being carried by retailers, which would result in the games not being made. It would essentially force developers to censor themselves. Did you see what the 'comics code' did to the comics industry? This would essentially muzzle the creativity in the video game industry.
The flip side to this, would be to use the ESRB ratings as basis of the mandatory restrictions, but that would be giving legal teeth to a voluntary rating system. Essentially turning the ESRB organization into an arm of the government. Not exactly a good idea. As Justice Scalia joked during the oral arguments, "California could set up some office to deal with rating these games. They could call it the California Office of Censorship." Because that's what it would be. Censorship. Even more, having two separate rating systems to deal with would cause further confusion for parents who actually do want to be informed about the contents of a game.
If this were being proposed for movies or books, far less people would take it seriously. Why single out video games? There isn't a shred of evidence comparing them to other media. Why carve out an exception for video games when we don't regulate violence in any other media? We should not throw out exceptions to the First Amendment simply 'just in case'. Show me concrete evidence. If you don't have any, then stop trying to censor it.
You have already conceded that you can't prevent them from doing it due to going to friend's houses, school, etc. So you know they'll still play the games. All you have done is give them a reason to hide something from you, rather than be open with you about it. If you were correct in your opinion that somehow video games would warp your kid's sense of values, then you've eliminated yourself from the equation to even discuss with them what they are seeing in the game and framing it in a way consistent with your values.
Censorship just fosters desire to rebel and see what all the fuss is about..
The problem with this legislation is that even your child has a right to free speech that may not be infringed upon by the government.
Except that selling porn to minors is already outlawed by the government and handling violence the same as porn doesn't sound all that far fetched to me.
Nevermind the huge difference between violence and pornography. Nevermind the fact that there was already a tradition of regulating pornography in the country when that idiotic exception was dreamed up. No, instead we should take anything we can get enough people to say we don't like, make an analogy to porn with it, and then promptly ban it. What happens when this extends to your favorite horror movie? Your favorite action movies? Books?
My reasoning is fairly simple - amounting either to language issues (that I know kids hear at school, but again, why should I have to put up with it in my own home?), and/or if it revolves heavily around notions that happen to be morally reprehensible to me (such as violence, drugs, etc).
Much highly important classical literature revolves heavily around notions that happen to be morally reprehensible to many people. One would never seek to prevent a teenager from reading Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" simply because they find cannibalism to be reprehensible as it is a cornerstone in teaching social commentary and satire. While many people believe that games cannot possibly reach the artistic level of movies/comics/books, many games are excellent social commentaries and satirical looks at many subjects. These same games would be classified as "repugnant" or "reprehensible" by people while not seeing the point of it all. Would you prevent your child from reading Shakespeare due to the sex, violence, and drugs that are evident in it? Mind you my intent is not to compare all video games to Shakespeare, yet some can be considered by some people to be just as much art as one of his plays.
As for why such values are important to me... well, I know that they are deeply ingrained parts of my psyche, so it's hard for me to extract the underlying reason.
Honorable, and for the record I was not questioning your values nor claiming they were in any way wrong to have or that it was in any way not honorable to try to ingrain them into your children. Also for the record, we have similar values. The difference is that I don't believe that a child brought up to understand these values and hold them close cannot play a video game that exemplifies them without being 'tainted' by it. You've mentioned your kids are teenagers, do you trust them yet to know the difference between right and wrong? Do you trust them yet to know the difference between a video game and reality? If so, what does it matter what game they play? If you trust them to know these differences, then no amount of video games will change them. If they know that the behavior is not acceptable and would be punished, doesn't the video game serve as an outlet for these tendencies? Allow them to see what happens within the game world without consequences outside of the game world.
Now... why do I not seem to particularly care how they feel about my values? Well, because human beings are creatures of habit - we tend to develop a preference for the things we are accustomed to, and if they aren't playing the sorts of games I would object to simply because even if only because they know I have the means to prevent it, the chances are much better that they aren't simply going to want to be around that sort of stuff on their own eventually anyways.
The problem is that if they understand that they have your values, and they do not act inappropriately and they understand that no amount of playing a violent game will change their opinion (ie. it's fun to play out a fantasy), they aren't going to understand why you don't want them to play the game. For the record, I wasn't asking why you don't care how they feel about your values, I asked why you don't care how they feel about your opinion towards video games. It's a very different question. Your obvious opinion is that you believe that playing these games will affect them negatively. You provide no evidence for this. You assume that because humans are 'creatures of habit' that exposure to these things will cause your kid to behave like them. Yet you do not know this to be true. Essentially, you don't trust your kids to know the difference between fantasy and reality. If you're really lucky they might listen to you for the sake of listening to you because you are the parent. More likely, your desire to ban these games from their home will push them towards trying to find out what is so bad about them, which will then l
If they know that the games aren't playable at home, they won't buy them in the first place. I'm content with that.
Well, in 90% of cases, they wouldn't be able to buy any of these games you don't want them to have (depending on where they go to buy the game, 100% of cases). Which means the only real ways for them to acquire the games are either for an adult to have purchased it for them or to get it from a friend. The former is obvious, the problem is not the kid. The latter is something that you'd have to deal with regardless. In addition, not being able to play them in the home doesn't do anything because they could acquire the game simply to be able to play it with a friend somewhere else.
From my experience, if you want your kid to give a damn about how you feel, they have to understand why. From their perspective you're just "out of touch" and "unreasonably" demanding that they do not play these games that all their friends can play. So they aren't going to care if you say that you know better if they can't see any reason why they should believe it in this case. Regardless if you are right or wrong. To this end, it feels to them that you don't care how they feel nor what their opinion is, and you admit this is true. Blind authoritarianism will just sow resentment, hence since you don't care how they feel, they don't care how you feel.
If the game console is in the family room, not in the bed room, then the fact that you could be home any minute creates a risk/reward for the kid to decide whether to try to play the game or not. It will definitely reduce the likelihood of the child playing the game in your house.
If I may ask, why don't you want a specific game played in your house? It obviously isn't "to protect them" or else you wouldn't want them playing it even at a friend's house. You don't want to have to "confiscate undesireable games like they are some sort of contraband" yet you are treating them like contraband. Like they are this horrible thing that will destroy the kid's life. One of the things I fought most with my parents about was when they were telling me that I had to or couldn't do something and gave no real explanation as to why. So I would argue, question, and reason with them as to why it was important that I do or not do a specific thing. In most cases, after logically explaining away all their reasoning, it boiled down to "because I said so" which was not a valid reason to me. I would never use 'because I said so' as a reasoning to a kid because they'll just disregard it. Perhaps your reasoning boils down to 'because I said so' in their minds and that is why. And, no offense, but as far as I can tell that is all your reasoning is since there is no evidence of any kind that proves causation between violent games and aggressive behavior.
Just as an aside. I'm very glad that your kids are pretty decent. It's great to hear, and rare. From the way you speak of them, I would agree with your assessment that you are not a bad parent. Perhaps, in this case, you just need a little help dealing with this specific issue. It sounds like you have a pretty decent amount of trust with your kids so I ask again, why is it you don't want these games in your house? You know they'll play them anyways, wouldn't you rather them play a game like this in your home than have to smuggle it around like a drug and play it behind your back? Wouldn't you rather know what your kid is doing than having them hiding it from you?
I never said, nor do I believe, that they would watch a movie and then shoot up a building or have their entire life destroyed by a few nightmares because of a game.
Nightmares can have lasting effects on children. Not the least of which would be the lack of sleep they'd get for a while. In addition, there's having to deal with a crying and screaming child repeatedly for several nights. If you told them they weren't allowed and they did anyways, that's one thing. It becomes a lesson of believing the parent when they tell you something and listening to them. I think it's cruel for the parent to not avoid intentionally giving the child nightmares. Because that also might give the impression to the child that the parent doesn't care or is not protecting them.
You are basing your entire opinion off only your own life experience rather than any knowledge of how psychology works or children. You assume that all 'normal' children are just like you and will have no problem with discerning these concepts.
Do you think there is no value is allowing a child to believe in some fictional concepts like Santa for a while? Not only that, but it is not always obvious that the child believes the character is real without specifically asking. Also, if they can believe a fictional character from a movie is real, why not the character from a game?
I'm not saying it's wrong to allow your child to play whatever they can. I'm not saying it's wrong to have the opinion that some things are inappropriate for your child. All I'm saying is it's not black and white. Parents should be able to make their own choice on how to raise the kid without government needing to step in. You want to let your child play whatever, that's great. All the power to the kid. You obviously believe that he is mature enough to play whatever (regardless of the fact that you believe ALL children are. That's your opinion). However don't believe that you have the right or responsibility to berate someone else because they believe their child is not mature enough. They are not harming the child and thus they are entitled to raise them as they see fit. Regardless whether or not you or I agree.
For what it's worth. I've been having fun playing devil's advocate with you. I personally believe that unless a child is disturbed they should be allowed to play whatever. However, I have more compassion than you apparently do and would not willingly allow a child I was taking care of to play something I knew would give him nightmares. If they played it anyways and got nightmares, I'd be the first one to tell the child that they should have listened to me and they deserved it, but I would also be the first one helping to explain that it isn't real and there as nothing to be afraid of.
How about a little more carrot and a little less stick? =P
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001909.htm
Average child doesn't grasp the finality of death until between 6 - 11 years old.
Where did you get this from? Every friend I had growing up knew that video games, movies, and other media weren't real.
Oh nostalgia. You must be pretty young to so easily remember being 5 or 6 years old so vividly. I'd wager a guess that your average child isn't going to understand that their favorite hero isn't a real person until around age 6 or 7 or so. Some may take longer some may understand it sooner. Depends on the child. Take a child to Disney world and they're convinced that the characters they see people dressed up in are the actual characters. The same thing would hold true if they saw someone dressed up as a character from a video game. They may understand that the part they play, controlling them, may not be real but the understanding that the character themself is not real? A child that young might not full grasp it it.
While I can't speak for the ease or difficulty of parental controls to be bypassed, as far as I know they all allow the parent to enter a password to specifically bypass it for the child to play a game until the next time the console is started up.
I agree that better parental controls would be helpful to some people. FWIW I believe that parental controls are unnecessary and the fact is that your child can simply go to their friend's house and play the game. The solution is to not purchase the game for your child. Don't allow them to borrow the game from their friend if you don't like it. Keep the game console in the family room so unless your child is home alone, whoever is watching them always knows what they are playing.
The most important thing to do is to talk to your child, that way they know how to frame what they are seeing and experiencing. If you trust your child, there's nothing to worry about from any kind of violent media.
The law doesn't base it's decisions of what is or is not appropriate to sell to minors on the ratings system. It bases it on a vague set of criteria that is not well defined at all. As a result retail stores would stop selling any M-rated or higher games that might possibly fall under the scope rather than risk being fined as just because something is M-Rated doesn't mean it will or won't be legal to sell. It's not a risk that they'd be willing to take that they were shown a fake ID and not recognized it or whatever.
Currently, all major retail stores in the US do not sell games above their ratings and require ID to sell an m-rated game. In the tests done by the FTC there was a success rate nation-wide of over 85% with some individual store chains having success rates between 95% - 100% of enforcing the ratings system voluntarily. I fail to see how this law is helpful in anyway other than needless censorship.
Sure it does. It gives them less control over their own lives and a perceived lack of power.
At 5 years old or whatever, this doesn't even factor into the equation, it's that insignificant because there's tons of things they are or are not allowed to do based on their parents rules.
I answered it soon after.
You didn't, you mentioned you smacked your own hand with a hammer. Guess the fact that it hurt didn't make you learn your lesson huh?
They aren't. Nightmares are small-time and temporary.
You apparently know nothing of child psychology.
As it turns out, most of the mentally stable ones who haven't been indoctrinated by insane parents (like anti video game activists) are, however.
Except, not. Most children at that age have only just grasp the difference and might still believe that some of their favorite characters are actual real people.
How could they not? It only takes a few words to clear it up for them. You cease to live.
Once again, you show a complete lack of understanding of child psychology. At this point in their development, if you said that they wouldn't understand what you meant. They don't understand the concept of live versus death. Yes you can explain it to them, yes it isn't extremely difficult. However it is definitely more complicated than telling them 'you cease to live.'
The best thing to do would be to tell the truth rather than lying
Where did i say anything about lying? Asking why the pet won't wake up is because to a child, the dead pet is just sleeping. They have no concept of death. Eyes closed and motionless = sleeping to them. You've apparently never had to explain this to a child, or if you have I feel bad for the child.
Most sane children already know the difference
A 5 year old child, unless it has been explained to them, will not know the difference and is not insane. Just something they haven't experienced or had explained to them.
I just find people criticizing google for sniffing unsecured wireless networks by driving around to be idiotic. If you don't want anyone to know what you're doing, secure your wireless network. It's not difficult anymore.
While I agree with the sentiment that authority must always be questioned (got me into a lot of trouble as a child =P), it's still not wrong for a parent to deem that the child shouldn't be exposed to it until they are older. Especially because the parent knows the child better and thus will be able to better gauge how they will be affected by it. For example, a game with 'scary' hell hounds that give a child nightmares could cause the child to have an irrational fear of dogs. Not exactly a good thing. At that age, parents do have authority over the child. Since preventing them from playing the game does not harm them, there is no reason for the parent to not have the authority to deny the child the game.
At the age of 5, how would you know that?
I smashed my hand with a hammer before while pounding a nail into a block of wood. Go figure.
Nice way of deflecting my question. I'll ask again, if you saw a 5 year old with a hammer about to smack himself in the hand would you just let him or would you stop him?
Sounds like a good idea. But we are talking about a video game, not getting run over by a truck.
Right, which means you get the opportunity to talk to them afterwards instead of the child being dead. You seem to believe that children cannot be lastingly affected by anything they see or experience. While I believe it is nowhere near as powerful the people who back this law do, I understand that emotional development is shaped by experiences. A child who is not mature enough who plays a game can be affected by it they aren't going to turn into a murderer or anything of the sort, but it can give them preconceptions ideas and in the case of very young children the desire to emulate like smacking around their siblings or whatnot.
I'm not saying the child doesn't know a game from reality, I'm saying that if they watch Dante running around with his scythe killing demons and play that for a while. They may want to act it out and grab a toy that looks similar to a scythe and pretend their brother is a demon and run around the house smacking him. As amusing as this sounds (and it really does sound like something I would laugh at =p) do you really want your 5 year old running around at someone else's house pretending they are Dante and smacking that person's child thinking they are just playing a game? Or any other number of things that can happen.
If the parent thinks the child is mature enough to play the game without it affecting them, thats fine. If the parent believes their child is not mature enough to handle it and would develop a phobia, try to emulate the game causing a problem, <insert other child issue here>, then they should prevent their child from playing
Not every child is you or I. In fact, most children would be too scared even play any of the violent games we're thinking about. In addition at a very young age, they may not understand death very well (like when your child asks what happened to the family pet and why can't they wake up), it's much better to speak to them about this. Majority of children will have no problem grasping this concept if you talk to them about it, describing the difference between the use of the word "die" in the context of the game and in the context of real life.
While the rating itself is voluntary, governments at ALL levels make *laws* the sale of items based on these 'voluntary ratings'. So, yes, the ratings are voluntary, but how those ratings are used is by governments in law across the country. In california (and many states) the selling of 'X' rated material to minors is illegal, and this has stood legal challenges, so I see no difference why this should be different than video games.
Only pornography has been upheld as illegal to sell to minors. In addition, simply being rated 'X' is not enough for it to be illegal to sell to a minor. It must pass the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test to be considered illegal to sell to a minor. This would apply to anything, including video games, movies, comics, magazines, or books. It is not based on the rating system at all, rather, the 'X' rating is attempting to base itself on this test. If the rating body believes that it would be illegal for minors due to obscenity laws, then it will be given an 'X' rating.
i would most definitely want the same people (MPAA) who rate movies to apply teh same standards to movies as to video games.
I agree that we should have the same standards for movies and video games as far as ratings go. Whether I'd want the MPAA rating my video games is something else entirely. I believe that the ESRB has done a very good job in rating games, in general.
That said, I think the standards applied to movies are bogus, BUT, games shouldn't get a special exemption. If you want to change things, then change the system. It's bogus to carve out special exemptions for games.
Then you should not support this law because it is attempting to carve out a special exemption for games to be covered by law.
AS a separate issue, I'm quite willing to discuss that point -- since the body of information involving people viewing violent acts goes back to the 70's and the results are **universally** consistent involving children (which is who these laws would affect).
Could you please cite this universally consistent results? I have only ever at most seen a correlation, at worst studies that were completely unscientific and invalid.
The brain doesn't fully mature until in *some* areas until the mid 30's, which is why the minimum age for president was set at 35.
Interesting that our founding fathers would have enough of understanding of brain chemistry and development to be that thoughtful. Could you cite this? It was my understanding that the ages of candidacy were a way to help encourage people to be a Representative first, then a senator, then try for president, since thats the way the ages go. 25 for a Representative, 30 for Senator and 35 for President. I doubt the the forefathers had any understanding of emotional development and brain chemistry.
But the issue of whether or not exposure to violence affects subsequent behavior is NOT relevant to the idea of making the laws for restricting 'minor's[sic] access to material deemed "potentially harmful" (including attending strip clubs, and maybe even ingestion of potentially harmful substances (alcohol, tobacco), **CONSISTENT** makes a great deal of logical sense that is really hard to argue against (at least form a logical point of view).
I agree with you that in general, laws restricting minor's access to material deemed 'potentially harmful' should be consistent. However the issue of whether or not exposure to violence affects subsequent behavior is DIRECTLY relevant because if the exposure to violence does NOT affect subsequent behavior, the video games are not potentially harmful in anyway and thus should not fall into the same category as alcohol and tabacco. In addition, there is the argument of whether the current decisions on those substances makes logical sense also. For example
Considering we're discussing the constitutionality of a law in the US and that we're discussing whether laws exist in the US that do this, a law from Australia is irrelevant to this discussion.
It depends on the child
This sentence ends here.
Thankfully it didn't. The parent's opinion should have weight.
Really? You draw your information from where, exactly?
Experience? Having known many 5 year olds. Hell, I've known 15 year olds who don't know what is appropriate for them, and even older. Should the child have a say? Sure. However, at 5 years old they are more likely to simply state "because it looks cool" or "because I wanna" or some other equally unconvincing reason. Could there be a 5 year old who is mature enough to know what is appropriate for them? I'm sure it's possible, but responsibility lies with the parent.
Do you want to know why I wouldn't smash my hand with a hammer at the age of five? It fucking hurts!
At the age of 5, how would you know that? The only way you would is for you to have done it and learned from the experience. If you see a 5 year old about to smash himself in the head or the hand with a hammer, would you just stand by and watch saying 'he'll learn from this mistake'? Or would you stop him and take the hammer away, explaining why it was bad?
I don't need a parent telling me how I feel.
At 5 fucking years old, the child doesn't know how they feel other than simple emotions like happy, sad, angry, etc. Besides that, this has nothing to do with a parent telling you how you feel, and everything to do with a parent warning you about something that is bad. Nightmares suck, is it wrong to try to prevent the kid from having a nightmare? If they do it anyways and have a nightmare, then yea they've learned. If they listen to you and don't do it, then that means they trust you and believe that it will be bad. Same thing happens.
What about a 5 year old who plays a video game like Dante's Inferno and has severe nightmares for a long while, then refuses to play anymore video games at all for fear of more nightmares. Essentially believing what those who support this law think, that all video games are scary things. Now they've sworn off an entire medium of creativity and expression because the parent didn't do anything. It's possible. Now, this can be prevented if the parent actually talks to the child, but if you believe that the child will just 'learn from their mistake' by having a nightmare, I doubt you're the type to try to comfort the child and talk to them about it to frame it in the right context.
Sorry, it's just not so black and white as you make it out to be.
If they get nightmares from it, it's their own fault. They should learn from their own mistakes, not be pointlessly restricted.
How very Darwinian of you. I applaud the 'survival of the fittest' mentality, but have a bit more compassion than that. If the child wants to disregard the parent and play the game anyways, then yes they deserve the nightmares. If the parent wants to protect the child from having nightmares, I see nothing wrong with that. Don't punish the child if they play the game and get nightmares, just talk with them about it not being real and comfort them. They'll learn from this mistake that if you warn them about something, then you're probably right.
Not to mention the parent is the one who will repeatedly get woken up in the middle of the night to comfort the scared and crying child who just had a nightmare.
A 5 year old shouldn't play Dante's Inferno, they'll get nightmares. However, a mature 5 year old whose parent thinks they are old enough and won't get nightmares would be fine to play it.
Depends on the five year old. I was watching extremely violent movies and playing violent video games at no older than the age of five yet I never got nightmares. Automatically assuming something about someone is never intelligent.
You quote me, then completely disregard what I said. I Explicitly stated that a mature 5 year old who won't get nightmares would be fine to play it and I wouldn't have a problem with that. Who is the one doing the assuming here?
That depends on the parent and what they believe their child is mature enough to handle.
It depends on the child and what they are going to risk by playing the game.
Fine, if you prefer different wording. It depends on the child and whether the parent believes they are mature enough to handle the game.
The point is that it is up to the parent to determine what is and isn't appropriate for their child.
It's up to the child to determine what is appropriate for them. Imagine some random stranger (or family member) disallowing a full grown adult from watching a movie because they often get nightmares (even though it only affects them). Would you support this, or would it a bad thing simply because of age?
A 5 year old, can't determine what is appropriate for them. A 12 year old can determine what they like, but may think that something they are not mature enough to handle would be appropriate for them. At which point it is up to the parent to exercise judgement. Should they allow the child to play the game on their own? Should they allow the child to play the game only with the parent there so they can properly frame things that the child is not mature enough to handle? Should they prevent the game entirely? It depends on the child and how mature the parent believes the child is. They may be wrong, it is still a responsibility that lies with the parent.
As for a "random stranger or family member" disallowing a full grown adult from watching a movie because they often get nightmares. Would I support this? Well, is the random stranger of family member in a position of authority to be able to disallow the adult from doing something? When I was 10, I did what my mother told me to do (mostly. I was rebellious in some aspects) because she was in a position of authority over me. Now, I may or may not heed advice from my mom. She, however, no longer holds a position of authority over me and thus cannot disallow me from seeing a movie. Same thing as, say, a babysitter. See the problem is not whether it is good or bad, the problem is whether they can enforce this "disallowing". A parent can punish the child for disobeying them and watching the movie. The fear of punishment/fear of nightmares/desire to please/etc. would be reason for the child to obey the parent and not watch the movie. In the case of disallowing a full grown adult, how would they disallow the person from watching the movie? Forcefully? by threat of punishment?
It depends on the situation. A parent has the right and responsibility to determine what is appropriate for their child, thus they are allowed to determine that a movie or game is inappropriate. I may disagree with their decision, but they have the right to make it. If you do not have the right/responsibility to determine what is appropriate for someone, then you obviously shouldn't try to forcefully disallow the person from watching the movie. It's not about age, it's about maturity. The point is for the parent to watch their child mature and not be blind to it. If the child is mature enough, let them watch it, they're going to watch it anyway eventually why not let them do it while you're around to properly frame it?