Excuse me, Sir! This is a site for Nerds. We don't need the big ball of fire in the sky to "do stuff". With the undebated health risks of sun exposure, shouldn't we be implementing Daylight Limiting Time? Everything fun happens at night anyway, so why are we trying minimize our fun by saving daylight?
Heh, thanks. I was going to reply to this guy (and the other guy who thought I misspelt 'wow') but I couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't an insult on the limited vocabulary of Slashdoters. You have reinstated my faith!
Look, there's dozens of studies, done by respectable scientists, that indicate that young minds are heavily impacted by violent interactive media. There's more evidence that violent games are dangerous to children than there is that pornography is dangerous to children. The laws exist for pornography, is it too much to ask that laws prohibit the sale of violent games to children and that parents be held responsible for exposing their children to violent games?
As for the Sims 2.. EA is allows people to mod the game. That's fantastic. However, their EULA says you are prohibited from selling your mods without entering into an agreement with EA. There are pornography sites selling mods for the Sims 2. EA has not gone after these sites. Therefore either EA has an agreement with these sites, or they are failing to exercise their duty to shut them down. The claim is that EA doesn't want to shut them down because people are buying their game specifically so they can run these mods.. so if EA shuts them down they will lose sales. I think that's a fair argument and should be investigated.
One last thing on these mods. Some of them actually contain naked children. Due to the cyberporn finding, hand drawn images of naked children are constitutionally protected. It's largely impossible to show whether or not a texture on a 3d model was hand drawn or aquired from photographs. If the makers of these mods claim the texture is hand drawn the government is powerless to stop them from distributing it.. even if the texture was actually aquired from the abuse of a child. EA has no such constitutional restrictions. They can enforce their EULA and get these mods off the net.
Good question. As far as I'm aware there's laws against it which are pretty fairly enforced (as the store can be fined if they sell to minors). But letting your kids watch an R rated film is still legal I believe. That's just an example of the age old american way: violence? A-ok. Tits? No way!
The ESRB is an organisation funded by the gaming industry to rate their games how they pay them to rate them. Which is why some people are suggesting the rating board should be government run.. but unfortunately that typically means they will abuse their power and refuse ratings for some games, which may or may not result in a ban.
If someone gives their 7-year-old a copy of Hustler, despite the very obvious MATURE rating in the corner of the front cover, don't blame the ratings, blame the clueless parents.
What's the difference here? Oh right, it's illegal for a parent to give a copy of Hustler to a 7-year-old child. It's also illegal for a store to sell it to a 7-year-old child. Unlike most states in the US where there is no law to prevent 7-year-old children from entering a store and buying a copy of GTA3 without their parent's knowledge.
Jack Thompson is. That's his entire argument.. selling games to children younger than the stated rating should be illegal and the gaming stores should be fined if they do. Personally I'm in favour of making everything 18+. Entering into any form of commerce with a minor should be illegal. That way people don't have a leg to stand on when they say we should ban things for everyone "to protect the children". Seeing as that's not going to happen, society instead says that we shouldn't sell products that are potentially harmful for childen to a minor. e.g., alcohol, tobacco, pornography, violent films/games. As for the studies being disputed, Duh! That's the purpose of science. There's respectable scientists who dispute that pornography is harmful to children. We err on the side of caution.
No. They want the ratings to be done by an independant group.. not one that is bought and paid for by the video game industry. How can you argue with that? Personally, I'm in favour of making everything 18+. Entering into any form of commerce with a minor should be illegal. That way there's absolutely no excuse to ban anything for the sake of the children.
Umm.. EA makes money from the pornographic mods as people need to buy the game before they can go buy the mod. Yes, note I said buy the mod. EA makes it abundantly clear in their EULA that modders are not permitted to sell their creations without entering into an agreement with EA. So either these pornographic mods are made by people who have entered into an agreement with EA or they are violating the EULA and EA is not enforcing it. Either case makes EA at least partially responsible for the availability of these mods which undergo no kind of game classification.
I'm sure Jack has no problem having a conversation about anything you care to discuss with him. Just because everything you've ever read from the guy is about video game violence doesn't mean that's all he ever talks about.
If believing legitimate studies made by impartial scientists is crazy then sign me up. As Jack says, the debate over whether or not violent interactive media has a strong impact on the development of young minds is over. Your ten year old kid should not be playing GTA3.
No, that's the kind of arguments you make. If there's one thing Jack Thompson ha going for him is a vast amount of studies showing that interactive entertainment has a strong impact on developing minds. Ten year old kids should not be playing GTA3. They shouldn't be watching Kill Bill. They shouldn't be reading their big brother's Hustler magazines.
See, you're just as bad. They want you to talk about cost. They want you to yell from the rooftops that Linux is cheaper than Windows. They want you to waste time doing analysis on total cost of ownership and employee training. Every time someone mentions the freedom to share software with their neighbour, Microsoft will claim Windows costs less than Linux. Every time someone mentions the freedom to hire a programmer to fix a bug instead of waiting for the next service pack release, Microsoft will claim Windows has better support than Linux. Every time someone mentions the freedom to understand how the software they use works, Microsoft will claim Windows is more secure than Linux. It doesn't matter whether or not all these pragmatic claims are true.. all it matters is that we're talking about them instead of talking about what really matters: software freedom.
You are aware that hacking the cell phone network is easier than stealing someone's phone and gives you the ability to perform infinitely greater levels of fraud right?
Yep, instead of losing a finger or getting your face pushed into a scanner (Solid Snake style) you get tortured for *hours* until you're willing to giveup not just your password but the whereabouts of the safe, your wife and children and those military secrets you never told anyone about. Good plan.
I think we should be doing it, we just shouldn't be trying to justify it by saying "science" or "spinoffs" repeatably. If the governments of the world would sign a treaty that extended the homesteading and mineral rights laws off the planet and then pooled together to subsidize launch costs we'd see private industry colonizing the solar system in 50 years.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but scumbag theatre owners who don't give a shit are free to sell tickets to minors. Great system.
Excuse me, Sir! This is a site for Nerds. We don't need the big ball of fire in the sky to "do stuff". With the undebated health risks of sun exposure, shouldn't we be implementing Daylight Limiting Time? Everything fun happens at night anyway, so why are we trying minimize our fun by saving daylight?
Heh, thanks. I was going to reply to this guy (and the other guy who thought I misspelt 'wow') but I couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't an insult on the limited vocabulary of Slashdoters. You have reinstated my faith!
Wow. So you let kids into R-rated movies in the US? No wonder Hillary Clinton is on a crusade.
Look, there's dozens of studies, done by respectable scientists, that indicate that young minds are heavily impacted by violent interactive media. There's more evidence that violent games are dangerous to children than there is that pornography is dangerous to children. The laws exist for pornography, is it too much to ask that laws prohibit the sale of violent games to children and that parents be held responsible for exposing their children to violent games?
As for the Sims 2.. EA is allows people to mod the game. That's fantastic. However, their EULA says you are prohibited from selling your mods without entering into an agreement with EA. There are pornography sites selling mods for the Sims 2. EA has not gone after these sites. Therefore either EA has an agreement with these sites, or they are failing to exercise their duty to shut them down. The claim is that EA doesn't want to shut them down because people are buying their game specifically so they can run these mods.. so if EA shuts them down they will lose sales. I think that's a fair argument and should be investigated.
One last thing on these mods. Some of them actually contain naked children. Due to the cyberporn finding, hand drawn images of naked children are constitutionally protected. It's largely impossible to show whether or not a texture on a 3d model was hand drawn or aquired from photographs. If the makers of these mods claim the texture is hand drawn the government is powerless to stop them from distributing it.. even if the texture was actually aquired from the abuse of a child. EA has no such constitutional restrictions. They can enforce their EULA and get these mods off the net.
they can change time itself.
Woe.
Good question. As far as I'm aware there's laws against it which are pretty fairly enforced (as the store can be fined if they sell to minors). But letting your kids watch an R rated film is still legal I believe. That's just an example of the age old american way: violence? A-ok. Tits? No way!
The ESRB is an organisation funded by the gaming industry to rate their games how they pay them to rate them. Which is why some people are suggesting the rating board should be government run.. but unfortunately that typically means they will abuse their power and refuse ratings for some games, which may or may not result in a ban.
Have they got something against blue?
If someone gives their 7-year-old a copy of Hustler, despite the very obvious MATURE rating in the corner of the front cover, don't blame the ratings, blame the clueless parents.
What's the difference here? Oh right, it's illegal for a parent to give a copy of Hustler to a 7-year-old child. It's also illegal for a store to sell it to a 7-year-old child. Unlike most states in the US where there is no law to prevent 7-year-old children from entering a store and buying a copy of GTA3 without their parent's knowledge.
Jack Thompson is. That's his entire argument.. selling games to children younger than the stated rating should be illegal and the gaming stores should be fined if they do. Personally I'm in favour of making everything 18+. Entering into any form of commerce with a minor should be illegal. That way people don't have a leg to stand on when they say we should ban things for everyone "to protect the children". Seeing as that's not going to happen, society instead says that we shouldn't sell products that are potentially harmful for childen to a minor. e.g., alcohol, tobacco, pornography, violent films/games. As for the studies being disputed, Duh! That's the purpose of science. There's respectable scientists who dispute that pornography is harmful to children. We err on the side of caution.
No. They want the ratings to be done by an independant group.. not one that is bought and paid for by the video game industry. How can you argue with that? Personally, I'm in favour of making everything 18+. Entering into any form of commerce with a minor should be illegal. That way there's absolutely no excuse to ban anything for the sake of the children.
Umm.. EA makes money from the pornographic mods as people need to buy the game before they can go buy the mod. Yes, note I said buy the mod. EA makes it abundantly clear in their EULA that modders are not permitted to sell their creations without entering into an agreement with EA. So either these pornographic mods are made by people who have entered into an agreement with EA or they are violating the EULA and EA is not enforcing it. Either case makes EA at least partially responsible for the availability of these mods which undergo no kind of game classification.
I'm sure Jack has no problem having a conversation about anything you care to discuss with him. Just because everything you've ever read from the guy is about video game violence doesn't mean that's all he ever talks about.
If believing legitimate studies made by impartial scientists is crazy then sign me up. As Jack says, the debate over whether or not violent interactive media has a strong impact on the development of young minds is over. Your ten year old kid should not be playing GTA3.
No, that's the kind of arguments you make. If there's one thing Jack Thompson ha going for him is a vast amount of studies showing that interactive entertainment has a strong impact on developing minds. Ten year old kids should not be playing GTA3. They shouldn't be watching Kill Bill. They shouldn't be reading their big brother's Hustler magazines.
See, you're just as bad. They want you to talk about cost. They want you to yell from the rooftops that Linux is cheaper than Windows. They want you to waste time doing analysis on total cost of ownership and employee training. Every time someone mentions the freedom to share software with their neighbour, Microsoft will claim Windows costs less than Linux. Every time someone mentions the freedom to hire a programmer to fix a bug instead of waiting for the next service pack release, Microsoft will claim Windows has better support than Linux. Every time someone mentions the freedom to understand how the software they use works, Microsoft will claim Windows is more secure than Linux. It doesn't matter whether or not all these pragmatic claims are true.. all it matters is that we're talking about them instead of talking about what really matters: software freedom.
Microsoft once again dominates the conversation by making it about cost.
You are aware that hacking the cell phone network is easier than stealing someone's phone and gives you the ability to perform infinitely greater levels of fraud right?
Yep, instead of losing a finger or getting your face pushed into a scanner (Solid Snake style) you get tortured for *hours* until you're willing to giveup not just your password but the whereabouts of the safe, your wife and children and those military secrets you never told anyone about. Good plan.
And they can't answer it because they don't have the right face. Try to keep up.
See, that's the problem with the "space race" - the people running it are worse than underpants gnomes.
1. Put a man on the Moon.
2. ???
3. Profit!
I say they are worse than underpants gnomes because they don't even consider step 3 as an option.
I think we should be doing it, we just shouldn't be trying to justify it by saying "science" or "spinoffs" repeatably. If the governments of the world would sign a treaty that extended the homesteading and mineral rights laws off the planet and then pooled together to subsidize launch costs we'd see private industry colonizing the solar system in 50 years.
belly chuckles.
Which is why we need an Outer-Space Homestead Extension Act.
That's how the West was won.