As I responded in to another of your posts, why does a submitter submit the information? Isn't it to get the information out there? So, why would a submitter care whether Wikileaks gave it to the NYT or Openleaks did? More importantly, wouldn't the submitter who had a lot to risk in getting the information prefer the information had a chance to see the light of day? With Wikileaks the submitter has no control in that. With Openleaks, the submitter can even indicate which media outlets they want it to go to.
Think of the submitter as a manufacturer. Wikileaks is JCPenny and Openleaks is poised to be Walmart. Which one is going to give your "goods" a greater market?
DB looks pretty bad if he leaks the material anyway. People who submitted that information chose to submit it to Wikileaks. It would be a breach of their trust on his part to use any of that information.
I think it is just the opposite, as do many others. People submitted the information to be leaked. Assange/Wikileaks only leaks, apparently, what is in their best interest. Now the information will be leaked and it will be up to the publishers of information what gets used/published or not.
Wikileaks has one main flaw that many a newspaper has had to deal with. You cannot be a good editor and a reporter at the same time. Wikileaks tries to do both, but their own internal bias interferes. Openleaks, since they don't actually publish the articles have removed themself from the editorial role.
Wouldn't it make more sense to only use the combined figures? If the goal of the best seller list is to show what people are purchasing (buying a book doesn't mean it's actually being read), then why still have separate print and non-print lists?
Ignoring the sabotage and theft for a moment by 'Openleaks', do people think that Assange asked to be accused of crimes (in this case the random charge of rape, but it could be pretty much anything they invent)? It seems extremely dubious he forced himself into solitary for a week, then decided to spend hundreds of thousands he doesn't have on lawyers, deliberately to achieve martyr status.
Who would you trust? A CEO who is prepared to face execution for the principles he believes in? Or a theft, saboteur, sneak, somebody that rips off another person's web site, and who blurbs the internal details of his organisation in the press? (ignoring Assange's biography to pay off his legal bills, that I can understand)
He may not be perfect, but considering the alternatives he would be my first port of call if I was a whistle-blower.
Phillip.
Assange's charges are basically statutory in nature. At least in some places of the world, stop really does mean stop. However, this notion of the charges being made up falls apart when the time line is reviewed. The sexual relations occurred and the complaints filed before diplomatic leaks occurred and were released. So, unless the CIA or the government is somehow clairvoyant, it is unlikely that the US was behind any of Mr. Assange's legal problems. And if the CIA and the US really are clairvoyant, then they would have known that the material was being leaked and would have stopped it.
As for the accusation of ripping off another person's web site, if you do a little research you will see that Openleaks was formed because former staff members were concerned with what was going on at Wikileaks internally. Again, the key players left Wikileaks long before Mr. Assange's legal problems. Finally, the only evidence of sabotage is from the PR person at Wikileaks saying it occurred. If it was revealed that you fired somebody while they were legally in possession of 300,000 of your documents and you never asked for them back, what would you tell the public? The story of hacking into Wikileaks and stealing the documents falls apart, since they are actually on the server he had in his possession. DB is not accused of breaking and entering, which would be required to get physical possession of the server, but hacking and sabotage. Wikileak should think out the public relations strategy in a little more detail the next time.
When someone leaks some documents to Wikileaks, it's an act of trust - that they can remain anonymous, and that the documents will be carefully collated and published. If someone illicitly copies some documents from Wikileaks, it's potentially a breach of that trust. If I were Wikileaks, I'd be pissed too.
Nobody illicitly copied the documents in question. They were already on the server that was already in DB's possession. Then when he was canned, he kept what was already in his possession. The fact that Wikileaks was not even aware of any of this until DB went public about it really makes one question how can they guarantee anonymity to anyone, when they don't even know where their servers and documents are.
As for the assurance of collating and publishing, that was the whole reason Openleaks was formed. Evidently, there was no guarantee that what was leaked would ever see the light of day. It was all up to Assange. Openleaks provides a platform where anonymity is assured AND your leaked documents go to the outlet you want them to. Then, if your outlet chooses not to publish, at least your leak got to them.
Personally, a system that gives the leaker more control in where the documents goes seems preferable to a system controlled by just one person who may have a different agenda than the leaker.
DB says he was one of two key spokesmen for the organization. Wikileaks says he was not. DB says he was one of the main programmers. Wikileaks says he was not. Also, when Assange fired him, he was already in possession of the server and documents. So, DB didn't actually sabotage anything. He kept what was in his possession. Finally, the very things that Wikileaks is complaining about are the things that DB and others wanted to change. DB wasn't in position to put these practices into place, because only Assange could and he wouldn't.
So, either DB is right in all of this, or Wikileaks is. The problem is that if Wikileaks is right, DB couldn't have sabotaged anything and it was internal incompetence with regards to security that was the problem. Either way, Wikileaks looks bad in all of this.
Since Amtrak must pay to use other's tracks (infrastructure), that is the part of the operational cost that I am suggesting they subsidize, not the cost of crews, fuel, etc. Basically, the subsidy would go towards infrastructure just like the other means of transportation (although at a substantially smaller cost to the public).
Maybe because if you are in the military, and quite a few military personnel use slashdot, that going to Wikileaks can get you in big shit trouble. Just like an article talking about porn is different than linking directly to a porn site. People lose their jobs over stuff like that. So think of it as a service that the slashdot editors can provide in protecting their readers from unintended consequences from following innocent appearing links on slashdot.
Two posts from different sides of the same story make for interesting reading. I believe the truth will be somewhere in the middle. It does make me wonder, however, if D-B was really not involved in any part of Wikileaks like the article from the Wikileak's spokesperson claims, it would have been difficult to remove the key piece of software that they claim he did and therefore sabatoged Wikileaks. It seems, from reading between the lines that D-B was actually much more involved in Wikileaks and since his characterizations of Assange have been corroborated by other ex-Wikileaks staff, there may very well be some truth to his side of the story.
Personally, I like the idea of having a leak repository and other outlets decide what to release or not. Putting editorial control under the caretaker of the source documents (as in Wikileaks) seems to allow for quite a bit of abuse of power.
It has been said that information is power. Wikileaks and Assange have accumulated quite a bit of information/power. Too bad, it has also been said that power corrupts.
Airport and highway construction qualify as infrastructure. If you read, you'd notice that I'm all for assistance with infrastructure. GP appears to be requesting help for operational costs, which I think is ludicrous.
And, FYI, you do pay taxes and fees for use of both roadways and airports.
What you pay in fuel taxes comes nowhere near what it costs to build or maintain a highway. If it did, then there would be plenty of money to maintain all of those roads and bridges. As for airports, when the government builds and maintains the infrastructure, it's easy for the airlines to manage the operational costs. However, most business have to finance that stuff themself and pay interest and depreciate it over a number of years. For most business, railroads included, they do not have the luxury of just having the to cover operational costs. Then again, it is estimated that to fly from Newark to Pittsburgh would cost approximately $1,800 dollars if the airlines had to pay for the infrastructure. Probably wouldn't be too many people paying that cost. Likewise, if the air traffic controllers cost had to be picked up in full by the airlines, that would again increase the ticket price.
Face it, the government was concerned after WWII that the railroads had to much power and if a a strike hit at the wrong time it could cripple the nation. Therefore, the government gave huge subsidies to auto/truck and airlines by building the infrastructure. For all practical purposes, they broke the railroad's back, but at the price of the government having to keep spending to keep the two less efficient modes of transportation feasible.
Go anywhere in the far east and try to even find a dumbphone. Everyone and their grandma over there is packing a smartphone, as an alternative to a PC. Most of them run BREW, the most popular OS you've never heard of.
Really, the North American market is a niche.
Or, if the Far East is saturated with smart phones, then the North American market is a growth area. But really, other than Japan, which is fairly westernized, most Asian countries have quite a few people living in poverty. So, it may by the wealthy class has smartphones, but by far, most people in the Asian countries don't, unless they were provided by the government.
studies that actually link physical violence (not temporary violent thoughts) to violent media whilst also explaining why a majority of the population isn't violent despite being exposed to violent media.
You really seem hung up on this. And yet, I never made a claim that there was a link between physical violence to violent media. I stated that there is a link between aggression and violent media. Those two are not the same thing. However, for your proof, UCLA did a study in which young children watched video of two children playing with a toy truck. One of the children in the video then took the truck and the other child hit her. They watched the video three times. Then in real life, when a child who watched the video and child who were not shown the video were placed in a situation where another child took the same toy truck in the video, those who saw the video hit the other child more often than those who did not (393 vs 100).
Now, if you want to make the argument that all of us do not possess learned behaviour as part of our make up, I will ask you to present a study to that effect. However, the scientific community will hold that everything we do is a learned behaviour. Now, there are many ways to learn a behaviour, but visual stimulus along with motor reinforcement seems to be the greatest. So, what do we have in a video game (whether violent or not), but visual stimulus and motor reinforcement.
That is also why pilots use flight simulators, drivers ed classes use car simulators, etc., etc. The goal of these simulators is to make it so the pilot or driver practice the skill over and over so that they may react without having to think about it. Now, what do we have in a FPS? a skill practiced over and over with visual stimulus. That does not mean that a player of such a game will automatically act it out, that would be crazy to make that assumption. However, it does mean that with the right trigger, they will act it out, without thinking. Why, because it has become a learned response to a set of visual stimuli.
The problem is, when this learned response occurs at a young age, while the brain is still forming pathways, it is very easy to have cross connections. Then, the wrong stimulus triggers a response. Still, no cause for any sort of major alarm, in an otherwise mentally healthy adult, but teens aren't adults and are quite impulsive. Does this mean every teen exposed to violent media will go beserk? No, of course not, but it happens a lot more than the public is aware of. We only hear about the really public occurrences that went unabated, not the ones where somebody intervened. And why might that be? Well, for one, peoples health information is considered confidential until they commit a crime and their mental state is entered into evidence. Stop them before the crime and there is no public record.
Again, I am talking about aggressive behaviour, not violent behaviour. Clinically, there is no such thing as violent behaviour. There are, however, various degrees of aggression.
There are a little over 24,000 papers and studies listed, some showing no link or minimal link between the two, but the vast majority supporting increased aggression (lasting from a few minutes to extended periods).
Wasn't it reported just last week that a child could not be suspended for posting about their teacher on facebook? Then why can't a teacher post generic comments about students? The ACLU took up the student's case, who will take up the teacher's (and what she said was less inflammatory than the student's posting)
What makes you think 12-17 year olds are the target of the action FPS genre? The average age of game-buyers is now over 30, and most of the people who play FPSes are in their 20s and 30s now.
Who purchases the game is different than how much time is spent sitting in front of the screen. There is a reason that the 20 some things play the games the most. But, it's important to realize they were much younger than 20-30 when they first got hooked. That is why the target audience is in the teen years, because it is only in the teen years, that you actually hook the individual. It's a biochemical thing. This has been shown with individuals from other cultures, where there is not exposure to video games. When brought to the West, the teenagers quickly adapt and play video games like there is no tomorrow. Much beyond the teen years and it's more of a take it or leave it attitude. In other words, there are very few in the West who become fanatical about FPS once they are out of their teens or early 20s. If they are fanatics in their late 20s or beyond, they were already a fanatic about the genre when younger. (And yes, there are always exceptions to every rule).
This does not mean that these people are dangerous or are going to go shoot everyone or blow something up, at least not if they are healthy and well adjusted. However, it only takes one unbalanced person to wreck havoc on the rest of us.
Because they don't hurt them. Even minors can tell the difference between fiction and reality. Imagine the state that the population would be in if normal people couldn't even differentiate between fiction and reality and if fiction truly could make people violent. There would be far, far more violence than there is now. Yet, there isn't. Only a small minority of the population is violent, and yet most people are subjected to violent media. Funny, that.
We have R and NC-17 movies that as a society we have agreed that minors should not be allowed to see.
As a society? Who is that? I disagree completely. Unless you have an actual reason to keep these things from them (and so far, no one does), then just let them watch/play the media.
But we have to be honest that the studies, show there is a correlation between violent media and increased aggression.
No, they absolutely do not. The closest I have ever seen a study get to correlating violence with violent media is correlating temporary violent thoughts with violent media. 99% of the time, those thoughts do not translate into actual physical violence except in the case of an already disturbed individual (I would guess).
However, the 12-17 YOs who are the real target of this genre don't have those coping mechanisms (they haven't finished forming in the brain).
Who are you even talking about? This is ridiculous. A majority of minors aren't even violent, yet many of them are subjected to violent media. Again, that's funny.
they haven't finished forming in the brain
Are you serious? They might be going through some changes, but they are not so idiotic as to not be able to differentiate between fiction and reality.
The statistics simply aren't on your side.
You say that even minors can tell the difference between fiction and reality. That's why it's impossible for children to believe in Santa Claus, right? Sure they grow out of it , but unless they aren't minors, then evidently it's possible for some minors to not be able to tell the difference. And it's not just children. Depending on where you stand on your belief in God, there are a lot of people who can or cannot tell the difference between fiction and reality. Or, leaving God out of it, even though crop circles have been debunked, many still believe in them and UFOs, etc.
As for Society agreeing that minors shouldn't watch/play these things. The fact that there is a rating system in the first place, seems to indicate that there is some sort of societal norm to base the rating on. Whether you agree with the rating or not, the group responsible for the rating has to make a determination based on some objective standard.
As for studies showing the link between watched violence and increased aggression, there are too many to count. Increased aggression, however, does not mean that one will go shoot everybody at school. Just like there is a correlation between being physically abused as a child and being an abuser as an adult. A correlation does not mean that one will become an abuser, just that there is a link between the two.
As for coping mechanisms and brain development, it is a medical fact that ones brain does not finish forming until one enters their 20s. A lot of developmental changes occur in the brain during the teen years and at least in tests on other mammals, the brain is very adaptable at that time (it is considered unethical to actually test on human beings). There are definite stages to growth and development of brain structures. For instance, teen males seem to be impulsive in many things. That is because the frontal lobes are still developing and it is there that compulsive behaviour is regulated. The frontal lobes don't reach maturity until around age 25. They also have a lot to do with
I'm not sure you point. My point was that as a society, we accept restrictions on some types of media, why should game purchases be any different. I agree that 16 year olds can readily purchase items they are not entitled under the law. As for R and NC-17, legally, I can take my 16 year old to an R movie but cannot an NC-17. Whether I can get them in or not is a totally different problem to be addressed (as is whether they can purchase said movies/games, too).
Well, why single out passenger railroads. Building one major airport costs more than what Amtrak gets in years of funding. Why not make only those who fly pay for that cost. Building a highway costs $1million per mile. Why not make the truckers and people who drive on them be the ones who pay for it? Oh, yeah, it's for the common good. Besides, how would the Northeast handle the increase in traffic if Amtrak weren't subsidized and didn't exist?
But, as long as other modes of transportation are heavily subsidized by the government, how is Amtrak supposed to compete on cost? The real question should be why is rail the only form of transportation people get upset about subsidizing?
Wait a minute. Isn't Wikileaks reporting a leaked report that there was a conspiracy against them a little bit like saying God exists, because the Bible says so?
Slashdot Mirror
True, but that is because not all paperback books are available in hardback and vice-versa.
As I responded in to another of your posts, why does a submitter submit the information? Isn't it to get the information out there? So, why would a submitter care whether Wikileaks gave it to the NYT or Openleaks did? More importantly, wouldn't the submitter who had a lot to risk in getting the information prefer the information had a chance to see the light of day? With Wikileaks the submitter has no control in that. With Openleaks, the submitter can even indicate which media outlets they want it to go to.
Think of the submitter as a manufacturer. Wikileaks is JCPenny and Openleaks is poised to be Walmart. Which one is going to give your "goods" a greater market?
DB looks pretty bad if he leaks the material anyway. People who submitted that information chose to submit it to Wikileaks. It would be a breach of their trust on his part to use any of that information.
I think it is just the opposite, as do many others. People submitted the information to be leaked. Assange/Wikileaks only leaks, apparently, what is in their best interest. Now the information will be leaked and it will be up to the publishers of information what gets used/published or not.
Wikileaks has one main flaw that many a newspaper has had to deal with. You cannot be a good editor and a reporter at the same time. Wikileaks tries to do both, but their own internal bias interferes. Openleaks, since they don't actually publish the articles have removed themself from the editorial role.
Wouldn't it make more sense to only use the combined figures? If the goal of the best seller list is to show what people are purchasing (buying a book doesn't mean it's actually being read), then why still have separate print and non-print lists?
Ignoring the sabotage and theft for a moment by 'Openleaks', do people think that Assange asked to be accused of crimes (in this case the random charge of rape, but it could be pretty much anything they invent)? It seems extremely dubious he forced himself into solitary for a week, then decided to spend hundreds of thousands he doesn't have on lawyers, deliberately to achieve martyr status.
Who would you trust? A CEO who is prepared to face execution for the principles he believes in? Or a theft, saboteur, sneak, somebody that rips off another person's web site, and who blurbs the internal details of his organisation in the press? (ignoring Assange's biography to pay off his legal bills, that I can understand)
He may not be perfect, but considering the alternatives he would be my first port of call if I was a whistle-blower.
Phillip.
Assange's charges are basically statutory in nature. At least in some places of the world, stop really does mean stop. However, this notion of the charges being made up falls apart when the time line is reviewed. The sexual relations occurred and the complaints filed before diplomatic leaks occurred and were released. So, unless the CIA or the government is somehow clairvoyant, it is unlikely that the US was behind any of Mr. Assange's legal problems. And if the CIA and the US really are clairvoyant, then they would have known that the material was being leaked and would have stopped it.
As for the accusation of ripping off another person's web site, if you do a little research you will see that Openleaks was formed because former staff members were concerned with what was going on at Wikileaks internally. Again, the key players left Wikileaks long before Mr. Assange's legal problems. Finally, the only evidence of sabotage is from the PR person at Wikileaks saying it occurred. If it was revealed that you fired somebody while they were legally in possession of 300,000 of your documents and you never asked for them back, what would you tell the public? The story of hacking into Wikileaks and stealing the documents falls apart, since they are actually on the server he had in his possession. DB is not accused of breaking and entering, which would be required to get physical possession of the server, but hacking and sabotage. Wikileak should think out the public relations strategy in a little more detail the next time.
While I agree with almost everything you've said, I'm afraid you will not win the argument. Your sig says it all:
Facts destroy so many good opinions...
In this day and age, it seems facts don't matter any more. It's a shame, too.
When someone leaks some documents to Wikileaks, it's an act of trust - that they can remain anonymous, and that the documents will be carefully collated and published. If someone illicitly copies some documents from Wikileaks, it's potentially a breach of that trust. If I were Wikileaks, I'd be pissed too.
Nobody illicitly copied the documents in question. They were already on the server that was already in DB's possession. Then when he was canned, he kept what was already in his possession. The fact that Wikileaks was not even aware of any of this until DB went public about it really makes one question how can they guarantee anonymity to anyone, when they don't even know where their servers and documents are.
As for the assurance of collating and publishing, that was the whole reason Openleaks was formed. Evidently, there was no guarantee that what was leaked would ever see the light of day. It was all up to Assange. Openleaks provides a platform where anonymity is assured AND your leaked documents go to the outlet you want them to. Then, if your outlet chooses not to publish, at least your leak got to them.
Personally, a system that gives the leaker more control in where the documents goes seems preferable to a system controlled by just one person who may have a different agenda than the leaker.
DB says he was one of two key spokesmen for the organization. Wikileaks says he was not. DB says he was one of the main programmers. Wikileaks says he was not. Also, when Assange fired him, he was already in possession of the server and documents. So, DB didn't actually sabotage anything. He kept what was in his possession. Finally, the very things that Wikileaks is complaining about are the things that DB and others wanted to change. DB wasn't in position to put these practices into place, because only Assange could and he wouldn't.
So, either DB is right in all of this, or Wikileaks is. The problem is that if Wikileaks is right, DB couldn't have sabotaged anything and it was internal incompetence with regards to security that was the problem. Either way, Wikileaks looks bad in all of this.
OpenLeaks own website says that they specifically are not in competition with Wikileaks, but compliment what Wikileaks does.
talking does not mean open when what you are saying is lies
True, but as with any divorce, how do you know which side is telling the truth or not? Only time will tell which side is being more truthful.
Since Amtrak must pay to use other's tracks (infrastructure), that is the part of the operational cost that I am suggesting they subsidize, not the cost of crews, fuel, etc. Basically, the subsidy would go towards infrastructure just like the other means of transportation (although at a substantially smaller cost to the public).
Maybe because if you are in the military, and quite a few military personnel use slashdot, that going to Wikileaks can get you in big shit trouble. Just like an article talking about porn is different than linking directly to a porn site. People lose their jobs over stuff like that. So think of it as a service that the slashdot editors can provide in protecting their readers from unintended consequences from following innocent appearing links on slashdot.
I bet you just read the first article - the one put out by Wikileaks.
To bad you posted anonymously, I would have modded you up for that post!
So the FUD campaign already has its wheels in motion...
Actually, Domscheit-Berg's group has been quite open and upfront about what has happened. It's been Wikileaks that has been spreading FUD.
Two posts from different sides of the same story make for interesting reading. I believe the truth will be somewhere in the middle. It does make me wonder, however, if D-B was really not involved in any part of Wikileaks like the article from the Wikileak's spokesperson claims, it would have been difficult to remove the key piece of software that they claim he did and therefore sabatoged Wikileaks. It seems, from reading between the lines that D-B was actually much more involved in Wikileaks and since his characterizations of Assange have been corroborated by other ex-Wikileaks staff, there may very well be some truth to his side of the story.
Personally, I like the idea of having a leak repository and other outlets decide what to release or not. Putting editorial control under the caretaker of the source documents (as in Wikileaks) seems to allow for quite a bit of abuse of power.
It has been said that information is power. Wikileaks and Assange have accumulated quite a bit of information/power. Too bad, it has also been said that power corrupts.
Airport and highway construction qualify as infrastructure. If you read, you'd notice that I'm all for assistance with infrastructure. GP appears to be requesting help for operational costs, which I think is ludicrous.
And, FYI, you do pay taxes and fees for use of both roadways and airports.
What you pay in fuel taxes comes nowhere near what it costs to build or maintain a highway. If it did, then there would be plenty of money to maintain all of those roads and bridges. As for airports, when the government builds and maintains the infrastructure, it's easy for the airlines to manage the operational costs. However, most business have to finance that stuff themself and pay interest and depreciate it over a number of years. For most business, railroads included, they do not have the luxury of just having the to cover operational costs. Then again, it is estimated that to fly from Newark to Pittsburgh would cost approximately $1,800 dollars if the airlines had to pay for the infrastructure. Probably wouldn't be too many people paying that cost. Likewise, if the air traffic controllers cost had to be picked up in full by the airlines, that would again increase the ticket price.
Face it, the government was concerned after WWII that the railroads had to much power and if a a strike hit at the wrong time it could cripple the nation. Therefore, the government gave huge subsidies to auto/truck and airlines by building the infrastructure. For all practical purposes, they broke the railroad's back, but at the price of the government having to keep spending to keep the two less efficient modes of transportation feasible.
Go anywhere in the far east and try to even find a dumbphone. Everyone and their grandma over there is packing a smartphone, as an alternative to a PC. Most of them run BREW, the most popular OS you've never heard of.
Really, the North American market is a niche.
Or, if the Far East is saturated with smart phones, then the North American market is a growth area. But really, other than Japan, which is fairly westernized, most Asian countries have quite a few people living in poverty. So, it may by the wealthy class has smartphones, but by far, most people in the Asian countries don't, unless they were provided by the government.
studies that actually link physical violence (not temporary violent thoughts) to violent media whilst also explaining why a majority of the population isn't violent despite being exposed to violent media.
You really seem hung up on this. And yet, I never made a claim that there was a link between physical violence to violent media. I stated that there is a link between aggression and violent media. Those two are not the same thing. However, for your proof, UCLA did a study in which young children watched video of two children playing with a toy truck. One of the children in the video then took the truck and the other child hit her. They watched the video three times. Then in real life, when a child who watched the video and child who were not shown the video were placed in a situation where another child took the same toy truck in the video, those who saw the video hit the other child more often than those who did not (393 vs 100).
Now, if you want to make the argument that all of us do not possess learned behaviour as part of our make up, I will ask you to present a study to that effect. However, the scientific community will hold that everything we do is a learned behaviour. Now, there are many ways to learn a behaviour, but visual stimulus along with motor reinforcement seems to be the greatest. So, what do we have in a video game (whether violent or not), but visual stimulus and motor reinforcement.
That is also why pilots use flight simulators, drivers ed classes use car simulators, etc., etc. The goal of these simulators is to make it so the pilot or driver practice the skill over and over so that they may react without having to think about it. Now, what do we have in a FPS? a skill practiced over and over with visual stimulus. That does not mean that a player of such a game will automatically act it out, that would be crazy to make that assumption. However, it does mean that with the right trigger, they will act it out, without thinking. Why, because it has become a learned response to a set of visual stimuli.
The problem is, when this learned response occurs at a young age, while the brain is still forming pathways, it is very easy to have cross connections. Then, the wrong stimulus triggers a response. Still, no cause for any sort of major alarm, in an otherwise mentally healthy adult, but teens aren't adults and are quite impulsive. Does this mean every teen exposed to violent media will go beserk? No, of course not, but it happens a lot more than the public is aware of. We only hear about the really public occurrences that went unabated, not the ones where somebody intervened. And why might that be? Well, for one, peoples health information is considered confidential until they commit a crime and their mental state is entered into evidence. Stop them before the crime and there is no public record.
Again, I am talking about aggressive behaviour, not violent behaviour. Clinically, there is no such thing as violent behaviour. There are, however, various degrees of aggression.
If you want to do research on aggression here is a starting point from google scholar: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=aggression+and+video+games&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
There are a little over 24,000 papers and studies listed, some showing no link or minimal link between the two, but the vast majority supporting increased aggression (lasting from a few minutes to extended periods).
Wasn't it reported just last week that a child could not be suspended for posting about their teacher on facebook? Then why can't a teacher post generic comments about students? The ACLU took up the student's case, who will take up the teacher's (and what she said was less inflammatory than the student's posting)
What makes you think 12-17 year olds are the target of the action FPS genre? The average age of game-buyers is now over 30, and most of the people who play FPSes are in their 20s and 30s now.
Who purchases the game is different than how much time is spent sitting in front of the screen. There is a reason that the 20 some things play the games the most. But, it's important to realize they were much younger than 20-30 when they first got hooked. That is why the target audience is in the teen years, because it is only in the teen years, that you actually hook the individual. It's a biochemical thing. This has been shown with individuals from other cultures, where there is not exposure to video games. When brought to the West, the teenagers quickly adapt and play video games like there is no tomorrow. Much beyond the teen years and it's more of a take it or leave it attitude. In other words, there are very few in the West who become fanatical about FPS once they are out of their teens or early 20s. If they are fanatics in their late 20s or beyond, they were already a fanatic about the genre when younger. (And yes, there are always exceptions to every rule).
This does not mean that these people are dangerous or are going to go shoot everyone or blow something up, at least not if they are healthy and well adjusted. However, it only takes one unbalanced person to wreck havoc on the rest of us.
Why are minors being allowed to purchase them?
Because they don't hurt them. Even minors can tell the difference between fiction and reality. Imagine the state that the population would be in if normal people couldn't even differentiate between fiction and reality and if fiction truly could make people violent. There would be far, far more violence than there is now. Yet, there isn't. Only a small minority of the population is violent, and yet most people are subjected to violent media. Funny, that.
We have R and NC-17 movies that as a society we have agreed that minors should not be allowed to see.
As a society? Who is that? I disagree completely. Unless you have an actual reason to keep these things from them (and so far, no one does), then just let them watch/play the media.
But we have to be honest that the studies, show there is a correlation between violent media and increased aggression.
No, they absolutely do not. The closest I have ever seen a study get to correlating violence with violent media is correlating temporary violent thoughts with violent media. 99% of the time, those thoughts do not translate into actual physical violence except in the case of an already disturbed individual (I would guess).
However, the 12-17 YOs who are the real target of this genre don't have those coping mechanisms (they haven't finished forming in the brain).
Who are you even talking about? This is ridiculous. A majority of minors aren't even violent, yet many of them are subjected to violent media. Again, that's funny.
they haven't finished forming in the brain
Are you serious? They might be going through some changes, but they are not so idiotic as to not be able to differentiate between fiction and reality.
The statistics simply aren't on your side.
You say that even minors can tell the difference between fiction and reality. That's why it's impossible for children to believe in Santa Claus, right? Sure they grow out of it , but unless they aren't minors, then evidently it's possible for some minors to not be able to tell the difference. And it's not just children. Depending on where you stand on your belief in God, there are a lot of people who can or cannot tell the difference between fiction and reality. Or, leaving God out of it, even though crop circles have been debunked, many still believe in them and UFOs, etc.
As for Society agreeing that minors shouldn't watch/play these things. The fact that there is a rating system in the first place, seems to indicate that there is some sort of societal norm to base the rating on. Whether you agree with the rating or not, the group responsible for the rating has to make a determination based on some objective standard.
As for studies showing the link between watched violence and increased aggression, there are too many to count. Increased aggression, however, does not mean that one will go shoot everybody at school. Just like there is a correlation between being physically abused as a child and being an abuser as an adult. A correlation does not mean that one will become an abuser, just that there is a link between the two.
As for coping mechanisms and brain development, it is a medical fact that ones brain does not finish forming until one enters their 20s. A lot of developmental changes occur in the brain during the teen years and at least in tests on other mammals, the brain is very adaptable at that time (it is considered unethical to actually test on human beings). There are definite stages to growth and development of brain structures. For instance, teen males seem to be impulsive in many things. That is because the frontal lobes are still developing and it is there that compulsive behaviour is regulated. The frontal lobes don't reach maturity until around age 25. They also have a lot to do with
I'm not sure you point. My point was that as a society, we accept restrictions on some types of media, why should game purchases be any different. I agree that 16 year olds can readily purchase items they are not entitled under the law. As for R and NC-17, legally, I can take my 16 year old to an R movie but cannot an NC-17. Whether I can get them in or not is a totally different problem to be addressed (as is whether they can purchase said movies/games, too).
Well, why single out passenger railroads. Building one major airport costs more than what Amtrak gets in years of funding. Why not make only those who fly pay for that cost. Building a highway costs $1million per mile. Why not make the truckers and people who drive on them be the ones who pay for it? Oh, yeah, it's for the common good. Besides, how would the Northeast handle the increase in traffic if Amtrak weren't subsidized and didn't exist?
But, as long as other modes of transportation are heavily subsidized by the government, how is Amtrak supposed to compete on cost? The real question should be why is rail the only form of transportation people get upset about subsidizing?
Wait a minute. Isn't Wikileaks reporting a leaked report that there was a conspiracy against them a little bit like saying God exists, because the Bible says so?