Is it geeks and women??? am I just lucky to have a Dr Who watching woman.
My wife says geeks treat you better, because they can actually think instead of run fast with a ball. Although she's not a geek, she's not a typical woman either; she hates chic flicks and loves sci-fi.
To me, that's not really marriage. It's a business partnership. And it's frightening that it's considered OK in our society.
The governement made it that way. Tax breaks for married people, the fact that marriage is a legally binding contract. And lets not forget that divorce is hugely a legal affair.
Personally i think marriage should be a purely religous cerimony and should have no legal relevence whatsoever.
Dude, you're just an idiot. There ARE people who dated even longer than you and your wife, and their marrage STILL ends up in divorce.
People grow and change, and sometimes that means they grow apart. A prenup wouldn't have come about if the courts would stop forcing men to pay alimony and giving just about everything the couple had to the woman.
Huh? What change am I proposing? The legislature can debate laws, they do all the time. If they debate, decide that a law will violate the consitution and then vote to not pass it, what is wrong with that? Should they just pass ever law that's proposed and let the courts sort it out?
It is the responsibility of all three branches to protect the constution, not just the courts.
But if your intent is to prevent the passage of bad ("obviously unconstitutional") legislation, post-facto determinations in court don't work well. The legislature won't know until AFTERWARDS that it passed a bad law.
If they were more familar with the constitution, they shouldn't have any problems. There IS a reason that the current system only lets laws be struct down after the fact.
Obvisouly the legilsature needed to debate this law a bit longer, to work out any possiblity of it being unconstitutional. Yes, this would slow down the passing of laws. Thats exactly how its supposed to be though!
The legislature has the right to pass laws, even bad laws; that's democracy.
No, they have to right to pass laws which are constitutional. Unconstitutional laws should be destroyed. FWIW, we aren't living an a democracy either, its a republic.
You won. You should have won, and you did. Be done with it.
Why shouldn't they get their money back? The state shouldn't have passed such a law to begin with, but it did, and the ESA had to spend a lot of money to fight it.
If it was such an obvious no-brainer that the law was unconstitutional, then you really didn't need to spend so much money on the legal battle, right?
Lawyers are always expensive. Even in no-brainer trials, you have to try your absolute best, because if youi don't, the other guy will find some flawed logic to support his theory. If you don't shoot it down, you'll lose.
From what I read, eventually all kernel calls will be through.Net managed code. Think of the.Net framework today as Win32s; the API which was backported to Win3.x so that developers could target Win95 and still have them run on Win3.x. Such a stragegy supports people migrating off of Win3.1, and thats the stragegy here.
Firstly, how do you think google got the money they needed to even start a company? Some guy named the venture capitalist looked at their business and how it worked and said "Ok, let me give you some money to get started."
Where in there does it say said venture capitalist understood how the business worked? More likely, he said 'this sounds like it could work, i'll give some money.' I seem to recall quite a few VCs that lost out because they were taken in by some startups story.
A big financial firm comes in and says, "fine, your business looks sustainable so we'll try and push it out to our clients/markets" At which point all the other big financial firms will say, let me see your business and your financials.
Yes, they will say that, based on what they understand of the company. Do they always understand it? Doubtful. They may, but they may not. They may just be looking at a company and saying 'its been growing for a while now, seems like they can continue to grow.'
Do you really think that ANY person in their right mind will throw over a few hundred million dollars at a company they don't know about?
Are you saying that by google not guessing what their profits might be, you can't know anything about a company? What about past history and current performance? You're telling me these really smart people can't go without google guessing what their profits might be?
Don't tell that to your economist teacher.
You mean economic teacher of course. Its been a while since I had one, but I'm glad he wasn't so narrow minded as you.
Okay, let's go back to sheeps and cows, you're right we don't NEED a stock market, but next time you wish to invest to google, feel free to ship them a bunch of sheeps and cows for their shares.
Wow, you really are dumb aren't you? Having a system based on currency has nothing to do with buying stocks! You're right, we probably won't have a stock market without currency, but we currently can have currency without a market! Where the hell did you see me post that we shouldn't have currency? If you can't find it, then stop this idiotic sheeps and cows crap.
Google's obligation is strictly to make money.
I'd argue its not soley about making money. If my business plan included cutting costs by dumping toxic waste in a lake, i think i'd still be in trouble. So no, there only obligation isn't to make money.
It's not to post actual results. Them guessing results gives guidance as to what stock price the company should trade around.
When they went public, they agree to follow certain laws which govern the stock market. Posting actual results is one of those laws; posting guesses to 'give guidance' is not. The market will have to figure out other ways to determine what the price of the stock should trade around.
Without the guidance, your guess is as good as mine where this stock price should trade.
No, because there is alot of other information to use; past performance, what their vision is, the next product or service they are working on, etc. Its likely that google's guess would be as good as yours or mine as well. What exactly do you think they know that you can't find out?
This leads to inefficient markets and price discrepancies.
this leads to a bunch of lazy 'analysts' that don't want to put any real work into determining a fair price; they want to let google tell them what they think the price should be.
In cases like this, it is inevitably, the individual investors who do not have the resources of a large corporation that get burned when there is a price correction.
So what? Investing is risky. Invest at your own risk. Any investment firm will give you the same warning. At any rate, small investors aren't going to have enough cash to invest in google anyway, so your point is moot.
But feel free to find me some more companies that don't give guidance that trade anyw
Actually I'm talking about the/real/ kind of bullying, not the game.
Hmm, since I was talking about parents worrying about a game about bullying, I'm not really sure why you went that route. Sure, worrying about actual bullying is fine; its when they are worried about a game about bullying that I think their priorities are out of wack.
The parents of bullies are often as low down on the food chain as the bullies themselves, and can barely be relied on to perform the most basic of jobs, let alone raising a decent child.
Obviously we need to properly motivate them. The schools are just as much to blame though; they ignore reports of bullying.
I never once said it would, what I'm talking about is sensitivity towards those with a problem.
A problem with what? Bullying, or the game? I can sympathize with someone being bullied, but not with someone upset over the game.
But bullying is a real issue, and often isn't even the work of just one or two children, which makes dealing with it without looking at mass social influences dumb.
100% agree. However there's no reason at all for the school board to be worrying about a game. As I said, bullying existed before this game, and the game doesn't cause people to become bullies. If anything its the fore-mentioned 'bottom feeding parents' that create bullies. The school board should be pushing to punish parents for their kids behavior, or better yet cracking down on the bullies themselves.
They don't have a clue how to go about it, no one does, cruelty is part of human nature. They HAVE got this wrong, but that doesn't make it a non-issue.
If they don't have a clue on how to fix the problem, maybe they should do some research to find ways to address it, instead of lashing out at the 'newest thing which is the root of all evil.' I never said bullying was a non-issue by the way; I said the board's concerns over a game about bullying is a non-issue.
Good points. Personally I was bummed when they stopped porting the mortal kombats to PC. While there's no standardized controller, PC gamepads seem to have followed console gamepads pretty closely. Most PC games that support a game pad let you configure the pad or the keyboard.
Regardign console style RPG.. its been a while, but how exactly do you make an RPG console style? They ported FF7 to the PC and it played just fine for me. So I don't think its any technical limitations there.
Regarding sports / racing games... I tend to forget about these, since I find them boring regardless of platform. But I could see how they might not play well on a PC.. although if you have one of the newer pc game pads, I'd think it'd play about the same.
You try telling a parent who's child's losing the desire to live that they should forget about it and go do something more important like clean up some polluted rivers, and see what response you get.
You're an idiot. Please name me a game that 'caused a child to lose the desire to live.' Prove that it was soley the game that caused depression.
My point is that different people in different circumstances will have different ideas of which problems need to be tackled first. Yes, the world needs rescuing, but if you don't look after yourself first, you'll be in no position to look after anything else for long.
Perhaps you should be dealing with real issues, and not some made up political issue which purpose is to get votes (yes, school board officals are elected). Maybe teaching your kid how to deal with bullies, or better yet, the parents of bullies need to wake up and realize thier kid is an ass and discpline them.
Whether you believe games affect people or not (my personal opinion is that/everything/ affects people, exposure to violence puts violence into the mind),
Bull. You believe it, but the real world says otherwise. Millions of people play violent games and are just fine.
knowing something that's turned your childs life into a misery has been made into a game... I can see how that would upset people enough to make them speak out.
Awww, poor baby. Grow up, its a game already. Anyone that gets upset about the existince of a game like this really does need to grow up. Its a sign of immaturity and inability to handle emotions.
Of cause, banning such a game increases the number of people affected by the bullying (ie, the would be game players) which I don't believe should happen.
Banning the game will have NO effect whatsoever on real life bullying.
Normally I wouldn't reply to a troll, but I find it interesting that you attempt to use logical fallacies and fail miserably.
argumentum ad antiquitatem (Appeal to Tradition)
I think that bullying existed before this game, so what would removing the game do? NOTHING!
An appeal to tradition would be if i had said 'we've always made games about bullying, so we shouldn't stop.' Sorry, I never made an appeal to tradition, I was mearly stating that the game won't have an effect on bullying one way or the other.
hyperbole (exaggeration)
You have a government body trying to remove content they don't like.
The school board is elected and funded using public funds. It attempts to execuete laws setup by the state (or local) legislature. If thats not a government body, I don't know what is.
Secondly, they are trying to remove a game with content they disapprove of, which is also know as censorship.
straw man
Are car manufacturers irresponsible for selling a product that some people use to kill others? Or is it the person driving the car thats responsible?
The school board's argument is that the game will cause kids to start bullying other kids. Driving a car is not as similar, i'll grant you that. Probably a better analogy would be reading a book; are book publishers responsible if someone reads a book and then mimics a crime described in it?
ad hominem (Attacking the Messenger)
People like you really piss me off
While that statement doesn't advance my argument, only presents my opinion, I fail to see how 'you piss me off' is an attack.
ignoratio elenchi (Red Herring)
companies are actively polluting rivers, lakes and land
Sorry, don't think this is a red herring. I'm questioning the posters priorities, which do seem way out of wack. He's worried about a game encouraging bullying (which there is no evidence that games influence your average person to do anything), when there are actual, harmful issues. Or is it not valid to question someone's priorities? I think it is, especially when they're worrying about an issue that isn't supported by fact.
Add it all up, and it spells "you lose." But since I'm sure you'll need more convincing than simply pointing out you desperately used several logical fallacies to shore up your specious argument, let me ask you a question.
Hopefully I've cleared things up for you, since you clearly don't know how to apply them. Indeed, up to this point, you haven't done any debating on the issue in this thread.
Say Rockstar came out with a game in which you're a Nazi, trying to take over Europe. You get points based on how many Jews you gas. You and your friends all play this game and think it's funny. You joke with each other about "offing Jews" and such. Do you not think it's remotely possible that some people might actually start believing that Jews are somehow a lesser people? Or at the very least, don't you admit that Jewish people overhearing your "joking" might be offended, particularly if they or their relatives lived through the holocaust?
I don't believe any rational person would start thinking Jews are lesser people based on a video game. The suggestion is absurd on its face. And there evidence to disprove it as well. How many rational people play doom, gta, or other violent games and still are non-violent?
Jews may very well be offended by such a game or jokes, but you still have a first amendment right to make such a game or joke. Indeed, plenty of talk radio shows (stern, opie & anthony), tv shows (south park, family guy) and music make jokes about all kinds of tasteless things. All of that is protected by the first amendment, no matter how tasteless or offensive anyone finds it.
erm, somewhere where it won't be modded off-topic? Are you really suggesting that individual complaints are invalid just because every other complaint about things wrong in the world weren't made at the same time?
No, I'm saying that even if someone is going to waste time being concerned about this issue, there are far more pressing (and real) issues that should be addressed first. You know, one thing at a time and all that.
So if I were to say, "these video games are wrong, and so is polluting", you'd come out with "well what about gun crime? You haven't mentioned that in the same sentence, so you obviously have no real morals"
See above; I believe that even if someone is worried about this issue, there are more important things that should displace it until they are solved. More importantly, I don't even believe there's an issue here to begin with, since there is 0 evidence that playing violent games influences behavior in your average person.
Because these are large institutions with great big chunks of money, that know exactly how a business operates and would love to have some guidance on a company they collectively own more then 30+% of.
I doubt any large inventment firm actually knows as much as the company itself. If said firm didn't like the terms of google's stock, they should not have bought it.
I mention trading sheep for cows because you don't seem to grasp the concept of capital markets. A company trades at a certain share value BECAUSE people think it'll potentially make X amount. That's why there's such a thing called the P/E ratio. Price to Earnings. Otherwise that share price is meaningless and causing people who have invested money with the brokers/investors/hedge funds to potentially lose alot of money into something that might be artifically inflated. And, that is a bad thing because when your public loses money, the only people who come out on top of all of this is, the Wall st. brokers, and the top guys at google, who are paid their millions/multimillions who really don't care about whether you or I make a buck or two in investing with them.
You don't seem to grasp that idea that you can have capitalism without a stock market at all.
And nothing in that last paragraph has anything to do with the fact that Google's only obligation is to post actual results, not guess what the results might be. And you probably also missed that google isn't the only company which doesn't play this game.
Sounds to me like people invested into something they didn't know about; well tahts their own damn fault.
I think that by drafting this resolution, they are doing their due diligence to aid their students.
Instead of addressing the very real problem of actual bullies? Funny, I think that bullying existed before this game, so what would removing the game do? NOTHING!
People want to call it censorship and such.
You have a government body trying to remove content they don't like. Yup, thats censorship.
But what about Rockstar? Are they not being irresponsible to some extent making games like this?
No, they are not. They are making a game taht some people will find fun. Are car manufacturers irresponsible for selling a product that some people use to kill others? Or is it the person driving the car thats responsible?
Sure it is just a game, but considering the fire they have come under for their GTA games and such, maybe they should think twice about things like this.
Why? They want to make games that people will play. They did nothing wrong with hot coffee and aren't doing anything wrong here.
Still, we are talking about their games, and I am sure they are happy about this. All the talk will move games off the shelves and Rockstar will make money. What do they care?
They probably dont' care because they aren't doing anything wrong, and aren't making something that is harmful to people.
People like you really piss me off; you get all worked up about a video game, but where is your outrage when companies are actively polluting rivers, lakes and land? When they lie about side effects of drugs and receive nothing but a slap on the wrist?
Although there is not legal grounds for the school board to do anything, there is a moral standpoint here.
Beating hookers in a game is ok, but this is where draw the line?
There is really no reason for a game like this.
Sure there is; i bet its a fun game to play. Personally I believe there's no reason for the Bible. It serves no real purpose (except to allow weakminded people to be controlled by those who 'spread the word'). Certainly its caused more problems than its solved.
I've got a big problem playing a game that puts me in the position of an antagonist like this (I know, and I don't plan on playing it).
Well, for one, you're not, you're the victim. Can't be bothered to do a little reading though I guess. Secondly, you mention GTA later in your post, what do you think you are there? The good guy?
They are acting upon thier surroundings and developing.
I guess kids just dont' have free will at all.
It is a pity that some turn out to be bullies.
No, its a pity parents are lazy and don't take the time to properly raise their kids. This also manfests itself in other places, such as movie theaters, where you have 13 yr old girls talking through the whole movie.
I'm not equating schoolyard violence to, say, rapists and murderers, but I am equating the exploition there of to be equal. Make a game about harnessing your ability to beat the tar out of (relatively innoccent) school kids, and, in my mind, you may as well be developing a game that lets you rape and murder kids. Developing a vice either way.
You start off saying you're not going to equate the two and finish your paragraph by equating the two. Nice work.
Like I said, one is definately worse than the other, but in my mind exploiting childhood violence, fear, and the feeling that you don't want to go to school because of what's happening to you is just wrong.
You don't even know anything about the game. Shut up already.
But I guess you won't, and you'll continue to just ignore that fact that millions of kids play all kinds of games with people like you deam inappropriate, but yet haven't turned into muggers, rapists and murderers. Just keep pointing to people that are already messed up in the head and say it was the games fault, not the person. Good plan.
True, put a sniper in every home in America and things get difficult. However, with out luck the military would probably just nuke us all. It might end up being only foreign countries where they are concerned about tapdancing around markets, mosques, etc.
Honestly, do you think they'd really WANT to wipe the out entire civilian populance? If such an event occurred, the goal of those in power wouldn't be 'kill them all.' After all, once all the civilians are dead, who's going to run the industry?
I didn't see the others, but I thought the War of the Worlds was a good remake. The effects were great and it was even more true to the book then the version from the 50s.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it geeks and women??? am I just lucky to have a Dr Who watching woman.
My wife says geeks treat you better, because they can actually think instead of run fast with a ball. Although she's not a geek, she's not a typical woman either; she hates chic flicks and loves sci-fi.
To me, that's not really marriage. It's a business partnership. And it's frightening that it's considered OK in our society.
The governement made it that way. Tax breaks for married people, the fact that marriage is a legally binding contract. And lets not forget that divorce is hugely a legal affair.
Personally i think marriage should be a purely religous cerimony and should have no legal relevence whatsoever.
Dude, you're just an idiot. There ARE people who dated even longer than you and your wife, and their marrage STILL ends up in divorce.
People grow and change, and sometimes that means they grow apart. A prenup wouldn't have come about if the courts would stop forcing men to pay alimony and giving just about everything the couple had to the woman.
Huh? What change am I proposing? The legislature can debate laws, they do all the time. If they debate, decide that a law will violate the consitution and then vote to not pass it, what is wrong with that? Should they just pass ever law that's proposed and let the courts sort it out?
It is the responsibility of all three branches to protect the constution, not just the courts.
Its also worth noting that this isn't even an option anymore in Sql Server 2005.
But if your intent is to prevent the passage of bad ("obviously unconstitutional") legislation, post-facto determinations in court don't work well. The legislature won't know until AFTERWARDS that it passed a bad law.
If they were more familar with the constitution, they shouldn't have any problems. There IS a reason that the current system only lets laws be struct down after the fact.
Obvisouly the legilsature needed to debate this law a bit longer, to work out any possiblity of it being unconstitutional. Yes, this would slow down the passing of laws. Thats exactly how its supposed to be though!
The legislature has the right to pass laws, even bad laws; that's democracy.
No, they have to right to pass laws which are constitutional. Unconstitutional laws should be destroyed. FWIW, we aren't living an a democracy either, its a republic.
You won. You should have won, and you did. Be done with it.
Why shouldn't they get their money back? The state shouldn't have passed such a law to begin with, but it did, and the ESA had to spend a lot of money to fight it.
If it was such an obvious no-brainer that the law was unconstitutional, then you really didn't need to spend so much money on the legal battle, right?
Lawyers are always expensive. Even in no-brainer trials, you have to try your absolute best, because if youi don't, the other guy will find some flawed logic to support his theory. If you don't shoot it down, you'll lose.
Of course that law would also be unconstitutional, so I guess that it would never fly.
How would such a law be unconstitutional?
This article is a good summary: http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2003/11/24/lo nghorn_01.htm?page=last&x-maxdepth=0
It was written 3 years ago though, but seems to make sense still.
From what I read, eventually all kernel calls will be through .Net managed code. Think of the .Net framework today as Win32s; the API which was backported to Win3.x so that developers could target Win95 and still have them run on Win3.x. Such a stragegy supports people migrating off of Win3.1, and thats the stragegy here.
Firstly, how do you think google got the money they needed to even start a company? Some guy named the venture capitalist looked at their business and how it worked and said "Ok, let me give you some money to get started."
Where in there does it say said venture capitalist understood how the business worked? More likely, he said 'this sounds like it could work, i'll give some money.' I seem to recall quite a few VCs that lost out because they were taken in by some startups story.
A big financial firm comes in and says, "fine, your business looks sustainable so we'll try and push it out to our clients/markets" At which point all the other big financial firms will say, let me see your business and your financials.
Yes, they will say that, based on what they understand of the company. Do they always understand it? Doubtful. They may, but they may not. They may just be looking at a company and saying 'its been growing for a while now, seems like they can continue to grow.'
Do you really think that ANY person in their right mind will throw over a few hundred million dollars at a company they don't know about?
Are you saying that by google not guessing what their profits might be, you can't know anything about a company? What about past history and current performance? You're telling me these really smart people can't go without google guessing what their profits might be?
Don't tell that to your economist teacher.
You mean economic teacher of course. Its been a while since I had one, but I'm glad he wasn't so narrow minded as you.
Okay, let's go back to sheeps and cows, you're right we don't NEED a stock market, but next time you wish to invest to google, feel free to ship them a bunch of sheeps and cows for their shares.
Wow, you really are dumb aren't you? Having a system based on currency has nothing to do with buying stocks! You're right, we probably won't have a stock market without currency, but we currently can have currency without a market! Where the hell did you see me post that we shouldn't have currency? If you can't find it, then stop this idiotic sheeps and cows crap.
Google's obligation is strictly to make money.
I'd argue its not soley about making money. If my business plan included cutting costs by dumping toxic waste in a lake, i think i'd still be in trouble. So no, there only obligation isn't to make money.
It's not to post actual results. Them guessing results gives guidance as to what stock price the company should trade around.
When they went public, they agree to follow certain laws which govern the stock market. Posting actual results is one of those laws; posting guesses to 'give guidance' is not. The market will have to figure out other ways to determine what the price of the stock should trade around.
Without the guidance, your guess is as good as mine where this stock price should trade.
No, because there is alot of other information to use; past performance, what their vision is, the next product or service they are working on, etc. Its likely that google's guess would be as good as yours or mine as well. What exactly do you think they know that you can't find out?
This leads to inefficient markets and price discrepancies.
this leads to a bunch of lazy 'analysts' that don't want to put any real work into determining a fair price; they want to let google tell them what they think the price should be.
In cases like this, it is inevitably, the individual investors who do not have the resources of a large corporation that get burned when there is a price correction.
So what? Investing is risky. Invest at your own risk. Any investment firm will give you the same warning. At any rate, small investors aren't going to have enough cash to invest in google anyway, so your point is moot.
But feel free to find me some more companies that don't give guidance that trade anyw
Actually I'm talking about the /real/ kind of bullying, not the game.
Hmm, since I was talking about parents worrying about a game about bullying, I'm not really sure why you went that route. Sure, worrying about actual bullying is fine; its when they are worried about a game about bullying that I think their priorities are out of wack.
The parents of bullies are often as low down on the food chain as the bullies themselves, and can barely be relied on to perform the most basic of jobs, let alone raising a decent child.
Obviously we need to properly motivate them. The schools are just as much to blame though; they ignore reports of bullying.
I never once said it would, what I'm talking about is sensitivity towards those with a problem.
A problem with what? Bullying, or the game? I can sympathize with someone being bullied, but not with someone upset over the game.
But bullying is a real issue, and often isn't even the work of just one or two children, which makes dealing with it without looking at mass social influences dumb.
100% agree. However there's no reason at all for the school board to be worrying about a game. As I said, bullying existed before this game, and the game doesn't cause people to become bullies. If anything its the fore-mentioned 'bottom feeding parents' that create bullies. The school board should be pushing to punish parents for their kids behavior, or better yet cracking down on the bullies themselves.
They don't have a clue how to go about it, no one does, cruelty is part of human nature. They HAVE got this wrong, but that doesn't make it a non-issue.
If they don't have a clue on how to fix the problem, maybe they should do some research to find ways to address it, instead of lashing out at the 'newest thing which is the root of all evil.' I never said bullying was a non-issue by the way; I said the board's concerns over a game about bullying is a non-issue.
Good points. Personally I was bummed when they stopped porting the mortal kombats to PC. While there's no standardized controller, PC gamepads seem to have followed console gamepads pretty closely. Most PC games that support a game pad let you configure the pad or the keyboard.
Regardign console style RPG.. its been a while, but how exactly do you make an RPG console style? They ported FF7 to the PC and it played just fine for me. So I don't think its any technical limitations there.
Regarding sports / racing games... I tend to forget about these, since I find them boring regardless of platform. But I could see how they might not play well on a PC.. although if you have one of the newer pc game pads, I'd think it'd play about the same.
4) At $500, why not just spend a few hundred more and get a PC for gaming (and much more)?
You try telling a parent who's child's losing the desire to live that they should forget about it and go do something more important like clean up some polluted rivers, and see what response you get.
/everything/ affects people, exposure to violence puts violence into the mind),
You're an idiot. Please name me a game that 'caused a child to lose the desire to live.' Prove that it was soley the game that caused depression.
My point is that different people in different circumstances will have different ideas of which problems need to be tackled first. Yes, the world needs rescuing, but if you don't look after yourself first, you'll be in no position to look after anything else for long.
Perhaps you should be dealing with real issues, and not some made up political issue which purpose is to get votes (yes, school board officals are elected). Maybe teaching your kid how to deal with bullies, or better yet, the parents of bullies need to wake up and realize thier kid is an ass and discpline them.
Whether you believe games affect people or not (my personal opinion is that
Bull. You believe it, but the real world says otherwise. Millions of people play violent games and are just fine.
knowing something that's turned your childs life into a misery has been made into a game... I can see how that would upset people enough to make them speak out.
Awww, poor baby. Grow up, its a game already. Anyone that gets upset about the existince of a game like this really does need to grow up. Its a sign of immaturity and inability to handle emotions.
Of cause, banning such a game increases the number of people affected by the bullying (ie, the would be game players) which I don't believe should happen.
Banning the game will have NO effect whatsoever on real life bullying.
Normally I wouldn't reply to a troll, but I find it interesting that you attempt to use logical fallacies and fail miserably.
argumentum ad antiquitatem (Appeal to Tradition)
I think that bullying existed before this game, so what would removing the game do? NOTHING!
An appeal to tradition would be if i had said 'we've always made games about bullying, so we shouldn't stop.' Sorry, I never made an appeal to tradition, I was mearly stating that the game won't have an effect on bullying one way or the other.
hyperbole (exaggeration)
You have a government body trying to remove content they don't like.
The school board is elected and funded using public funds. It attempts to execuete laws setup by the state (or local) legislature. If thats not a government body, I don't know what is.
Secondly, they are trying to remove a game with content they disapprove of, which is also know as censorship.
straw man
Are car manufacturers irresponsible for selling a product that some people use to kill others? Or is it the person driving the car thats responsible?
The school board's argument is that the game will cause kids to start bullying other kids. Driving a car is not as similar, i'll grant you that. Probably a better analogy would be reading a book; are book publishers responsible if someone reads a book and then mimics a crime described in it?
ad hominem (Attacking the Messenger)
People like you really piss me off
While that statement doesn't advance my argument, only presents my opinion, I fail to see how 'you piss me off' is an attack.
ignoratio elenchi (Red Herring)
companies are actively polluting rivers, lakes and land
Sorry, don't think this is a red herring. I'm questioning the posters priorities, which do seem way out of wack. He's worried about a game encouraging bullying (which there is no evidence that games influence your average person to do anything), when there are actual, harmful issues. Or is it not valid to question someone's priorities? I think it is, especially when they're worrying about an issue that isn't supported by fact.
Add it all up, and it spells "you lose." But since I'm sure you'll need more convincing than simply pointing out you desperately used several logical fallacies to shore up your specious argument, let me ask you a question.
Hopefully I've cleared things up for you, since you clearly don't know how to apply them. Indeed, up to this point, you haven't done any debating on the issue in this thread.
Say Rockstar came out with a game in which you're a Nazi, trying to take over Europe. You get points based on how many Jews you gas. You and your friends all play this game and think it's funny. You joke with each other about "offing Jews" and such. Do you not think it's remotely possible that some people might actually start believing that Jews are somehow a lesser people? Or at the very least, don't you admit that Jewish people overhearing your "joking" might be offended, particularly if they or their relatives lived through the holocaust?
I don't believe any rational person would start thinking Jews are lesser people based on a video game. The suggestion is absurd on its face. And there evidence to disprove it as well. How many rational people play doom, gta, or other violent games and still are non-violent?
Jews may very well be offended by such a game or jokes, but you still have a first amendment right to make such a game or joke. Indeed, plenty of talk radio shows (stern, opie & anthony), tv shows (south park, family guy) and music make jokes about all kinds of tasteless things. All of that is protected by the first amendment, no matter how tasteless or offensive anyone finds it.
"Screw 'em," right? After all, people were
erm, somewhere where it won't be modded off-topic? Are you really suggesting that individual complaints are invalid just because every other complaint about things wrong in the world weren't made at the same time?
No, I'm saying that even if someone is going to waste time being concerned about this issue, there are far more pressing (and real) issues that should be addressed first. You know, one thing at a time and all that.
So if I were to say, "these video games are wrong, and so is polluting", you'd come out with "well what about gun crime? You haven't mentioned that in the same sentence, so you obviously have no real morals"
See above; I believe that even if someone is worried about this issue, there are more important things that should displace it until they are solved. More importantly, I don't even believe there's an issue here to begin with, since there is 0 evidence that playing violent games influences behavior in your average person.
Because these are large institutions with great big chunks of money, that know exactly how a business operates and would love to have some guidance on a company they collectively own more then 30+% of.
I doubt any large inventment firm actually knows as much as the company itself. If said firm didn't like the terms of google's stock, they should not have bought it.
I mention trading sheep for cows because you don't seem to grasp the concept of capital markets. A company trades at a certain share value BECAUSE people think it'll potentially make X amount. That's why there's such a thing called the P/E ratio. Price to Earnings. Otherwise that share price is meaningless and causing people who have invested money with the brokers/investors/hedge funds to potentially lose alot of money into something that might be artifically inflated. And, that is a bad thing because when your public loses money, the only people who come out on top of all of this is, the Wall st. brokers, and the top guys at google, who are paid their millions/multimillions who really don't care about whether you or I make a buck or two in investing with them.
You don't seem to grasp that idea that you can have capitalism without a stock market at all.
And nothing in that last paragraph has anything to do with the fact that Google's only obligation is to post actual results, not guess what the results might be. And you probably also missed that google isn't the only company which doesn't play this game.
Sounds to me like people invested into something they didn't know about; well tahts their own damn fault.
Its a game, its not advocating anything. Its simply supposed to be enjoyable to play.
I think that by drafting this resolution, they are doing their due diligence to aid their students.
Instead of addressing the very real problem of actual bullies? Funny, I think that bullying existed before this game, so what would removing the game do? NOTHING!
People want to call it censorship and such.
You have a government body trying to remove content they don't like. Yup, thats censorship.
But what about Rockstar? Are they not being irresponsible to some extent making games like this?
No, they are not. They are making a game taht some people will find fun. Are car manufacturers irresponsible for selling a product that some people use to kill others? Or is it the person driving the car thats responsible?
Sure it is just a game, but considering the fire they have come under for their GTA games and such, maybe they should think twice about things like this.
Why? They want to make games that people will play. They did nothing wrong with hot coffee and aren't doing anything wrong here.
Still, we are talking about their games, and I am sure they are happy about this. All the talk will move games off the shelves and Rockstar will make money. What do they care?
They probably dont' care because they aren't doing anything wrong, and aren't making something that is harmful to people.
People like you really piss me off; you get all worked up about a video game, but where is your outrage when companies are actively polluting rivers, lakes and land? When they lie about side effects of drugs and receive nothing but a slap on the wrist?
Although there is not legal grounds for the school board to do anything, there is a moral standpoint here.
Beating hookers in a game is ok, but this is where draw the line?
There is really no reason for a game like this.
Sure there is; i bet its a fun game to play. Personally I believe there's no reason for the Bible. It serves no real purpose (except to allow weakminded people to be controlled by those who 'spread the word'). Certainly its caused more problems than its solved.
I've got a big problem playing a game that puts me in the position of an antagonist like this (I know, and I don't plan on playing it).
Well, for one, you're not, you're the victim. Can't be bothered to do a little reading though I guess. Secondly, you mention GTA later in your post, what do you think you are there? The good guy?
They are acting upon thier surroundings and developing.
I guess kids just dont' have free will at all.
It is a pity that some turn out to be bullies.
No, its a pity parents are lazy and don't take the time to properly raise their kids. This also manfests itself in other places, such as movie theaters, where you have 13 yr old girls talking through the whole movie.
I'm not equating schoolyard violence to, say, rapists and murderers, but I am equating the exploition there of to be equal. Make a game about harnessing your ability to beat the tar out of (relatively innoccent) school kids, and, in my mind, you may as well be developing a game that lets you rape and murder kids. Developing a vice either way.
You start off saying you're not going to equate the two and finish your paragraph by equating the two. Nice work.
Like I said, one is definately worse than the other, but in my mind exploiting childhood violence, fear, and the feeling that you don't want to go to school because of what's happening to you is just wrong.
You don't even know anything about the game. Shut up already.
But I guess you won't, and you'll continue to just ignore that fact that millions of kids play all kinds of games with people like you deam inappropriate, but yet haven't turned into muggers, rapists and murderers. Just keep pointing to people that are already messed up in the head and say it was the games fault, not the person. Good plan.
True, put a sniper in every home in America and things get difficult. However, with out luck the military would probably just nuke us all. It might end up being only foreign countries where they are concerned about tapdancing around markets, mosques, etc.
Honestly, do you think they'd really WANT to wipe the out entire civilian populance? If such an event occurred, the goal of those in power wouldn't be 'kill them all.' After all, once all the civilians are dead, who's going to run the industry?
I thought I was the only one that thought the parents of kids should be SOLEY reponsibible for paying for their kids' schooling.
I didn't see the others, but I thought the War of the Worlds was a good remake. The effects were great and it was even more true to the book then the version from the 50s.