As for violence producing violence, there have been psychological studies on children that show that children are likely to produce actions that they see in TV programs and other media.
As for making ourselves "better" (whatever is meant by that), I don't see how playing violent games is going make someone "better".
I'm assuming your point is that something (like, say, American History X) can be violent but help people to learn. The reality is that the violence in a movie such as that is really only used to sell tickets and shock the viewer. Once the viewer has been shocked, they may be more open to the message presented by the film, but the violence in itself is not necessarily a good thing.
Pong had bad graphics and it was not a fun game. There, I said it. Just because it was first doesn't mean it was good. Now Arkanoid, on the other hand, is a good game.
So what? These monkeys are going to start paying endless amounts of money for games just because people whine about it? If you're trying to point out that this article is not news, I agree wholeheartedly, but the monkeys are not customers. Period.
As for the GPL argument, it looks like the articles linked in the summary are "crying bloody murder" against pirates. So developers of games hate pirates and developers of GPL software hate GPL violators. You're looking at two different types of people; just because more people on Slashdot fall into the second group doesn't mean that they're any more or less retarded.
Actually, I've seen such rebranding of games when my friend picked up a few while in the Ukraine, but I don't think most publishers are expecting to sell a lot outside of Japan, the US, and Europe, so you're right to say that it's a non-issue.
Yes, that all makes sense and I think that such use of piracy is not morally wrong, BUT...
The game publisher doesn't care if you like the game or not; they just want you to buy it so that they can make money. Sometimes not releasing a demo and tricking people into buying a game is a good money-making strategy. If they completely botch the news Star Wars game, but market it as being awesome by bribing reviewers (and no one can find out for themselves since there's no demo), they make more money.
So, I doubt that any publisher would have any sympathy for what you're doing. Good customers buy all the latest sequels =)
For one, the situations are completely different from a moral standpoint, so the comparison is not valid. If you gave an example of a non-profit company using OSS, but violtaing the GPL, to successfully cure AIDS in all of Africa then I'd call it a double standard. But companies trying to get rich quick by stealing code are already morally suspect.
Second, this topic has been brought up a million times and the antagonist (you, in this case) always refuses to acknowledge the fact that there is a wide range of opinions on Slashdot and only a fraction of people are complete morons. You're posting on Slashdot, afterall, so you must share this double standard as well, right? Of course not.
The best part is that his comparisons make absolutely no sense. He seems to be thinking along these lines:
What's gaming like? Picking flowers while dancing in the warm summer sun and sipping sweet nectar from goblets given to you by hummingbirds.
What's piracy like? Being raped in prison by other inmates while being kicked in the crotch, followed by the guards running a train on you.
What happens to the poor developers? Their houses are pillaged and set on fire by pirates and their massive creative talents are forced to hibernate while their soul is extracted by powerful magnets and then caged in a zoo and mocked for all eternity.
What happens to the pirates? They live an outrageous lie of a life until they're finally forced by their friends and family at the Pirates Anonymous meeting to admit their mistakes and commit mass ritual suicide to repent their sins against the holy game developers.
If any of those examples make sense to you, you're probably under the influence of an illicit substance that you obtained from Mr. Minter.
It's funny that you mention purchasing games that you would never have wanted if you had been able to play a demo before hand. Why is this funny? Because the publisher just made more money by NOT releasing a demo and hurting customers. Oh how I love the gaming industry!
I've nearly given up on reviews since I saw rave reviews of UT 2004. Well, I got a copy of that game and it's basically UT with one or two new play modes. Same unbalanced arsenal, same poorly designed levels, even some of the same characters.
Why, oh why, did I get UT 2004 instead of Painkiller?
I'd call such a person a nonpotential consumer. They're not going to pay for the game, so whether they have the game or not is irrelevant from an economic standpoint. Just because it has value to them doesn't mean that they'd ever pay money for that value.
That's a great legal argument and all, but I honestly do not feel like I've done anything morally wrong when I pirate a game that I can't get any other way. When it comes down to it, I don't think laws (such as copyright) are really the bottom line in people's decisions.
As for the troll at the end, the moral situation in that case is significantly different (using others' code that they are actively distributing and trying to make money off of it versus copying stuff that can't be obtained any other way simply for entertainment purposes).
Don't forget Monopoly Sharing; by pirating popular games, you're giving independent developers less consideration and perpetuating the market bombardment of sequels and "Same Game 2004" titles.
Either that or your friends will begin to avoid you. I know if one of my friends started preaching to me (whether it be religion, politics, or open source software, or some combination of the three), I'd start being "busy" whenever I saw them and generally just try and get the point across that I disagree with them. Yes, I'm assuming I would disagree with them, but I think that's a safe assumption given that anyone who feels strongly enough about a religion or political party to push force their beliefs on people that they supposedly like probably does not have an open mind.
Equally problematic is that
social science research hardly ever proves anything conclusively; it makes correlations. Nonetheless, the correlations between violent media and aggression are stronger than between smoking and lung cancer.
Re:my favorite comment from the changelog
on
OpenBSD 3.5 Released
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
Asked for comment, the Kool-Aid Man responded: "OH YEAH!!!!"
Re:Our government may be corrupt and evil . . . .
on
Robosaurus
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· Score: 1
This is exactly the kind of thinking that got the people from the Terminator movies in trouble.
Rear-end impact, 5 MPH: wheel tipped forward, occupant thrown forward onto ground and run over by vehicle. Slightly above-average damage (approx. 7 standard deviations above the mean for CA motor vehicles).
Front-end impact, 5 MPH: occupant's legs broken off, driver seat torn off and subsequently run over by vehicle. Comparable economic impact to modern SUV damage estimates.
Side impact, 5 MPH: vehicle tipped on side, occupant's left arm broken off, driver seat broken off due to shear force and subsequently crushed under vehicle. Comparable results to Segway Human Transporter.
Head-on impact, 120 MPH combined: occupant broken into several pieces, many of which fused to the vehicle and subsequently crushed under weight of vehicle. Comparable to average damage when involved in a collision with an SUV.
My point isn't that money can't be made given time, my point is that such small amounts of time are not really important to regular people. I mean, if you could save 15 seconds by making some small change to your daily schedule (not chewing your food as much or something fairly arbitrary like that) over a year, that would add up to a significant amount of time. But people don't care.
As for charity being egotistical, well, that's just incredibly cynical. It's true in many cases with celebrities, I'll give you that, but sometimes you (well, maybe YOU don't) just do things because they're the right thing to do. I guess it might negatively affect your ego if you didn't help in such a case, but that's not why you do it; you do it because it's right.
"Units of effort"? You're talking like living your life is some kind of science that should be optimized...
Just think of all the money you're wasting reading Slashdot, posting insanely long responses to questions no one asked, driving around, making smalltalk, eating solid food, and showering.
Time is only equal to money in high-level management. No one will pay you for not using the GIMP.
That's odd, I never spent time scouring the Web for plugins and my GIMP works fine and produces good-looking text. So, yes, I'm ignoring that point because it's just not true.
Slashdot Mirror
What does this have to do with morality?
As for violence producing violence, there have been psychological studies on children that show that children are likely to produce actions that they see in TV programs and other media.
As for making ourselves "better" (whatever is meant by that), I don't see how playing violent games is going make someone "better".
I'm assuming your point is that something (like, say, American History X) can be violent but help people to learn. The reality is that the violence in a movie such as that is really only used to sell tickets and shock the viewer. Once the viewer has been shocked, they may be more open to the message presented by the film, but the violence in itself is not necessarily a good thing.
Well, in order to have such a model as you describe, we'd need perfect physics models in games. So I think that's a ways off.
Pong had bad graphics and it was not a fun game. There, I said it. Just because it was first doesn't mean it was good. Now Arkanoid, on the other hand, is a good game.
So what? These monkeys are going to start paying endless amounts of money for games just because people whine about it? If you're trying to point out that this article is not news, I agree wholeheartedly, but the monkeys are not customers. Period.
As for the GPL argument, it looks like the articles linked in the summary are "crying bloody murder" against pirates. So developers of games hate pirates and developers of GPL software hate GPL violators. You're looking at two different types of people; just because more people on Slashdot fall into the second group doesn't mean that they're any more or less retarded.
Actually, I've seen such rebranding of games when my friend picked up a few while in the Ukraine, but I don't think most publishers are expecting to sell a lot outside of Japan, the US, and Europe, so you're right to say that it's a non-issue.
Yes, that all makes sense and I think that such use of piracy is not morally wrong, BUT...
The game publisher doesn't care if you like the game or not; they just want you to buy it so that they can make money. Sometimes not releasing a demo and tricking people into buying a game is a good money-making strategy. If they completely botch the news Star Wars game, but market it as being awesome by bribing reviewers (and no one can find out for themselves since there's no demo), they make more money.
So, I doubt that any publisher would have any sympathy for what you're doing. Good customers buy all the latest sequels =)
For one, the situations are completely different from a moral standpoint, so the comparison is not valid. If you gave an example of a non-profit company using OSS, but violtaing the GPL, to successfully cure AIDS in all of Africa then I'd call it a double standard. But companies trying to get rich quick by stealing code are already morally suspect.
Second, this topic has been brought up a million times and the antagonist (you, in this case) always refuses to acknowledge the fact that there is a wide range of opinions on Slashdot and only a fraction of people are complete morons. You're posting on Slashdot, afterall, so you must share this double standard as well, right? Of course not.
- What's gaming like? Picking flowers while dancing in the warm summer sun and sipping sweet nectar from goblets given to you by hummingbirds.
- What's piracy like? Being raped in prison by other inmates while being kicked in the crotch, followed by the guards running a train on you.
- What happens to the poor developers? Their houses are pillaged and set on fire by pirates and their massive creative talents are forced to hibernate while their soul is extracted by powerful magnets and then caged in a zoo and mocked for all eternity.
- What happens to the pirates? They live an outrageous lie of a life until they're finally forced by their friends and family at the Pirates Anonymous meeting to admit their mistakes and commit mass ritual suicide to repent their sins against the holy game developers.
If any of those examples make sense to you, you're probably under the influence of an illicit substance that you obtained from Mr. Minter.It's funny that you mention purchasing games that you would never have wanted if you had been able to play a demo before hand. Why is this funny? Because the publisher just made more money by NOT releasing a demo and hurting customers. Oh how I love the gaming industry!
I've nearly given up on reviews since I saw rave reviews of UT 2004. Well, I got a copy of that game and it's basically UT with one or two new play modes. Same unbalanced arsenal, same poorly designed levels, even some of the same characters.
Why, oh why, did I get UT 2004 instead of Painkiller?
I'd call such a person a nonpotential consumer. They're not going to pay for the game, so whether they have the game or not is irrelevant from an economic standpoint. Just because it has value to them doesn't mean that they'd ever pay money for that value.
That's a great legal argument and all, but I honestly do not feel like I've done anything morally wrong when I pirate a game that I can't get any other way. When it comes down to it, I don't think laws (such as copyright) are really the bottom line in people's decisions.
As for the troll at the end, the moral situation in that case is significantly different (using others' code that they are actively distributing and trying to make money off of it versus copying stuff that can't be obtained any other way simply for entertainment purposes).
Don't forget Monopoly Sharing; by pirating popular games, you're giving independent developers less consideration and perpetuating the market bombardment of sequels and "Same Game 2004" titles.
I got 404s on all but the link for Twilight Quest
Either that or your friends will begin to avoid you. I know if one of my friends started preaching to me (whether it be religion, politics, or open source software, or some combination of the three), I'd start being "busy" whenever I saw them and generally just try and get the point across that I disagree with them. Yes, I'm assuming I would disagree with them, but I think that's a safe assumption given that anyone who feels strongly enough about a religion or political party to push force their beliefs on people that they supposedly like probably does not have an open mind.
No kidding. The fish logo thing supposedly has much more relevance, yet it's used all over the place and no one seems to care.
Asked for comment, the Kool-Aid Man responded: "OH YEAH!!!!"
This is exactly the kind of thinking that got the people from the Terminator movies in trouble.
Rear-end impact, 5 MPH: wheel tipped forward, occupant thrown forward onto ground and run over by vehicle. Slightly above-average damage (approx. 7 standard deviations above the mean for CA motor vehicles).
Front-end impact, 5 MPH: occupant's legs broken off, driver seat torn off and subsequently run over by vehicle. Comparable economic impact to modern SUV damage estimates.
Side impact, 5 MPH: vehicle tipped on side, occupant's left arm broken off, driver seat broken off due to shear force and subsequently crushed under vehicle. Comparable results to Segway Human Transporter.
Head-on impact, 120 MPH combined: occupant broken into several pieces, many of which fused to the vehicle and subsequently crushed under weight of vehicle. Comparable to average damage when involved in a collision with an SUV.
All the safety of a poorly-made, precarious go-cart, but with the weight and fuel economy of a small car.
Obligatory, adj.; oh-BLIG-uh-tory
1. Overused, 2. Old joke that was not really that funny to begin with. See Off-topic, Troll.
My point isn't that money can't be made given time, my point is that such small amounts of time are not really important to regular people. I mean, if you could save 15 seconds by making some small change to your daily schedule (not chewing your food as much or something fairly arbitrary like that) over a year, that would add up to a significant amount of time. But people don't care.
As for charity being egotistical, well, that's just incredibly cynical. It's true in many cases with celebrities, I'll give you that, but sometimes you (well, maybe YOU don't) just do things because they're the right thing to do. I guess it might negatively affect your ego if you didn't help in such a case, but that's not why you do it; you do it because it's right.
"Units of effort"? You're talking like living your life is some kind of science that should be optimized...
Just think of all the money you're wasting reading Slashdot, posting insanely long responses to questions no one asked, driving around, making smalltalk, eating solid food, and showering.
Time is only equal to money in high-level management. No one will pay you for not using the GIMP.
That's odd, I never spent time scouring the Web for plugins and my GIMP works fine and produces good-looking text. So, yes, I'm ignoring that point because it's just not true.