As a World of Warcraft player (and a former obsessive player of other games, mainly MUDs), I agree that such games can be addictive. However, personally, I have found that their most addictive qualities are actually also found in more "wholesome" media.
There are really two things that draw me to games like WoW: one is that I get to forget reality for a while, immerse myself in a fantasy world, and become whoever I want. The other is the social nature of the game.
I can get the first of these two things from reading a good book. But... although I do consider books at least mildly addictive, each one only lasts so long, and reading can be a very lonely activity. For my social needs, I can (if I so choose) interact with people in real life or on the phone, both of which are addictive activities for the vast majority of people. However, I'm an awkward, shy, nerdy gal.... so I prefer talking online, where people are less likely to judge me, and I can easily fade into obscurity if I screw up in any major way. I could just stick to regular online chatter, and I have indeed wasted many long hours on instant messengers, forums, and news blogs (*cough*Slashdot*cough*)... but then I don't get the aforementioned immersing-myself-in-a-fantasy-world benefits. Since WoW provides me with both of these things, I find it addictive.
But the point that I'm making is that they aren't addictive because they're games -- they're addictive because they provide people with a variety of pre-existing and even "wholesome" addictive activities in one convenient package.
Incidentally, does your relative actually ignore his friends, or has he simply made new friends? There's a big difference between the two: if he's ignoring everyone, that may indeed be unhealthy, but abandoning one group of friends in favour of another (even if the new friends are online) is completely normal. Most of my friends are online, and one reason why I particularly like making friends on various multiplayer games is that it's a lot easier to find people who have the same interests as me. I'm less likely to end up stuck being someone's "friend" purely because we just happened to be in a class together at school.
You're assuming that he got divorced because he played games, when in reality, it was probably for completely different reasons. My parents split up, and although my dad does play the occasional game, he was usually the one trying to keep my brother and I from wasting our time on the computer. I think he was actually better at enforcing the rules than my mother, who didn't game at all. They broke up because they just didn't get on as well as they used to -- perhaps because they were spending too MUCH time together as a family rather than too little.
In any case, I think that if I ever marry, I'm going to keep gaming as hardcore as I possibly can. I doubt it will negatively affect my life either, given that the chances of me marrying a non-gamer are slim to nil. A fellow gamer is much less likely to have a problem with me refusing an expensive romantic evening in favor of a guild MC run:)
Oh, and P.S., many kids are quite happy to see their parents divorce, particularly if they're mature/smart enough to realize that happy separate parents are much better than angry fighting married parents. It just irks me when people pity me just because my parents live apart, as if that's something that I need to "get over", as if it bothered me in the first place.
Well, I'm pretty sure that the 1500 people who've caught it in the past would have appreciated a vaccine, and if this vaccine works, there will almost certainly be lives saved in the future.
Besides, learning how to combat Ebola may help us fight other similar viruses, especially if it's generic enough to work on all strains of Ebola, including the one that hasn't passed to humans yet (I forget the name offhand, but it was discovered in a research facility in the US).
The issue, I think, is that many people assume that desensitizing people to violence will somehow make them violent.
IMHO, there's a pretty big difference between refraining from going into shock when you witness a violent act and actually going out and committing such an act yourself... but various anti-gaming activists tend to disagree.
Personally, I like to think that there's more keeping me from violently lashing out at society than my delicate sensibility.
I was a female scout when I was 12ish, and I went camping on a number of occasions with no female chaperones. I was the only girl in my troop for a while (it was a very small troop), so it would have been rather silly to drag some woman along just for me. Nobody seemed to worry about the liabilities involved anyway:)
As one of the more junior guys on the Need for Speed team, it really wasn't surprising that my boyfriend was caught in this round of layoffs. However, I find it a bit ironic that they would lay anyone off on one of their most profitable teams -- Most Wanted was top of the charts in Britain during the Christmas season (beating out even FIFA) and pretty damn popular in Europe and North America. Cutting on the teams that were actually losing money/not making enough of a profit would've made more sense to me.
He's not too choked up over it, though. I think he's more stressed than he's letting on, but he's been looking at the bright side: they're paying him quite well for the next few months to play the very game that caused their profits to drop *cough*WoW*cough* while he searches for a new and hopefully better job. Given that EA made him work 80+ hours per week last summer, including at least one occasion when he slept at the office on a Sunday night, this is probably a good time for him to find a job with more reasonable hours. Working every weekend for more than half the dev cycle of a game just ain't cool.
Pattern recognition studies are often very interesting, though. I remember watching a video in science class about pigeons beating entire classes of university students on certain types of pattern recognition problems. It was neat, but like this one, I'm not sure how much it says about any species' geometry abilities:)
Er, dude, where exactly are the lies? Any HONEST scientist, upon observing both micro and macroevolution, would have an awfully hard time then claiming that evolution does not exist. We have observed/induced/predicted microevolution (ie. genetic change within a population) countless times, and macroevolution (ie. speciation) has also been recently observed. If anything, it would be a lie to look at that data and say "It isn't real."
Of course, some God (or Gods) might still be running the show... but that isn't even covered by most evolutionary theories. My science textbooks never bothered telling me whether any creator was involved because it was simply irrelevent -- I was taught the current theories on how evolution occurs on genetic and population levels, and there just wasn't any reason for my textbooks or teachers to stop every few minutes and say "But of course, maybe the Intelligent Designer just DESIGNED it that way!" But y'know what? When I'm busy learning about how to calculate phenotypical ratios or what gene causes what genetic disorder at what rate, I couldn't care less if God or anyone else "designed" it to be that way, especially since it seems to be "designed" to appear completely random and mundane. Besides, it's not like He/She/It is going to come down and explain it to me anytime soon;)
Oh, and I don't deny that there are problems with pretty much all scientific theories... however, poking holes in one particular evolutionary theory and then saying "Therefore, this other completely different non-scientific theory must be right!" really isn't how science works. If it was, we could look at any other problematic or even disproven theory and arbitrarily claim that some unprovable theory of our choice was correct. For example, you might mention that the Caloric theory of heat states that heat is a liquid. It has been proven that it is not. Therefore, science is wrong. Therefore, heat does not exist and what we feel as heat is the physical manifestation of Go-- *ahem* the Intelligent Heater's love.
The main difference is that we KNOW that alchohol is dangerous, particularly for young people who can get poisoned more easily.
If anyone comes up with a study that proves that games, violent or otherwise, have any effect on youth other than encouraging them to sit on their slowly enlarging buttocks instead of playing outside, then I'll support restricting their access.
However, all that any study that I've seen has proven is that there are some correlations between violence and violent game play. Not causation relationships, but correlations -- ie. there is nothing to suggest that the games caused the violence. Indeed, a more likely explanation is that violent youths are more likely to be attracted to violent games, especially when you consider that they are such a tiny minority among gamers.
And yes, I have even read about the brainwave studies, but even there, the researchers themselves did not claim any kind of cause and effect relationship. Furthermore, to my knowledge, the brainwaves observed were not compared to the brainwaves of children doing similar fast-paced and competative but nonviolent activities, and there was no evidence to suggest that the games would produce anything other than a temporary mental response.
Basically, I'm very strongly against any kind of artistic censorship. Keeping known poisons out of the hands of children is very very different from blocking material that might be a bad influence, depending on your personal views, especially when there is no evidence that such material can do any measurable harm.
After all, if we ban games, what's next? I can think of a few books that actually HAVE been directly linked to billions of horrific murders, wars, and other such "antisocial behaviour" for thousands of years.
I played Castle Wolfenstein when I was in elementary school. It was fun -- I liked the way the guy's face changed when he lost hit points. Duke Nukem was another favourite of mine, and I played Carmageddon briefly in highschool too.
I think all the games that I played were far less "explicit" than some of the books that I was reading at the time anyway. It's amazing how much erotica a 9-year-old can purchase and then proceed to read in class. Ok, so by erotica, I mean erotica thinly disguised as regular fiction, but when there are chapters of explicit sex weakly connected by plot, it's pretty clear what kind of novel it is. The books didn't negatively influence me either: unlike most other girls in my classes, I didn't lose my virginity in highschool.
And now I'm a third year computer science student with (mostly) straight A's. I have friends, a small but adequate social life, and even a steady boyfriend who works as a software engineer. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. I'm a pacifist -- war sickens me, and I have never touched a gun, nor do I ever want to.
But who knows? Maybe parents just don't want their kids to turn out like me.
As a parent, there's nothing stopping you from confiscating any objectionable games that she does manage to buy and punishing her for buying them. Indeed, that's your responsibility.
Furthermore, a law like the one that this judge just struck down is one that decides what your child has access to on your behalf -- it does NOT let you make that decision. You might be rabidly opposed to The Sims, for example, because it allows promiscuous sex and homosexual "unions", but since it's rated Teen, the law would allow your daughter to walk straight into any game store and purchase it. Likewise, you might feel that it would benefit her to see the social commentary in GTA, but if the law was in place, that game store might not stock it anymore for fear of legal or financial repercussions.
As you said, it should be your decision what games she can or cannot rent. By striking down this law, the judge is telling you to make that decision... and not to expect the stores to make it for you.
Incidentally, I'm not a parent myself, but as a 21-year-old woman, it wasn't all that long ago that I was somebody's teenage daughter.
Well, it's probably in his best interests to say that.
At this point, even if he told her that she could never make it without him, he'd sound like a greedy bastard. This way, he shows that he's nice and really cares about his clients, even after they've stopped paying him.
If she wins, he gets to imply (or let people imply) that it was because of suggestions that he gave her. If she loses, well... he gets to sit there quietly and let people shake their heads and say "She never should've fired that lawyer".
Realistically, though, he's probably just a nice person. The lawyers that I know are no different from anyone else, and they really are more interested in doing the right thing than making a few extra bucks.
That would be the case if these games were actually aimed at minors, but they're not -- last time I checked, the average gamer is 29 or so, and most game purchases are made by adults.
The real threat to the games industry is that the stores will look at such a law and say to themselves "Well, the E rated games sell better anyway, so let's avoid the risk of a fine or jail sentence and refuse to stock anything rated T or above." THAT will definitely destroy a revenue stream and lead to the censorship of games.
That's why I'm against censorship laws in general. I wouldn't mind seeing legislation that forces stores to have and enforce policies that bar selling games to minors, but the moment you institute a law that makes their financial and legal well-being dependent on the actions of an underpaid 16-year-old cashier, you're going to see some real censorship.
However, I do agree with you that such a law would ALSO encourage minors to pirate games. If violent games were officially banned by law, they would become that much more tempting, and that would encourage piracy. Worse, it would be piracy with a clean conscience -- I don't think I'm the only one who wouldn't feel bad about pirating something that I could not legally buy, since it's not like the content providers would be losing a sale. Therefore, the real irony is that by giving kids an excuse to start pirating so young, you're likely to instill in them habits that may well extend to the games that they're "allowed" to play, if not other media as well.
Actually, we are not breaking natural selection (or otherwise acting in opposition to the laws of nature) simply because there's nothing in the theory that categorically states "it's only natural if humans don't do it." Helping the weak is not a purely human characteristic in any case -- it's a known survival technique practiced by many K-strategist species.
I'm not going to claim that there aren't disadvantages to "artificially" prolonging the lives of the weak and sickly, nor will I suggest that we shouldn't keep those issues in mind, but I would like to point out that our actions are just as natural as a mother cat continuing to protect and feed sickly kittens in order to increase their chance of survival.
Nature, if I can personify it here for a second, doesn't care if we're wracked with diseases or living in squalor. As long as we keep having the requisite 2 or more children before biting the dust, we're doing exactly what we're supposed to, just like every other species on the planet.
On one hand, yes I'm addicted -- I can barely go a day without at least briefly connecting to the internet, and I don't even want to know how many hours I've logged playing my little gnome mage on World of Warcraft.
However, for many of us, the dependence is more than just a regular old physical/psychological addiction. My marks at school, for example, depend on my being able to get on a computer and access the internet on a regular basis. Many assignments are made available solely through a class website or WebCT, and in two of my classes this past term, every single assignment had to be handed in via the Unix handin command (or the web-based Windows equivalent). Admittedly, I am a computer science student, but there aren't all that many courses in which computers or other forms of technology are completely absent -- even arts students are expected to write essays, and few professors will accept handwritten submissions these days.
Well, normal girls do drive me nuts, I'm not going to deny that, but I have no problem with the smart ones coming into CS... as long as they drop the dumb act.
The reason being that having our ranks swelled with girls who actually DO think/talk about nothing but getting their nails done and buying designer clothes is just going to strengthen the current stereotype, and if they also refuse to write good code (on the assumption that it might make them look too smart), they'll just encourage more people to think that women are innately bad at technical disciplines.
I remember in highschool, in my programming class, there were a couple of girls who were, in theory, quite intelligent. Both were in the gifted program, as I was, but... let's just say that you'd never know it from talking to them. Unfortunately, I think they also failed that class because they didn't do the work, they didn't try, and instead of doing well and lying about it as your sister did, they just intentionally did badly. All they did every class was giggle amongst themselves and, in the cutest voices they could manage, ask the most mind-numbingly stupid questions and beg the people around them to help them with their work.
We need more smart people, be they men, women or something in between, and it doesn't really matter to me how they dress or act as long as they're willing to do their best. If they're not, even if the stupidity is just an act, I honestly don't think that they belong in the field.
Uh, dude, I may not be exactly the same as a "normal"/stereotypical girl, but that doesn't mean I have to be the complete opposite and refrain from behaviour that even guys exhibit online.
However, in this particular situation, I posted a link to my picture because the parent of my post did the same thing, and I was echoing her words in order to suggest that she is not the only geek girl who exhibits those traits.
As a 3rd year female computer science student who even has a co-op job lined up for the winter term, I certainly haven't come up against any yet.
Seriously, everyone keeps talking about "very real artificial barriers set up before women attempting to enter computer fields", and you'd think that I would have noticed at least a few of 'em by now.
I honestly don't know if people consider me less feminine for doing computer science. They seem to view me as more sane than "normal" girls and less obsessed with "girly" things like jewellery and makeup, but I don't think any of that makes me less of a girl... just less of a stereotypical girl.
I'm just a bit different, and I like being this way.
People keep telling me that, but if it was, why haven't I flunked out yet? I find that I have a knack for programming and usually get high marks (ie. 80s, 90s) in courses that require a lot of it despite my usual inability to attain high marks in math courses. Indeed, I sometimes find that the math nerds will come to me for help on coding assignments, just as I will ask them for help when I forget how to integrate or derive something. Some people view computers as an unpleasant tool with which to do fun things with math, and others view math as an unpleasant tool with which to do fun things with computers. I fall into the latter category.
Of course, comp sci isn't all programming, just as it isn't all math, but coding is something that I'm probably going to be doing a lot of when I finally graduate.
I've often wondered why there were so few black people in comp sci (I can think of only three or four that I've seen in my classes), but I just figured that it had something to do with where my university was. Vancouver is predominantly Asian and white, with some poorer areas dominated by First Nations people because of all the reserves near by, and to my knowledge, there isn't a very large black community here.
In any case, I certainly don't think that skin colour is going to change your ability to code any more than the presence or absence of a penis might.
Incidentally, what is the correct term for people of dark skin colour living up in Canada? I've been told that some people consider the word "black" racist, although I'm not sure why, given that "white" seems to be ok, and I have no idea what would be better. "African" doesn't seem ideal, given that many have lived in Canada for more generations than my family has (I'm a first generation British Canadian), and likewise, "African Canadian" doesn't include people who aren't actually Canadian citizens.... and "Person Of Dark Skin Colour Who Is Probably At Least Distantly Descended From Africans" is a wee bit long.
I am...
1. Not overweight (130-140 pounds -- I'm 5'8", so I look slim)
2. Not ugly. Perhaps not hot, but not ugly. A slightly *ahem* decorated webcam shot can be found here
3. Not bi or lesbian. I even have a boyfriend, and he's a geek too.
4. Not transgendered.
Hey... wait... this was all just a trick to make us post our pictures, wasn't it?
In any case, like the parent, I read obsessively before I discovered computers, and I've always been a bit of a loner. Sure, I was bullied in elementary school for being a bit different, but I was different by choice, not by necessity. People often don't even realize I'm a geek unless I'm really showing it -- if I'm not clothed in ubersexy ThinkGeek swag (as I am currently), I usually end up looking more like an arts student with my long flowing skirts and knit legwarmers.
Slashdot Mirror
Probably doesn't help that in afx.h in the MFC C++ library, there's this handy little line:
:)
#define NULL 0
So yes, sometimes NULL does represent 0, which can also substitute for false. It really just depends on what language you're working in
As a World of Warcraft player (and a former obsessive player of other games, mainly MUDs), I agree that such games can be addictive. However, personally, I have found that their most addictive qualities are actually also found in more "wholesome" media.
There are really two things that draw me to games like WoW: one is that I get to forget reality for a while, immerse myself in a fantasy world, and become whoever I want. The other is the social nature of the game.
I can get the first of these two things from reading a good book. But... although I do consider books at least mildly addictive, each one only lasts so long, and reading can be a very lonely activity. For my social needs, I can (if I so choose) interact with people in real life or on the phone, both of which are addictive activities for the vast majority of people. However, I'm an awkward, shy, nerdy gal.... so I prefer talking online, where people are less likely to judge me, and I can easily fade into obscurity if I screw up in any major way. I could just stick to regular online chatter, and I have indeed wasted many long hours on instant messengers, forums, and news blogs (*cough*Slashdot*cough*)... but then I don't get the aforementioned immersing-myself-in-a-fantasy-world benefits. Since WoW provides me with both of these things, I find it addictive.
But the point that I'm making is that they aren't addictive because they're games -- they're addictive because they provide people with a variety of pre-existing and even "wholesome" addictive activities in one convenient package.
Incidentally, does your relative actually ignore his friends, or has he simply made new friends? There's a big difference between the two: if he's ignoring everyone, that may indeed be unhealthy, but abandoning one group of friends in favour of another (even if the new friends are online) is completely normal. Most of my friends are online, and one reason why I particularly like making friends on various multiplayer games is that it's a lot easier to find people who have the same interests as me. I'm less likely to end up stuck being someone's "friend" purely because we just happened to be in a class together at school.
You're assuming that he got divorced because he played games, when in reality, it was probably for completely different reasons. My parents split up, and although my dad does play the occasional game, he was usually the one trying to keep my brother and I from wasting our time on the computer. I think he was actually better at enforcing the rules than my mother, who didn't game at all. They broke up because they just didn't get on as well as they used to -- perhaps because they were spending too MUCH time together as a family rather than too little.
:)
In any case, I think that if I ever marry, I'm going to keep gaming as hardcore as I possibly can. I doubt it will negatively affect my life either, given that the chances of me marrying a non-gamer are slim to nil. A fellow gamer is much less likely to have a problem with me refusing an expensive romantic evening in favor of a guild MC run
Oh, and P.S., many kids are quite happy to see their parents divorce, particularly if they're mature/smart enough to realize that happy separate parents are much better than angry fighting married parents. It just irks me when people pity me just because my parents live apart, as if that's something that I need to "get over", as if it bothered me in the first place.
Yep, that's exactly what I was thinking of. I read that book at least twice... I'm a biology geek (among other things), so I loved it.
Well, I'm pretty sure that the 1500 people who've caught it in the past would have appreciated a vaccine, and if this vaccine works, there will almost certainly be lives saved in the future.
Besides, learning how to combat Ebola may help us fight other similar viruses, especially if it's generic enough to work on all strains of Ebola, including the one that hasn't passed to humans yet (I forget the name offhand, but it was discovered in a research facility in the US).
The issue, I think, is that many people assume that desensitizing people to violence will somehow make them violent.
IMHO, there's a pretty big difference between refraining from going into shock when you witness a violent act and actually going out and committing such an act yourself... but various anti-gaming activists tend to disagree.
Personally, I like to think that there's more keeping me from violently lashing out at society than my delicate sensibility.
As awesome as it would be to have a robo-fungus prime minister/opposition leader, I'm afraid I'd be voting for the cephalopod. Ia fhtagn! :D
I was a female scout when I was 12ish, and I went camping on a number of occasions with no female chaperones. I was the only girl in my troop for a while (it was a very small troop), so it would have been rather silly to drag some woman along just for me. Nobody seemed to worry about the liabilities involved anyway :)
As one of the more junior guys on the Need for Speed team, it really wasn't surprising that my boyfriend was caught in this round of layoffs. However, I find it a bit ironic that they would lay anyone off on one of their most profitable teams -- Most Wanted was top of the charts in Britain during the Christmas season (beating out even FIFA) and pretty damn popular in Europe and North America. Cutting on the teams that were actually losing money/not making enough of a profit would've made more sense to me.
He's not too choked up over it, though. I think he's more stressed than he's letting on, but he's been looking at the bright side: they're paying him quite well for the next few months to play the very game that caused their profits to drop *cough*WoW*cough* while he searches for a new and hopefully better job. Given that EA made him work 80+ hours per week last summer, including at least one occasion when he slept at the office on a Sunday night, this is probably a good time for him to find a job with more reasonable hours. Working every weekend for more than half the dev cycle of a game just ain't cool.
Pattern recognition studies are often very interesting, though. I remember watching a video in science class about pigeons beating entire classes of university students on certain types of pattern recognition problems. It was neat, but like this one, I'm not sure how much it says about any species' geometry abilities :)
Er, dude, where exactly are the lies? Any HONEST scientist, upon observing both micro and macroevolution, would have an awfully hard time then claiming that evolution does not exist. We have observed/induced/predicted microevolution (ie. genetic change within a population) countless times, and macroevolution (ie. speciation) has also been recently observed. If anything, it would be a lie to look at that data and say "It isn't real."
;)
Of course, some God (or Gods) might still be running the show... but that isn't even covered by most evolutionary theories. My science textbooks never bothered telling me whether any creator was involved because it was simply irrelevent -- I was taught the current theories on how evolution occurs on genetic and population levels, and there just wasn't any reason for my textbooks or teachers to stop every few minutes and say "But of course, maybe the Intelligent Designer just DESIGNED it that way!" But y'know what? When I'm busy learning about how to calculate phenotypical ratios or what gene causes what genetic disorder at what rate, I couldn't care less if God or anyone else "designed" it to be that way, especially since it seems to be "designed" to appear completely random and mundane. Besides, it's not like He/She/It is going to come down and explain it to me anytime soon
Oh, and I don't deny that there are problems with pretty much all scientific theories... however, poking holes in one particular evolutionary theory and then saying "Therefore, this other completely different non-scientific theory must be right!" really isn't how science works. If it was, we could look at any other problematic or even disproven theory and arbitrarily claim that some unprovable theory of our choice was correct. For example, you might mention that the Caloric theory of heat states that heat is a liquid. It has been proven that it is not. Therefore, science is wrong. Therefore, heat does not exist and what we feel as heat is the physical manifestation of Go-- *ahem* the Intelligent Heater's love.
If anyone comes up with a study that proves that games, violent or otherwise, have any effect on youth other than encouraging them to sit on their slowly enlarging buttocks instead of playing outside, then I'll support restricting their access.
However, all that any study that I've seen has proven is that there are some correlations between violence and violent game play. Not causation relationships, but correlations -- ie. there is nothing to suggest that the games caused the violence. Indeed, a more likely explanation is that violent youths are more likely to be attracted to violent games, especially when you consider that they are such a tiny minority among gamers.
And yes, I have even read about the brainwave studies, but even there, the researchers themselves did not claim any kind of cause and effect relationship. Furthermore, to my knowledge, the brainwaves observed were not compared to the brainwaves of children doing similar fast-paced and competative but nonviolent activities, and there was no evidence to suggest that the games would produce anything other than a temporary mental response.
Basically, I'm very strongly against any kind of artistic censorship. Keeping known poisons out of the hands of children is very very different from blocking material that might be a bad influence, depending on your personal views, especially when there is no evidence that such material can do any measurable harm.
After all, if we ban games, what's next? I can think of a few books that actually HAVE been directly linked to billions of horrific murders, wars, and other such "antisocial behaviour" for thousands of years.
And one of them is the Bible.
I played Castle Wolfenstein when I was in elementary school. It was fun -- I liked the way the guy's face changed when he lost hit points. Duke Nukem was another favourite of mine, and I played Carmageddon briefly in highschool too.
I think all the games that I played were far less "explicit" than some of the books that I was reading at the time anyway. It's amazing how much erotica a 9-year-old can purchase and then proceed to read in class. Ok, so by erotica, I mean erotica thinly disguised as regular fiction, but when there are chapters of explicit sex weakly connected by plot, it's pretty clear what kind of novel it is. The books didn't negatively influence me either: unlike most other girls in my classes, I didn't lose my virginity in highschool.
And now I'm a third year computer science student with (mostly) straight A's. I have friends, a small but adequate social life, and even a steady boyfriend who works as a software engineer. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. I'm a pacifist -- war sickens me, and I have never touched a gun, nor do I ever want to.
But who knows? Maybe parents just don't want their kids to turn out like me.
Furthermore, a law like the one that this judge just struck down is one that decides what your child has access to on your behalf -- it does NOT let you make that decision. You might be rabidly opposed to The Sims, for example, because it allows promiscuous sex and homosexual "unions", but since it's rated Teen, the law would allow your daughter to walk straight into any game store and purchase it. Likewise, you might feel that it would benefit her to see the social commentary in GTA, but if the law was in place, that game store might not stock it anymore for fear of legal or financial repercussions.
As you said, it should be your decision what games she can or cannot rent. By striking down this law, the judge is telling you to make that decision... and not to expect the stores to make it for you.
Incidentally, I'm not a parent myself, but as a 21-year-old woman, it wasn't all that long ago that I was somebody's teenage daughter.
At this point, even if he told her that she could never make it without him, he'd sound like a greedy bastard. This way, he shows that he's nice and really cares about his clients, even after they've stopped paying him.
If she wins, he gets to imply (or let people imply) that it was because of suggestions that he gave her. If she loses, well... he gets to sit there quietly and let people shake their heads and say "She never should've fired that lawyer".
Realistically, though, he's probably just a nice person. The lawyers that I know are no different from anyone else, and they really are more interested in doing the right thing than making a few extra bucks.
That would be the case if these games were actually aimed at minors, but they're not -- last time I checked, the average gamer is 29 or so, and most game purchases are made by adults.
The real threat to the games industry is that the stores will look at such a law and say to themselves "Well, the E rated games sell better anyway, so let's avoid the risk of a fine or jail sentence and refuse to stock anything rated T or above." THAT will definitely destroy a revenue stream and lead to the censorship of games.
That's why I'm against censorship laws in general. I wouldn't mind seeing legislation that forces stores to have and enforce policies that bar selling games to minors, but the moment you institute a law that makes their financial and legal well-being dependent on the actions of an underpaid 16-year-old cashier, you're going to see some real censorship.
However, I do agree with you that such a law would ALSO encourage minors to pirate games. If violent games were officially banned by law, they would become that much more tempting, and that would encourage piracy. Worse, it would be piracy with a clean conscience -- I don't think I'm the only one who wouldn't feel bad about pirating something that I could not legally buy, since it's not like the content providers would be losing a sale. Therefore, the real irony is that by giving kids an excuse to start pirating so young, you're likely to instill in them habits that may well extend to the games that they're "allowed" to play, if not other media as well.
Actually, we are not breaking natural selection (or otherwise acting in opposition to the laws of nature) simply because there's nothing in the theory that categorically states "it's only natural if humans don't do it." Helping the weak is not a purely human characteristic in any case -- it's a known survival technique practiced by many K-strategist species.
I'm not going to claim that there aren't disadvantages to "artificially" prolonging the lives of the weak and sickly, nor will I suggest that we shouldn't keep those issues in mind, but I would like to point out that our actions are just as natural as a mother cat continuing to protect and feed sickly kittens in order to increase their chance of survival.
Nature, if I can personify it here for a second, doesn't care if we're wracked with diseases or living in squalor. As long as we keep having the requisite 2 or more children before biting the dust, we're doing exactly what we're supposed to, just like every other species on the planet.
On one hand, yes I'm addicted -- I can barely go a day without at least briefly connecting to the internet, and I don't even want to know how many hours I've logged playing my little gnome mage on World of Warcraft.
However, for many of us, the dependence is more than just a regular old physical/psychological addiction. My marks at school, for example, depend on my being able to get on a computer and access the internet on a regular basis. Many assignments are made available solely through a class website or WebCT, and in two of my classes this past term, every single assignment had to be handed in via the Unix handin command (or the web-based Windows equivalent). Admittedly, I am a computer science student, but there aren't all that many courses in which computers or other forms of technology are completely absent -- even arts students are expected to write essays, and few professors will accept handwritten submissions these days.
Well, normal girls do drive me nuts, I'm not going to deny that, but I have no problem with the smart ones coming into CS... as long as they drop the dumb act.
The reason being that having our ranks swelled with girls who actually DO think/talk about nothing but getting their nails done and buying designer clothes is just going to strengthen the current stereotype, and if they also refuse to write good code (on the assumption that it might make them look too smart), they'll just encourage more people to think that women are innately bad at technical disciplines.
I remember in highschool, in my programming class, there were a couple of girls who were, in theory, quite intelligent. Both were in the gifted program, as I was, but... let's just say that you'd never know it from talking to them. Unfortunately, I think they also failed that class because they didn't do the work, they didn't try, and instead of doing well and lying about it as your sister did, they just intentionally did badly. All they did every class was giggle amongst themselves and, in the cutest voices they could manage, ask the most mind-numbingly stupid questions and beg the people around them to help them with their work.
We need more smart people, be they men, women or something in between, and it doesn't really matter to me how they dress or act as long as they're willing to do their best. If they're not, even if the stupidity is just an act, I honestly don't think that they belong in the field.
Uh, dude, I may not be exactly the same as a "normal"/stereotypical girl, but that doesn't mean I have to be the complete opposite and refrain from behaviour that even guys exhibit online.
However, in this particular situation, I posted a link to my picture because the parent of my post did the same thing, and I was echoing her words in order to suggest that she is not the only geek girl who exhibits those traits.
What are the barriers? Honestly, I want to know.
As a 3rd year female computer science student who even has a co-op job lined up for the winter term, I certainly haven't come up against any yet.
Seriously, everyone keeps talking about "very real artificial barriers set up before women attempting to enter computer fields", and you'd think that I would have noticed at least a few of 'em by now.
I honestly don't know if people consider me less feminine for doing computer science. They seem to view me as more sane than "normal" girls and less obsessed with "girly" things like jewellery and makeup, but I don't think any of that makes me less of a girl... just less of a stereotypical girl.
I'm just a bit different, and I like being this way.
People keep telling me that, but if it was, why haven't I flunked out yet? I find that I have a knack for programming and usually get high marks (ie. 80s, 90s) in courses that require a lot of it despite my usual inability to attain high marks in math courses. Indeed, I sometimes find that the math nerds will come to me for help on coding assignments, just as I will ask them for help when I forget how to integrate or derive something. Some people view computers as an unpleasant tool with which to do fun things with math, and others view math as an unpleasant tool with which to do fun things with computers. I fall into the latter category.
Of course, comp sci isn't all programming, just as it isn't all math, but coding is something that I'm probably going to be doing a lot of when I finally graduate.
I've often wondered why there were so few black people in comp sci (I can think of only three or four that I've seen in my classes), but I just figured that it had something to do with where my university was. Vancouver is predominantly Asian and white, with some poorer areas dominated by First Nations people because of all the reserves near by, and to my knowledge, there isn't a very large black community here.
:)
In any case, I certainly don't think that skin colour is going to change your ability to code any more than the presence or absence of a penis might.
Incidentally, what is the correct term for people of dark skin colour living up in Canada? I've been told that some people consider the word "black" racist, although I'm not sure why, given that "white" seems to be ok, and I have no idea what would be better. "African" doesn't seem ideal, given that many have lived in Canada for more generations than my family has (I'm a first generation British Canadian), and likewise, "African Canadian" doesn't include people who aren't actually Canadian citizens.... and "Person Of Dark Skin Colour Who Is Probably At Least Distantly Descended From Africans" is a wee bit long.
Sorry for getting off topic, I'm just curious
A bit more "anecdotal evidence":
I am...
1. Not overweight (130-140 pounds -- I'm 5'8", so I look slim)
2. Not ugly. Perhaps not hot, but not ugly. A slightly *ahem* decorated webcam shot can be found here
3. Not bi or lesbian. I even have a boyfriend, and he's a geek too.
4. Not transgendered.
Hey... wait... this was all just a trick to make us post our pictures, wasn't it?
In any case, like the parent, I read obsessively before I discovered computers, and I've always been a bit of a loner. Sure, I was bullied in elementary school for being a bit different, but I was different by choice, not by necessity. People often don't even realize I'm a geek unless I'm really showing it -- if I'm not clothed in ubersexy ThinkGeek swag (as I am currently), I usually end up looking more like an arts student with my long flowing skirts and knit legwarmers.