How low can you go?

[Hardtman]

Originally Posted by ArmedDrunk&Angry

Saying we should ban violent games because they make people violent is exactly like when people thought reading comic books about Batman and Robin would make you gay, or when people thought that if you watched Elvis swing his hips you would have underage sex, or when people thought that fluoridated water would turn you into a communist, or when people thought that people who were diseased were cursed by demons


Ummm....I don't know so much about demons and all but we have more gays and more flaming gays now than before batman, we have more underage teen sex and the attendant teen pregnancies than we had before Elvis and we sure as hell a lot closer to communism now than we were 50-60 years ago ....so ...maybe you didn't "own" quite so much as previously estimated.

But this happened because of numerous plausible reasons,without an apparent relation to Batman/Elvis and the like.

We have more homosexual people now because todays society is much more tolerant. We now managed to let many minorities (amish,scientology,vegans,vegetarians and many more) have their own lifestyle, so why not homosexuals? Homosexuality existed as long as history reaches back, only the western society between...say the 15. and the 20. century, opressed it.

Underage sex is now more common for a quite similar reason: Today, we talk much more open about things as sexuality, just take a look at the usual tv-program. So it is no wonder that teens want to try out what everybody is talking about. Elvis was a symbol of this change,not the trigger.

And well, we are now closer to communism because finally we manage to grasp that communism and socialism actually had some pretty good ideas. Also, the everlasing concept of the enemy as the soviet communist which arose in the cold war finally dwindles, allowing such ideas to receive public attention.

On the same track you could say that er.....the discovery of the ozon-layer was responsible for the first world war since it occured just a year before the war started.

[ALPHA-WOLF]

MajorPwnag3 I agree with alot of what you say, 9/10 cats would split the reality and unreal (and maybe have a laugh about it too)...
Just a quick Q tho...
Would you OWN at chasing a pixilated 5 year old child, covering its pixilated mouth to dampen its pixilated screams, whilst buggering its pixilated violated body, and once done, move on to the next for more points?

Well paid lawyer and school teachers + well behaved, well dressed catholic daughter = shooting in a packed out classroom
(sometimes these people are just fucked up cookies anyway)

[DirtyHarry88]

Stop using that fucking 'word' pixilated, doing my fucking tits in.

[MajorPwnag3]

Originally Posted by ALPHA-WOLF

MajorPwnag3 I agree with alot of what you say, 9/10 cats would split the reality and unreal (and maybe have a laugh about it too)...
Just a quick Q tho...
Would you OWN at chasing a pixilated 5 year old child, covering its pixilated mouth to dampen its pixilated screams, whilst buggering its pixilated violated body, and once done, move on to the next for more points?

No, I personally am rather disgusted by violence against children and the like, but that doesn't mean I would advocate a ban of a game that did have that. Everyone has different tastes, and just because I think one thing is strange or bad doesn't mean that every other rational person thinks that same thing is wrong. For example, there are otherwise totally rational politicians who think all video games are bad. Now, I think most video games are good, but that doesn't mean one of us is right; rather, it means video games should be allowed to continue being produced and sold to people who enjoy them, but not to people who don't like them. The great thing about living in America is that I can think whatever I want to and play whatever games I want to. If I think Doom 3 is too disturbing, I can play Metal Gear Solid instead, and if Bioshock's child violence is too much for me, I can play Quake 4 instead. There are some people who think just the opposite, but that doesn't mean that I'm right and they're wrong, it means we think differently.

Also, I'd like to mention that there are more gays, communists, and pregnant teens in society today, but it's certainly not because of Elvis, rap music, Batman, or fluoridated water. Rather, these things are scapegoats for much deeper sociological and biological issues are the root causes of said issues that people want to try to ignore. I mean, would you rather say Elvis causes teen pregnancies, or say that poor sex education in schools, parents not talking to their children at home, and the government's refusal to advocate contraception are the causes? Obviously, it's much easier to say it's Elvis, ban his music, and ignore the fact that the ban didn't change anything than reform schools, encourage parents to talk about sensitive issues, and petition the government to be more proactive in their policies. I hope I made my point a little more clear.

[ArmedDrunk&Angry]

Originally Posted by MajorPwnag3

Also, I'd like to mention that there are more gays, communists, and pregnant teens in society today, but it's certainly not because of Elvis, rap music, Batman, or fluoridated water. Rather, these things are scapegoats for much deeper sociological and biological issues are the root causes of said issues that people want to try to ignore. I mean, would you rather say Elvis causes teen pregnancies, or say that poor sex education in schools, parents not talking to their children at home, and the government's refusal to advocate contraception are the causes? Obviously, it's much easier to say it's Elvis, ban his music, and ignore the fact that the ban didn't change anything than reform schools, encourage parents to talk about sensitive issues, and petition the government to be more proactive in their policies. I hope I made my point a little more clear.

First off, I was kidding.
Second, I strongly disagree with your position of what the cause of those things is.
2/3 of your reasoning lays the fault with the government. The government we choose, the school boards we elect paid with our tax dollars.
We are the problem, not some vague nameless shape called the "government".
We allowed societies restraints to be loosened to some that deserved it greater freedom but we never make arrangements to deal with some of the others that we held back by those same restraints.
Porn is a multi billion dollar business in the this country and who knows what globally but who among you would want your daughter to aspire to be cast member of a hardcore film ?
Those thousands of people who pass through that industry is just one of the side affects of our freedom.
I don't think "communism" or "socialism" as practiced in the US have helped the average Joe out as much as they have created a class of people who's living depends on others failures.

Wasteland mention somewhere else that being mean to stupid noobs encourages them to not be stupid noobs and for many years people were mean to single mothers for much the same reason. Petty crime was not tolerated among decent people as opposed to now when so many consider an illegal download to be " nothing ", not even really a crime.

These are all things that lead to the world we live in now and we did them, not the "government" or some secret cabal. It's up to you, the next generation to rebuild some of the old traditions that it turns out are key to keeping a civil society.

I am biased but I think there is a difference between armed combat between two persons ( PR ) and some rape and kill game where you victimize people.

[MajorPwnag3]

I'm not trying to say some shadowy government agency that has lax standards is the only reason for the decline of standards in society, but politicians who tend to blame something that's new (i.e. video games) for something that's old (violence) are basically making video games the issue when rehabilitation for gang members, better education systems, and better wages (so that parents don't have to raise their kids in a ghetto) would probably actually help reduce violence. The problem is: politicians know that a revamped education system would need tax money to implement properly, and higher minimum wages would piss off the corporations many politicians get money from. When I made the point that the government is more at fault for teen pregnancies than Elvis, I was trying to point out that Bush has stated that he wants only abstinence taught in schools, not contraception. That means, if the message of abstinence doesn't get through some stupid teenagers' skulls, and they don't know about contraception, they have a pretty good chance of getting their girlfriend pregnant. Thus, it could be said that the government is partially responsible for an increase in teen pregnancies.

Although the education a person receives (thus, how much the government is willing to spend on education and teachers) has a lot to do with how many children he or she has and what kind of job he or she gets, I absolutely do not think that the government can hold responsibility for every bad thing that happens. Parents are mostly at fault for what their children do. I think the fact that I listed politicians and education separate may have made it seem like I was trying to blame them more, but they don't have nearly as much influence on a person's behavior as that person's parents. Honestly, I see sex, drugs, and violence on TV and in games every day, but none of that appeals to me because my parents taught me to obey the law and scarred me for life by explaining sex to me when I was in first grade. However, some parents who don't play an active part in their children's lives allow their children too much freedom, or, worse yet, act only as authoritarian figures, causing their children to act rebellious and be even more disobedient. When a child is taught that doing the right thing is never rewarded, but being disobedient gets them instant attention, they ignore what they are told to do, and decide what to do for themselves. When a child ignores his or her parents, or when parents don't try to be involved in their child's lives, the child will not learn moral behavior at the most critical time for learning. This of course could lead the child to become involved in criminal or simply immoral practices. I'm sure there's a more eloquent and all-encompassing way to explain this, but, in general, how parents act will be reflected in how their child behaves.

By pointing out the government and parents as greater influences on people's actions than water and video games, I'm not trying to say that there aren't other factors, but I am trying to say that the factors that get blamed are the ones that are easy to change, while the big problems that are hard to change tend to be ignored . On another note, I'm always happy to have a good debate, and it's nice to hear other people's opinions and feedback on difficult subjects for once. I hope this makes the explanation of my explanation more clear!

[[R-MOD]Wasteland]

If you raise minimum wages you create unemployment. That's a simple economic fact. It has nothing to do with corporate campaign contributions.

[MajorPwnag3]

Originally Posted by JP*wasteland.soldier

If you raise minimum wages you create unemployment. That's a simple economic fact. It has nothing to do with corporate campaign contributions.

I'm just saying that, in general, corporations like to pay employees as little as possible, and, in the case of people like Dick Cheney, who are politicians and businessmen, this plan gives politicians more money. Also, outsourcing caused by employers not wanting to give workers fair amounts of money can be seen as the reason that unemployment rates go up when minimum wage goes up, so unemployment has a lot more to do with how much money a given company wants to spend on workers than what minimum wage amounts to. Also, if you're a corporate executive, are you going to give money to the politician who wants to restrict your business dealings and regulate how you treat workers, or the guy who doesn't care if you outsource 500 jobs or 5,000 jobs to a country whose compensation laws are much less strict?

[sekiryu]

If you lower minimum wages, you make it damn near impossible for the workers to get enough groceries to last more than a few days.

[ArmedDrunk&Angry]

Min wage is a delicate balance and when you raise it you lose jobs because I can't take a chance on 2 loser HS drop outs for 5.56/hr, I have to hire a decent person at 12 because min is 10 now and I can't afford 20/hr for 2 losers when I just work the decent person harder for 12.
That is one tiny part of the equation