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| Thread: We've got hostiles |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 · «PREV |
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JollyJoker
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posted May 18, 2009 09:13 AM |
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Why do I have to repeat anything?
If a society thinks that certain things should be adult-only, then society has to take care that the stuff IS adult-only. If society is careless in this, and every parent does things the way they see fit NO MATTER THE ACTUAL LAWS the result will be chaos.
Think traffic. There are rules and laws regulating it. In traffic as well basically everyone has moments when they break a rule or law. Speeding, overtaking where it's not allowed, and so on. Still, most of the time things work halfway, since judgement is of drivers is ok most of the time. But imagine what would happen if cars would "memorize" behaviour. They would "learn" driving the way you show it to them. And imagine what would happen if those cars, when not being needed, would watch movies and play games involving cars passing red lights all the time against every rule.
I hate to repeat myself, but the problem is simply that children are not kept consequently from stuff that should be strictly adult only.
This includes violent games and movies, and it includes a game like paintball that involves weapons.
Children should simply have no access to these things. There should be no advertisement for them. TVs should be password or key-protected, and everything with the sticker "not suitable under x years" should have to be password-activated in case someone would want to watch it.
All this is a typical and far-reaching example of the way things are handled in capitalist society: things are developed to make a buck, and what may go wrong with it is a bridge to built anew when it has crashed.
Think about entertainment. What entertainment was there before games and TV. Circus and fairs. Did that involve lots of violence? Were the attractions that you would watch people beat each other up, shoot each other up, cut each other up? There were entertainments featuring thrills that were because of a perceived danger, but not because of THE EXHIBITION of violence.
The stories involved in certain games is always the same, basically:
a) A threat is identified or identifies itself
b) The threat has to be neutralized.
There are nuances, what kind of threat it is, and there are nuances in the way the threat is neutralized.
One way or another, a threat will always be "violent" in one way or another, and the neutralization of the threat will be violent in one way or another as well, but it's the way violence is shown that makes a difference. Think about the old Batman TV series where the fights were always shown in an animated way like in a comic as a very unspectacular way, leaving the details to the imagination.
For sports, basically all games LIMIT violent behaviour in some way - they are supposed to be games of SKILL. This is even true for fighting sports like boxing and taekwondo and so on.
As I mentioned, there are games already where the goal is to put players out, like Dodgeball, but the game isn't trying to stress the violence aspect of it in any way.
This is different with Paintball; it does exactly this. It tries to get the thrill out of creating a violent-oriented background. Kill or be killed is basically the situation.
If children watch and "train" violent situations - watching violent movies, playing violent games, violence becomes part of their personal view of the world, eventually. Of course the violence may not be part of their very direct personal world, but they know it's there. It lurks in the next neighborhood were things are a lot more run-down and gangs fight for the right to deal in drugs. It lurks 2 streets away in the cellar of some normal looking nutcase who has killed 9 women already. It lurks in wailing sirens that echo through the streets. It lurks in monster car crashes, sudden truck explosions, open shootings on the streets. Where does the movies stop and reality start?
Children may only direct colored pixels against colored pixels when shooting their way through a nest of aliens or drug lords, but no one thinks that is what children are thinking they do when they do it.
Even the why is clear. Think about the history of the US. 19th century, a continent was settled, and a lot of this was about the handling of threats that came with going west. This is no heaping of blame or anti-Americanism or something - I'm just noting the fact that the recent past (in historical dimensions) of the US has been about the handling of threats. Settlers in a strange and sometimes hostile land, riffraff trying to reap where they didn't sow, bringing law and order into the wilderness and so on.
The question is simply, how much violence and destruction has to be shown explicitly and in detail.
And obviously you can compare this with porn. The law clearly states what IS porn and a main trait is that it has no other purpose than itself (no artistical justification).
For violence this isn't different - violence and destruction falls in the same category than that.
While all this is not fotbidden, mind you, all those things are rated "not suitable for children under X years".
And now I'm back again where I started: If no one cares about these "not suitable" labels, then you have to expect certain consequences, or those labels would be indeed a waste of time.
And with those labels, is it really worth an outcry if something is deemed not suitable for children under 14 years, but some people think it's suitable for children under 12 years? Does society have a responisbility to make everything available to everyone as soon as might halfway seem possible? Is it a drama if something may considered as not suitable for children under 18, when there might be a lot of 16-year-olds who wouldn't in fact have a problem with it?
I don't think so.
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mvassilev
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posted May 18, 2009 02:16 PM |
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Quote:
If a society thinks that certain things should be adult-only, then society has to take care that the stuff IS adult-only.
But society should not think that these things are adult-only - it should think that kids are incapable of, say, buying and using guns by themselves, but that it's okay under parental supervision.
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Eccentric Opinion
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JollyJoker
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posted May 18, 2009 03:04 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
If a society thinks that certain things should be adult-only, then society has to take care that the stuff IS adult-only.
But society should not think that these things are adult-only - it should think that kids are incapable of, say, buying and using guns by themselves, but that it's okay under parental supervision.
I wouldn't contest that - provided society WOULD take care that the stuff that SHOULD BE adult only, WERE strictly adult, and IF all failures to do so would have serious consequences.
If, for example, a kid would be caught using a gun ALONE, their parents should immediately lose the right to own, buy and use a weapon themselves.
That's not the case, though.
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Elodin
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posted May 18, 2009 03:55 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 15:57, 18 May 2009.
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Quote:
Children may only direct colored pixels against colored pixels when shooting their way through a nest of aliens or drug lords, but no one thinks that is what children are thinking they do when they do it.
I don't think they are thinking, "Hey, I need to decapitate my little brother like that!"
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Even the why is clear. Think about the history of the US. 19th century, a continent was settled, and a lot of this was about the handling of threats that came with going west. This is no heaping of blame or anti-Americanism or something - I'm just noting the fact that the recent past (in historical dimensions) of the US has been about the handling of threats. Settlers in a strange and sometimes hostile land, riffraff trying to reap where they didn't sow, bringing law and order into the wilderness and so on.
Yes, because there have been no wars between African tribes witout TV, paintball and such....
And the oh so civilized Europe has had no world wars originating there.. 
Quote:
I wouldn't contest that - provided society WOULD take care that the stuff that SHOULD BE adult only, WERE strictly adult, and IF all failures to do so would have serious consequences.
If, for example, a kid would be caught using a gun ALONE, their parents should immediately lose the right to own, buy and use a weapon themselves.
That's not the case, though
And at what age will you give permission for everyone's child shoot alone? I think that is a decision for the parents.
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JollyJoker
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posted May 18, 2009 04:26 PM |
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And at what age will you give permission for everyone's child shoot alone? I think that is a decision for the parents.
Not mine to decide.
If I was asked, my opinion was, that a child could shoot alone once they were old enough to be allowed to buy a weapon.
I'm European, remember? I'm against this weapon fetish. Licenses would be the least, like for driving a car. A gun is no thing to handle lightly.
But I'm no American, and I don't know how important these thing is for you (Americans), culturally.
I'm speaking only as a German, and in my country it is quite difficult to obtain a weapon. Difficult but not impossible, mind you. There are harsh legal regulations, and if you want to shoot you can go into a shooting club. Remember, Germany is small, we have no wildernesses, and there are not many places where you can go hunting with a gun. No wild animals to shoot at either.
In any case, if a kid is deemed fit to shoot alone (i.e. handle a gun on his or her won), then it makes no sense to forbid owning one, since the only reason to forbid buying and owning is to make it difficult to obtain one in the first place.
Generally it will depend on how a society regards weapons - as a PRIVATE thing or something that has to be regulated by strict laws. In case 1 it would be logical when the parents decide. In case 2 it would be logical when they don't.
But as I've said a gazillion times already. HOW the specific laws with regard to protection of children should look, that is certainly debatable, and I'm no expert on children's psychology, sociolgy and so on who could tell you which ages would be best suited for what and what things should not be available until this or that age. The important thing is, that the existing laws must be enforced, otherwise they have no effect. IF a society decides that something should not be available until a certain age in general, then everyone MUST keep to it. Just because people may not like a law or may not care to make sure they keep to it, they cannot just ignore it. That's the important thing.
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