California Continues To Push For Violent Game Legislation 167
Back in February, the US Court of Appeals shot down a California law that banned the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. Shortly thereafter, State Senator Leland Yee petitioned the US Supreme Court to review the case. Now, along with California's Psychiatric and Psychological Associations, Yee has filed an amicus curiae brief with Court that elaborates on the reasoning behind the law. Within the brief (PDF) are some interesting quotes: "Parents can read a book, watch a movie or listen to a CD to discern if it is appropriate for their child. These violent video games, on the other hand, can contain up to 800 hours of footage with the most atrocious content often reserved for the highest levels and can be accessed only by advanced players after hours upon hours of progressive mastery. ... Notably, extended play has been observed to depress activity in the frontal cortex of the brain which controls executive thought and function, produces intentionality and the ability to plan sequences of action, and is the seat of self-reflection, discipline and self-control." The video game industry has filed its own amicus brief to dispute Yee's claims.
Re:Oh, that's super (Score:5, Informative)
It's one of the oldest political tactics in the book: bread and circuses. [wikipedia.org] (This is one of the circuses.)
Who cares? (Score:4, Informative)
Some huge majority of 12 year olds with $300 gaming systems are talking their parents into the $75 game anyway.
The ones that aren't will play them at their friend's.
ZOMG teh BRAIN DAMAG3!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, that's actually true and what this guy is conveniently leaving out is that it's not permanent. I was reading about this phenomenon on Dr. Daniel Amen's website years ago (and it's NOT just violent video games).
Essentially, too much intense video gaming for too long makes your brain concentrate too much and you use up all the neurotransmitters that let you concentrate. The result is ADD-like symptoms. Cut back on the video games to reasonable levels and the neuotransmitter levels return to normal because they aren't being depleted.
So the real message is: too much of anything is bad for you.
But this Yee dude doesn't bother to say that part.
Re:You don't need every child affected (Score:5, Informative)
Violent games are not affecting our kids in negative ways. Canada plays our violent video games and has a passion for guns and they have no where near the US gun fatalities. Japan plays extremely violent video games and has the lowest gun fatalities.
Parents need to stop blaming the media and start being parents.
Ornithologist 007's Field Guide to Koopas (Score:5, Informative)
[I hate Goombas from Super Mario Bros. But] I also hate fucking ducks with shells. Those fucking freaks of nature just piss me the hell off. I love to stomp on them and then grab the shells and just wipe mushrooms the fuck out with them.
But even more than that, I hate people who insist Koopas are ducks. According to the field guide Koopas of the Mushroom Kingdom by James Bond [wikipedia.org]:
A lot of people got their NES with both Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt and should know what a Nintendo duck looks like. The only kind of "duck" in a Koopa shell is a turtle that has "ducked" into its shell.
Re:The DON'T do the same with movies. (Score:5, Informative)
I'll admit, it's easier to get into an R rated movie as a minor then to rent an M rated game, but I've still been carded in the past. Your statement is simply untrue, or depends on the state from which you are posting.
My statement is _not_ untrue. Re-read it.
It is not a crime to let a three-year-old into an R-rated movie. Movie theaters restrict kids from their audience, yes, but they do it voluntarily in order to adhere to the system of rules set in place by the MPAA. A theater could theoretically let an unchaperoned group of kindergartners into any R-rated movie they wish right in front of a Cop and not be charged with a crime, since it's not against the law. They may lose their license by the MPAA but, again, let me reiterate: they won't be charged with a CRIME.
That's why this is completely different from movie ratings. Movie ratings are an industry standard, and there is literally no legal weight behind them. [wikipedia.org] California's attempts to put legal weight behind Video Game ratings will end in failure, just as it did in Freedman v. Maryland. [wikipedia.org]
Correlation goes the wrong way (Score:4, Informative)
The reason they are talking about things like brain activity (and no neuroscientist can tell you what patterns of brain activity are good or bad) is they are trying to distract everybody from the fact that as videogames have gotten more realistically violent, real world violence and crime have dropped, and dropped most sharply in the very same demographic of young males that are the biggest consumers of videogames. Of course, that doesn't prove that videogames prevent violence, but it does prove that any hypothetical anti-social effect of videogames must be so small as to be absolutely swamped by other social and economic factors that influence violence and crime.
Re:Oh, that's super (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What a load of Bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
These violent outbursts are not from "teaching violence". They are from teaching piss poor conflict resolution skills, or not teaching them at all. It is for thinking stupid shit like "bully free zone" signs will fix a fucking thing. It is from "no bullying contracts" being used to make kids agree to not be bullies. It is from the complete and total lack of adults actually getting involved and acting like adults and putting these little brats in their place. Instead they whine and bitch and moan and hire lawyers and blah blah blah. When all of the adults are acting like whiney children and not taking responsibility for anything how do you expect the children to learn any other behavior?
Looking back, I am not convinced that a child was ever beaten in the principals office at my gradeschool. But *EVERYONE* sure as hell believed it. Now kids know they can act like little fucking terrors and no one will say a god damned thing to them, and if anyone DOES stop them, their little shithead parents come charging in with stupid lawsuits. The few places the administration DOES step in, it is usually with assinine draconian measures on kids that didn't deserve it and they wind up screwing it up for any administration that WOULD actively get involved in a sane fashion.
Re:I live in California (Score:3, Informative)
In a post-State of the Union speech in Buffalo, NY on January 20, 1999, Bill Clinton was asked why not a tax cut if we have a surplus. Clinton's response: ... if you don't spend it right, here's what's going to happen. ..."
"We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right... But
Good fucking God, if that's isn't a telling comment about the liberal mentality: we can't give tax cuts to people because they may not spend THEIR money RIGHT.
And it's also quite revealing the media bias rampant in the US that that comment never got much play in the major media.
Yet Bill Clinton sure as shit said he was against tax cuts because taxpayers wouldn't spend their money "right".
What's the rest of the context? He went on to use social security as an example. What if he had cut social security taxes and allowed people to invest that money in private retirement accounts, like the conservatives wanted?
The current economic situation is precisely why social security was created. People DON'T spend their money "right" and many people don't treat other peoples' money right. Our government certainly isn't perfect or efficient, but without government performing those functions a lot of people would be on their asses. And not because they're lazy.