Just saw this article about David Cameron, who could possibly be the next British Prime Minister (not that he actually will). It's saying about how he would ban more violent video games. Basically in my view it's a pretty disgusting attempt to exploit the public's reaction to the recent tragic shooting of an 11 year old kid over here.

http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=5978562

What a f**king weasel that guy is. Anyone with half a brain knows that the problem in today's society is the lack of discipline. Of course changing that would be unpopular with the brain-dead people in authority, so what do politicans like this guy do instead? Come up with quick-fix cons like this crap. As if a few video games are going to make much of a difference.

Have I missed something, was there no violence before the television was invented? As always, I find it stupid to blame everything on video games (or movies, or music). Let's hope this guy does not become Prime Minister.

---

What the Snarkpitters listen to!

sigh

I doubt it'll be as bad as ze German laws, though.

---

Why snark works.

Have I missed something, was there no violence before the television was invented?

According to all sources in power: yes. It's not like they teach history well enough for you to know the difference.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

and since the twat has thrown graffiti in with guns and gangs, it looks like they might even ban you from having your in-game spray too.

---

i eat paint

Darby Conley said:
Ethics are so annoying. I avoid them on principle.

---

o

Is it just me, or does he look like John DeLancie? Anyway, I doubt he'll be able to ban violent games, and... graffiti? How's he going to stop graffiti? By banning paint?

---

Better to be in denial than to be human.

Bill Gates understands binary: his company is number one, and his customers are all zeros.

If I hear about one more person saying that violent video games make people violent I'm going to punch them in the mouth.

---

Reckless disregard for childrens well being, women and nothing but utter contempt for other cultures.

It's the beautiful irony of Cameron slamming the Government for their "knee-jerk reactions" to violent crime that gets me, just before blaming and threatening bans on violent video games, music, graffiti, etc... :smile:

---

[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I support certification of video games and tighter sales controls but ultimately these will fail - lack of responsibility (as opposed to discipline) on the part of the parents toward their children allows kids to both get hold of 18 Cert films/games and also allows them to roam the streets with no boundaries or curfew.

Unfortunately if adults continue to live in a society of self and shamless advancement of the self, children will emulate it however they see fit.

Fortunately for us it seems unlikely David Cameron and the Conservative party will win the next general election. Unfortunately it means the Labour party probably will....

Discipline/ responsibility, same thing, basically. Responsibility = self-discipline. I'm not saying bring back caning in schools but these days kids can just do what the f**k they want. It's changed in the last ten years. Ultimately British society is anti-discipline, anti-responsibility, and rewards a lot of people for being selfish.

That said the situation for students like me has improved. They bend over backwards to help you get a degree these days.

And yeah I agree that parenting is a big part of the problem. These chavvy parents support their kids whatever crazy s**t they get up to.

Try holland for selfish people to be honest, britain isn't that bad yet :smile: 99% of the people here probarbly shouldn't be allowed to play violent games / listen to violent music /watch violent movies since they aren't properly fed up by their parents which causes alot of crime and stuff (i live in one of the most criminal places in holland though, so it might jsut be the case here....)

BUT

I don't think these things should be banned, rather try and educate the parents on what influences the games might have on their children and how to raise them properly.

So indeed parenting is the problem, not games.
I play mostly very brutally violen games (postal, mankind and such - i love them. ) yet i'v never ever been in a fight that i picked.
So imo it's defenatly not the video games i play that plan out my behaviour, i listen to death metal , grind core etc., and still i'm not violent or anything like that.

Politicians just want to 'look good' to the mainstream voter, which is obviously not a 19 year old gamer like me who couldn't give a monkeys anus about politics, and so they try and ban stuff here and there to pretend they're actually solving a problem.

I'll tell you, if i wasn't addicted to video games, music, and skateboarding, i'd probarbly be a drug dealer or criminal in another way. (no bulls**t)
And how are they going to ban it, just fire all the people in te gaming industries out there making violent games, or tell them to make 900 sequals to some lame childern's game that won't sell.
I thin kthat if countries start banning such games / genres out of their country, a pretty huge amount of people will be pretty pissed off at their governement.

(which often leads to more violence, yay, it really helps banning stuff doesn't it!)

I'm just glad it's in the uk now, not holland :wink: though they might ban mankind 2 :sad: asshats.

---

Hell, is an half-filled auditorium

I did a speech on the stupidity of blaming violence on video games, even the people that support the idea have never been able to back it up with facts

the people that support it are all parents who don't want to take responsibility for their lack of ability to raise a child properly, at most the games might give some ideas, but never the intention

did you happen to keep notes of that speech? i might be meeting the prime minister of holland (guess that's what you call it) next week, and i was planning to start on this subject aswell as violent music effecting people's behaviour.

It would be great to have some really good arguments etc. other than the one's i'm working on myself, because they usually come from my own experiences.

---

Hell, is an half-filled auditorium

I hear Holland is bad (in the top 5 for Europe) but the UK really is streaking ahead. Oh well, it's about time we came first in something for once!

The Times article

Telegraph article

Scotland "most dangerous place in world"

This quote sums it up really:

The UN study backs up the results of an investigation from earlier this year carried out by the think-tank Civitas, which found that the UK had one of the world's highest crime rates.

It described the rise of crime in Britain as "so spectacular it was difficult to comprehend".

I got attacked by 5 lads for no reason, lost sight in my right eye and needless to say I rarely go into towns or cities after dark (even avoid them in the day) anymore. Britain is just too dangerous nowadays... 11 year old kids getting shot on a summer evening. What a lovely place to live!

bengreenwood said:
I'm not saying bring back caning in schools

i'm not voting for you then. :razz:

it was normally a 3 pronged leather belt that was used in scotland, never a cane, and it was pretty effective at maintaining order. i'd be glad to see its return, tbh.

---

i eat paint

s**t, Gwil, sorry to hear about your eye, and the other s**t. Is the damage permanent?

Yeah all permanent unfortunately :/ Yoi get down with it for a while but bounce back in time. This was a coupla years back now, I took a long vacation to Australia for time out which helped a lot.

This is the half of the problem I don't understand - the escalating violence on British streets more often than not is not even related to theft, it's just attacks for the sake of attacks. 2 of my friends also got done over in Derby too. I'm just glad for small mercies such as gun crime not yet reaching us - life must be really s**t in Manchester, London, Nottingham, Glasgow etc etc.

I don't know, I don't mean to be patronising because your situation sounds like a bastard but I don't think things are that bad. I think you've just been really unlucky (to put it mildly). Or maybe it's worse where you are than here (Sheffield), I dunno.

Sure there are bad areas where you will get mugged in every city but it's not like it's everywhere. Most places walking around day or night you're alright, of course you will occasionally get some weird nutter walking up to you talking s**t at night but it's always been like that.

I think there's more of a problem with chavs and others being disrespectful and just anti-social (i.e. f**king up phone boxes or bus shelters) more than violent.

I didn't know about your injury, too, Gwil. Those bastards!

If caning was brought back to schools etc it would just give them another excuse for why they turned out so violent. Doesn't sound very helpful to me.

---

Why snark works.

I dont think they should ban violent games. Soon, mabye 50 years, violent games will become acceptable.

Barons Back. Hay Baron.

---

Aaron's Stuff

I dont think they should ban violent games. Soon, mabye 50 years, violent games will become acceptable.
Barons Back. Hay Baron.

Seeing as how far our penchant for violence has gone down in the last 2000 years ... I don't think 50 years is enough time for that result.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

The boogie man is living in your nintendos.

Just like he was living in rock and/or roll and other such negro musics for the better part of the last century.

Video games are an obvious target for demonizing for the simple fact that they're largely uncharted territory, and many adults just don't 'get' them.

Persuasive Games: Why We Need More Boring Games
food for thought.

Hay is for horses.

---

o

I'm living in Chicago now, and one of the first things I got was a knife with a thumb-switch (go Chinatown). Now every time I leave campus I carry it in my right pocket. I haven't had to use it yet, but I don't plan on being caught off-guard. (That's an ironic statement.)

---

Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

That's some seriously scary stuff. I had no idea what it's like to actually be afraid of getting attacked.

I always thought that "it's a safe place to live here" was a fairly lame statement, with only minimal differences to any other places within first-world countries, but I'm starting to really appreciate not having to care about things like that. Boy, the worst I'm afraid of are pickpockets (and I've never encountered them, either).

---

Why snark works.

<span style="color: white;">Video games don't make me violent, it's people like that guy who do... It's always making me sick when politicians are trying to find a scapegoat to which direct the anger of the masses. Something to confuse the people away from the real problems long enough for them to enjoy their time in the government(some examples come to my mind, examples that include Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin).

I'm sorry to hear about your eye, Gwil. :sad: And I wish that your government will come to it's senses and search for the real reasons behind the rising youth violence and deal with them. If it were violent video games to blame, then this would be a problem everywhere not only in Great Britain or USA or some other hotspot in violent crime(this is by no means meant to be USA bashing, I just recently saw something that seems to have stuck on my short term memory).

Remember kids, it's not violent entertainment that kills people, people kill people(and that's how it's always been, even before entertainment).
</span>

---

''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

Chimpanzees have been filmed participating in what one could call 'war', a few chimps will cross into another group's territory and savagely beat vulnerable individuals, severely injuring or killing them. Think of the story of Cain and Able, the first murder; Jealousy drove Cain to kill his brother, not mortal kombat or GTA. Despite this ingrained tendency for violence, many people want to blame something else. If someone makes you very angry, you'll likely have violence thoughts, it's inevitable, it's instinctive, and it's a part of each and every human being. Some people for whatever reason, pathology or passion, go beyond violent thoughts and take violent actions. A person's brain doesn't have a fully-developed ability to make rational decisions until well into adulthood (mid 20's).

Another part of human nature is lying, giving false information to gain something or get out of trouble, and I think the cases of juvenile violence in which the aggressors say that video games gave them the idea or 'made them do it' are either examples of liars or very maladjusted individuals. Unfortunately they just fuel this insane demonization of a perfectly respectable medium of entertainment. Many people don't like to believe violence is instinctive, it's got to be caused by something external and video games happen to be the convenient scapegoat right now.

I'm of the opinion that a large portion of violent crime in the US is due in no small part to the drug trade, and the fact that it's illegal. (Not to mention the producer regions such as parts of Mexico, Columbia, and Nicaragua among others) It makes "criminals" out of people who would otherwise be law-abiding, drug-using citizens (how many people in America drink alcohol?), and history has shown that prohibition is just asking for organized crime. That's a whole other topic though...

Anyway, like I said, the boogie man is living in your nintentos.

---

o

Baron, I agree with you about violence being instinctive. In my opinion, one of the biggest problems in the world right now is this idea that a person's character is purely decided by their experiences. It just totally erodes the idea that people are individuals with their own characters and their own responsibilities.

There was no violence before video games? What a boring time to live in.

An example comes to mind from Farmer Boy. A group of older boys at Almonzo's school tease their new teacher, and even go so far as to resort to pointless violence. They are the stereotypical bad kids that seem to be at every school. The next day, the teacher comes in and whips the ever-loving s*** out of them with a whip reminiscent of Indiana Jones'. Problem solved.

---

Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

I'm living in Chicago now, and one of the first things I got was a knife with a thumb-switch (go Chinatown). Now every time I leave campus I carry it in my right pocket. I haven't had to use it yet, but I don't plan on being caught off-guard. (That's an ironic statement.)

Keep in mind having a knife is one thing, but if you pull that on a potential attacker would you

1) Have the confidence (or lack of conscience) to use it, or the confidence that it will scare them?
2) Have the confidence to know that they're not going to do exactly the same, strike the first blow and get away with your wallet and possibly your life.

Seriously, muggings - surely it is better to hand over the phone/wallet rathere than risk serious injury or worse?

I always travel in groups, so if the attacker knows my party is armed, he'll likely want to get out of dodge. I also keep my ID and train pass in my front pocket when roaming the streets, just in case worse comes to worse.

---

Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

I think people are too blanketed in todays society, and the tighter controls he wants on the entertainment industry would only add to that.

Cut 24 hour drinking? No way, go european and lower the drinking age to 16. Though that would take decades because the idea of responsible drinking comes from the family.

I doubt that skinny drug addict would ban violant vidio games...and if he does there are 3 options

#1 beat the crap outta him till he gives em back

#2 kill him (my favourate :razz: )

#3 go to another country and rape something (this is my favourate now)