I recommend rereading the article you linked. I suppose this is a greater scientific debate that has little to do with GTA V, but I have to point out that the conflict between "hard" and "soft" sciences is largely irrelevant since the same criticisms apply equally to both. The brain is no more or no less complex than the systems in theoretical physics, yet I doubt many people go back and laugh at the misunderstandings of 1960s physicists when they landed people on the moon.
Or do you think the human brain is more complex than the universe? Perhaps you would like to tell Stephen Hawking that he should just give up his research because hey, it's not like you can do a controlled experiment on the Big Bang! Clearly physics is a soft science!
Sure, we can't know for certain the exact effects of video games on the human brain. So what? We can observe the effects and control for them over a large population. We do it all the time, for all sorts of science.
Here's how it works...we take a subset of a population, say 100,000. We ensure that the subset follows the same or similar patterns to the whole; similar ethnic group dispersion, varied social classes, different age groups, etc. We do some studies; we ask how many people play video games, how many of them are violent, and how often. We look at the rates of violent crime in the group, and compare the responses to the rate of crime, and check for a statistical correlation. We control for other factors that increase rates of violent crime, such as poverty and education.
This is pretty much the same way they discovered that asbestos was bad for you. There was a death, they did studies, and looked to see if there was a correlation between heath issues and working in asbestos factories. Sure enough, they found one, and now we know asbestos is bad for you. We didn't find out because of some super accurate scientific model; we did a population study. It's common and is fairly good at observing trends and when things cause harmful effects within a group.
Unlike asbestos, however, studies have not found any such link between video games and "harmful effects." This is despite significant political pressure to establish such a link, and despite the media's attempt to examine the video game habits of every modern killer, even when it's been shown over and over again that video games are not the root cause. If they were, over a large population, you should see a statistically significant increase in violence along with increased video game usage, which doesn't happen.
In other words, actual science, not the made up "perfect" science with clones and brain simulations, imply strongly that video games are not any more harmful to humans than any other sort of leisure activity. Until this theory is disproven, that's the science...and it is entirely comprehensible.
So, every scientific test to find a causal link between violent games (and other media) and actual violence has found little to no connection. We have no statistical correlation between violent video games and violent criminals.
At most, we've found that violent video games can make people more aggressive, which is also true of pep rallies, vehicle traffic, and sports teams. As a matter of fact, I'm fairly certain there haven't been too many riots over video games...yet there's been plenty over sports. And politics. And religion. Actually, the last two have pretty strong evidence to be almost directly responsible for most of the violence in human history.
You're using the same logic that people use to "refute" global warming and evolution. Well, we don't actually know for certain that we're causing the planet to warm up, or that species change over time! It could be (insert your irrational idea here).
The human brain is remarkably good at discerning between fact and fiction, and we learn this skill at a very young age (children as young as three years old can discern between reality and fantasy, although they may be inaccurate in many cases, especially if exposed to fantasy as reality by an adult). By fourteen humans can easily tell the difference between reality (a car chase on the news) and fiction (a car chase in a movie). Even with the best graphics video games don't look real, and the player is causing the actions to happen. It's almost impossible for a 14-year-old to confuse a video game with real life.
So you say there isn't good "science" that proves video games aren't bad for you. You compare it to asbestos, lead, etc. So you've seen the future, huh? One of these days we're going to look back and wonder how we ever allowed these video games to destroy our society?
Please. We know exactly what video games do to the mind; the same thing all our other media does and leisure activities do. Sometimes it exacerbates preexisting mental illness. Sometimes it creates a psychological addiction. Most of the time it does nothing except cause people to have fun for a couple hours. It's like reading a good book, watching a movie, drinking a beer, or having sex. These things all affect your brain, and all of them can become addicting, harmful, and dangerous if taken to the extreme. Some of them we keep from children, because we don't want them exposed until they have more context and are better able to handle deciding for themselves.
So what? You know what causes the real violence and aggression behind GTA V? The fact that the game was released September 2013 and still doesn't have a PC release. Seriously, WTF Rockstar, I'm not going to buy your game to run it on a second-rate console POS.
Let's riot! Oh wait, that doesn't happen with video games. But yeah, I'm sure one of these days I'll be shocked at how that newfangled rock-n-roll is ruining the morals of children and...oh, wait. I meant video games. Yeah, I'm sure these are the things that will turn us evil.
The funniest part about this whole thing is that the more they redact and delay the worse the situation gets. Most of the time people can imagine much worse than they can be shown. It's like a horror movie, the monster is the most frightening when you know it's there but can't see it.
The more they redact the more people are going to assume the worst. The reality could be the torture was "pinched the subject on the cheek" and, via redaction, we'll all read it as "ripped out the subject's teeth and sent them to his children as a gift." We'll assume that, because it's redacted, they think it's so bad we shouldn't see it.
In other words, they might as well show the truth because anything they redact we're going to assume is bad anyway. At least with the truth we'll know the limit and maybe they'll regain a tiny bit of trust.
I know, it'll never happen, but it still amuses me.
I don't think Cushing has ever said anything of the sort. Cops are public servants, and their entire purpose is ensuring that laws are enforced. So when cops are abusing or otherwise breaking the law, that means that our primary defense against lawbreakers are the lawbreakers themselves.
The problem is that the polarity has been reversed (obscure joke, sorry). Cops are less likely to be punished for breaking the law that ordinary citizens. It should be the opposite. As the enforcers of the law, they should be held to the highest standards of it, beyond that of ordinary citizens.
Imagine if a doctor told you that you were fine after an injury, and you nearly died from it. Now imagine your brother told you the same thing, in the same situation. Which would you be more upset with? My guess is the doctor...he or she has been trained to deal with injury, and it's their job to ensure patients are taken care of. Your brother (unless he was a doctor too) probably isn't, so you wouldn't hold him to the same standard.
Yet with the police it's as if your brother would end up with a malpractice suit against them and the doctor would keep on treating people and there's nothing you can do about it. How does that make sense? Why would we hold an untrained citizen to a higher standard that the trained professional?
It's not that Cushing or anyone at TD staff hates cops. They believe cops shouldn't be allowed to abuse the law, and believe we should be informed when they do...and when they skirt punishment for it. I agree. Change doesn't happen unless people know there's a problem.
Here's what we do know. The total number of police officers killed by direct criminal action (not including vehicles) in 2014 is 45 (43 shootings, 2 assaults). The lowest estimates of citizens killed per year by police officers is 400, with some estimates closer to 1,000. To me it's shocking that they don't even count the number, or if they do, that it's not reported to the public.
Using the lowest estimates a single police officer is killed by civilians for every ten civilians they kill. To be honest, that terrifies me, especially when they aren't being held accountable for it.
The irony of the video of police brutality being taken down by a news outlet is hilarious. Isn't the news supposed to be about informing the public?
Copyright isn't about censorship, eh? I give you Exhibit A: a cell phone camera video being taken down by someone who doesn't have any copyright over the video, therefore hiding important public information over an ongoing controversy regarding the police engaged in potentially illegal behavior.
Yet it's filesharers that are the criminals. I thought it couldn't get any better after Amazon removed people's copies of 1984 from people's Kindle readers. How silly of me!
So, let's ignore the law for a minute (crazy, I know). Let's look at this scenario entirely using our "reasonable person" lens.
Situation: A man is suspected of selling cigarettes illegally. He is stopped by police and denies selling anything. They attempt arrest, he says "Don't touch me, please," and an officer puts him in a choke hold from behind, then shoves him to the ground and holds him there. He states he can't breathe, and paramedics are called. When they arrive he goes into cardiac arrest in the ambulance and dies an hour later.
Some additional details: At no point did they confirm the suspect was actually selling cigarettes nor if he had them on him at the time. He did not resist arrest nor make any aggressive movements towards the officers. Chokeholds have been banned by the NYPD since 1993. The cause of death was directly related to the chokehold and detainment on the ground, along with preexisting medical conditions, although the individual would not have died without police actions. The suspect had previously been arrested for numerous petty crimes, including the one he was currently being accused of, and was currently on bail. The police officer who performed the chokehold had been previously the subject of civil rights lawsuits where he had allegedly abused detainees, including forcing two black men to strip naked on the street before all charges were dismissed.
Now let's get back to the law.
So a man, not currently engaged in any crime, is choked, shoved to the ground, and dies due to complications arising from being choked and shoved to the ground. Assault by choking is a felony under New York law, and prohibited by police procedure. There's not even any question of evidence...we have the actions being directly recorded.
And yet we aren't even going to charge the person who did it? How is using an unauthorized, felony level assault on a unresisting individual, who is not committing a crime, not even worth pursing in court?
You can have all the pages of argument over this sentence or that sentence of the law, but it horrifies me that a man who wasn't committing a crime and wasn't a threat was killed and, due to technicalities, we aren't even going to charge the people responsible.
It's this sort of thing that causes people to roll their eyes at the law. When normal human behavior is illegal, and potential murder (this case) or larceny on an unbelievable scale (Wall Street) isn't even tried in court, what other reaction can you have?
As much as I'm against government tracking, I think at least having the option of giving 911 your GPS location quickly and without effort makes sense. In most scenarios involving 911 you're probably going to want the police to be able to quickly find you, especially if you don't know where you are or don't have the time or state of mind to explain.
I'd rather the police not have my data during day-to-day stuff, but if I need them in an emergency, I'd rather not have to try and explain where I am. Believe it or not, sometimes the authorities actually do have your best interest at heart.
I'm somewhat shocked to write that, but if my family or I need help, I'd rather the help not have to figure out where I am (same logic as being able to call 911 using a locked phone). Anyway, I'm sure the reason it's kept somewhat above-board is because it's intended to be a safety feature, not a "track criminals" feature.
My problem is with how the cops behaved with public at large.
This, 100x. Based on what I've read I'm fairly certain that the shooting primarily due to Brown's actions. I'm not sure there should not have been an indictment but I personally believe (again, based on what I've read) that Officer Wilson did not murder Brown.
That being said, the response afterwards from the police department, between arresting journalists and gassing crowds, was inappropriate and unreasonable. I also believe it had the opposite effect intended; it probably caused more violence than if they'd allowed the initial protests with minimal force.
The problem is there's such a polarizing effects to these events. It seems like you have to be on one "side" or the other. If you think Brown's shooting was justified, you must be on the side of the cops and think Garner was justified too. Yet I personally believe Brown's shooting was justified...but I don't think the same thing about Garner, and I 100% think there should have been an indictment in his case (not certain on Brown). And I'm completely against the (in my opinion) excessive riot control and actions against the press in Ferguson, especially as that probably created more confusion about the whole situation.
I wish we could break them apart, because I think a lot of rational people are getting hung up over the facts of Brown's death (possibly including Techdirt authors) compared to the string of other (in my opinion) actual abuses that happened at the same time.
Hey go back and read what I actually wrote and reply accordingly...
Ok, fine, I'll bite.
It's impossible for you to know how it affected her brain...blah blah blah...Just an friendly fyi that will hopefully curb your confidence in knowing for sure how an input will or won't affect your sister.
My translation: "you don't know if it affected her or not because current science doesn't/can't know it."
Reason for my response: the only reason to say this is if you disagree that it didn't change her behavior. If there is no scientific data that it did change her behavior, you must be operating on the opinion that it did or can.
The "small" interpretation, that you're just clarifying he doesn't know for certain one way or another, is a pointless comment because you could argue it about basically everything. Another "small" interpretation is that everything we experience affects us...which is obvious, and again applies to everything.
Since you're commenting specifically in a response about GTA, and all soft interpretations apply so generally as to be irrelevant, I concluded that you were applying a specific interpretation: that GTA likely affected the poster's sister, and he's too ignorant to realize it.
Those experiments barely scratch the surface of input output behavior and the long and short term effects various inputs have on the mind...
And here my hypothesis becomes clearer. You repeat basically the same thing, that we don't actually understand the human brain and so we need to be cautious with scientific data from sociology and psychology, which is again obvious and irrelevant. We don't understand physics either, yet scientists have models for the creation of the universe (which is really not any more accurate due to the same uncertainty principle). So what? Science is about what you can observe, not about what you can't.
So why do you have two long posts about scientific uncertainty? All scientists (those that study the field) understand that no theory or conclusion is 100% certain, and much of scientific research is about determining just how much certainty we can expect within a specific hypothesis, and what we can do to reduce the areas where that hypothesis fails.
Plus, if what you say is really true, no one should be "confident" about or allow to play games like Grad Theft Auto. Fair enough.
And here you state your opinion. "Because the effects of violent video games on the mind are unclear, no one should be allowed to play them." When someone stated this in response to your discussion on scientific uncertainty, your response was "fair enough." From a scientific uncertainty perspective, however, since what research we have done indicates little to no influence on behavior, why would your conclusion be that we should do the complete opposite?
Right, because you already have your opinion. In other words, person A says "My 14-year old sister played GTA, and she's fine." You respond "You don't know she's fine, it could have affected her and you wouldn't be able to tell because science doesn't know yet." Someone else responds with research stating that we haven't found a correlation between video games and violence, and that by your logic we shouldn't allow such games. You respond "well, that science is uncertain, and you are probably right."
My conclusion? You definitely have an opinion, it goes against the research we do have, so you use the "well, we don't really know..." argument to make it seem like you're basing it on science and not the exact opposite.
Those experiments barely scratch the surface of input output behavior and the long and short term effects various inputs have on the mind.
This is true of every psychological test in existence. By your logic, we should just get rid of psychology completely because we don't have accurate tests yet.
Your entire response is a justification...you apparently think GTA is bad for people, so you respond with "science can't prove it's bad for you...yet!" What are you basing this on? If science can't prove it's bad, what facts are you using to come to the conclusion it's bad?
Sure, you'll probably use the standard cop-out of "well, that's not what I actually said, I just argued that we don't actually know if it's bad or not yet!" The fact that you're even making this argument means you think it's bad. Otherwise, why not argue that pancakes cause insanity? Or the color blue causes, I don't know, caffeine addiction? We can't prove they don't, because the brain is complicated!
Somewhat ironically, you are right in a way...we don't actually know what GTA's effects on a 14-year-old are. They could be dramatic, or they could be, well, nothing. Considering that we've never found a statistical correlation between violent video games and actual violence beyond coincidence I'm much more inclined to believe the effects to be on the "minor-none" scale rather than the "major-walking time bomb" one people seem to think exists.
The truth is we don't really know why people become violent. There's too many factors, and we don't have a way to model it. Throughout the years we've blamed every popular media source on violence, from jazz, then hip-hop, then death metal to chess (look it up), then violent books, violent movies, and now violent video games. You might as well posit that "air causes violence."
It's worth studying, but we need to stop wasting time with things we're already pretty sure aren't the cause, considering violence has existed for all of human history and video games have existed, at most, 67 years.
Even if said works had nothing to do with making money, I'd feel extremely pissed if Sony used a song I made to push their products in an ad, because I hate Sony. Same thing with 99.9% of politicians who'd use the song in a campaign, as they promise to erode our Constitutional rights even further.
It's common courtesy to expect a request. How would people feel if someone walked up, pulled the keys out of their pocket to take their car to get dinner, return both and leave without uttering a single word?
I strongly disagree with this. Unlike the car, when you release a creative work, that work is released. You don't get a say in how it's used (at least, not naturally, only via law).
Let's take your example further. You'd probably feel bad if someone took your art and decided to use it as toilet paper. I mean, you did all that work on it, right? Don't they value it?
Nope. Why not? Because art has NO intrinsic value. It's (again, from a natural perspective) completely worthless. There may be value in the medium or materials but other than that there is only the value placed on it by others. And as an artist, your art is virtually always going to be valued more by you than anyone else. For many people, your art will have no value at all.
This is a blow to the ego, sure. And that is what copyright is mainly about...ego and control. From an economic standpoint, however, the value of something is determined by how much consumers are willing to pay, not the price set by the producer. Copyright is the attempt to reverse this principle.
Guess what? If my buddy tells me a funny joke, and I'm at party later and I decide to tell the same joke, should I ask him permission first? Did he ask permission from the "creator"? Unlikely. It's a joke, it's an idea, and people copy ideas all the time. I may even add my own flair, making it a purple elephant rather than a pink elephant.
If I go online, and people have posted a bunch of jokes, and I download and use those jokes, have I committed a crime? Have I stolen from the jokers? What if one wants to write a book of jokes...have my party antics removed their ability to get money off the book?
A joke is exactly the same as a work of Picasso, or Sony Pictures, or whatever. It's an idea given form. And the only value it has is what someone is willing to pay for it.
This is why copyright is so confusing to people, and why we have so much trouble wrapping our head around it. Not because of the laws; the laws are complicated because the idea conflicts directly with common sense.
We all understand ego and wanting to control "our" stuff; privacy and property are basic human concepts. We also understand sharing ideas; telling stories, singing together, and passing knowledge and art are the same.
Art does not need to be "incentivized"; people created art long before the concept of money, and the majority of humans will create some sort of art, however "minor", during the course of their lives. So when free ideas and art are tied down with our concept of property and control, things work fine until that freedom is restricted, and suddenly people get confused.
This concept, this idea that "I created it, therefore it's mine and other people can't use it how I don't like" only works for tangible, *limited* things, and only as long as you own it. Ideas don't work that way, and we instinctively know this.
Have you been living under a rock? Where were you on January 18, 2012, when Google, Wikipedia, and other major websites had a blackout with giant "Website blocked...learn more about SOPA" links?
He also didn't define USA, EFF, or ACLU, and didn't explain who Justin Beiber was. I'm sorry, should he have explained these things too?
"Know your audience." Techdirt assumes its readership has a basic understanding of the internet and some internet-related terms. They defined UFC because the numerous cord-cutters from this website might not know what it is. But even my Mom remembers SOPA from when the internet went dark for a day. Why don't you?
Unfortunately, you can't have "geniune competition" without government regulation. A true "free market" is a purely theoretical construct and does not exist in real life.
You spent all those digibits telling him how he is wrong and your reply contains not one example of any part of the government that is not wasteful, useless, redundant, etc.
Man, when your house is on fire, it really sucks to have the government come put the fire out!
Did you put any thought into your comment, or did I just get trolled by a troll calling someone else a troll?
If by a bit you mean a little hop to the other side of the Grand Canyon.
There are many more men in prison than women because more men commit incarcerable crimes than women, not because there's different laws being applied.
The correct answer is that no crime occured. I have no idea when it became illegal to be naked under 18 (*cough* outside of Florida *cough*). This is something that could easily be handled by parents.
Finally, if we apply some common sense, there is a huge moral difference between a picture of someone under 18 naked and a picture of the sexual exploitation of a child. It's like saying that a slap to the face is the same thing as beating someone into a coma. Sure, both are technically assault. But advocating for the same punishment for both is absolutely insane.
Since when did little things like "context" and "criminal intent" become irrelevant to the law?
We recently went through the process of canceling TWC ourselves and it was a giant hassle. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much you can do about it.
We've had TWC for the last couple of years and finally got fed up with incredibly poor wifi and overall low speeds. We were paying for the 100 Mbs service and were lucky to get 60...our average was 50-55. Our upload was generally 5-10 and our ping 30-120, averaging around 70.
A local ISP offered a better deal so we finally decided to make the switch. We have the same advertised price...100 Mbs...and so far average around 80 Mbs (our peak was actually 110 Mbs!) with uploads averaging around 20 with a peak of 30. It also costs $30 less per month *including* basic cable and DVR (interestingly it was cheaper with cable than without...I don't use it but my wife enjoys Jeopardy).
Either way cancelling TWC was a mess. My wife talked to a service representative about canceling and they put her on hold for four hours...then the call just disconnected. She ended up calling a general customer service line having to threaten to just drive our rented modem to the local office, make a huge fuss at the office, and tell our credit card company to cancel them if they refused. It still took her three more hours to finally cancel the service.
Seven hours to cancel, three of which were on the phone with actual people. Even when she told them directly "I'm canceling" they still tried to argue and offer reduced rates and better service...all of which was BS.
Honestly the sad part is this guy's situation doesn't even seem that abnormal to me. All I could think about was "yeah, sounds about right."
The United States government was never intended to be 100% about the Constitution. In fact, the Constitution itself was originally designed without the Bill of Rights...many of the founding fathers were strongly against including them (for a well-founded fear that if we made a list of specific rights then people would assume anything not listed was NOT a right, and then the government would take it away...sound familiar?).
It was also designed to be a living document, one which updated as the U.S. grew and the culture and situation changed. It was not designed as a "holy book" of rigid rules that were never modified or interpreted. It was also designed to create a framework for the government, then let that government operate within that framework.
In many ways the Bill of Rights tainted that idea by making ammendments to the Constitution mostly about rights. Note that I am not arguing against the Bill of Rights...it had a lot of benefits, the main one being a clear, difficult-to-breach restriction on government power. But the Constitution was never some inviolable "10 Commandments" of government that it's citizens were expected to follow blindly because the founding fathers knew best.
You seem to have some pretty strong feelings for something that doesn't actually fit with the history and writing of the Constitution itself.
Especially since this makes no sense. They can manipulate their algorithms, but they can't manipulate the results. The results are based completely on their algorithm (in their control) searching based on user input (out of their control).
Considering the vast amount of possible user input compared to the scale of the indexed web it's effectively impossible for Google to directly manipulate search results. You may think it must be easy because you're seeing a list pop up but you have no idea the complexity of what's going on in the background.
The internet is somewhat like space or geology in that everyone thinks they understand the size and complexity of the system but no one, not the best scientists or most powerful supercomputer, really understand the scope. Granted, the internet is smaller in scale than those sciences but the mentality is similar...you see a small piece of the whole, understand that piece, and assume the rest follows that pattern.
On the post: Target And Kmart Pretending To Be Prudes In Australia Over A Vocal Anti-GTA5 Minority
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Or do you think the human brain is more complex than the universe? Perhaps you would like to tell Stephen Hawking that he should just give up his research because hey, it's not like you can do a controlled experiment on the Big Bang! Clearly physics is a soft science!
Sure, we can't know for certain the exact effects of video games on the human brain. So what? We can observe the effects and control for them over a large population. We do it all the time, for all sorts of science.
Here's how it works...we take a subset of a population, say 100,000. We ensure that the subset follows the same or similar patterns to the whole; similar ethnic group dispersion, varied social classes, different age groups, etc. We do some studies; we ask how many people play video games, how many of them are violent, and how often. We look at the rates of violent crime in the group, and compare the responses to the rate of crime, and check for a statistical correlation. We control for other factors that increase rates of violent crime, such as poverty and education.
This is pretty much the same way they discovered that asbestos was bad for you. There was a death, they did studies, and looked to see if there was a correlation between heath issues and working in asbestos factories. Sure enough, they found one, and now we know asbestos is bad for you. We didn't find out because of some super accurate scientific model; we did a population study. It's common and is fairly good at observing trends and when things cause harmful effects within a group.
Unlike asbestos, however, studies have not found any such link between video games and "harmful effects." This is despite significant political pressure to establish such a link, and despite the media's attempt to examine the video game habits of every modern killer, even when it's been shown over and over again that video games are not the root cause. If they were, over a large population, you should see a statistically significant increase in violence along with increased video game usage, which doesn't happen.
In other words, actual science, not the made up "perfect" science with clones and brain simulations, imply strongly that video games are not any more harmful to humans than any other sort of leisure activity. Until this theory is disproven, that's the science...and it is entirely comprehensible.
On the post: Target And Kmart Pretending To Be Prudes In Australia Over A Vocal Anti-GTA5 Minority
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At most, we've found that violent video games can make people more aggressive, which is also true of pep rallies, vehicle traffic, and sports teams. As a matter of fact, I'm fairly certain there haven't been too many riots over video games...yet there's been plenty over sports. And politics. And religion. Actually, the last two have pretty strong evidence to be almost directly responsible for most of the violence in human history.
You're using the same logic that people use to "refute" global warming and evolution. Well, we don't actually know for certain that we're causing the planet to warm up, or that species change over time! It could be (insert your irrational idea here).
The human brain is remarkably good at discerning between fact and fiction, and we learn this skill at a very young age (children as young as three years old can discern between reality and fantasy, although they may be inaccurate in many cases, especially if exposed to fantasy as reality by an adult). By fourteen humans can easily tell the difference between reality (a car chase on the news) and fiction (a car chase in a movie). Even with the best graphics video games don't look real, and the player is causing the actions to happen. It's almost impossible for a 14-year-old to confuse a video game with real life.
So you say there isn't good "science" that proves video games aren't bad for you. You compare it to asbestos, lead, etc. So you've seen the future, huh? One of these days we're going to look back and wonder how we ever allowed these video games to destroy our society?
Please. We know exactly what video games do to the mind; the same thing all our other media does and leisure activities do. Sometimes it exacerbates preexisting mental illness. Sometimes it creates a psychological addiction. Most of the time it does nothing except cause people to have fun for a couple hours. It's like reading a good book, watching a movie, drinking a beer, or having sex. These things all affect your brain, and all of them can become addicting, harmful, and dangerous if taken to the extreme. Some of them we keep from children, because we don't want them exposed until they have more context and are better able to handle deciding for themselves.
So what? You know what causes the real violence and aggression behind GTA V? The fact that the game was released September 2013 and still doesn't have a PC release. Seriously, WTF Rockstar, I'm not going to buy your game to run it on a second-rate console POS.
Let's riot! Oh wait, that doesn't happen with video games. But yeah, I'm sure one of these days I'll be shocked at how that newfangled rock-n-roll is ruining the morals of children and...oh, wait. I meant video games. Yeah, I'm sure these are the things that will turn us evil.
Sigh, why do I even bother.
On the post: Ridiculous: John Kerry Asks Dianne Feinstein Not To Release CIA Torture Report After Agreement Was Reached To Release On Monday
The more they redact the more people are going to assume the worst. The reality could be the torture was "pinched the subject on the cheek" and, via redaction, we'll all read it as "ripped out the subject's teeth and sent them to his children as a gift." We'll assume that, because it's redacted, they think it's so bad we shouldn't see it.
In other words, they might as well show the truth because anything they redact we're going to assume is bad anyway. At least with the truth we'll know the limit and maybe they'll regain a tiny bit of trust.
I know, it'll never happen, but it still amuses me.
On the post: Idiot Phone Thief Uploads His Selfies, Plural, To His Victim's iCloud Account
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The problem is that the polarity has been reversed (obscure joke, sorry). Cops are less likely to be punished for breaking the law that ordinary citizens. It should be the opposite. As the enforcers of the law, they should be held to the highest standards of it, beyond that of ordinary citizens.
Imagine if a doctor told you that you were fine after an injury, and you nearly died from it. Now imagine your brother told you the same thing, in the same situation. Which would you be more upset with? My guess is the doctor...he or she has been trained to deal with injury, and it's their job to ensure patients are taken care of. Your brother (unless he was a doctor too) probably isn't, so you wouldn't hold him to the same standard.
Yet with the police it's as if your brother would end up with a malpractice suit against them and the doctor would keep on treating people and there's nothing you can do about it. How does that make sense? Why would we hold an untrained citizen to a higher standard that the trained professional?
It's not that Cushing or anyone at TD staff hates cops. They believe cops shouldn't be allowed to abuse the law, and believe we should be informed when they do...and when they skirt punishment for it. I agree. Change doesn't happen unless people know there's a problem.
Here's what we do know. The total number of police officers killed by direct criminal action (not including vehicles) in 2014 is 45 (43 shootings, 2 assaults). The lowest estimates of citizens killed per year by police officers is 400, with some estimates closer to 1,000. To me it's shocking that they don't even count the number, or if they do, that it's not reported to the public.
Using the lowest estimates a single police officer is killed by civilians for every ten civilians they kill. To be honest, that terrifies me, especially when they aren't being held accountable for it.
On the post: The Homicide No One Committed: Eric Garner's Death At The Hands Of An NYPD Officer No-Billed By Grand Jury
Re: The videos in this article
Copyright isn't about censorship, eh? I give you Exhibit A: a cell phone camera video being taken down by someone who doesn't have any copyright over the video, therefore hiding important public information over an ongoing controversy regarding the police engaged in potentially illegal behavior.
Yet it's filesharers that are the criminals. I thought it couldn't get any better after Amazon removed people's copies of 1984 from people's Kindle readers. How silly of me!
On the post: The Homicide No One Committed: Eric Garner's Death At The Hands Of An NYPD Officer No-Billed By Grand Jury
Situation: A man is suspected of selling cigarettes illegally. He is stopped by police and denies selling anything. They attempt arrest, he says "Don't touch me, please," and an officer puts him in a choke hold from behind, then shoves him to the ground and holds him there. He states he can't breathe, and paramedics are called. When they arrive he goes into cardiac arrest in the ambulance and dies an hour later.
Some additional details: At no point did they confirm the suspect was actually selling cigarettes nor if he had them on him at the time. He did not resist arrest nor make any aggressive movements towards the officers. Chokeholds have been banned by the NYPD since 1993. The cause of death was directly related to the chokehold and detainment on the ground, along with preexisting medical conditions, although the individual would not have died without police actions. The suspect had previously been arrested for numerous petty crimes, including the one he was currently being accused of, and was currently on bail. The police officer who performed the chokehold had been previously the subject of civil rights lawsuits where he had allegedly abused detainees, including forcing two black men to strip naked on the street before all charges were dismissed.
Now let's get back to the law.
So a man, not currently engaged in any crime, is choked, shoved to the ground, and dies due to complications arising from being choked and shoved to the ground. Assault by choking is a felony under New York law, and prohibited by police procedure. There's not even any question of evidence...we have the actions being directly recorded.
And yet we aren't even going to charge the person who did it? How is using an unauthorized, felony level assault on a unresisting individual, who is not committing a crime, not even worth pursing in court?
You can have all the pages of argument over this sentence or that sentence of the law, but it horrifies me that a man who wasn't committing a crime and wasn't a threat was killed and, due to technicalities, we aren't even going to charge the people responsible.
It's this sort of thing that causes people to roll their eyes at the law. When normal human behavior is illegal, and potential murder (this case) or larceny on an unbelievable scale (Wall Street) isn't even tried in court, what other reaction can you have?
On the post: Idiot Phone Thief Uploads His Selfies, Plural, To His Victim's iCloud Account
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I'd rather the police not have my data during day-to-day stuff, but if I need them in an emergency, I'd rather not have to try and explain where I am. Believe it or not, sometimes the authorities actually do have your best interest at heart.
I'm somewhat shocked to write that, but if my family or I need help, I'd rather the help not have to figure out where I am (same logic as being able to call 911 using a locked phone). Anyway, I'm sure the reason it's kept somewhat above-board is because it's intended to be a safety feature, not a "track criminals" feature.
On the post: The Homicide No One Committed: Eric Garner's Death At The Hands Of An NYPD Officer No-Billed By Grand Jury
Re: Re: Stop the lax reporting
This, 100x. Based on what I've read I'm fairly certain that the shooting primarily due to Brown's actions. I'm not sure there should not have been an indictment but I personally believe (again, based on what I've read) that Officer Wilson did not murder Brown.
That being said, the response afterwards from the police department, between arresting journalists and gassing crowds, was inappropriate and unreasonable. I also believe it had the opposite effect intended; it probably caused more violence than if they'd allowed the initial protests with minimal force.
The problem is there's such a polarizing effects to these events. It seems like you have to be on one "side" or the other. If you think Brown's shooting was justified, you must be on the side of the cops and think Garner was justified too. Yet I personally believe Brown's shooting was justified...but I don't think the same thing about Garner, and I 100% think there should have been an indictment in his case (not certain on Brown). And I'm completely against the (in my opinion) excessive riot control and actions against the press in Ferguson, especially as that probably created more confusion about the whole situation.
I wish we could break them apart, because I think a lot of rational people are getting hung up over the facts of Brown's death (possibly including Techdirt authors) compared to the string of other (in my opinion) actual abuses that happened at the same time.
On the post: Target And Kmart Pretending To Be Prudes In Australia Over A Vocal Anti-GTA5 Minority
Re: Re: Misandry does exist
Pretty sure this was being sarcastic.
On the post: Target And Kmart Pretending To Be Prudes In Australia Over A Vocal Anti-GTA5 Minority
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This sentence made me laugh out loud. Heck, your whole post did.
"You're a brain dead idiot...no offense."
How could that not be taken as on offense!?
Well played.
On the post: Target And Kmart Pretending To Be Prudes In Australia Over A Vocal Anti-GTA5 Minority
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Ok, fine, I'll bite.
It's impossible for you to know how it affected her brain...blah blah blah...Just an friendly fyi that will hopefully curb your confidence in knowing for sure how an input will or won't affect your sister.
My translation: "you don't know if it affected her or not because current science doesn't/can't know it."
Reason for my response: the only reason to say this is if you disagree that it didn't change her behavior. If there is no scientific data that it did change her behavior, you must be operating on the opinion that it did or can.
The "small" interpretation, that you're just clarifying he doesn't know for certain one way or another, is a pointless comment because you could argue it about basically everything. Another "small" interpretation is that everything we experience affects us...which is obvious, and again applies to everything.
Since you're commenting specifically in a response about GTA, and all soft interpretations apply so generally as to be irrelevant, I concluded that you were applying a specific interpretation: that GTA likely affected the poster's sister, and he's too ignorant to realize it.
Those experiments barely scratch the surface of input output behavior and the long and short term effects various inputs have on the mind...
And here my hypothesis becomes clearer. You repeat basically the same thing, that we don't actually understand the human brain and so we need to be cautious with scientific data from sociology and psychology, which is again obvious and irrelevant. We don't understand physics either, yet scientists have models for the creation of the universe (which is really not any more accurate due to the same uncertainty principle). So what? Science is about what you can observe, not about what you can't.
So why do you have two long posts about scientific uncertainty? All scientists (those that study the field) understand that no theory or conclusion is 100% certain, and much of scientific research is about determining just how much certainty we can expect within a specific hypothesis, and what we can do to reduce the areas where that hypothesis fails.
Plus, if what you say is really true, no one should be "confident" about or allow to play games like Grad Theft Auto.
Fair enough.
And here you state your opinion. "Because the effects of violent video games on the mind are unclear, no one should be allowed to play them." When someone stated this in response to your discussion on scientific uncertainty, your response was "fair enough." From a scientific uncertainty perspective, however, since what research we have done indicates little to no influence on behavior, why would your conclusion be that we should do the complete opposite?
Right, because you already have your opinion. In other words, person A says "My 14-year old sister played GTA, and she's fine." You respond "You don't know she's fine, it could have affected her and you wouldn't be able to tell because science doesn't know yet." Someone else responds with research stating that we haven't found a correlation between video games and violence, and that by your logic we shouldn't allow such games. You respond "well, that science is uncertain, and you are probably right."
My conclusion? You definitely have an opinion, it goes against the research we do have, so you use the "well, we don't really know..." argument to make it seem like you're basing it on science and not the exact opposite.
Sorry to call you out on it.
On the post: Target And Kmart Pretending To Be Prudes In Australia Over A Vocal Anti-GTA5 Minority
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This is true of every psychological test in existence. By your logic, we should just get rid of psychology completely because we don't have accurate tests yet.
Your entire response is a justification...you apparently think GTA is bad for people, so you respond with "science can't prove it's bad for you...yet!" What are you basing this on? If science can't prove it's bad, what facts are you using to come to the conclusion it's bad?
Sure, you'll probably use the standard cop-out of "well, that's not what I actually said, I just argued that we don't actually know if it's bad or not yet!" The fact that you're even making this argument means you think it's bad. Otherwise, why not argue that pancakes cause insanity? Or the color blue causes, I don't know, caffeine addiction? We can't prove they don't, because the brain is complicated!
Somewhat ironically, you are right in a way...we don't actually know what GTA's effects on a 14-year-old are. They could be dramatic, or they could be, well, nothing. Considering that we've never found a statistical correlation between violent video games and actual violence beyond coincidence I'm much more inclined to believe the effects to be on the "minor-none" scale rather than the "major-walking time bomb" one people seem to think exists.
The truth is we don't really know why people become violent. There's too many factors, and we don't have a way to model it. Throughout the years we've blamed every popular media source on violence, from jazz, then hip-hop, then death metal to chess (look it up), then violent books, violent movies, and now violent video games. You might as well posit that "air causes violence."
It's worth studying, but we need to stop wasting time with things we're already pretty sure aren't the cause, considering violence has existed for all of human history and video games have existed, at most, 67 years.
On the post: Flickr Plans To Sell Creative Commons Photos And That's Okay...
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It's common courtesy to expect a request. How would people feel if someone walked up, pulled the keys out of their pocket to take their car to get dinner, return both and leave without uttering a single word?
I strongly disagree with this. Unlike the car, when you release a creative work, that work is released. You don't get a say in how it's used (at least, not naturally, only via law).
Let's take your example further. You'd probably feel bad if someone took your art and decided to use it as toilet paper. I mean, you did all that work on it, right? Don't they value it?
Nope. Why not? Because art has NO intrinsic value. It's (again, from a natural perspective) completely worthless. There may be value in the medium or materials but other than that there is only the value placed on it by others. And as an artist, your art is virtually always going to be valued more by you than anyone else. For many people, your art will have no value at all.
This is a blow to the ego, sure. And that is what copyright is mainly about...ego and control. From an economic standpoint, however, the value of something is determined by how much consumers are willing to pay, not the price set by the producer. Copyright is the attempt to reverse this principle.
Guess what? If my buddy tells me a funny joke, and I'm at party later and I decide to tell the same joke, should I ask him permission first? Did he ask permission from the "creator"? Unlikely. It's a joke, it's an idea, and people copy ideas all the time. I may even add my own flair, making it a purple elephant rather than a pink elephant.
If I go online, and people have posted a bunch of jokes, and I download and use those jokes, have I committed a crime? Have I stolen from the jokers? What if one wants to write a book of jokes...have my party antics removed their ability to get money off the book?
A joke is exactly the same as a work of Picasso, or Sony Pictures, or whatever. It's an idea given form. And the only value it has is what someone is willing to pay for it.
This is why copyright is so confusing to people, and why we have so much trouble wrapping our head around it. Not because of the laws; the laws are complicated because the idea conflicts directly with common sense.
We all understand ego and wanting to control "our" stuff; privacy and property are basic human concepts. We also understand sharing ideas; telling stories, singing together, and passing knowledge and art are the same.
Art does not need to be "incentivized"; people created art long before the concept of money, and the majority of humans will create some sort of art, however "minor", during the course of their lives. So when free ideas and art are tied down with our concept of property and control, things work fine until that freedom is restricted, and suddenly people get confused.
This concept, this idea that "I created it, therefore it's mine and other people can't use it how I don't like" only works for tangible, *limited* things, and only as long as you own it. Ideas don't work that way, and we instinctively know this.
On the post: Harry Reid Wants To Attach Part Of SOPA To Surveillance Reform Bill
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He also didn't define USA, EFF, or ACLU, and didn't explain who Justin Beiber was. I'm sorry, should he have explained these things too?
"Know your audience." Techdirt assumes its readership has a basic understanding of the internet and some internet-related terms. They defined UFC because the numerous cord-cutters from this website might not know what it is. But even my Mom remembers SOPA from when the internet went dark for a day. Why don't you?
On the post: Ted Cruz Doubles Down On Misunderstanding The Internet & Net Neutrality, As Republican Engineers Call Him Out For Ignorance
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On the post: Ted Cruz Doubles Down On Misunderstanding The Internet & Net Neutrality, As Republican Engineers Call Him Out For Ignorance
Re: Re: Re: Conservative Here
Man, when your house is on fire, it really sucks to have the government come put the fire out!
Did you put any thought into your comment, or did I just get trolled by a troll calling someone else a troll?
On the post: High School Kids Staring Down Child Porn Charges In Sexting Scandal
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There are many more men in prison than women because more men commit incarcerable crimes than women, not because there's different laws being applied.
The correct answer is that no crime occured. I have no idea when it became illegal to be naked under 18 (*cough* outside of Florida *cough*). This is something that could easily be handled by parents.
Finally, if we apply some common sense, there is a huge moral difference between a picture of someone under 18 naked and a picture of the sexual exploitation of a child. It's like saying that a slap to the face is the same thing as beating someone into a coma. Sure, both are technically assault. But advocating for the same punishment for both is absolutely insane.
Since when did little things like "context" and "criminal intent" become irrelevant to the law?
On the post: Guy Sues Time Warner Cable For Deceptive Acts & False Advertising Over Bogus Promotional Rates, Hidden Fees
We've had TWC for the last couple of years and finally got fed up with incredibly poor wifi and overall low speeds. We were paying for the 100 Mbs service and were lucky to get 60...our average was 50-55. Our upload was generally 5-10 and our ping 30-120, averaging around 70.
A local ISP offered a better deal so we finally decided to make the switch. We have the same advertised price...100 Mbs...and so far average around 80 Mbs (our peak was actually 110 Mbs!) with uploads averaging around 20 with a peak of 30. It also costs $30 less per month *including* basic cable and DVR (interestingly it was cheaper with cable than without...I don't use it but my wife enjoys Jeopardy).
Either way cancelling TWC was a mess. My wife talked to a service representative about canceling and they put her on hold for four hours...then the call just disconnected. She ended up calling a general customer service line having to threaten to just drive our rented modem to the local office, make a huge fuss at the office, and tell our credit card company to cancel them if they refused. It still took her three more hours to finally cancel the service.
Seven hours to cancel, three of which were on the phone with actual people. Even when she told them directly "I'm canceling" they still tried to argue and offer reduced rates and better service...all of which was BS.
Honestly the sad part is this guy's situation doesn't even seem that abnormal to me. All I could think about was "yeah, sounds about right."
On the post: Asset Forfeiture Is Just Cops Going Shopping For Stuff They Want
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The United States government was never intended to be 100% about the Constitution. In fact, the Constitution itself was originally designed without the Bill of Rights...many of the founding fathers were strongly against including them (for a well-founded fear that if we made a list of specific rights then people would assume anything not listed was NOT a right, and then the government would take it away...sound familiar?).
It was also designed to be a living document, one which updated as the U.S. grew and the culture and situation changed. It was not designed as a "holy book" of rigid rules that were never modified or interpreted. It was also designed to create a framework for the government, then let that government operate within that framework.
In many ways the Bill of Rights tainted that idea by making ammendments to the Constitution mostly about rights. Note that I am not arguing against the Bill of Rights...it had a lot of benefits, the main one being a clear, difficult-to-breach restriction on government power. But the Constitution was never some inviolable "10 Commandments" of government that it's citizens were expected to follow blindly because the founding fathers knew best.
You seem to have some pretty strong feelings for something that doesn't actually fit with the history and writing of the Constitution itself.
On the post: Google's Efforts To Push Down 'Piracy' Sites May Lead More People To Malware
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Especially since this makes no sense. They can manipulate their algorithms, but they can't manipulate the results. The results are based completely on their algorithm (in their control) searching based on user input (out of their control).
Considering the vast amount of possible user input compared to the scale of the indexed web it's effectively impossible for Google to directly manipulate search results. You may think it must be easy because you're seeing a list pop up but you have no idea the complexity of what's going on in the background.
The internet is somewhat like space or geology in that everyone thinks they understand the size and complexity of the system but no one, not the best scientists or most powerful supercomputer, really understand the scope. Granted, the internet is smaller in scale than those sciences but the mentality is similar...you see a small piece of the whole, understand that piece, and assume the rest follows that pattern.
For this, I shall give you a tangentially related xkcd...
http://xkcd.com/1425/
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