Wrong. Everyone votes in Australia, it's compulsory.Andy Chalk said:
You know, I don't even care any more. I've already decided that when school ends, I'll be on the first plane out of the goddamn place.
Australian Christian Lobby Joins the Fight Against R18+ Game Ratings
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
You know, I don't even care any more. I've already decided that when school ends, I'll be on the first plane out of the goddamn place.
Okay... Cigarettes are for adults only, but still get into the hands of children. Why don't you stop selling that?
This is a freaking joke
They censor Left 4 dead but they dont censor "Call Of Duty?s" Airport massacre scene? the whole system is one big joke.
Just let R in already jeeeeeeezz
They censor Left 4 dead but they dont censor "Call Of Duty?s" Airport massacre scene? the whole system is one big joke.
Just let R in already jeeeeeeezz
You Aussies are welcomed to join the R18+ friendly Europe! We have all the goodies but none of the weird shit that can kill you in seconds.
I'm kinda in the same boat. I've just signed up for Uni, but as soon as I get enough money and education, I think I might set up camp in the UK. I seriously give up. You can't fight these people. They have too much power, and not enough common sense.Lord Krunk said:
This is the problem with their argument. Can they name one game besides GTA that encourages the player to identify with the aggressor? And even that game is a weak argument. Every time I hear complaints against violent video games, its always GTA they're talking about - even though studies have been done that show there is virtually no link between playing it and becoming more violent a person.Andy Chalk said:
Also, if they inevitably find their way into children's hands, thats a failure on the part of the parents. Congratulations, you fringe extremists, another way to shirk your own responsibilty and blame everything on someone else.
See, this is exactly why I hate the very idea of social conservatism. Using faith as a legislative crowbar to force other people to submit to their crooked empty lifestyle. In most of the western world we have freedom of religion. That means you are free to practice your chosen belief system. It does not mean you have any right to limit anyone else's activities based on your narrow moral code. If you follow it, that's fine for you but don't barge into my house and take my right to do as I please.
Fun fact: Social conservatism started as a hate group to fight integration of blacks into white schools in the 60's. All thanks to Jerry Falwell, may worms eat his useless carcass.
Extra Credit: Obama's take on religion in politics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXcvbnzNIjg
Fun fact: Social conservatism started as a hate group to fight integration of blacks into white schools in the 60's. All thanks to Jerry Falwell, may worms eat his useless carcass.
Extra Credit: Obama's take on religion in politics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXcvbnzNIjg
A moment of silence for Freedom of Expression in Australia.
While we're at it, let's also take some time to remember My Dignity as a Christian, which, alas, passed away years ago.
While we're at it, let's also take some time to remember My Dignity as a Christian, which, alas, passed away years ago.
I still have mine. I, of course, realized that just because people "claim the name" does not make them representative of myself as a Christian, my church, or even the faith as a whole.Beowulf DW said:
These folks are merely power hungry rottweilers in the vein of "prosperity preachers" like Joel Osteen, who would take advantage of any situation to increase their Earthly gains and material wealth (often sacrificing or disregarding spiritual growth and self-discipline entirely). I have called out many such groups and bodies before. It appears that I will be doing so for some time yet.
Well that's it Yahtzee, your just going to have to pick another country to do reviews from, the peace loving, entertainment hating Christians are running the country now.
Nice to know that you still have yours, but it's going to take a mad German scientist and a bad lightning storm to bring back mine.Wildrow12 said:
I decided years ago that many Christian sects are horribly out of touch with the example that was set for them, so instead of being a good Christian, I'm just trying to be a good person.
Honestly! Islam and the Church seem to be the only religions that suffer from this problem. In some heavenly bar, Jesus and Muhammad are facepalming and commiserating about this shit.
Hehe. Don't worry mate. Anybody with a brain knows that most of you guys are cool. It's just like the Muslim thing. At least you guys only get the Video Game Haters stamp. Those unlucky bastards get branded with terrorism.Korten12 said:
Anyway, a few things:
Research shows that increased playing of violent first person shooter games can significantly increase aggression. As much as I'd like to say that they're talking directly out of their arses, they do have a point - a lot of studies have supported the idea that video games stimulate the aggressive parts of the brain (because god forbid us human beings to get pissed off once in a while). However there has been a lot of debate over whether the studies carried out have been relevant, and whether or not it is possible to prove that there is a connection. People, after all, have different levels of aggression in them from birth. I think it highly ignorant of all of these people to dismiss the very fair point that video games can and often do relieve naturally violent people of their need to be aggressive to actual, real-live people. The cold hard fact that crime rates have dropped in the last 20 years - since video games have become more violent - is very often ignored.
the fact is that members of these organizations have a tendency to do something that a lot of "gamers," to use an admittedly broad term, don't: They vote. I'm hoping someone else has already clarified this very important point, but I will in case they haven't: Australia is one of the few countries in the world that has compulsory voting. It could be argued that this is unfair since voting should be a choice, but I think it's brilliant - it means that whomever we choose to be the governing party has been chosen due to an actual majority opinion. Unfortunately since our current government are a bunch of gibbering morons it seems to show that most Australians are uninformed idiots, but that's always going to be the case, isn't it?
Furthermore, according to ABC Analyst Antony Green, most Australians are actually in favor of censorship. This panel wasn't compulsory. I don't know who organised this panel, but if the ABC did the people who voted were most likely the, er, "traditionalists" of Australia, who by-and-large WOULD be pro-censorship because they've seen and known censorship before. Australia has always been a very pro-censorship country. But these are more enlightened times, and I think the only way to really tell if most Australians are pro-censorship would be to include it in the census. If this statistic was figured out via. the census, it's me talking out of my arse here. But hey, at least I'm admitting that I could be doing that.
"In my view, the issue of R18+ for videogames won't have much impact [on the election] at all," he told GameSpot Australia. "When push comes to shove, a significant portion of the electorate will reject lifting censorship on this sort of thing because most people tend to be rather pro-censorship as a gut instinct." Hmmm. It probably wouldn't have meant a lot in the 2007 election, because even then the issue wasn't as much in the forefront as it is now. The fact is though, that gaming has become a hugely popular medium and even if you're not a gamer yourself you're bound to have a friend who is one, and who speaks regularly about this frustrating issue. So potentially it could have a huge impact.
As for most people having the gut-instinct of being pro-censorship... um, what? I don't know if that's true or not. I suppose biologically humans will close their eyes or block their ears when they've seeing or hearing something they find unpleasant - a way of self-censorising, as it were. But that seems like a moot point. After all, racism is a gut instinct - biologically we're supposed to be untrustworthy of those with different colouring and features to us, because they are unfamiliar to us. Being aggressive, lustful, greedy, and all of the other deadly sins - also a gut instinct. We need to be aggressive to work out our frustrations, we need to be lustful in order to reproduce, we need to be greedy in order to feed ourselves. This is all good stuff. It helps us live longer. Of course, such things can get out of control in us humans in very frightening ways. But in a more refined society we have either gotten past these instincts, or have ways of channelling them that won't harm others. If censorship is also a gut instinct, however, it's not being handled in the same way because it's being seen by these people of influence as a "good" instinct. So in our more refined society, rather than being given tools with which to work out our "bad" instincts as much or as little as we need (tools that are also considered "harmful" to the biased and ignorant), we're having censorship being forced down our throats. My argument is that it should be up to us to individually censorise ourselves, rather than the government. And we would censorise ourselves.
Personally I see this debate as being a lot like the anti-pornography debate. For ages people have claimed that porn increases our sex drive and that in turn makes people more likely to turn to non-consented sex acts. Porn may increase sex drive, I don't know. But people have different levels of sex drive so it might be a difficult theory to prove. But there has actually been a decrease in rape rates since porn has become legalised. This leads me to think, as I'm sure a lot of you agree, that porn is a way of helping us get out the sexual desire we have in us as a basic human function, and by doing that people who perhaps would otherwise engage in non-consented sex acts have lost the need to, as it were. Now, not everybody wants to look at porn, and that's perfectly fine. You just don't look at it. It's hardly up to the government to protect us from the "ghastly sight" of beautiful men and women getting busy on a kitchen table. Does anyone else think this sounds frighteningly similar to the video game situation? Games might cause aggression. But there's been a decrease in crime rates. Maybe gaming works out our aggressive tendencies, so when before we might have pillaged and plundered, we've lost the need to. But if violence disturbs you, don't buy the games. It shouldn't be the government's responsibility to close our eyes and block our ears for us.
During one of the World Wars... actually probably both of them... the Australian government and media wished to protect its citizens from knowing about the horrific acts that were occurring in other parts of the world. As such, newspapers and radio programs painted a glorified picture of these horrific acts. Any act that was too horrific, they simply didn't mention. This is one of the most blatant acts of censorship that occurred in Australia. While on the one hand, yes, those horrific stories could cause nightmares, and perhaps it's better for the overall sanity of some people to not know about them, on the other hand there would have been other people, wives and children, friends and parents of people, who would have heard for several years that their brave Aussie soldiers were over there doing a bang-up job. Then the war ends and these troops are expected home, and said friends and family learn that in fact their precious family members had experienced terrifying conditions, horrific bloodshed and downright cruelty in the name of war. The knowledge that the friends and family had been quite obviously lied to by their own government proves to be just as upsetting and scary as the news itself. What else, these people ask, could our government be hiding? What else could they be trying to protect us from? And what gives them the right to stop us from knowing what we want to know?
And what, indeed, gives them the right to do it now?
I apologise for the novel-length comment.