CNN RapeLay Controversy Sparks Angry Response

[RikSharp]

snip

that is exactly the problem, there will never be one set of rules that pleases everyone.
as i havent actually left what my view on the actual topic is i shall do so now:
i live in the UK so i have not seen a single bit of "news" about this "game".
i know about it just because i am an avid gamer and from websites like the escapist here. i would likely never actually play it but feel that it would be wrong to stop it being produced on the grounds that it may (in this case, definately will) offend someone. i'm just not a fan of censorship at all.
as long as any game has an age rating and that it is properly enforced, i don't have a problem with it. but of course, that opens the same argument as before, not everyone will be happy with what the ratings board decides on for the rating.

as its now about ten past 2 in the morning, i'm off to bed, will look back into this thread in the morning tho.

 

[Andronicus]

CNN: What's that? There are other countries that... aren't like the US?!? We must point out the flaws in their culture! Quick, get a list of all their controversial videogames!

...yeah, starting to get just a little tired of hearing about CNN forcing their opinions down people's throats.

 

[Tyler Whitney]

Surprisingly Japan is on of the most Sexualy repressed societies on Earth. Japan has low crime rates because the Government is always wacthing, (snip)

Dude, the Rape of Nanking happened 60 years ago. While we should always remember, we must also acknowledge that the sins of previous generations should not extend to the current generation. I mean, between 70 and 40 years ago, the ethnicity I came from probably killed upwards of 50 million people through political purges, mass starvation, and just plain territorial expansion. Does this make me a monster?

And I don't think Xenophobia nor racism should be used as evidence of Japan's sexism. We're conflating issues if we do.

 

[UnusualStranger]

Agreement?

Hehe...I'm pretty damned tall. Especially for my family!

Now we take a step into a more personal view. You have every right to be disgusted with them. However, that does not mean you are free to demand they bow to your wills because you find it in bad taste.

However, you are going by personal experience, as am I, but you take it somewhat further. Some peoples biggest fears are always going to be what you think they are. For example, I don't fear putting myself at risk. Its something that many people fear doing, for many good reasons. Just as some people are more afraid of dying underwater than they are afraid of being raped. It all starts to fall to where it usually does: who are we dealing with here?

And the best way to avoid a terrible situation at college? Check em out. What is the nearby town like? What are the classes like? Take a good look, and you will get a feel for what you need to do to protect yourself. (From a locked door, to a tazer)

(look at that post count climb....)

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I mean, it's one thing when it's like Final Fantasy or something, where it's turn-based and not at all realistic. I can understand enjoying throwing some magic attacks at generic bad guys. But when it gets to things more like GTA, where you're blowing people's brains out, I tend to be more offended.

But is it really?

I mean, there's all this push towards "realism", but still you have someone carrying around akimbo-shotguns watching green and red numbers flash past. Most people have the ability to separate reality from fantasy, and it's only a small minority that have trouble with that line.

That's the line usually targetted by crazies, junkies and scammers.

What's more dangerous? Someone pretending to be a deposed Nigerian Prince, or a bunch of pixels shooting another bunch of pixels? In sheer maths stakes, the former is winning by a LONG way.

Illusion, for all their perversions, have built something to directly target a market away from the mainstream, and Mr Nogami has said that's got sod all to do with Japanese rape. Judging a culture purely on the basis of one of their NON-exports, its like Horse-riders screaming at the French for eating horsemeat. Especially with our events like the Grand National.

Put simply, if you're gonna blow someone's brains out, it won't matter to you if you're throwing a fireball or a breezeblock.
If you're not, then equally...it won't matter.

We have no right to determine what Japan does any more than they can call us barbarians for half of the twisted things we do.

 

[Hayate_GT]

the man has a point...

 

[the_bearpelt]

I live in Finland where we have a no-hate-speech-law and apparently most european countries also have such a law. I think it's a reasonable restriction to have, because it doesn't restrict political discourse in any way which would be harmful to the healthy development of society. I could imagine many situations where permitting hate speech would be harmful, but none in which prohibiting it would be beneficial, please do tell if you can think of one such situation.

Did you mean "none in which prohibiting it would be harmful"?
If that's what you meant, I'm not saying hate speech isn't harmful.
But I feel that freedom of speech should be absolute until it begins to do things that call for actual violence on someone. Everyone has rights UNTIL they start to take away another's rights. That's my belief.
While I believe hate speech should be legal (without causing actual harm and etc), I also believe that people should treat it for what it is: wrong and stupid. I feel that's more effective than a law in a case like this. If the majority of the public hears about some dude saying something racist about someone and immediately reacts with anger and outrage and condemns all who agree with that racist, it makes other such racists less likely to voice that ideal, which helps to actually reduce the racism.

 

[dochmbi]

I live in Finland where we have a no-hate-speech-law and apparently most european countries also have such a law. I think it's a reasonable restriction to have, because it doesn't restrict political discourse in any way which would be harmful to the healthy development of society. I could imagine many situations where permitting hate speech would be harmful, but none in which permitting it would be beneficial, please do tell if you can think of one such situation.
report

Thanks for pointing out my error, there's the fixed post.

In response to your post: Yes I hear what you are saying, but the problem is we cannot control public opinion and reactions nor should we try to, we can only attempt to create laws which maximize happines and liberty for everyone. In the current cultural climate it isn't necessary to have a law against hate speech in the USA, but that may change and laws shold be made so that even if the cultural circumstances change, they still serve their purpose.

 

[Tyler Whitney]

. Naturally, that is not to say that our society is without problems, but to be honest, I frankly do not think that you are the ones to tell us," Nogami said.

I'm kind of ambivalent about Nogami's line, because this can easily be twisted into what China does. Any sort of legitimate criticism of China's human rights, environmental policy, or trade policy is deflected by China by simply saying what Nogami said.

I would say that the best policy is private criticism. This is definitely something that Confucian culture prefers, and I also personally agree that private criticism should be attempted repeatedly before public rebukes are used.

 

[Seydaman]

HUGE SNIPETS OF SNIP.

My brother went to Japan as part of his abroad program, has gone twice, was a teacher in English and will be returning in September. Most all of his Japanese girlfriends,(Or so he tells me) were fine with having an American boyfriend, although he did run into problems with a few Chinese girlfriends, whos' mothers very much wanted their children with another Chinese man.
Just a lil something, but from what he has told me, Japan seems a lot less sexually repressed than America, (In comparison).

 

[Treblaine]

CNN isn't going to respond to this. First rule of media, if you get torn apart by someone and have no defense, ignore it. Your viewers won't know, they go to you for news.

MUAH HA HA HA HA!

Fixed for evil information monopoly cackle.

 

[the_bearpelt]

i would likely never actually play it but feel that it would be wrong to stop it being produced on the grounds that it may (in this case, definately will) offend someone. i'm just not a fan of censorship at all.
as long as any game has an age rating and that it is properly enforced, i don't have a problem with it. but of course, that opens the same argument as before, not everyone will be happy with what the ratings board decides on for the rating.

as its now about ten past 2 in the morning, i'm off to bed, will look back into this thread in the morning tho.

Night. I'm not much for censorship either, but you have a point about not everybody agreeing on rules. Not sure how to counter that, really. Not sure there IS a solution.

Now we take a step into a more personal view. You have every right to be disgusted with them. However, that does not mean you are free to demand they bow to your wills because you find it in bad taste.

However, you are going by personal experience, as am I, but you take it somewhat further. Some peoples biggest fears are always going to be what you think they are. For example, I don't fear putting myself at risk. Its something that many people fear doing, for many good reasons. Just as some people are more afraid of dying underwater than they are afraid of being raped. It all starts to fall to where it usually does: who are we dealing with here?

And the best way to avoid a terrible situation at college? Check em out. What is the nearby town like? What are the classes like? Take a good look, and you will get a feel for what you need to do to protect yourself. (From a locked door, to a tazer)

What do you mean, bow to my demands? I don't necessarily mean EVERYONE should agree with me. But an opinion on the ways things should be done tends to go down that road.
I understand that you (hopefully) didn't mean offense, but I feel like I might've been misinterpreted. I didn't really mean that people should bow down to my demands, although you make a good point.
I'm more of the mind that people should openly condemn things they don't like rather than letting the law do it (with issues like this, anyways). But they're perfectly able to disagree with me. Just as I'm perfectly allowed to think that other's opinions are wrong.

 

[the_bearpelt]

But is it really?

I mean, there's all this push towards "realism", but still you have someone carrying around akimbo-shotguns watching green and red numbers flash past. Most people have the ability to separate reality from fantasy, and it's only a small minority that have trouble with that line.

That's the line usually targetted by crazies, junkies and scammers.

What's more dangerous? Someone pretending to be a deposed Nigerian Prince, or a bunch of pixels shooting another bunch of pixels? In sheer maths stakes, the former is winning by a LONG way.

Illusion, for all their perversions, have built something to directly target a market away from the mainstream, and Mr Nogami has said that's got sod all to do with Japanese rape. Judging a culture purely on the basis of one of their NON-exports, its like Horse-riders screaming at the French for eating horsemeat. Especially with our events like the Grand National.

Put simply, if you're gonna blow someone's brains out, it won't matter to you if you're throwing a fireball or a breezeblock.
If you're not, then equally...it won't matter.

We have no right to determine what Japan does any more than they can call us barbarians for half of the twisted things we do.

True on the push towards realism, I suppose. But I find that more debatable and less black-and-white like it is with GTA games and similar ones.
I do agree that judging Japan based on a video game is wrong, though. I think I said that earlier, but I might not have and I can't expect everyone to read EVERY post.
I just mean that we should judge whoever came up with the idea. That's a bit more direct. I'm not saying the guy is in favor of rape or anything, but a closer look at his morals might be in order.

I disagree, though, on the realism of violence in videogames. If something's particularly realistic, it has more of an effect on the culture, especially the adolescents. (Let's face it, they get their hands on these games a lot even though they shouldn't.) But when it comes to Mario and such, it's not really the same thing. With exceptions, abstraction doesn't have the same effect.

 

[UnusualStranger]

Whoops

My fault if I sounded a little touchy. Didn't think you would take "bow to your demands" so seriously. It was just the thought that if you feel it is wrong and move to do something about it, you might perhaps be a little bit overzealous, especially if people want to play this game and buy it.

And it seems no matter what happens these days, people need to get the law involved to get anything done. People don't seem to know how to properly deal with many things without getting into legal trouble themselves...

And while everyone is free to their opinion, you must realize that a large network like CNN saying its opinion is a lot more damaging and affect-inducing than me saying that all stupid people need to be taped to a chair in a school until they are no longer idiots. We are free to disagree, but it should be noticed that where you stand in the world can have a huge affect on what those words really do.

 

[dochmbi]

. Naturally, that is not to say that our society is without problems, but to be honest, I frankly do not think that you are the ones to tell us," Nogami said.

I'm kind of ambivalent about Nogami's line, because this can easily be twisted into what China does. Any sort of legitimate criticism of China's human rights, environmental policy, or trade policy is deflected by China by simply saying what Nogami said.

I agree with you, Nogami shamelessly used an ad hominem attack there, which is a logical fallacy.

 

[the_bearpelt]

Thanks for pointing out my error, there's the fixed post.

In response to your post: Yes I hear what you are saying, but the problem is we cannot control public opinion and reactions nor should we try to, we can only attempt to create laws which maximize happines and liberty for everyone.

Good thing I figured out what you meant, or I would've been SUPER confused. *laughs*

While I see what you mean, I disagree about the laws. I'm all about freedom (with exceptions when it comes to bodily harm etc), so making laws that limit freedom go against my grain. I feel that the public does it better much of the time.
Although I do give you props on saying "maximize happiness and liberty." Many people who have similar opinions to you wouldn't include the "liberty" in there. (Meaning I totally respect you for that.)

I suppose that maybe the way to go is balancing things like that between government laws and public opinion. How much for either side? (I'm not even going to PRETEND I know.)

 

[Georgie_Leech]

On the one hand, I think that game is somewhat disgusting. On the other, brilliant counter by Mr. Nogami.

 

[qbanknight]

the game should not have been fucking made period. i'm so sick of this, true that an american civil rights group has no right to dictate to another country what they can or cannot do; but there are certain levels of decency in our society that we must abide by. such as not making fucking rape games. rape is not a joking subject, nor a glorious subject. and before you say, what about murder and robbery? rape is 1000 times worse than any shoot em' up game could glorify violence. a single act is horrifying and should not be permitted at all (not to mention the perps need to be fried till their skin is extra-crispy and have their testes shoved down their throats, they don't deserve them anyway).

if someone reports me for saying something horrible about rapists, i don't care. they are the parasites of the world, and their crime should not be tolerated nor glorified in a video game.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

I'm completely in sync with Nogami on this one.

These games are meant for adults. Not for children. Interesting statistic my Game Design professor shared: 80% of game titles purchased for minors were purchased by the parent/guaradian.

People expect to the media in all forms to raise their kids. They can't be bothered to find out what a game is really about before purchasing it. In fact, I've seen many times where a clerk has pointed out that the content of the game is not considered appropriate for young players, and the customer gives an angry response that they know how to raise their kids.

I don't buy this malarky about how GTA and other games propagate violence against women. Any well-adjusted adult who plays these games are not going to view women in a more degrading light or suddenly think rape is ok.

And it's not like women are the only victims in these games. You're blowing the heads off of people who are male, white, black, hispanic, etc. There is no secret conspiracy to degrade women.

Those who aren't well-adjusted may, but they clearly have a slew of other problems that are not the fault of the games.

I see a far bigger problem in how our culture idolizes whores and teaches our daughters that is what they should aspire to. Toddlers and Tiaras, Girls Next Door, The Kardashians, Paris Hilton.... the list goes on.

 

[dfphetteplace]

Personally I find the game disgusting, BUT! if you want to play it, fine. I'm not going to, but if adults want to, then whatever. It is only a game. I doubt it is going to lead to someone raping someone in real life. I've never killed anyone, yet I play violent video games and listen to extreme death metal. In fact, I save lives. Games do not lead to real life problems, at least not in 99.99% of the population.