What the Hell is This, China!?
Let me start off by saying that this isn’t really a WoW related post although both of the topics could have a possible impact on WoW in the future. In general, I am pretty disinterested in politics. However, there are a couple decisions lately that are just absolutely mind boggling to me and frankly, they make me mad.
Did y’all know that it is a felony to play online poker in the state of Washington? That’s right a felony! Some of the online sites have began blocking access to their sites from the state. Since I play quite a bit of online poker, this kind of thing hits home with me. Why does the government want to tell us what we can and cannot do in our own homes? I thought this was supposed to be a free country. It’s also not like the State of Washington can try to pretend they are protecting people from themselves. This is a state that has both Indian casinos as well as a State Lottery. Are you freaking kidding me!?
In other news, the Supreme Court is hearing a case from California that wants to make it illegal to sell violent video games to anyone under the age of 18. Now I agree, that there are many things that should not be allowed for children and violent games are one of them, but why is stance not applied to music, movies, etc. Violent games are already rated by the industry. In general, a vendor will not sell an M rated game to a minor. This is an issue that should be regulated by parents, not by the government.
We (especially our politicians) ridicule other countries for taking freedoms away from their people and yet the same thing is happening here. The real question here is what’s next? You may think that these things have nothing to do with WoW, but I think they do. There have been numerous studies about the addictive nature of MMORPGs. Would it really be that big of a leap for our government to ban video games that are deemed to addictive? I mean what the hell is this, China?
Couldn’t agree with you more, well some of the things you said. I love in Britain, I don’t live in the states, but I can see where you are coming from. They take away the rights of parents to decide what is good for their children, and they take away our rights to decide what we want for ourselves.
Having said that I do think that we have more control over what we do, and how we live our lives. But we could be taught so much of it in schools. I have thought that in schools they teach what to think and not how to think. Rescently I have finished a degree in religion and philosphy, and found it strange, that even at such a high level what we are actually being taught is simply information.
Yes, to some extent we are asked to think about the different aspects of things, but largely we were not encouraged to do so, in fact most people loathed to do so because they were not used to doing so. I know this might seem strange for me to mention, but I do see a link wuth what you were saying.
Think people! Perhaps we could be taught about responsibility in school, but then again, in my opinion the society at large, indeed the very nature of our society is based on the conflict between consumer, employer and employee. Each of us attempts to wrestle money from each other in one way or another and there is very little co-operation, except where the common goal is to make excesses monatary profit. The economy seems to me to be one big game that rich play with all our lives. With this as our foundation we get caught up in whether children should play violent games? My children are quite sensitive and wouldn’t want too anyway, but I think of the world they are inhereting… I must teach them to be selfsih and guiltless if they are to survive in such a world, but I won’t, I will teach them to be kind and compassionate, but to have no illusions as to the ruthless artificial world that humanity has created for itself.
*sigh, I guess my rant is over. It was a good one, while it lasted. *sigh
/salute – adamkade