quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
Speaking of being brainwashed, what's so bad about the V-chip? It has parental controls on it, like you can set in a web browser. It's very little different than internet filtering software. It's not like you HAVE to use the v-chip.I find it interesting that people talk about b-games in glowing terms here, and one of the points they like to bandy about is "look at all the violence that's on TV! What's worse, sex or violence?" - but there's a negative reaction to the v-chip?
Fair warning, you did ask.
You have to understand that part of this is a general paranoia about anything that takes judgment, responsibility along with some control away from the individual and also any technology meeting the previous criteria which the government not only fully backs but requires by law to be in electronics made in this nation or sold in this nation. Once more this might be paranoia, but I see such technology that takes judgment away and responsibility for making case by case decisions and ask how long before someone on the outside can control it, how long before people so blindly follow it's judgments they no longer question? People laugh when I suggest such things, but they also laughed when I said one day television shows would have ratings similar to movies and some people would blindly follow those ratings. I am very much a liberal thinker and believe, perhaps not so liberally, that no one should ever give even partial control of their decision to another because then they might forget how to make a case by case decision that might go against what a machine or another persons judgment in rating tells them and at the very least they might cease to think for themselves, begin to blindly trust the words of another an put faith in what they are told without thought or question. Once again look at all the parents that blindly follow television ratings without seeing for themselves if a TV-PG show is something they would let their own 6 year old children watch regardless of the rating.
My main problem with the V-Chip has already be stated in part, parents no longer have true control as they put their trust in something that works on generalities not a specific case by case basis, yes they can say to a point what is blocked, but people no longer have to think for themselves about what might be, if you'll pardon the slight euphemism, acceptable losses through "good" violence versus a mass killing for the sake of a movie "bad" violence, or of what might be coined as "tolerable" sexual content of slight innuendo versus "unacceptable" sexual content of the act being on the screen. To us violence as the example it truly becomes a general term to both the people using the V-chip and the V-chip itself to the point that someone being impaled in graphic fashion, the Enterprise blowing up another ship, perhaps even something like It's A Wonderful Life or Bambi, are seen as having violence and are universally blocked. Or all are seen as having TV-PG ratings and are universally blocked, either way the judgment is no longer the persons as to if they even agree with the rating given the show it is all up to the V-chip unless they override the block.
No one stops to think, no one stops to try and make judgments on what is best for their children on a case by case basis anymore, they rely on technology to create generalities. Yes the case by case judgment requires time, but if you want to have a child/children, personally I think you have to make the time for such case by case judgments, which not only work better then a general block, but are also an excellent way to implicitly teach children to think for themselves to come to their own conclusion about something without blindly trusting the judgment/rating of another person or technological device. As to the web browsers controls the idea from an MSN ad comes up of a child having to ask permission to view information on the Bikini Island Nuclear Tests, not because of the violence of a Nuclear Bomb mind you, but because it has the word "Bikini" in the title. It always blocks without discrimination because it cannot judge on a case by case basis about what might be a 6 year old stumbling on a swimsuit shoot and what is a 12 year old doing a project on the history of the nuclear bomb and for these reasons I am quite obviously against such technology.
Also if you fall into this trap of trusting generalizations, of thinking that all violence, all sex, all themes of one type are bad on one term, you will do so with other terms, and to me that is part of what leads to the blindness people hold toward and against these games simply because it is said each of them might contain something which must all be the same and "amoral" for children to view with their nudity and sexual scenes, since our blockers can be set to block it out and it's rated 18 and up. Yet I think most of us would say there are vast differences in such scenes between games such as Private Nurse and Kana versus Do You Like Horny Bunnies and Secert Wives Club. Personally if and/or when I have children the former games are ones I would not mind them playing at a very young age on their own, and the latter two only with a strong talk about first the act of sex and also how such events seen in the game are less likely to happen in real life then their traveling back in time to become their own great-great-grandparent.
Before the objection might be made, yes not all people blindly trust, put faith in, or follow this technology, but it is my opinion that enough people do that it harms such industries as this because people look no further then the implication that these games are porn, they are for 18 and up, they have sexual situations some of which might be and are forced, they have "adult" themes and therefore are bad. If people actually thought for themselves they might investigate a little more and see the truth about these games and not work so hard against something their likely neither understand or have even tried for themselves.
Also I think enough do use this, enough blindly trust this, and so few would turn it off because it is too easy to trust it, that all of the aforementioned can become, if it is not already so which I believe it is on the verge of becoming, a true problem. This also neglects the fact through the use of such technology you are denying the child a right to explore their world on their own, which to me is one of the few ways we as children learn to set our own limits and to help us learn to use and trust our own judgments, now we are taught there are boundaries but not always why and to put our trust into someone/something else thereby never questioning or pushing those boundaries since someone/something else tells us they exist for a "good" reason.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-06-2004).]
