100% Game Tax Proposed in Texas

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6143114.html



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you know, this is just giving people more reasons to pirate video games. oh well.

Oh for @#!*s sake. It's just publicity. Films are way worse, always will be.

What are these 'films' you speak of?

Do you really, REALLY need to ask that?

i heard about films in a video game once.

You tell me, sugar lips.

is he serious?! rofl!

I see lately on the news a lot of these new things which all have the same sort of names like "The Family Security & Protection Act", which try to take the responsibility to judge whats wrong or what's right to the lawmakers.
How is the (American) peoples consensus about these proposals?

Our consensus is this guy is a moron! Give it another 20 years ... everyone in office will have been a game player at some point.

Gaming Stupidity : Texas Style!

Never happen !!!! Made the headlines though.

Heh, only in America...It's fine to sell rifles to anyone but not a computer game.

I think Jeremy has a valid point. 100% tax on games, yeah - like games aren't expensive enough already.

Actually I think it'll be shoplifting, not piracy that's going to go up.

> It's fine to sell rifles to anyone but not a computer game.

Not in my state, you have to get a permit to even touch one - at least to touch one that does not have a trigger lock on it. Getting the permit is a real pain in the arse too. Only reason I care is Paintguns were under the same restrictions till the late eighties (and I am an avid paintball player)

heh texas issued 147,819 concealed weapon permits. In the USA 25% of the population own over 200,000,000 firearms. Pretty crazy really. Interesting enough, for every 2 homicides in the USA there are 3 suicides!!!

texas taxes. Hmm, it's almost the same word! :P

I wonder if suicides are more successful in the US due to availability of guns whereas other countries may have more failed attempts of taking pills, slashing wrists etc?

Unfortunately, there's nothing to prove the validity of there being 3 suicides for every 2 homicides. I don't believe it's true nor do I believe it's that easy to pick two numbers and have them be true.

As for guns, you can't just go and buy one here. You have to get permits and occasionally take some form of class. The other thing is that the majority of (private -- e.g., not in the military) gun owners are either a) hunters, b) collectors, or c) crazy gang members (although somehow I doubt they have permits or an ability to aim). Of course, there are always people interested in self defense, but that requires even more permits, and that usually turns most people off of the idea.

I prefer knives, but it's illegal to conceal one on your person in my state, so I have to get a permit before I can take mine anywhere.

See it positive: at least you are still allowed to play games. ;)

In Germany they censor every game to death.

The car salesman who sold me my car had a consealed weapon permit, incase he broke down on I5 between work and home. Apparently a lot of people prey on people stuck on the side of that stretch of motorway.

The suicide statistics page I was looking at last night, had some pretty interesting statistics. Not at all what I expected.

Turned out that the worst demographic to be was a Norwegian lesbian (woman, just so as not to confuse Big10p, who I think was confused the other day) 1 in 5 commit suicide.

Kind of interesting that there are more suicides than deaths in car accidents, which arent that far behind firearm deaths.

I have a sword with a 42" blade. The thing I hate about it is that if I need to defend my home with it, I have to make sure I kill the bugger, if he survives I'll get sued.

Yeah, that's the annoying thing about people who break into homes. Somehow they manage to have the right to sue you when you knife them, even though 1) they broke into your home and 2) you were acting in self defense.

Anywho, should probably get this back on topic since it'll get deleted by the nazi regime if we don't talk about games.

That's true. I used to wonder why all my old FPS always got lots of bids from Germany when I sold them off. And then I cottoned on...



Well he's serious about posturing to get himself a lot of good publicity, but I think it's unlikely he would be stupid enough to actually implement it. He might claim he tried and his political opponents blocked him though. That always goes down well.

noel, if someone breaks into your home and if you want to stay alive without ending up on the streets, you have no choice but to kill the burglar. and remember, the foot is not the head.

In some games you can change the language to English and it will uncensor the game. That works with the GTA games I believe.

You should have tried being a paintball player in the UK in the late eighties, as a smooth bore gas operated weapon they where classified as a section 4 firearm covering weapons such as: Anti-Tank Rifles; Bazooka's; Rocket Launchers. After a high publicity case where somebody was sent to prison the Home Office made a special exception for them, but there where no fully automatic paintball guns back then and consequently they where not included in the regulations, so are still classified as a bazooka.

lol, I used to have a PVT hardcore Paintball club, whee we would go out on MOD land and play on the tank practice ranges. We would on occasion get escorted away but never got into any real trouble. Despite doing loads of insane and more than stupid things.

Wonder what would happen if I did the same things now, 10 -15 years later.

This country has a lot of crazy people who know a lot about how to write and a little about what makes sense. A lot about how to be powerful and a little about how to use it.

There will always be these people who feel like they want to control what other people do. It is why they don't want abortion or gay mariage and why they are all for being told exactly what to do.

Parents can't possibly police their own kids.

But. For every nut out there who uses his right to say these things and try to make them law. There is another person with good ideas that does the same.

Like abolishing slavery. Or Women's rights. Or unionization of the work-place.

This country isn't perfect. There are a lot of dumb people and a lot of ignorant people and a lot of really foolish people. But there are also really good people. Learned, smart, and clever.

They just don't get the press like the idiots do.

Or... they get @#!*ed on because their Ideas are too ahead of their time.

Like the fact that illegal aliens in this country are exactly the same as slaves in biblical Rome. No one wants to hear it. So no one reports on the people who say things like that.

Let me get this straight, they'll be keeping the violent games
away from children by keeping the games away from
everyone? It works, but does it make sense?

"[the taxes will affect] any video game containing any form of human violence"

So... Civilization 4 is no good then?

What sillyness!

Neither The Sims, Digdug, Lode Runner or DVD-encyclopedias.

I suggest we just stop calling them games in texas... Obviously you can't tax all interactive media as being a game. So just release your game as an interactive movie. Or an interacting scored event simulation.

This means Doom 4 will cost me $120!

I think movies are and always will be worse.

Yeah. Someone should definately abolish womens rights. :o>

This proposal is completely rediculous and arbitrary. Like putting a special tax on strawberry ice cream.

What about transporting violent games across state lines, is that going to become a federal offense? How are they even going to enforce this law? They mention they're going to go after publishers first. Doesn't this just mean that publishers are going to move their offices out of Texas, costing local jobs?

It's odd. Here I was thinking Republicans where in favour of less government, more free enterprise?

I don't think it will affect anyone much anyway. If your local
stores can't give you what you want, the internet sure can!

No party is actually for or against anything they pretend to be... They are all for and against whatever suits their constituants. The Republicans cow tow to the religious right. They are generally pro-life and pro death penalty, for prayer in school and so called "values" which would turn our country into a theocracy. The democrats cow tow to the extreme left. They are just as bad as the far right.

The problem is that these extremeists don't understand reality. They have these ideals that don't take into account the will of getting around their laws.

The right seem to think that making something law means it won't be taken advantage of. That morality can be policed and that it isn't subjective.

The left seems to think that people should be allowed to do whatever they want...

The correct answer is actually simple. Things that are easy to police and are very dangerous should be illegal. Murder, Theft, and such.

Things that aren't so easy to police should be civil crimes. And the courts should have a better system for controling law suits. These crimes are ones with a clear victim that don't fall under the policeable acts... Such as petty fraud and basically what we allow people to sue for now.

And everything else should be legal. Drugs, Porn, and all that. Unless the production of it causes someone harm.. Like snuff-porn and child porn. People should be able to practice any kind of lifestyle they want. And they shouldn't expect the government to support them financially....

Course this is idealist as well... The actual practice would be more like a combined effort of the right left and centrists... which is how it should be...

WE need a centrist party in the USA... and we need it now.

Meth.

As in what? Exploding meth labs? Obviously all the drugs would be produced responsibly.. and you wouldn't ever have to deal with dealers, drug cartel, and having to hide your addiction. And it would cut the funding to 3rd world drug factorys and slave labratories... And you wouldn't have the 100s of deaths due to kids smoking pot laced with speed or heroin each year....

I don't see your point.

Meth doesn't do anything good for people, it only harms them. Therefore, the production of it causes others harm.

But making it legal does even more harm. I didn't say you should promote the use of the drugs... but making it illegal doesn't stop it's use... Good Education would. Making it illegal just drives it underground... It also empowers the dealers who promote the useage...

If every time you went to the drugstore to by some meth you were told how bad it is and given alternatives to the drug that might be better for you, the useage would go down...

Most people who start doing meth either didn't know how bad it was for them or they were presured into use by laced pot or peer-pressure...

Those who start in the first place, either with 'laced pot' or through peer pressure, deserve their fate.

Just like how smokers deserve the cancer they eventually get.

Right... and meth should be as legal as ciggs..

I agree with you completely.

Cigarrette smoke fumes don't have near the same effect as those of meth. (Referring of course to the folks who make it here)

Well... what does keep meth illegal do that is good?

Lets us kill the guys who make it in self defense. Beats letting them get away with using it.

that doesn't even make sense....

Lets get this stright... you are for a person right to buy violent video games but against their right to damage their own body.

You are against the control of one product that can cause damage to very young children based on the idea that parents should be in charge of their children.

But you are for the control of another product that is made worse when it is controled. That is made less pure and more damaging, costs more to buy, and can result in jail time for using. Based on the idea that people can't be in charge of their own actions.


EDIT

Look Noel... You are a smart kid, you normaly have your stuff together... But lets get serious right now..

Your arguement is that because Meth is hurtful to those who use it, that it should be illegal.

But the fact remains that the punishment for being careless is hurting yourself. And hurting yourself should be legal.

Hurting others not by their choice is what should be illegal... Within reason.. and based on what other options will do.
I mean... you have to properly weigh the consequences..

Sure it does. Methamphetamines can be used for medicinal purposes.

Alcohol doesn't do anything good for people either and that's perfectly legal. Do you know why?

Besides which, your arguement can be applied to games just as well as they don't do anything positive either (except prevent violent psychopaths from living out their fantasies in the real world, and that's speculation at best).

well.. actually.. a glass of red wine a day can help prevent heart disese.

and I was only humoring the notion that Meth does no good.. and really.. the meth used as an illegal drug is in far to great a dose and under the wrong conditions to be helpful in any way.

But I agree with you, flameduck, in heart.

Would that be a SIN tax?

I saw my best mate, and ex girlfriend- on pot. I freaked out- That was bad enough. One day she smoked something- I've seen what pot does- this wasn't pot. This was something much stronger- she saw things.

She was in the frame of mind of "It doesnt do me any harm." until that day. She stopped after that day, and has since also given up smoking. I'm proud of her.

Basically Noel- I'm glad youre ahead of your years when it comes to Drugs- Seeing her take them was like a knife through the heart.


They *should* be illegal. I agree with you.

alternatively you can just drink red grape juice or green tea to get the flavonoids. Also tomatoes, brocolli, soy all contain flavonoids. Often the "pro" alcohol lobby says "red wine is good for you" but let's face it, the human body wasn't designed to run on alcohol i.e. to be poisoned every day.

The problem is that person that talks and commands what is illigal things never used them and they never lived in the underworld of their sociaty that was created by them.

This is very similar with the freak that is going to charge violent games. He never played and he will never play.

My self question is how anyone can step in my own sociaty and destroy it when I am not harming him with my actions?

They just imagin a world that suits them and trying to force anyone to be under their world. But I don't wand this world of yours. I wand mine I will be creative for the sociaty and I will try to protect it but I will never be a pupet.

If you are not a good parent and you cannot pass you knowledge and your good side to your childrens that's your problem. And your childrens will always secretly play violent games , watch porn movies and take drugs...

wise words Haramanai.

Because if I care for you, and youre harming yourself, It means the same thing- Youre destroying yourself.



In the world of games, true words, and strong ones at that.



Most likely two out of three. I beleive in Sex Ed.
*smirk*

Well that's good for you. Some people believe in abstinence. Which of the two point of views should be illegal? Or should people be allowed to choose for themselves?

That comment was a joke :P

People *should* be allowed to chose for themselves- however, its hard to admit that when you know more than one person that when given the choice, will chose badly.

What's the bad decision? Ask the dead bloke.

It's an assumption that chosing "pot", for example, is chosing badly; an assumption drummed into people by parents, the government and police - not everyone believes this, perhaps because parents, governments and police make mistakes. Perhaps *not* chosing pot is choosing badly, we might have less wars for one thing. There are pros and cons for drugs, just as there are for most other things in life. Thinking you know more than someone who, say, takes drugs, because you don't do drugs is a falsehood - I expect a heroin addict knows more about heroin than most people, I expect they know some really good reasons why they shouldn't have done it too... Some people have to find out for themselves, perhaps it's fate? Naturally you want to protect you own kids and family so it's a tough one for sure :-/

Besides these days, by the sounds of things, we should be banning red meat, not drugs, due to the amount of people that get bowel cancer and heart problems. How would people react to that, us vegetarians know better see, what if we told you to stop eating steaks and burgers cos it'll kill you ;-)

I'd also rather dangerous untested household chemicals were banned so that I (and my kids) don't have to absorb them into my body with NO CHOICE (apart from living in cave in Indonesia or something). Same goes with air pollution.

[edit] Actually I hope this thread gets locked so we can all get some more work done.

I see pot as bad not because of my parents or any other reason- since they do it- but since I saw what I saw happen, I'm very biased against it, even though what I saw was probrably *not* pot.

It's gotten a bit off topic in here :)

> us vegetarians know better see, what if we told you to stop eating steaks and burgers cos it'll kill you

I've had a few do so already. Just for them I order veal.

I used to be a militant non-smoker. Then I started mouthing off at a vegan how I hate the way they self-righteously harp on other people for eating meat. She called me on my hypocrisy (she happens to be a smoker,) and I knocked it off with telling other people how to live their life.

Um, that was only tangentially relevant to this discussion.

I like you for that.

There's more to life than longevity. Who wants to be the oldest person in the nursing home!? :P

You see. Nearly all the bad things about drugs are cause by it being illegal.

The crime, the drug dealers, the cartels, the laced product, the poor product, the mystique, and the 'gateway drugs' will all go away if drug use is legal and treated responsibly...

Yeah... there will still be people who abuse the drugs. Just like there are people who abuse caffine. Or nicotine, or ethol alcohol.

Lets look at when good old alcohol prohibition.

What did that do for us? It created the mob, turned the streets of chicago into a death trap that is STILL dangerous today. Cause estimated in the million+ deaths. All to what? Stop a few people who were abusing it.

You can't make something illegal and it goes away.

Cygnus... Your friend.. She was doing Illegal pot. That was eventaully laced with Illegal speed or heroin...

If she was smoking government grown weed, or better yet, eating weed brownies (which is as harmless as drinking a pepsi) then she would have been fine.

There isn't actually anything -wrong- with getting high. People do it legally every day. Runners get a runner's high when the acid level in their muscles grows to a certain level after a lot of activity. They become euphoric.

There is nothing bad about that. And there are perfectly safe ways to get high that can't be explored because they have been made illegal. Such as weed brownies.

What did making drugs illegal do?

It created the cartel.
It flooded the market with poor quality drugs, and laced drugs designed to get people addicted to other more expensive drugs.
It provided a shady way to fund dirty regimes around the world.
It put countless people in jail for life. More than 50% of all people in prison are in prison due to drug busts, and that doesn't count crime related to drugs, like theft and prostitution.
It forced addicts to turn to theft and prostitution to get drugs rather than getting to use programs like in england. Where they have clinics that give you a fix for free or cheap to keep you from turning to crime.

What do you think all goes away if drugs are made legal?

The cartel, the poor quality drugs and the laced drugs, you stop sending american money over seas where it funds some of the worst regimes and terrorists on the planet. (including the ones that attacked us) No longer will casual drug users go to prison while the cartels fatten their wallets. And the people who really do need help might actually be able to get it.

But what else?

The police who were putting all these people in jail will now be freed up to do important jobs. Like catching murderers and theives. Like patroling the streets looking for bank robbers and purse snatchers (who themselves will largely go away because those crimes are typically done to get money for drugs)... So the police will be in strong force again.

But thats not all. With the cartel and dealers gone, all those bad neighborhoods will start to clean up. It won't get rid of gangs, but the police will suddenly be freed up to deal with the gangs.

The Mob will lose a huge chunk of their funding as well. They won't be able to hold control over their cities any longer.

And we can educate our kids the right way. Based on pros and cons, not just saying drugs are bad. Don't do drugs cause they are illegal.

And when they do go out and expirement with drugs, they can do so without being criminals. Without the worry of getting hooked on some other drug due to their first toke being laced with something.

One of my closest friends nearly died the first time he smoked up. The weed was laced with something that he ended up being allergic too... Do I blame weed? No, I blame him for doing it, and the dealers for lacing their pot, and the government for making it illegal and effectively creating the situation.

If you have cheap great quality, and "safe" government drugs, the bad guys won't be able to compete... and once they are gone, drugs can be enjoyed like a fine wine... Making it illegal doesn't prevent it from happening... It just makes it worse...

But virtually all laws are like that, beyond the laws that everyone has (laws against violence, theft, etc.). Once you get past the government doing policing to preserve peace, and it turns into a social democracy where the state is also supposed to enforce the social views of the politically powerful, you are always going to have completly arbitrary and horribly complex laws like this. From drug laws (It is OK to buy an sell alchohol, an addictive and harmful to your liver drug, but not marjuana, which is non-addictive and won't drestroy your liver is illegal)... to "hate speech" (it is illegal most places to say that the haulocost never happened, but I can deny the Turks milled millions of Armenians and Kurds without any legal repercussions)... to traffic safety (if I accidently kill another motorist and I am sober, I won't be punished even remotely as bad as if I drank or did drugs before hand - even though the end result is the same).


Are you kidding? By any objective measure G.W. Bush is more a Socialist than Hugo Chavez. The only difference really is the rhetoric they use to justify their policies. But how they actually run the governnment is quite similiar.


And, in fact, until recently (when they started putting cold medicines behind the pharmacist counter and forced people to fill out a form to be given to law enforcement in many states), Meth was manufactured from non-prescription cold medicine.


Of course, the whole arguement that many people give is circular. "METH IS BAD FOR YOU, THEREFORE IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL" - But the active ingredient of Meth is found in legal drugs - "BUT THOSE ARE LEGAL DRUGS!!! METH IS BAD BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL!!!" OK, Meth should be illegal because it is bad, and it is bad because it is illegal.


Except that alchohol is an anti-oxident, like vitamine C, so it provides other benifits beside flavonoids.

The fact is, traditional French and Italian cooking is some high-fat, high cholesteral stuff. Yet, they seem to have fewer heart attacks and less obecity than many people who eat much "healther" diets. Unless we assume that it is some genetic thing (which is unlikely, given the wide genetic diversity in those populations - we are not talking Rapa Nui here), the major diet difference is in wine consumption. I have heard some people say that something in wine reduces the absorbtions of fats and unhealthy forms of cholesterol.

Rex: Yeah it's the flavonoids! From wiki: "Flavonoids are most commonly known for their antioxidant activity" source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavonoid There is nothing in red wine (not just "alcohol") you can't get from other sources, and there's plenty of crap in it too, like chemical sprays. Anyway, I'm not anti-alcohol. I enjoy the effect, it makes me feel a bit bad when I "come down" off it. I don't get violent on it unlike a large number of people and I don't drive on it. I'm also aware that if it were invented tomorrow it would be straight class A, next to heroin, no kidding.

DampeS8N: The acid in muscles is lactic acid and it's what gives you stitch and cramp. Actually what people get high on is the opiates that their brain produces after a while. Your brain produces illegal drugs, how's that then! Ban my brain.

Big10p: Well If I can be old but in good physical and mental health so I can read, travel and play games then I'll be happy. Also if you look after yourself you can feel good everyday for your whole life (which may be extended) and not tired, unfit, ill feeling etc etc. Then you can let loose every so often as a treat, anyway it's just an opinion. I could do way more to look after myself, but I don't ...

Grey... your brain produces the opiates to counteract the pain produced by the lactic acid. Also to help prevent the muscles from spasming so if you are running away from a sabre-tooth tiger you don't trip and fall and become lunch meat...

Point is... there is lots of stuff that is bad for you, and it seems a bit strange to make one set of things that could be bad but also can do good illegal, when you let other things with a lot less to offer on the good side remain legal... Like smoking.

But smoking should be legal, just like drugs, and violent games and all that.

What we need is to spend all that money used to enforce these laws into teaching people about moderation and responsible living.



This is also ignoring the real reason why drugs are still illegal.

The drugdealers and cartel get in the pockets of politicians and lobby to keep them illegal.

The rich want drugs to be illegal cause it drives the prices up and keeps the poor, poor. While also putting large numbers of them into prison.

And because the ignorant masses don't know the first 2 reasons and are told that drugs are bad and should be illegal so they believe it.



I wouldn't be surprised if the religious pillars of our society take large donations from the drug trade to make it a religous issue that drugs should be illegal... since no-where in the bible it says drugs are bad... and it even supports the use of alcohol.

I know that, that's why I posted, because I thought you thought it was just the acid - seems like we're singing from the same hymnsheet.

I'm amazed this thread has gone on. I guess it contains some game stuff.

Anyway, it's a bit odd about this game tax when you've got free games like America's Army specially designed to make people want to join the army. The game doesn't have explicit violence but it's aim is to make you join an organisation that teaches you to kill, for REAL, and to OBEY. Now that's scarey. I read that up to 40% of recruits have played it.

You bring up a great point. But worse than america's army is the fact that the armed forces has been making games for yeas..

I had a talk with a marine in HS.. and when I told him I liked games he had them send me... Camp Marine.

It was a myst style game that takes your through the highlights of being a marine... and then sends you into a cave where you solve puzzles and fight a dragon ala the commercials...

A good friend and ex-roomie of mine joined the marines... and has yet to enter any cave where he solved puzzles and fought a dragon.... they just sent him off to california to work on PCs...

One major difference: unless you're an incredibly sloppy eater, no-one will die from your second-hand beef.

Smokers actively poison the entire room they are in, including other people. Second hand smoke *does* kill as well, while you chosing the burger over the salad won't cause other people direct, irreperable physical harm.
(Granted, the cow still gets the short end, but that's a seperate issue.)

I'm against laws that ban smoking in public places... I'm all for businesses making the choice to ban smoking in their establishments.

I'm all for not working or going to eat at places that allow smoking.

And I am all for public education and ads that are anti-smoking.

But I am also all for public education reform to have interactive lectures where you have speakers come in for topics and debates... In addition to scientific exploration of other subjects... Rather than teaching science, you give the students a problem and the resources to solve it and let them come up with their own solutions.

Same for math.

And history and "english" can be taught about like they are.. well.. taught better.. but in roughtly the same way...

Yes, but a runner can't OD on it, can he? Nor can it impair him in making critical decisions, which is what some drugs do do.


So, now you just decided what should or shouldn't be legal drugs? "It's OK to have THESE drugs, but not THOSE." Uh, isn't that what we have already?

I'm against smokers that feel I need to inhale their smoke.

Oh yeah..., that's exactly what I've always thought... (extreme sarcasm)



You can educate people/kids on drugs without making the drugs legal and without them trying the drugs out for themselves.

Drugs such as Meth, heroine and cigarettes are extremely addictive and are best avoided.

And as several people have pointed out, 'safe' drugs can still be laced/mixed with unsafe ones.

Don't be fooled. It's not the ILLEGALITY that causes drug crimes, it's the ADDICTIONS that do.
Making illegal drugs legal won't change the addictions, it will only encourage them.

Think about your reasoning. Cigarettes are legal. Has that stopped kids from trying them? And trying them is where the addiction begins.


As for illegal games: They should have no more restrictions than a movie or audio recording have. The only difference between any of them, is just that games are interactive.

There some good points in this thread.
I will tell you all whats going on in my city.
Hasis is illigal this have as result many smoker to have heroin , meth and other chemicals in their blood. Also some people how died by drugs where just smoking hasis mixid up with chemicals and the drug dealers selled them in a critical period that hasis was not available pure chemical e.g. acid , epsilon , heroin...
Some of them died. Sad thing to think about it because we didn't have the chance to help them as they had closed in their self in the adiction period. Others rised back from the dead with very sirius mind problems that makes the communication some times realy hard task.
One very bad thing about that it's that the clinics that are suposed to help those people to clean their body from the (human products) chemicals sometimes turns to be a dual blade. They stay clean in the clinic for months and just die from an overdose when they just start to live in the real world again.
After all the "natural drugs" like hasis must be lligal to brake down the stong link with the chemical drugs. This is a well proven method that was begun like an expiriment in Holland and the statistics shows that criminality , addictive people and drug deaths had reduced.
Human it's a weak animal filled with logic , knowledge , violence , love and greed. Don't play around with the other things that may fit this list but think about greed. Greed rules the world. And it's the only thing that can kill you if you use pure natural drugs in the same way that you can die by food , wine and other things.

While this is often repeated by militant anti-smokers with an agenda, there's no factual scientific evidence to support it. In fact most scientific studies (including one made on behalf of the American Cancer Society and WHO) show there is no direct link between second-hand smoke and cancer.

In any case, which is worse? Smoking a cigarette, or taking a five miniute walk in London during rush hour? Now I'm not saying cigarettes aren't bad for you, but breathing in exhaust fumes and other chemicals in supposedly 'fresh air', is several orders of magnitude worse. Driving games don't have exhaust fumes, and will allow you to practice safe (or unsafe, depending on which mood you're in) driving without risking serious injury to yourself, your car and most importantly, other people, yet they're even worse than cigarettes and SUVs?

You can't OD on it, but it can allow you to ignore pains that would normally be indicative of a massive heart attack.

WolRon... you missed all my points...



Actually, it does put them into an altered state of mind. That is what all drugs do. And if someone ODs on a drug, that is their fault. It shouldn't be illegal just cause someone ODd.. oh.. and they Still OD now when it is illegal. Nice to see it works making it illegal.



No... all those drug ARE illegal. They shouldn't be.

The point I was making is that if the Pot she was doing was legal, regulated, uncontaminated, pot. It wouldn't have been laced with anything and she would have just gotten high. Not really sick.

It wasn't the pot that got her sick. It was the dealers, the cartel, and the fact that they lace their stuff to get people addicted to other drugs.

Which is a direct result of making it all illegal.


I'm against smokers that feel I need to inhale their smoke.[/quote]

So am I... Thats why I went on to say that I am all for businesses banning smoking and people not going to places where people can smoke... Laws don't chage people... YOu have to break the law and be punished before it changes you.. and even then you are more likely to just regret getting caught or be upset that it is a law.

If people expressed how they felt and voted with their dollars by not going to that resturant that has a smoking section, and even called the place up to say why they chose to go somewhere else, that will spark change. Because education works better than punnishment and banning.







I've already shown how making drug illegal is worse than legal. Take the money the police and prisons spend each year on drug crime and put that multi-billion-dollar chunk into anti-drug proper education (not just berating and drugs are bas seminars, real facts that weight the good and bad) and the drug problem will go away.



Yes, avoided based on your own will, your own choices, based on good information and not what your friendly neighborehood dealer tells you about them. A large number of schools, particularly in the drug soaked inner city, can't afford good drug education at all, and as a result, the kids learn about drugs on the street. Needless to say, that information isn't very accurate.



Not if there are no drug dealers to lace the drugs. If they are legal and sold via regulated manufacturers in the grocery store pharmacy. Who is going to lace them? the government?



However, making the drug legal will make it easier to get treatment, it will also make relief a reality. England has a system where addicts can get cheap or free fixes to keep them from turning to crime... in this country, we could have a meals on wheels like system, or a soup kitchen.. Yeah.. thats doesn't sound very safe... But lets look at the problem deeper... why can't drug addicts get jobs? There are certainly jobs that don't require a clear mind. Such as shovel'n gravel at the sand factory... They can't get hired because most of them have records. Maybe these soup kitchens can help them find work? And the only way to use these kitchens is to get a card that says I am a registered addict... but the cards are free and easy to get.

It doesn't help that drugs are illegal, it only hurts. Addicts don't stop doing drugs in jail.. they get their drugs from in prison dealers and you know who foots the bill on all this... right?



You see... this is the real kicker. Ciggs are advertised, cigg smoking among kids went down in the 80s and 90s when tv and film made an effort to remove smoking from their films... no one smoked in those films... And people who did were in a very bad light. Look at Terminator 2... did the Terminator smoke?

But now we have people smoking again... idols... people kids look up to and want to emulate... Ciggs are still advertised with cool looking people, they are still virally marketed in areas that young people (not kids) hang out.

They are still appealing to kids.. specially when they see some hero of their's in a movie (granted, that they shouldn't be watching... but I know I watched R rated movies as a kid) smoking and looking cool, then later they see a bunch of geeks on the TV saying.. Smoking is bad.. there is a chemical that is also in cow farts in ciggs... (as if methane wasn't in OUR OWN FARTS and produced by our digesting food) or Urea... they did one about that... sure it is in @#!*.. and also in beats and asparagus.

Kids don't like to be told what to do.. they respond best to being shown what to do... We constantly tell parents to set a good example because kids turn out like they acted, not like what they said... and then we go and let a bunch of movies SHOW our kids what cool is, and TELL them in a commercial that it isn't cool....

You want to know why Cigg smoking is still around? BAD EDUCATION, and BAD INFLUENCE.

Like I said... we need to teach kids about RESPONSIBLE drug use.

What is a good reason and a bad reason. What is too much. What drugs do, what they don't do, and what they WILL do.

Not all drugs are dangerous... no more dangerous than other legal drugs like asprin... If you engeneered a pill from pot that had all the positive effects of pot, and none of the negatives... in other words.. you isolated the THC and put it into a sugar pill... wouldn't that solve problems?



Someone is bound to say it.. so I am going to address it.

No... you should drive or opperate heavy machinery on pot... but you shouldn't on many prescription drugs and even over the counter drugs like cough syrup.

Erratic driving... poor driving.. should be illegal... driving is a privlidge... always has been... thats why you have to take a test to do it.

Therefore, it is a lot like security clearance... there are some things you just can't do, and are illegal, if you have a top secret security clearance... as well they should be... and driving is a clearance... you were tested... it is dangerous in it's own right and changing you body chemistry can change how well you drive.. making it so you would have failed your driving test...

So I am all for stiffer driving related laws and punnishments... such as mandatory 5 years in max security prison for your first DUI offence.

But as with all the rest... In drivers ed, there should be proper education to talk about and show why it is so dangerous...

To quote George Carlin: "Kids don't smoke because a camel in sunglasses tells them to, they do it for the same reason adults do: because it relieves anxiety and stress... you'd probably be stressed out to if you had to deal with one of these boomer yuppie parents who enroll you in college before you're old enough to know which side of the playpen smells the worst."

FD: Have you heard of Roy Castle? Also why has Ireland banned smoking in the workplace and pubs, and why are England, Scortland and Wales about to follow them if there's no proof of passive smoking? Do you know that there is a increased chance of cot death in houses where the parents smoke EVEN IF they smoke outside and just smell of smoke! This is a proven stat, look it up.

SMOKING SUPPORTS TERRAR
ITS TRUE LOOK IT UP

Flame.. Carlin is partially right... however.. that is whyt kid CONTINUE to smoke... they learned that smoking relieves anxiety and stree from watching other smoke... watching people smoke after sex in a movie or watching some wind down with a good smoke... Or watching their parents smoke...

They don't see how smoking could be bad... which is why you need good education and good facts and information.

facts are facts... when smoking wasn't in the movies and tv shows... the smoking rate of kids went down... when they started to show smoking again... it went back up.

Let me see. Because Roy Castle claims that his lung cancer was due to second hand smoke, it's all of a sudden fact? There are hundreds of things, other than cigarette smoke, that causes lung cancer. In either case there are millions of bar tenders, waitresses, comedians and what-not that have been working in second hand smoke environments without getting lung cancer. When people get diagnosed with a terminal illness, they tend to need to find a reason for it. Second hand smoke is as good a scapegoat as any.

Because some people have a point of view that they want you to subscribe to, and the easiest way to do that is to make thinking differently illegal.

Where would I look something like that up? It's not a proven stat, for starters you can't prove a statistic. If you could it would be a fact. It's simply a matter of opinion with no scientific or statistical basis, which is reitterated often enough to make it sound like fact.

The only information I can find about cot death (aka. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) is that its defined by the cause of death being unexplainable. If cigarette smoke was indeed a culprit, don't you think the autopsy would've shown this? More likely anti-smoking lobbyists jumped on an tragical event, that scientists have no explaination for yet (except it's linked to nitrogen dioxide levels in air), and used it to further their own agenda.

I dunno how it is in your country, but in our country cigarette packs have large warnings on them, stating that cigarettes are bad for you in rather direct, unsuttle language. Heres the deal tho' stress and anxiety isn't partularly healthy either. Exposure to constant stress will demonstrably give you an ulcer or lead to depressions and suicides.

So you have a choice. Smoke and maybe get lung cancer, or don't smoke and die of an ulcer or depression induced suicide. Playing the odds, with the information available today, smoking certainly seems to be the lesser of two evils. If only the cigarette companies would stop putting dangerous additives in their tobacco.

Not all facts are facts. Some facts are make believe.

FD: so this is not true then (from a UK Site):



source: http://www.sids.org.uk/fsid/dpppr.htm (bad looking website!)

nor this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2583397.stm (nice picture of mums!)

I could go on but I want to play MGS3...

the post-mortem reason for cot death is still unknown but studies show that more babies die of cot death when the parents smoke. It's pretty simple really.

... and live happily ever after :-) btw your "maybe" is a 1/3 chance, another 1/3 is heart problems and the last 1/3 is "might be OK". Great odds.

FD: I guess you smoke then. If you are trying to make a point about all facts not being facts, then fine, that's totally valid, examples are everywhere, esp. in the media. It's just that when some things seem to be proven by multiple different organisations over many years, you kinda got to start wondering if perhaps there might be something to it, haven't you?

Those warnings don't mean anything anymore.. people don't read them... and if they do they shrug it off...

You know that toilet bowl cakes are known to cause cancer in california... I guess they are safe to use in every other state...


Besides.. kids don't really buy ciggs... they bum lucy's off their friends... no warning to read.

Wow, I leave for a few days and this thread turns into craziness.

Carry on.

What, is Shagwana on holiday, or summat? :P

Hard to tell, it's not easilly verifiable. It could be statistical valid, but there's no way to test it.

Both the websites you link to, suggests smoking is a risk factor, not a cause. There is a significant difference. I would love to see a site documenting (as opposed to claiming) exactly how smoking increases the risk of SIDS, in a way that is potentially falsifyable (aka. scientific).

Bad math proves nothing. There are more smoker babies that don't die unexplained deaths than the total number of SIDS. Doesn't prove anything, but it's still a statistical fact. Like those others, it's a meaningless statistical fact, that doesn't prove anything, but they can make it look like it's scientifically valid, by making up these horrible numbers. Over 120,000 deaths each year from smoking related illnesses - well first of all, that number is arbitrary, since they count everyone who dies from lung cancer, chronic obstructive lung disease (bronchitis and emphysema) or coronary heart disease, regardless of whether they where smokers or not and regardless of their exposure to second hand smoke. Secondly that's a whole lot less, than than the number of people who die of non-smoking related illnesses (it's roughly 1/5th). So if we're taking odds again, that makes it 30 times as likely to die of a smoking related illness, as killed in traffic for instance. However as a smoker, you're still 4 times as likely to die from a non-smoking related illness.

Again, I'm not argueing that smoking is good for you. I'm just saying that I don't care much for people who want to make up bull@#!*, call it science, and use it to force their views on correct behavior onto people with a difference of opinion.

You'd be wrong. For the record, I don't smoke, and I hate second hand smoke. The difference is I'm not prepared to force legislation to prevent them from smoking, and I hope that in return, they aren't prepared to pass legislation that prevents me from playing violent video games.

No. First of all, multiple different organisations haven't proven anything. Many organisations use this EPA study as basis for their conclusions. The only problem with the study is that it's a politically motivated fraud, created by selectively choosing studies that support their predetermined conclusion. Thankfully the study has been exposed as a fraud by the Federal US court and even the Congressional Research Service conclusively falsifies that there is evidence to support the claims that Environmental Tobacco Smoke is a health risk.

Unfortunately people with a politically motivated agenda aren't going to let a little thing like facts get in the way of their crusade. Much like the religious right, they know whats best for you, and they prey on your fears to get you to subscribe to their views.

Nice to see some sensible approaches to the whole anti-smoking hysteria for a change. All you anti-smoke extremists should move here to politically uber-correct Norway. No smoking in pubs or any other public places. Just the nice, fresh smell of urine, body odours and cheap perfume.

FD: Do you not think that the "Federal US court and even the Congressional Research Service" have their own agendas too and people in pockets of other people?

To be honest, I don't care if you want to smoke, take heroin whatever in your own home, doesn't bother me. However, if you steal my stuff to feed your habit then I have a problem with it. Or if I'm eating a meal in a restaurant and you spark up next to me, I have a problem with it. Mainly just because it's unpleasant and makes me stink. I'm not too worried about the health consequences because I don't expose myself to smoke much. If I chose to do massive vegetarian stinking farts next to a load of smokers who were eating a meal, how do you think they'd feel? Furthermore, my farts won't make their hair and clothers smell, I'd actually be better of spraying some kind of poop vapour at them which stuck so they had to wash their clothes and hair when they got home. Would this be acceptable, no of course not. Then why should I put up with fag stink? Please point out from an objective point of view what the difference is...

In the past doctors used to tell women with small hips to smoke because they knew it reduced the weight of babies and would make for an easier birth. Now smoking is linked to a large number of deaths. In the future I have no doubt passive smoking releated deaths will have clearer evidence and people who had an opposite viewpoint will look like Flat Earthers.

I don't want to see games banned or taxed heavily. But games do affect the way people think, I have two boys and the oldest is nearly 5, games have had an influence on him for sure. I don't let him play games for older kids because they could be scarey or get him into a level of violence not appropriate for a primary school kid. In the future, links may be proven between games/movies/music and violence or maybe not. We could all be in denial now. But with 100% of kids under 8 playing games of some form or another in the U.K., we are soon going to find out one way or another...

great points grey...

Which lead me to want to clearify...

If you steal to support your drug habbit... stealing is illegal... the drugs don't have to be... hehe

Then don't eat at that resteraunt... go to a resteraunt that does't allow smoking. There is no reason to bring Big Brother into the equation. Let adults choose for themselves, and partents for their kids, and live and let live. A totalitarian society is a big price to pay because you find cigarette smoke "unpleasant".

Absolutely Rex... That is exactly it.

They might. But that doesn't make their points less valid, because they're not trying to prove a point, they're trying to falsify someone elses point - which is in accordance with best practices. When science is used to work backwards from a predetermined conclusion, it's not science. It can still be accurate, it can still be interesting - it's just not science, and should not be treated as such. For science to be credible, one should not ignore those scientific studies that disagree with ones own position.

But why? Here's my hypothesis: You do it, because it conforms your personal values of ethics and morality - not because there's a law preventing you from doing so. You're being a responsible parent, and your kids are probably going to do just fine, regardless of what rediculous laws politicians dream up on their cocaine fueled powertrip.

But kids have ALWAYS been playing violent games, be it cops and robbers, rugby or whatever. Just because they can now pretend to shoot an imaginary policeman instead of one of their friends, doesn't make a difference.

You have a point Rex, HOWEVER, going somewhere else isn't always an option or a wanted option. If I want to go to the truckstop because they serve better food than McDonalds, do I settle for a crappier meal just to avoid the smoke? People have to live together and both sides have to compromise...

No, I understood them, and disagreed. Just as Grey Alien stated:I don't want anyone messing with my stuff or my family either.

And your solution to GIVE drugs to drug addicts?

COME ON

Step back into reality for a second. Who pays for these drugs? Who pays for the people that administer the drugs? I have no intentions as a taxpayer to pay for someone elses drug habit.

I know a few people (acquaintances, friends, and relatives) that do/did use drugs (usually pot). Most of them haven't contributed too much to society (if anything), some take a lot FROM society (thinking of a certain cousin that's stolen just about everything there is to steal), and a lot of them often get into trouble with the law (and I'm not talking drug-related trouble).

Perhaps you could explain the valid reasons for getting high for the two heavily drugged men that came to my wifes childhood neighborhood about 2 years ago and raped/tortured/killed a family of 3? Once caught, they later stated that they had no idea why they did what they did (maybe the drugs had something to do with that?). They were supposed to rob a (apparantly wealthy) neighbors home, but not being able to find it (because they weren't from the area), they stopped at the residence that they did and proceeded to do what they did.

That family died for nothing. Now what was that again about giving away drugs?...

But it nonetheless didn't stop me from taking my GTA3 game off of the shelf and putting it away so that my 9 and 10 year old couldn't play it anymore. They can shoot ogres, and robots, but not cops... *shrugs* (nor pick up hookers)

But you already are. Thanks to the "War on Drugs" more than 21% of the US jail population is in there for drugs, the lions share of those, for possession. Who do you think is paying for that?

I know lots of people who don't do drugs (not even tobacco or alcohol) who contributed nothing at all to society either, certainly not as much as Dr. Dre, Roger Dangerfield, Harrison Ford, Richard Branson, Andy Warhol and Hunter S. Thompson. Some of which did drugs that make cannabis look like Vitamin C.

It's hard to say, without knowing them, but it isn't fair to assume that because they commited some horrible act of violence, any reasons they have for taking drugs (you don't mention whether they where high on crack or cough syrup) are invalid.

Yeah, and maybe they where just in real trouble because they'd borrowed money from someone who doesn't take collateral, but will take something much worse than your property if you miss a payment. There could be a million reasons why they did what they did, but you automaticly assume it was because of the drugs, not say because of poverty.

Hows that different? A Jack Thompsonesque 'murder simulator' is a murder simulator, whether you're shooting cops, junkies or robots.

[qoute]Step back into reality for a second. Who pays for these drugs? Who pays for the people that administer the drugs? I have no intentions as a taxpayer to pay for someone elses drug habit.[/quote]

You already do.

The value of drugs isn't just in getting high. Many have valid medical reasons. And when enjoyed in a responsible way many are perfectly safe.

They provide pleasure, in the same way that games do. They can be fun. There is nothing wrong with having fun as long as you do it responsibly.

The fact remains that everything you describe to me was done by people useing drugs ILLEGALLY. Meaning.. the law didn't stop them.

You also mention that these people might steal from you... but theft is and should be illegal. If the cops weren't busy busting drug offenders they would have more time to patrol your street.

Getting back to giving away drugs.

Obviously you wouldn't get drugs and walk out with them... You would be required to do them there... where you can't hurt anyone.

Don't mock the system. It is working very well TODAY in England where they do exactly that.. give away drugs to addicts..

now why does this work? Because most drug related crime is to get money to get the drugs... so if you provide another way to get the drugs that is legal, people almost always chose it.

The situation you describe defeats itself.



This leaves 2 possible causes for the misdeed. Either they needed the money for more drugs. Solved by getting them drugs for free.

Or the fact that they were on drugs was only a factor is WHAT misdeed they ended up doing. They were there to steal from a house, drugs or not.


Drugs being illegal also requires otherwise law-biding people to have to have contact with criminals. Drug dealers and gang-bangers, to aquire what many people grew up with.

The history of pot is worth looking into.

In this country, pot was often grown in a field that was being held fallow, since the weed doesn't draw nutriants from the soil like other plants, and gives the land a lot of rest... Most of the weed would be plowed into the field after the fallow cycle and the pot was taken out and made the farmers some extra cash.. and also provided a great way to fight boredom.

This was not too long ago.. less than 50 years.

And in many places in the south they still do this...

They don't see anything wrong with pot.. and with all the misinformation passed around by the dealers, people still think that pot is less bad for you than ciggs. Which is debateable..

Regardless... many peoples grandparents and parents smoked it legally.

So they reflect on it fondly.. and they pass that on to their kids who don't feel like pot is a drug... like it should be illegal, or that it is bad.

So they don't follow the law... and until the last 10 years... the police didn't really bother with pot much either.

pot is a gateway drug... but why?... because dealers lace their pot.. they make people become addicted to other drugs.. coke, heroine...

So then many of these kids who were just smoking some innocent pot, get into harder drugs.. they get into it heavy because they are pushed by their dealers to get into it heavy.

Most hard drug use would go away after a few decades with the right education and with the places you get drugs from telling you how bad they will be for you, and offering other drugs, that aren't addictive, and that don't damage you as much.

making the drugs illegal doesn't work... that is obvious... It doesn't stop anyone, that is obvious because the jails are full of drug offenders.

The countries that have the lowest crime rates are the ones with laxed views on drugs... at the least soft drugs.

Just making pot legal will prevent the dealers from lacing it.. because they won't be selling it.. and that will drop the bottom out of most of their scheme.. they won't be able to recruit effectively without that.

But they will still exist.

You misunderstood me. When I said they had no idea why they did what they did, I was referring to changing what was supposed to be a robbery into a pointless murder.

I didn't mention what they were high on, because I don't remember the specifics, but it wasn't 'soft' drugs.


"a few decades with the right education" - have been doing that for years
"telling you how bad they will be for you" - have been doing that as well
"offering other drugs, that aren't addictive, and that don't damage you as much." - here, take some valium

What irony... That's how it already works... You're just not happy with the drugs that they chose to be legal/illegal.

I would rather spend tax dollars on cleaning them up, than to continue feeding a never-ending cycle. You must be rich on that side of the fence, seeing as how you don't mind paying for everyones habits.

Making the drugs legal will not change anything.

Education in schools will not change anything.

It all comes down to how parents program their kids. I have a theory for how things should be but won't bore you with it.

Wol...

as I said.. we are already paying for their habbits.

We aren't teaching right.

We aren't giving good facts to kids about the good and the bad.

And drug dealers don't offer valium as a substitute for less addictive drugs.

You don't understand, or rather, don't want to understand me.

And as I said... it is obvious that making drugs illegal doesn't stop people from useing them, so the goal should be to make drugs as SAFE AS POSSIBLE to use... that means cleaning them up, providing good education to kids about RESPONSIBLE drug use, and trying to provide less addictive alternatives to people who try to buy an addictive drug.

The only way you can clean drugs up is to get rid of the dealers. And you can only get rid of them by undercutting them and giving a better price on the drugs, and you can only do that if they are legal?

DO you think drug dealers are good? Or would we be better off without them?

I never said we weren't. I said that you must not mind doing so.

They have recently discovered that addicts of drugs, tobacco, alcohol, etc. are born with a certain gene that makes them more likely to become addicts. Letting them start the cycle of addiction makes it that much harder to remove them from it. The best option is to try to prevent them from ever starting the addiction, which NEVER taking drugs would accomplish.

Addicts, that are allowed to taste, will want more...
WHY let them begin?
Just because something may be enjoyable to do, doesn't make it a right to do.
I might find it enjoyable to flash women on the street, but that doesn't mean I have a right to do it.

You know, you keep talking about taking drugs responsibly. They've been trying to curve drunken-driving for years by educating the public about the dangers of drunken-driving. We STILL have a problem with drunken-drivers. That's because they're addicted to the alcohol and won't listen to the propaganda no matter how much you try to shove it down their throats. When it comes to addictions, Responsibility goes out the window.
Drugs will be no different.

They found that alcohol prohibition didn't work.
They also found (as you've stated) that drug prohibition doesn't work either.

I don't know what the best solution is, but just giving it to them (the abusers) isn't it.

I am for better education but legality just doesn't make sense. Everything is easier said than done.

Hey, I can solve the homeless problem and the jobless problem at the same time!
We will give all of the jobless construction jobs to build homes for the homeless.
Problem solved.
Black and White?
I think not.

DampeS8N: They don't give away the SAME drugs to addicts, I presume you are referring to heroin addicts that get given methodone to ween them off heroin?

FD: Have you got kids? Basically little kids aged 4-5 get scared by stuff, OK. For example they might see something in a PG movie that you think nothing of, but they go on about it for ages and have nightmares. Even cartoons affect little kids. Moral dilemmas affect little kids, so I like to watch PG "kids" movies with my son to help explain stuff so he doesn't get worried. Shooting human shapes that have blood and gore and shout and scream is not the same as shooting fluffy cartoon creatures. Yes it's still violence, but it's not as graphic. Sure one day they'll see all this, but the more mature they are the better imho.

RexRhino: Sorry but that stinks. I live in a small town, I want an Indian meal. I've got two restaurants to choose from, both allow smoking. I'll go anyway because I HAVE NO CHOICE. OK, Pub lunch, yup sounds nice, Pop out to a pub for a lunch, loads in my town > 15 , only one has a non-smoking area. Shall I go to the same one each time, how boring. I feel like going to a bar tonight with my partner, we've got a babysitter, how nice to got out and socialise, I'd rather not go somewhere smokey, now where can I go? ... uh NOWHERE. Do you get it yet Rex?

I've always beleived that all drugs should be legal for the reasons already mentioned - illegal drugs causes the illegal trade. The 'war' on drugs is a useless and wasteful exercise that costs the taxpayer billions and has virtually no effect on the illegal trade. You can buy any type of drug from pretty much any street corner in spite of the best 'efforts' to prevent it.
It's time for new and innovative methods to deal with the problem. The current prohibition system is not working.
To suppose that all kids would instantly become heroin addicts if it were legalised is naive in extreme.
I don't recall everyone becoming an alchoholic when prohibition was lifted.
For how much longer will society bash its head against a brick wall ?

Educate people properly and give them the freedom of choice.
Keeping drugs illegal is just playing into the hands of the trafficers.

Re second -hand cigarette smoke - the average driver of a vehicle with an internal combustion engine releases something like 3 tons of poisonous gas into the atmosphere every year - much more than the average smoker - granted they don't do it in a restuarant and neither should a smoker. People will quite happily push their baby's pram along a busy city centre street without complaining while getting pummelled by poisonous gas fumes.
The amount of additives and dangerous chemicals in processed foods is a greater danger than second-hand smoke. At least with second-hand smoke you can see & smell it and take evasive action.

Live and let live - less laws not more - less government intrusion into and control of our daily lives - give people the respect, and education, to decide for themselves.

smiff: Yeah, I live in the country to avoid fumes. I sometimes see people joggin alongside a busy road, and think they must be doing more harm to themselves than good! I also understand the food thing, which is why I buy organic and avoid processed food as much as poss. I also use a minimum of household chemicals, and those I do use are less harsh alternatives. Futhermore don't forget flame retardents in carpets and sofas, plus paint fumes, plus plastic fumes etc etc. The list goes on. You can avoid some of the stuff, if you want to, and if you care. Problem with smoking in restaurants and pubs is that without a law, people will just carry on smoking in your face. Ever been on a dance floor and been "stabbed" with a fag by a flailing idiot? If people were simply more considerate, we wouldn't need a law, but people are not always considerate, unfortunately ... esp. when drunk!

I'm of the opinion that legalising drugs won't yield any larger amount of addicts and f*ck ups and "drop outs", it might do a bit, or there might be less. The change won't be massive whatever as most people will still just get on with their lives in the normal manner except they'll be able to buy decent quality stuff when they feel like getting wasted, and the government can have some tax and there won't be any criminals involved, just businessman ;-) With any luck, less people will drink alcohol and thus they'll be less alchol related violence and drink drive deaths and deaths from alchol poisoning (overdose) and liver failure etc But I doubt it, as this legal drug is well entrenched into society and is useful as a means of controlling the populace.

But valium is addiitve and damaging. Long term abuse results in amnesia, and an overdose could send you into comatose. Valium also has severe heroin-like withdrawl symptoms. Chroic use is definately more damaging and more addictive than cannabis.

What? You're saying "Reefer Madness" isn't accurate and factual?

Well given the choice, I'd rather pay voluntarily, as opposed to having some crackhead break into my house and taking what he feels he needs.

Except it is, because not everyone who is an abuser made a concious decision to do so, and legalizing drugs will make being a substance abuser a matter of personal choice, rather than bad luck.

Also addiction is not a genetic dependancy. I don't care what kind of genes you have, if you shoot heroin, you're going to be addicted. It's a drug, it's what it does, it's how the drug dealer makes his money, on the comeback.

So do adults. Everything you mentioned in that paragraph is something that effects everyone. What, you don't get affected by a moral dilemma? Or by watching the News from Iraq? Hell even watching commercials effect you (that'a why companies pay a fortune for them). It affects everybody, and kids can cope with more than you give them credit for, if they have loving parents who support them.

But how do you measure maturity? You think it's a matter of age? It's not. It's a matter of stimulation and security, and the more stimulation and security they get, the better they will be at copeing with new things, and the more mature they will appear to the world around them.

I know that, I'm not a dumbass you know.


But the fact you skirted around remains true, if you show a little kid an 18 movie like Alien or something, they'll be scared sh*tless and have nightmares about it. I'm a loving parent but I know what upsets my kids and what they can cope with, when you have your own, you'll understand a bit more ... theorising is great, but there's nothing like REAL experience. Also one day they'll try drugs of course, well I'm not gonna hammer them or be hardline because I want them to talk to me about them so I can check they are in position of real facts not "propaganda" facts so they can make an informed decision and hopefully not be wasted all through their exams etc.

If you really were worried about your health you wouldn't be on a dance floor in the first place - many people are quickly becoming deaf due to the high level of volume in most clubs - not to mention the liver damage and premature aging caused by alcohol. You are also far more likely to be the victim of violence in such an establishment or get run over/killed by a drunk driver on the way home
It's just that the cigarette smoke is more 'in your face' literally.

I used to go to dancefloors (not too loud), but I didn't drink then, so it wasn't so bad. I drink now occasionally but I very rarely binge (i.e. once or twice a year) cos that's when the major harm is done. I certainly never drink enough to throw up or fall over or act like a complete idiot. By the way, the incidence of violence on a dance floor varies depending on the venue of course, you won't get much violence in a salsa club, or even a trance club where everyone is high, more violence is likely in a standard "fun pub" with the Sky TV, lads in shirts, football supporters and rubgy teams, sad to say. Luckily I teach Aikido and drunk people are pretty slooooow and unbalanced which is perfect. Actually you might not get run over by a drunk driver, but just run over because you are drunk. I read recently that most pedestrians killed by cars are drunk and stagger out in front, interesting...

The problem is that people are ignorant. If everyone knew all the real facts before going into things a lot of really dumb choices would be avoided.

We will never get rid of all the ignorance, but better education will help.

We don't teach science and deductive reasoning in school. We don't teach critical thinking. Mainly because when we do teach it the religious right gets into an uproar.

But you really can't teach it by telling kids about what other people discovered. That is boring, and it doesn't teach you how to make your own discoveries.

There need to be 2 drug classes in school, one when the kids are young that says you should avoid drugs till you are older. Because they will rob you of your childhood and that is something everyone regrets.

Then later, maybe in Junior High, You need to have open discussion. At this point (and this only really works if they are legal) the kids are developed enough to really understand a heated argument. You need to get the kids talking about drugs in a class and then write down all the good and bad things about each drug, then weigh the pros and cons. THEIR pros and cons. And you interject things they miss as they are discussing. You show pictures of what ODing can do and warn against that. And with things like ciggs you show pictures of what prolonged use does. You talk about what addiction is and how it works. And you ask the kids if they know anyone who is addicted. You ask the kids if they have tried any drugs, and what their thoughts are about them.

You can't force them to make the responsible choice... but you sure can guide them to chose well on their own.

This again only works if the kids can critically think.. and a lot of people can't... This is why I am a strong supporter of better science education. And math.

Not just who did what BS and the formula for this is that. That doesn't teach kids anything. What you have to do is give the kids a problem, from early on in school, and have them think up solutions.

More than being the only way to teach kids to think about things rather than to just puke facts out onto paper, it is fun.

I didn't have the choice what school I went to. If I had known the school system I ended up in was terrible, I would have insisted that I get sent somewhere else.

I thought it was the same everywhere.. but it isn't.. a lot of places have better education and the populace shows it.

My school was very conservative... We didn't learn about evolution. (even that the theory existed) We didn't do expirements ever... Sex ed was 4 whole days.. 2 in 6th grade and 2 in 8th... we didn't learn about protection.... We had a group come in who told us jesus was the only person who can save us from using drugs and rape'n chicks. That town is full of blissfully ignorant people who know nothing about how to think.. It is slowly dying out under their noses.

The town I live in now teaches things a lot better. They do a lot of what I said schools should.

There is a lot of variance in education. So you can't always say... Well, my kids get great education now-a-days... They learn all about drugs...

Our drug class consisted of a cop coming in, showing us what pot looked like. (and some kid really did steal it as it was passed around the room) and telling us that drugs are bad.

I grew up in a southpark-like school... only it was highschool.

your school sounds uh backward, lucky not all the pupils are hey ;-)

DampeS8N I don't know if it must be so compicated. You may teach kids but you will never know if they will laught behinde your back. Kids will grow and they will be teens. This is the critical time.
I will say this one more.
Natural drugs. Drugs that come from the neture must be ligal all over the world because their plants.
Chemical drags must be illigal to be sold to healthfull people.

Well, I can tell you DampeS8N, that your schooling was flawed in comparison to mine, but I grew up in Minnesota, and education in Minnesota has always been a top priority in this state. I believe we've always been near the top in comparison to all the other states. Even our IQ average is higher than most states.

Sounds to me like drugs don't need to be legalized, but your education system needs tuning...

Because you had money to buy Tetris?

woah nice link ... :-/ ??

Anyway I gotta stop wasting time posting here. Hope noone has any hard feelings, I don't :-)

If you show an 18 year old kid, whose always been protected against anything potentialy dangerous, and never stimulated or challenged, he'll be scared @#!*less and have lasting nightmares too. Hell you could probably show it to a group of death row inmates, and some of them would be scared @#!*less aswell. It's a scarey movie! The only reason you're not scared of it now, is because you've seen it before, or been exposed to similar stimuli. It has nothing to do with you being 18. I think I was 12 when I saw it first, and I didn't think it was nearly as scarey as 'The Fly', and the worst bit of that was the vomiting part.

That's nice. You don't know what real experience I have. You just assume that because I don't agree with you, I must not know what I'm talking about.

FD: Yeah I saw both movies when I was around 12 and was pretty scared. Re: kids thing, when I said "Have you got kids?" you neither confirmed nor denied, and judging by the wording of your posts (because I'd have said the same stuff BEFORE I was a dad), I made an assumption you don't have kids, I'll still think that's the case, but if you prove me wrong, fine. What you are saying makes sense, mostly, I just don't personally want to expose my kids to major horror movies or excessively violent games, I think a gradual exposure to more intense stuff is better. Anyone see the tortune scene with bag over head and gross noises in Metal Gear Solid 3, *I* found that unpleasant and was glad I played it at night when he was in bed.

I was lucky enough to have part of my schooling in another school first. And to have smart parents that both skipped grades and went to great schools. (Dad went to columbia)

Otherwise.. I would have been stuck there.

But don't think that the school I went to was some kinda hell hole that only exists there... There are schools that are far worse. And every school for 100 mile around the one I went to was that bad... (well.. not in harrisburg PA or hagerstown MD)

They were just very bible-centric people.. they didn't understand how bad the education system was... they thought making 13 an hour moving boxes was a "Great Job" and "Good Money"....

When I say the education system sucks.. I don't mean everywhere.. I mean it sucks SOMEWHERE.. and it needs to clean up...

I would say... In only 10% of the schools in the USA were that bad.. and 5% worse... and 5% not a whole lot better... thats 20% of America that has little to know real education.

They can read, write, do some math, and maybe the remember some historical science and about the history of the US...

My earth science class senior year... the kids in it... some of them didn't know there was no air in space... or that the moon wasn't bigger than the sun... and some thought everything revolved around us... And when the teacher said that the earth "Is believed to be billions of years old by some people" We all groaned... I because he said believed to be by some people.. they because he said the earth might be billions of years old..

We need to stop fighting these phantom ailments of our society and focus on educating our kids... and the budget to fight drugs is much greater than what we spend on schools... I'd like to see the school budget doubled and a reform to how schools opperate nation wide...

Just cause they can study their kids up to pass a test doesn't mean the kids will retain ANY of it..

:) LOL

Is that so?...


By the way, some fun reading...
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/US-Election-IQ2004.htm
(see Minnesota at #11?)

Kinda cool too about the quote on the top of the page seeing as how it just passed yesterday...

I don't like that in.. says retarded is 75-85 which isn't true... that is the number for bordeline retardation.. retardation is 75 and below.

My mom works with em.

So that makes me question the validity of the rest of their data... regardless of thier political affiliation.

however... I find it funny that the IQ numbers are still so low.

I mean.. the average IQ of all people isn't very high (that being the natue of averages and all) but I can't imagine what it must be like to have such a low IQ...

Anyone else agree? As in, they often wonder what it is like to have an average IQ... (assuming you don't have one)

I guess it doesn't matter... some of the dumbest people I know are Mensa members.. One of the reasons I never joined it... haha

Well I agree completely. I think you should be allowed to chose what's best for you kids. Whether you want to expose them to Mortal Kombat or F.E.A.R. at age 12 should be your decision, not the goverments.

I don't think that's very statisticly accurate. See California at #14? Well in California they have this place called Silicon Valley, where some of the smartest, most well paid individuals in the entire US (probably the world) work and live. So the rest of Califonia must be pretty @#!*ing stupid to only average at about 101.

Speaking of 'average' IQ -- Consider how dumb the average person is. Now realize that 50% of the population is dumber than that. Certainly puts the world's state of affairs in perspective.



(Yes, yes, I know that average is not the same as median. Point remains, though.)

FD: At last we agree :-) Yes government control can be annoying in many ways, speed cameras for example, but at least I find the guidance on movies and games useful. I'll play a 12 game with my kid if I feel it's OK, and others I might not. I guess you could argue that in some cases government control is there to protect people who are "less aware" shall we say.

Here's the thing though. Lower than average IQ doesn't mean you're a nasty person or anything. IQ doesn't seem to have anything to do with how good natured you are or how selfish etc. Also have you notices how quite a lot of high IQ people have "problems", I know plenty, luckily I'm pretty well balanced imho. Sometimes I think life would have been simpler for these high IQ "worriers" if their IQ was lower. They may have just got on with stuff instead of fretting all the time...

Also IQ isn't a measure of wisdom in any way. Me and a guy at work both scored 143, I'm 2 years older than him, but I was the manager and he was a Helpdesk staff member, we'd both been at the same firm for years. He needed managing constantly and often made mistakes or dumb decisions, despite having the same IQ as me ... go figure. I trained another guy up with an IQ in the 120s to be my replacement and he was much more suitable than the guy with the higher IQ.

No it's a measure of the ability to do deductive logic, and has nothing to do with wisdom or intelligence.

true, although I would place deductive logic as a sub-class of intelligence. IQ tests also test some aspects of language, maths, shapes and other stuff too... which I'm sure you know.

take out the second subject and the prepositional phrase and you have:


You've heard of immigration, right? They have a big 'problem' with that in California...

Actually my mother works with them too (what a coincidence).
And one of my sisters has been tested at about 80. She, like you mentioned, is considered borderline, not retarded. (And just so you don't group me alongside of my sister, my own IQ is about 125)

Yeah, I'm not so sure about the validity of the data on the site (and there are lots of others just like it) but it does seem to show a trend...

Yeah, but I don't think immigrants are nessecarilly stupid, or particularly enclined to participate in state/county wide IQ tests.

Well I think the most credible theory is Howard Gardners "Multiple Intelligences" theory where deductive logic, is one *kind* of intelligenge (the Logical-mathematical).

But they're still all logic puzzles, which is why Dr. Gardner suggests that traditional IQ testing is too limited to accurately portray intelligence. An 'idiot savant' for example would score rediculously high in an IQ test, but still be intellectually challenged.

actually. your IQ means moe than you expect.

People with IQs within about 5 points of eachother tend to reach the same conclusions when faced with the same data... I see it time and time again.... and it doesn't mean the ones with higher IQs reach better answers either... It kind of works in a cycle. Between this number and that you miss some aspects of an issue that might have swung your view, then between that number and another it switches, and back and forth.

I haven't ever seen any statistics or anything.... this is just something I have noticed looking at all the people I have met and what their IQs are...

Grey and I both have IQs around 140 and we agree a lot.

Wol, while I don't mean we are right cause we are smarter... your IQ isn't the -same- as ours and you disagree.

I see it all the time.

Since IQ is a measure of how well you can see all the aspects of a problem and make logical choices based on it, it makes sense that people with like IQs will be able to make the same deductions.

I find junk like that interesting.

I think... if this data was correct... it would prove something that is a secondary effect of what I am talking about...

There are some issues that from a certain IQ and above everyone agrees on... I think that is when the issue has actually been resolved and a real logical answer has been found...

Unfortunately there aren't many people with IQs over 140... thats already 1-2% of the population..


Wol... I feel bad for you... I know how hard it is to be in your situation.. only you must have got it worse in some ways and better in others... My brother was never tested, but he is between 90-100... and i have an IQ of 140.. bout the same distance apart as you and your sister...

You must of had a harder time because the numbers were lower.. but an easier time with school..

What grey said is right... very few people with IQs over 130 end up well balanced.. It depends highly on the education system they are part of...

Most schools aren't equiped to, not know how to, deal with kids that have very high IQs... so from an early age we get bored in school and stop paying attention and goof off... and a lot of us have other learning disabilities... myself: Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, ADHD and others.. easiest to notice online is my poor ability to remember things by rote. Spelling, grammar, dates, and things like... you guessed it, code syntax and vocabulary, also languages in general... they all are very very hard for me.

So.. compound those together and most of the High IQ kids eventually end up in the Special Ed classes... Where they get even more bored and on top of that don't learn ANYTHING.

so... yeah.. You and I, WolRon, have a lot in common...

You do realise that the number of really smart people in silicon valley can be counted manually within minutes? The rest are workers, and employees. So I think thats pretty damn accurate don't you?

An IQ of 101 is above average.


It should only be your decision if you don't live with everyone else... and hey, if you live on a backwater farm, then no-one is going to stop you.

I actually have a kid, and you don't. That puts me in a position to appreciate guidelines as a helping hand, not as a restriction of freedom.

For as long as you live close enough to others, you have a responsibility to behave approporitely and that includes how you bring your kids up.

Jack.

Guidelines are laws.

no one is saying that the ESRB ratings should go away.. I'm all for em.

Actaully it means much less. IQ isn't even scientificly reproducable. The same person can do the same test multiple times, and get wildly different results. Stress and sleep depriviation aswell as quite a few chemicals (painkillers, cough syrups, antidepressants) can all dramaticly effect your IQ score.

That's neither conclusive, confirmable, or statisticly significant.

No there isn't. Look at this thread for a prime example. Everyone here is a programmer, thus adept at solving logical problems, thus everyone should score pretty well on an IQ test, and there's isn't a single issue we have been able to rationally agree on. In fact the only thing most people agree on are culturally motivated (violent video games) rather than rational.

Really? Some of the smartest men in the world, have made some pretty irrational, illogical decisions. Like when Adolf Hitler with an IQ of 141 made the decission to invade Russia.

You can't even manually count the number of companies, much less their employees manually, and certainly not within minutes.

Only because a score of 100 is the definition of average.

You don't know me well enough to make that assumption.

We are not talking about guidelines. We are talking about legislation (criminal or taxation) designed specificly to enfore you to abide by arbitrary and undocumented standards.

But who defines what's an appropriate way to bring up kids?

a) The government.
b) The clergy.
c) The media.
d) The childs parents.

WolRon: If it pleases you, I can write "a Guy at work and I both scored 143". I don't write on the forums in the same way that I write professionally; does this bother you? Or were you making a different point ...?

FD: I've tested my IQ a few times over the years and it always comes out around the same figure. You are right about tiredness, stress, illness etc. affecting scores, but that's just obvious common sense. There are two different scales of IQ by the way and I chose the lower one.

To answer this: I would say ...
a) hmm, well if the government is offering advice based on expert testimony based on verifiable evidence, then this is actually a good source of advice.
b) as a general principle I won't run my life based on religious tenets, but some basic things make sense, such as peace and harmony etc although we don't seem to have seen a lot of this from religious factions over the years.
c) if the media are accurately reporting non-bias scientific data which is actually put into perspective then fine, however, this is exceedingly unlikely in many cases. Some media is good and some is bad and some is middling, so to tar it all with the same "brush" isn't fair.
d) well well, parents; to link to other topics at hand, does a low IQ parent understand how to bring up children in the best way? Also does a high IQ unbalanced parent bring their children up in a loving environment? Maybe, maybe not. However, when I see pregnant mums smoking just before giving birth and then smoking in the car on the way to school, I worry about their "care and consideration for others" for sure. Some parents surely do a good job, but I would say plenty need guidance, however, whether they will accept it in ANY form is another thing.

@Grey Alien: At least you noticed the irony in your statement. The previous guy didn't.

First of all, I am a non-smoker and hate the smell of cigarette smoke. DEAL WITH IT!!! Go to places that don't allow smoke, or places that have non-smoking sections, etc. The trouble is that people sit around waiting for the government to solve all of their problems instead of voting with their pocketbook. I also find people yapping on their cell phones annoying, but no-one would seriously suggest that we ban cellphones (except in places like hospitals where they mess up diagnostic equipement like MRI scans).

If there are NO places with non-smoking in your town, it means that the vast majority of people smoke, or are not bothered by smoking (otherwise resteraunts would be happy to cater to a large population of potential customers). And so if the vast majority of the people smoke or have no problem with smoking, then how democratic is it to BAN smoking? Should we ban peanuts? (After all, some people suffer lifethreatening alergies because of this) I know someone with a life threatening alergy to Guinea Pigs - even second hand contact (coming in contact with people who have Guinea Pigs as pets) can make her sick. Shouldn't we ban Guinea Pigs? After all, those are immediatly lifethreatening situations, much more serious than "I don't like ciggarette smoke".

Now, don't get me wrong, smoking should be banned in public buildings like libraries and airports, in hospitals, and places that are OWNED by the public. Since these are tax funded and operated as monopolies or quasi-monopolies it is not like you have a choice of hospital or airport. But when it comes to private property (like a Pub), they should be free to allow whatever activity they want - especially when the activity is completly legal and considered a normal part of our culture for years.

Thank you Rex.

You bring up great points.

You can't just ban things because they can be dangerous to some people or even all people. People have the right to being protected from things that are out of their control, but like you said, you have a choice of where to spend your time. Being able to go to a bar without smoke isn't your right.

It is your right to smoke yourself to death. It should be your right to do anything you want to your body.

We ban drugs.
Ban smoking in private places resturants in some places.
Ban all these things that aren't dangerous to anyone else THEMSELVES.
How they are used can be. Drinking and driving is dangerous to others and IS and should be banned.
Stealing for drug money IS banned and should be.

You can't ban everything that could be dangerous, because you end up banning everything or being a hypocrite.

No he doesn't. What's the point in saying again "Go to places that don't allow smoke" when I've just said there aren't any?

Also this: is deeply flawed. I live in a small British town which has always allowed smoking and is behind the times. It's not because everyone smokes! For example there are hardly any black people here and old people stare at them if they see one. Get it yet? This town is old-fashioned and it shouldn't stay that way just because it's quaint or something. If the pubs/restaurants banned smoking, they might get more and more of the wealthy second-home types that live round here visiting and spending money, instead of the buy one pint and smoke fags all night cos I'm on the dole type clientelle.

DampeS8N: By linking your argument to Rex's, you should really say "don't go out of your house and drive your car or walk near roads because there might be a drunk driver there, just use the Internet to order everything. In fact don't use the Internet because your credit card details will get stolen and your PC turned into a Zombie"

Remember the other point about banning in pubs/restaurants is that it's a "workplace" and that workers are affected. So you say "get a different job". Ok small town 10% people unemployed, job comes up at pub, you turn it down because you believe it may endanger your health and remain on dole, but you get hassled by the government who make you fill out forms, send you on special courses, and generally try to stop your dole at every move.

Actually what I'd be happy with is if 50% of pubs banned smoking. Then at least I'd have some choice. But with 0% banning here, I have NO choice. If every pub in town had naked ladies dancing and you didn't want to see that, you couldn't go to a pub, but guess what, it's pretty rare for that kind of pub/club yes? So people do have a choice. Non-smoking pubs are just tooo rare.

No, that is a bad analogy. If you or someone else builds your own private track on your own private piece of land, you can drive drunk all you want. You could have good times running a big drunk driving track, so long as you didn't decieve anyone as to that there would be drunk people on the track.

The reason we don't allow drunk people on roads, is because they are PUBLIC! They are funded by the government, and used by the public at large. No-one has any choice of roads (and it would be difficult to have roads that run any other way).

I said before, that in public places like libraries, airports, hospitals, schools, and such, that banning smoking is fine. There is a distinction between private and public behavior.


But you are going against your arguement right there. If some of the pubs and resteraunts banned smoking (or had seperate non-smoking areas where you wouldn't be bothered by smoke), then there is potential for people to make more money. Wouldn't it be possible to organize a group of people who want to be smoke free, and work with the places voluntarily to establish non-smoking areas or something? You could have the stick of boycotting their resteraunts, and the carrot that it would bring in more buisness. If you organized it the same way other causes are organized, I have no doubts that you would be successful. Remember, the restrerants need you more than you need them. If you are respectful, and tolerant, and well organized, most places will make some sort of effort to accomidate you.


Perhaps there is a bigger problem in your town than smoking then. Although maybe it is a bit different in England than in North America, but here besides voting with your checkbook, you can vote with your feet, and leave an area which doesn't provide what you want. People move all the time because they are dissatisfied with what a certain town has to offer. I know someone told me that people in Europe are more attached to their home town and less likely to move somewhere else than in North America, but I am sure that even in England people vote with their feet to a cerain extent.

Is that true? Somehow I doubt it. I mean, driving drunk alone on your own property is one thing, but could you run a track for other people to come and drive drunk? I sincerely doubt it, and certainly hope not.


Democracy is such a great system for most things that it blinds people to the simple fact that just because something is popular doesn't make it right. I'm not speaking about this specific issue (I'm not sure how I feel; I hate smoke, but I would certainly hate it if the government banned, say, alcohol again,) but rather in the general sense that a lot of people treat sheer numbers as the be-all, end-all of truth. Hey, once upon a time most people thought the world was flat.



Incidentally, how has this thread not been locked?

Jhocking... I have no idea how this thread hasn't been locked... but all the things people have been wanting to post over the last few months have burst onto the thread. It is truely a great event.

You also bring up an odd point.

You are exactly right. Just because a lot of people do something that doesn't mean it is right. A good system of government would allow people to do anything they want to in the privacy of their own home that doesn't endanger others. (like shooting wildly into the air with a minigun) This country seems to think that democracy is about taking a pole to see what popular opinion is and then making that law.

Thats not what we should be doing. Democracy is about the good of the country. What is good for the country is preserving freedom.

In the USA we have sort of lost sight of that. People aren't tolerant. But they believe themselves to be tolerant and unbiggoted.

It really is mind boggling.

While there's way too much here for me to read it all, I happened to notice this while scrolling down to the bottom of the page. lol, I'll have to remember this analogy to make. Ye gods, I hate walking up the next day after a night out and all my clothes stink of smoke.

I gotta lol at that brother!

Rex: Do you realise that pub is short for Public House, as in *not* private club? Sure it's not funded by the government, but there are no admission fees like a club, and it would be nice if anyone could eat a meal without being puffed on, or just pop out to meet friends for a drink without stinking later on.

I don't want to "vote with my feet". I live in a nice area of countryside, I have family near who can help look after my kids (who go to school here), I know loads of people, and the town has loads of art and music going on. I don't want to move to a city to be able to go to the pub. I'd like to have some choice here, like I said even 50% would be good, even though only 30% of the population smoke.

DampeS8N: Yes, it would be bad to make popular opionion the law because most people are frankly ignorant of a whole bunch of stuff. That's why the government has consulted scientists and doctors in the U.K. to come up with the ban smoking in public places law. It's for the good of the people. It restricts the freedom to be "selfish" and "inconsiderate" around others. Good. The fact is when you see mums in their cars smoking fags on the way to school, these people will never be convinced that it is inconsiderate/rude to smoke fags next to someone who is eating, so a law will help to "educate" them. Bring it on, I look forward to it. I'm fed up with people with no friggin' manners on the road, in the street, on the phone, in the pub. <rant>How are we going to be a proud race going to the stars to meet alien races and leave our physical bodies behind when most of use are just flipping dumbass rude, selfish, violent, fat, lazy, uneducated idiots? </end rant>

No, I think you are missing the point of what DampeS8N said:

He wasn't saying pure democracy is bad because the people are ill informed, and we should have scientists and professionals determine what is good for us.

He was saying that freedom of choice should trump public opinion. That the government has no right to make people do things for their own good. It doesn't have the right to make them do things for their own good because a majority believe that way... it doesn't have the right to make them do things for their own good because scientists and doctors say it is that way.

The concept behind liberal democracy is that people should be able to do whatever they want, so long as it doesn't directly harm others. We elect a government democraticly in order to protect peoples rights. We don't elect a government democraticly to "rule". The only legit reason why a government should make a law or rule is to protect others from your behavior. Anything else is authoritarianism.

What we have nowadays is closure to Popular Totalitarianism / Popular Facism than traditional Liberal Democracy.

Less uptight societies (like Japan, France, at least about smoking) allow smoking without restrictions, and the world doesn't seem to be ending for them.

I hate cigarette smoke. I don't want to eat near cigarette smoke. I don't want it in my clothes. I think it is disgusting. But, living in a free society, I recognize that sometimes that freedom of choice of others trumps my wishes to never have to deal with something I don't like. I tolerate smoking, because I don't want the thing *I* enjoy to be banned (for example, I like the video game Grand Theft Auto... many people want to ban the game, most of whom are part of the same political block that want to ban smoking).

Lighten up! Live and let live. There is no reason to have the government micromanage society. They are having enough time stoping murder, rape, and stoping themselves from stealing our taxes every chance they get. They don't need to worry about small problems like this.

I know he wasn't, I was turning it into my own point. In fact I'd rather a government was made entirely of professionals, experts int their field with commitees at hand instead of pandering to the media and their own political agendas - it may happen in a sci-fi book, but not here and now for sure! I understand where you are coming from believe me but look at this ..

well you shot yourself in the foot there my friend, that's EXACTLY what the no-smoking in the workplace law is about :-)

The only legit reason why a government should make a law or rule is to protect others from your behavior when they can't reasonably protect themselves without endangering you.

That is a better way to say it... The question is: What is reasonable... and that is what should be debated.

My point in raising the bit about "what is democracy" is that, well actually exactly what y'all are saying. Thing is, who determines what behavior people should be protected from? And how is that determination made? Me, I definitely see being forcibly saturated in someone else's stink as a bad thing, and no, I could not simply choose to frequent another establishment. I move around a lot, and I have literally never encountered a no-smoking bar prior to laws being enacted. Basically, the choice is between putting up with smoke, and not having a social life. Still, is it bad enough that the behavior should be outlawed?

Yeah, because ever since we started listening to all the 'experts' and 'doctors' saying we should eat right, and exercise regularly, obesity has become the number one medical problem in the western world.

The assumtion that 'doctors' and 'experts' (never mind the government) are subjective, and have *your* best interests in mind is somewhat flawed at best.

Which people_ It's certainly not for the good of people who like to go around the pub and have a beer and a smoke before going home to the wife and kids.

Before going off to wage intergalactic war on an unsuspecting sentient alien lifeform, perhaps we should learn a little tollerance of each other first? It not even remotely likely that an alien lifeform is going to consider your judeo-christian values as good behavior.

They tried that once. In Germany in 1933, the the dumbest person in the government was Rudolf Hess with a respectable IQ of 120. Again your assumption that 'experts' and 'professionals' don't have a political agenda is somewhat flawed. Look at experts like Bjørn Lomborg, Stephen Schneider and Ian Lowe. They can't even agree on which way global warming is headed, and you want them to run the country? Just because someone is a 'professional' doesn't make them right or impartial.

No it isn't. First of all, I've already listed documents that have yet to be falsified, claiming that second hand smoke is not dangerous. No-smoking in the workplace laws are about dictating behavior, to see if they can get away with it.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak out for me.

- Martin Neimoeller

A social life is not something you're entitled to. Neither is a smoke free environment. I maintain that exhaust fumes are more dangerous than cigarette smoke. You want to protest smoking in bars? Wear hazmat gear or a smog mask.

Which is why I specifically stated that I'm not sure it should be outlawed. Although I would contend that a healthy environment is a basic human right.

a reasonably healthy enviroment. Or a healthy as can be expected enviroment.

Lets find out what truely is healthy before we write too many laws about it.

Lately I've heard about studies that link light in the night time with breast cancer... so lets just take our 50% increase in life expectancy and be happy for it until we get things straight.

Maybe something around the corner will make living in a crap enviroment actually not matter.

Until then, lets let each person decide what is right for them. Or persuade a local bar to ban smoking...

Why don't we have smoking segregation... seemed to work so well with races...

But in this day and age, can we truely get a healthy environment? Aren't we looking at various degrees of ultimately unhealthy environments, and being asked to choose between them?

If the governement really cared about your health, they would pass laws that prevented cigarette companies from putting all the unhealthy (and in many cases downright dangerous) additives in cigarettes.

That's an awesome idea. Too bad it won't work... You'll just get boo'ed out of the bar.

What's wrong with improving things instead of saying, "that's how they are, we'd just better put up with it"?


First, how ridiculous. Second, you've got the timeline wrong there, people started getting fat a while ago and only recently has the government in the U.K. started going on (a lot) about exercise and eating healthly. The problem is simply that the availability of bad food has increased, people drive more now, people watch more TV now etc This is actually the fault of the corporations who make the stuff, advertise it and keep on pushing it. Of course it's 100% also the fault of the people that choose to eat it and not excercise. What's worse is they subject their kids to the same unhealthy regime. But at the end of the day, eating what you feel like is your own choice (it won't affect other people's health in public), it's just a real shame if it affects your kids.

the *majority* who don't smoke. It alsomight encourage some of the smokers to cut down which is no bad thing for them AND the NHS bill.

I agree. However what would you rather have a) a government made of people that made it their live's mission to get into politics for whatever reason, who are not specialised in their fields, not particularly intelligent, who take money from corporations, and who have their own agendas or b) a selection of the best minds and experts in their own fields who also pass other tests to show they have a minimum "corruption index" etc. or c) members of the public randomly selected and who are forced to serve as MPs or d) something else, maybe a giant computer, just as long as it's not running Microsoft Government 2020 :-)

Look, lets just get logical about this OK? Smoking is proven to hugely increase chances of lung cancer and other lung problems, and heart problems also. Do you agree on that, or is that made up too? So, what is the difference between inhaling it yourself from a fag or sitting in a room and breathing it in from the air? Do you think that all the cancer causing agents are absorbed by the first user and that all that's left is a smelly residue? I don't think so. Second-hand smoke makes my eyes water, my throat and lungs feel sore, and gives me a generally light headed feeling. Do you think that doing this every day if you worked in a pub would have literally NO effect on your health. It just doesn't seem logical. In the same way if you worked everyday next to a busy road I'm sure you would fall ill. You are 100% correct that car fumes are a very bad problem and probably worse than cigarette smoke which can at least be avoided if you want no social life.

History. Some of the worlds greatest catastrophies where born from the best intentions. British colonization of India for example, was driven by British lords who wanted to improve living conditions in India. Mankind is simply not smart enough to know all the variables in advance, and without such knowledge, it is impossible to know the consequences.

Sorry to bust your bubble, but people like Jim Fixx, who is generally regarded as one of the people who started all this healthy lifestyle trend, died in 1984 - and released his best selling book in 1977, almost 30 years ago.

No it isn't. It's the fault of the stupid morons who think 'The Bachelor' and 'Survivor' is entertainment! The corporations would stop making this mindless drivel, if people stopped watching. Just like pubs would ban smoking, if non-smokers stopped comming.

Som minorities, like Communists, Socialists and Jews shouldn't have any rights, because they're not a majority? Thats rather dangerous thinking.

People don't smoke because they think the stink gives their clothes ambience. They smoke because it's a drug and they're addicted. Besides which, in Denmark, cigarettes are heavilly taxed to offset any real or imagined strain on the health bill.

C. Give the real power to the ones who don't want it - they won't abuse it. Anyone who's a professional should be automatically disqualified.

That's not at all logical. It's simplistic. Like how Aristotle thought that a ball with ten times the mass would fall to the ground ten times as fast. A logical, rational thought that was held to be true more than 2000 years until this guy called Newton went out and falsified it. And that's the point of science. You don't formulate a theory and start proving it's true, you formulate a theory and then start trying to prove it wrong! Much like when debugging software. You're not interested in finding the parts of your program that works, you're interested in finding the parts that don't work.

I don't agree, but it's not made up. It is a half-truth tho'. It's not the smoking part that's dangerous, it's the hundreds of chemicals they (cigarette manufacturers) introduce to the tobacco to make cigarettes more addictive, that is the reason smoking is dangerous.

The concentration of dangerous chemicals. The concentration of dangerous chemicals is much greater in direct inhalation, than inhaling smoke dispersed in air. Besides the fact that the lung is great at filtering cigarette smoke, even someone blowing smoke in your face is not going to expose you to the same concentration of dangerous chemicals as direct inhalation.

It doesn't matter what I think, it matters what I can falsify, so until someone has falsified the claims that second hand smoke does not have any relation to cancer, I'm going to have to take the scientists word for it, as opposed to the nitwits (like the EPA) with a political agenda.

Another thing about smoking is the propable addiction; A simple signal to me that its not benificial to us in any way. Causing people to become compelled into buying and using something recreational, is obviously immoral.
Of course it can't just be removed. I've never had too much of a problem with other peoples smoke other than in someones house when they are smoking, where the stuffy air and trapped smell repulse me enough to widen all doors and windows. As long as a public house is ventilated well enough, and large enough, it doesnt 'seem' to affect me (ie im not agitated or annoyed about)...Mind you all a roof fan does is blow the smoke into my eyes, which is rather painfull and uncomfortable.
It will probably cut down on the number of people who do smoke however, and that of course is a good thing.
Hospital patients who smoke (quite often shouldnt be) have to (as well as the staff) leave the hospital to smoke. The hospital here is on the top of a hill...Not all of them will make it back up again...lo...l. Additional stress in particular for the staff and patients. This issue is rather Grey, but im with Alien on this one.

No it won't. You can't regulate behavior, much less compulsive behavior, by law. All you're doing is creating more victimless crime.

You know what the result of this is going to be ofcourse. The death of the Pub as we know it, from now on, they will be private clubs, where pussies will be turned away at the door by a large guy named Ivan. Anyone wanting wmployment is going to have to sign a medical release, and just like that, the law is circumvented. Except now if you want a social life, you can't just drop into an establishment and have a good time (because everything offensive and dangerous like tobacco and alcohol is outlawed), you have to go to the speakeasy you're a member of, and will never ever again meet new people.

Once again. If they cared about your health they would go after the cigarette manufacturers who are intentionally adding dangerous chemicals to cigarettes. But they don't care about your health, they care about getting you to think like them.

You are saying "Who would you like to control your totalitarian regime?", but you are forgeting the other option: That government just says the hell out of the personal lives of people, and sticks to defending the borders, printing money, building roads, and catching bank robbers! We don't need ANYONE to micromanage the lifestyles of people. This is not natural, it is not democratic, and it won't work!


I am not sure what you are saying is correct. Tobbaco nowadays contains more nicotine and more harmful checmicals that tobbaco traditionally had 500 years ago when it was introduced to Europeans... but is this because they are actively adding checmicals, or just through selective breeding over the generations has created a more extreme and unnatural version of tobbaco? I believe in many countries it would be illegal to add chemicals as an ingredient to tobbaco without listing it as so?

Yeah and lots of the good intentions really worked out too! Just picking the opposite of what I say is counterprodive and a lame way to argue; see I just did it too. Also extrapolating to an extreme to disprove a normal point is bad logic. Generally in our lives we could make lots of small improvements that wouldn't be negative at all. Constant development and improvement of yourself is a noble goal.

Now you're just arguing for the sake of it. Of course it's partly the fault of the food producers AND the TV companies (like you said) AND the "users" of the food/TV. Anyway the TV companies own the other forms of media that fill the public's mind up with rubbish too.

There we go, some nice extrapolation again. Who gives a toss about Jim Fixx. Listen I live in the U.K. and healthy eating has always been vaguely on the agenda but it's only been a media issue (that the goverment has felt pressure to respond to) for the last couple of years. That's what I was saying and you know it.

"Imagined" hey. So smokers dying of diseases doesn't cost the NHS any more money? What planet are you on dude? Or are you saying that the cigarette taxes cover this?

some things are logical AND simple because they are obvious because they are true. Smokers die from smoking. Sitting round in other peoples smoke is still harmful to you, to a lesser extent. You keep saying people haven't proved this, which is just bull. Sure some people (with a vested interested) say it has no effect, a bit like the cigarette companies originally did about smoking. If there are two bunches of conflicting evidence, how about erring on the side of caution for now until it's 100% proved/disproved to everyone's satisfaction. Anyway, I'm willing to take risks, for me the issue is it's just simply inconsiderate of so many people and I have very limited choice about where to socialise and stay non-smelly/non-irritated.

Yeah I know that of course. But the concentration may well still be high enough to affect you negatively. I already said it affects my eyes, throat and wellbeing, so why not my health over time? Also don't forget, smokers inhale through a filter yet the end just burns away in the air with no filter for everyone to inhale. Go here and have a quick read:

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/smoking/chemicalfactory_00508.htm

It says "The smoke you inhale is called mainstream smoke, the smoke from the cigarette tip between puffs is called sidestream smoke. Mainstream and sidestream smoke have different chemical compositions: sidestream smoke contains a higher concentration of harmful substances. Almost 85 per cent of smoke in a room comes from sidestream smoke."

Also it explains why additives are used. The nicotine is the addictive thing, they don't need to make it more additive (debate rages over additional ammonia). The additives are for other purposes. The 4000 chemicals in a cigarette are just side-effects of burning all that stuff, they are not "individually" added in the factory.

In 1999 taxes made up over 80% of the price of cigarettes in the UK. For some reason I don't think the percentage has dropped much since then. The average smoker consumes maybe a pack a day. Say, for simplicity's sake(I don't really know what they cost in the UK) that a pack of cigs costs 3 GBP where 2.4 of those are taxes. Now, say the smoker has been smoking since age 20 and croaks from smoke-related illness when he's 65; that's 2.4*16425 days = 39420 GBP in tobacco tax alone. That and the fact that he never reached retirement age probably makes him far less of an expense for society than his non-smoking fellow man, medical expenses or no.

Erik: Yeah, I'd better take that one back. I found this:
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/smuggling/html/taxfaq.html#_Toc521915758

Like what?

Sure it is, I'm not saying it isn't. I'm saying that it should be my choice, not the governments.

Where as obesity has been on the agenda for how long?

Well that's an interesting point considering I've offered links to two independent and impartial studies that support my view, and you have yet to link to anything, and only briefly mentioned the name of a non-smoker who died of lung cancer and blamed second hand smoke.

How do you know which side is the side of caution?

Well I'm going to reitterate Rex' point about mobile phones, because I think it's a valid one. I think people who have their phones ringing during conversation (never mind those who actually abort the conversation to answer the phone, or respond to the text message) are inconsiderate, and it annoys me a great deal, yet I'm not advocating passing of a law to ban mobil phones in public places.

Also I find people who are intollerant of others behavior somewhat inconsiderate (anti-smokers and vegetarians in particular) and often downright rude, but I'm not advocating a law to outlaw them in public places either.

I know this already. If you had read the CRS report I linked to earlier you would know that I know this too. You would also know that:

"A few researchers have challenged the clasification of ETS as a known human carcinogen based on its relationship to MS. They point to the fact that MS contains chemicals at concentrations of up to one miliion times tbose found in ETS, and that more of the chemicals are in the particle (tar) phase df MS."

and that:

"Researchers do not know how the levels of these individual compounds relate to overall ETS exposure, or exposure to those ETS constituents that may be linked to lung cancer. Indeed they do not know which ETS constituents are responsible for lung cancer and other health effects attributed to ETS exposure."

and finally they mention that:

"In order to estimate ETS lung cancer risk using cigarette equivalents researchers assume that there is a linear relationship between exposure (number of cigarettes smoked a day} and cancer risk that extends from the relatively intense exposures typical of active smoking down to the much lower exposures associated with passive smoking. EPA uses this type of straight-line extrapolation from high exposures down to zero exposure in all its cancer-risk assessmeats but researchers do not know the actual shape of the exposure-risk relationship for passive smoking and lung cancer."

So in short, the 'scientists' and 'professionals' you think are qualified to run a country are making assumptions about things they know nothing about.

This started off as a thread about taxing games ridiculously. So... what're you talking about now since I can't be arsed reading all ~100 posts.

Of course, if he keels over from terminal lung cancer the day he turns 65, you can bet that he didn't just 'catch' it the night before, out of the blue. The smoker would likely have spend years deteriorating first, unable to work and support himself, relying on public support.

He likely would also have cost the public healthcare system many hundreds of thousands or even millions in expensive diagnostics, extensive chemotherapy, medication, taking up hospital resources, etc. Hint: The insurance company doesn't print their own money in their basement -- all of these very real costs are being payed by society as a whole.

Your taxes and insurance premiums are a lot higher than they could be, partially thanks to smokers and other 'risk takers' that 'aren't hurting anyone else'

The expenses are orders of magnitudes larger than the supposed 'profit' generated by these kind of taxes. It is amazing just *how* expensive a major illness can be. My son was born premature, and had to spend the first 5 weeks of his life in the hospital. The total bill for that alone came to somewhere around $200.000. (No surgeries or extraordinary procedures were required)

By comparison, cancer can drag on for years, requiring insanely expensive treatment methods. It's really not unusual for treatment plans to end up costing millions.

It's the same reasoning as to why there are laws against things like driving a motorcycle without a helmet -- at first sight, it looks silly, who are you hurting there? It's just your own neck on the line, right?

Of course, but that little bit of legislative prevention saves society many millions, since it greatly reduces the chances of you getting near-fatally injured if you have an accident. Thanks to a helmet law you are much more likely to recover and remain productive, rather than lay around as a vegetable for another 40 years while taking up millions in resourses.

But anyway, my main gripe with smoking is that it stinks to high heavens, and the smell clings forever to you even if you just pass by.

Time for just one more analogy. Hypothetical question to smokers: How would you feel if a random bullemic person would throw up all over you from the next table over in the restaurant, and then tells you "Don't worry, it's just second-hand food. It probably won't kill you."? Same difference.

Sure they don't know the shape, but that doesn't mean the graph shape is a flat line on 0!

Anyway I'm tired of this thread, go forth, smoke and be happy.

Thanks for the debate FD and others, it's been fun.

@xlsior:
Yes, I didn't bother to scour the net for statistics, I just did a common sense hypothesis. Maybe this is more helpful:

From www.no-smoking.org:

However, further down:

Note how they say 9,510 million instead of 9.5 billion to try and make it sound less than it actually is. Nice try.

Here's the link:
http://www.no-smoking.org/june03/06-19-03-6.html

And here; ASH, Action on Smoking and Health, gladly admits revenues from cigarette tax are six times larger than smoke-related health expenses:
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/smuggling/html/whytax99.html

Erik. you must've missed my post above where I posted the same info via a link.

Oh right, I read it but didn't notice it came from the same source. The extra links were meant for xlsior though anyway.

> Hypothetical question to smokers: How would you feel if a random bullemic person would throw up all over you from the next table over in the restaurant, and then tells you "Don't worry, it's just second-hand food. It probably won't kill you."? Same difference.

I am a smoker so I'm going to answer this question. I would be pretty horrified. But then if I threw up over myself I would also be pretty disgusted. I am however, not disgusted with the smoke in my clothes. This question just proves how wrong you attitude is. :)

This analogy is even better than Grey's. I totally have to remember this one.

@muk: Whether or not you are disgusted by your smoke is besides the point. The point is that other people are disgusted by it; is it fair for you to force your lifestyle onto others?

I absolutely dont understand why this topic is still not deleted. Are the mods becoming irresponsible again?

@#!* @#!* @#!*

I wouldn't mind if anything you guys were saying was useful to the world. But it isn't. It's only useful to yourselves because as we all know nobody online will change their mind even if they know they're wrong. These topics are extrmely annoying in reminding me how bored all of you must be to write such identical drivel a 1000 times every year. There are other forums for this.

Lenn John: How bored you must be to dis this thread with your drivel for the 1000th time ;-)

wow, this is a sore spot isn't it?

Over 100 posts.

Man.


Well, their just blowing steam out there a**. Those crazy radicals don't have the guts.

Pro-lifers would say yes.




EDIT

My hope is that THAT gets this deleted or locked.

Hell, while we're at it, let's try to ensure a lock.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucac/20060209/cm_ucac/calvinandhobbesandmuhammad

Best article ever.

> Whether or not you are disgusted by your smoke is besides the point. The point is that other people are disgusted by it; is it fair for you to force your lifestyle onto others?

I am a smoker so I'm going to answer this question. No, it's not fair. However, I personally never smoke around food, I think it's nasty and spoils the enjoyment of food. I also try not to smoke around kids and people I don't know very well. With this in mind I'd like to add that this question just proves how wrong your attitude is. :)

lmao noel

too right grey

i think the mods simply think this is such a stupid boring topic (the one that started) that they dont even want to look at it. i guess we can write anything here! yay! its on the forum, but its off the forum at the same time! invisible to mods only!

Ok let's have fun... er....

Albanians are pigs! :o

i have nothing else clever to say

Love it when people get worked up on the mods behalf :) Keep at it boys!

So, smoking should be outlawed? Because, as I've stated several times, my attitude is that smoking should not be outlawed.

Anyway, your statement doesn't make any sense. I already stated that your personal preferences are besides the point, and yet you restate them. Regardless of what you personally do, the point is that a lot of people do smoke in restaurants and bars, and they stink up the joint. Perhaps I should rephrase my question: is it fair for them to force their lifestyle onto others?

Are we talking abour religion here? Game related threads never get this long? Seems like a weak nerve has been hit ;)

the mods are laughing at us from their spacestation like we are ants.

maximo: No it was games, then went drugs, and the settled on smokeing for most of it. Don't think it's gone religi or politcal (except for some of the pro-smoking arguements saying banning is the governements testing out how much they can get away with controlling the populace; worryingly this may be worth considering).

I don't think so, however I did throw in a small jab at Islam for being the most hypocritical religion ever. They claim to be peaceful, and yet when a small comic comes out they start rioting and freaking out.

You don't see Christians, Catholics, Satanists, Buddhists, or any other religion doing this when a comic comes out making fun of them.

Best quote ever: `Muslims are the only people who make feminists seem laid-back.'

All of this is relavent to video games:

The same people who want to ban smoking, want to ban drugs, want to ban videogames, want to ban anything that is fun.

If video games are going to survive as any kind of artistic medium or buisness, we are going to have to move away from the reactionary "WHEN IS THE GOVERNMENT GOING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!?!?!?! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!" mentality.

It is a culture war between intolerant reactionaries who want the government to control everything, and reasonable people who want to live their lives with some basic amount of freedom.

What suprises me is how many people in a forum for a video game development product are on the anti-video-game side of the issue (or at least support the anti-video-game people on everything but video games, thereby allowing them the political power to ban video games).

Those people really irritate me. Especially the parents that would dare to preach that. It's like saying "I'm a crappy parent, therefore the government should take my place." The person had the damn kid, it's their responsibility first and foremost to ensure that the child lives a healthy life, is properly educated, understands 'right and wrong' (while relative, it's still neccessary), etc.

I'm honestly surprised I haven't killed any of these people yet.

Those of us who are intelligent are capable of distinguishing one issue from another. Still, yours is definitely a valid point; there are plenty of people who can't distinguish one issue from another, and it all turns into a big ole Dems vs Republicans issue.

Fact of the matter is that many people are being hypocritical when they say the government should remove itself from people's lives . "Don't tell me how to live my life! Also, you don't be gay etc etc" Your dicotomy is illusory; it all comes down to people wanting to force their lifestyle on other people, and what differs is what lifestyle we're talking about.


Also, lol @ muslims compared to feminists

This'll get the thread locked! (As long as it doesn't get me banned)



Now I find that funny. Do any Americans or is it insulting to you a bit like the Prophet cartoon?

You are exactly right that it is "both" sides of the political spectrum that are guilty of trying to force their lifestyle choices on people. But the thing is, the old Left/Right dichotomy isn't really accurate. Left and Right want essentially the same thing (government control), and are different in the rhetoric they use and the fear they exploit to achieve it.

A more accurate system would a spectrum of government control, with Totalitarian on one side, and Anarchist on the other side, with what we call the "left" and the "right" being extremly close to the Totalitarian side.

But all of this has relevence to video games and the Blitz community. Video games are the latest thing that people are clamoring for government control over. If we are not careful, there won't be any indie games industry, because the costs of dealing with government regulation (imagine if you had to pay a fee to have a government agency to playtest and evaluate your game and determine if it is "appropriate", and to reverse engineer it for any hidden content ala Hot Coffee)... these costs would be too high for the average indie developer to afford.

Video games could end up like TV - Only Governments and big Corporations can afford to produce television for the public, because of the enourmous costs and restrictions on the TV medium. Already regulation has just about killed Internet radio.

I'm not sure what'd be insulting about that...

The tetris animation is better.

I was musing recently how here in NYC, where it actually happened, the event isn't still looming in everyone's mind the way it is in other parts of the country. I mean, yeah it was a huge deal, and yeah we'll never forget about it, but we really only think about it once a year, during the Presidential address.

jhocking: Link?

If the mods dont lock this by tomorrow, im going to post some porn.


I saw it in the X Files! It's those evil powrful men and their underground government, i knew it!

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Image:Sep11.gif

That Twin Towers 404 pic nearly made me choke on my cereals :D More!

ban cereals they are dangerous!

watch this then, it gets really good at the end!

http://www.hugi.is/hahradi/bigboxes.php?box_id=51208&f_id=1000

That twin towers pic is freaking hilarious... and I am an american...

EDIT

I don't look at a forum thread like this one as something negative.. We had a nice discussion, exchanged some Ideas.. and while it is true that few people change their mind during a discussion out of pride, that doesn't mean that readers don't change thier mind, and that people don't change their mind in retrospect... In the past I have.

This remained pretty together and wasn't all that flamey. It was actually a mostly intelligent internet discussion. They are so rare.

Especially about these topics.

It is this kind of open and raw, yet intelligent and respectful argument that is missing from out current system... Everyone gets so heated, and especially the republicans are pressured to not change their minds about things. It is viewed as a weakness. Flipfloping.

It really is sad.

I like this thread. I want it to live.

Democrats and Republicans are both idiots. To quote Chris Rock "Anyone who makes up their mind before they hear the issues is a @#!*ing fool, okay? Be a person.".

I think Rex raised a valid point about the FCC and what you can see on public broadcast television.

Remember the FCC is an appointed (not elected) body, answerable only to congress, charged with regulating corporate broadcast TV. And you wonder why so many people have HBO.

In the future games could go the same way.

Its amazing how widespread lack of long-term memory is.

common has anyone watched the vid yet? Stick with it, it's worth it!! my god lol!

I'm not going to get drawn into discussing religion Noel, because then this thread will grow to 300 posts.

I tried but my connection can't hack it or something! 2 secs playback - 10 secs waiting and repeat. Rrgh! I'll see if it's more agreeable later.

Hahahaha, I love that pic Grey Alien, thanks :)

> So, smoking should be outlawed? Because, as I've stated several times, my attitude is that smoking should not be outlawed.

I assume you mean a non-smoking law for public places? Personally i think its perfectly fair to have a law prohibiting smoking in public places because if there was no law then it would be harder for people trying to run non-smoking venues. Just as long as the law doesn't require all public places to be non-smoking, thats going too far i think.

> I should rephrase my question: is it fair for them to force their lifestyle onto others?

As I already said, "No, it's not fair." Which is why i don't mind having a non-smoking law as stated above.

How do you figure that? Surely it's (theoretically) easier for en establishment who caters specificly to non-smokers to thrive, with less competition.

no.. it isn't fair for non-smokers to force their lifestyle onto others. And it isn't fair for smokers to force theirs, or christians, or muslims, or nazis, or skinheads, or peta, or the amish.