[09:33:23] Julian Gold says: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6225286.stm
[09:34:13] Julian Gold says: (Pretentious, moi?)
[09:46:04] Chris Ollis says: you could argue that yes it was a "fine piece of art" being a creatively constructed medium designed to make people think and react emotionally. But it doesn't stop it being wrong. When will the human race stop doing things without questioning if it should?!
We had a very similar game almost made while I was at Codies called "Drive by", I refused to work on it. It eventually got canned.
[09:58:05] tom kelly says: one of the advantages of educating people should be to be able to avoid censorship
[10:13:44] Julian Gold says: it would probably be a good thing to start educating people then (wait)
[10:13:59] Julian Gold says: (oh the satire!_
[10:14:07] tom kelly says: lol
[10:14:09] Chris Ollis says: But if everyone was educated then no one would buy these games!
[10:17:40] david j bailey says: have a look at the titles on sale in WH Smith on the /book/ shelves. Pure filth, evil, sadistic, violence, sex, etc. We do not censor books, why do we censor images?
[10:18:27] tom kelly says: because 4 year olds don't know the word biestiality and it'd be nice to keep it that way
[10:18:37] david j bailey says: nor does the OED ....
[10:18:39] Julian Gold says: they are different media: books require mental image construction whereas pictures don't - they therefore exercise different parts of the brain
[10:19:43] Julian Gold says: (that's not an a priori argument for censorship; merely a conditioner for the rationale that they should be considered separately)
[10:20:38] Matt Kelland says: The book/film censorship argument has been raging for about a century - as has the fine art/photography argument. It boils down to "books & fine art are for the literati, so they can handle nudity etc, films & photographs are for the hoi polloi who need to be protected."
[10:22:20] Julian Gold says: the problem with that is that there are more "hoi polloi" than "literati" and therefore we'd expect a greater number of extreme behaviours at the ends of the bell curve
[10:23:08] Julian Gold says: IOW in no way does it address the issue "what psychological effects do media have on us and is there a motivation for addressing it at policy level?"
[10:25:27] Julian Gold says: I always wonder: what would happen IF tomorrow a study categorically demonstrated that (say) video games were harmful beyond all reasonable doubt? Would we accept it, or try to rationalise it away? It's characteristic of humans to treat evidence that supports their own predilections more favourably than that against. This is the problem with self-regulation.
[10:27:09] Ben Sanders says: studies dont demonstrate things beyond all reasonable doubt
[10:27:27] tom kelly says: i think that was the point
[10:27:28] Julian Gold says: you're missing the 'IF'
[10:27:32] Ben Sanders says: and people dont stop smoking just cause it is harmfull (well, some do, but...)
[10:27:38] Chris Ollis says: and you can prove anything with the right facts ;)
[10:27:42] tom kelly says: it's a question of risk perception - we see less risk in situations we control.
[10:30:02] Julian Gold says: studies are based upon probabilistic methodologies. "Beyond reasonable doubt" could simply be that the hypothesis sits in the 95% confidence interval
[10:32:48] Matt Kelland says: New Sci a couple of weeks ago reported on some very in-depth studies which all suggest that watching violent TV does have an effect on kids. More importantly, though, they continued with a further set of studies that showed how different groups of people react to such studies - basically, we simply do not want to accept those findings.
[10:34:11] Matt Kelland says: Advertisers are quite happy to accept that showing their products on TV does influence people to buy them, and showing their products in a negative light may prejudice people against them; but they're not prepared to accept that viewing other forms of content has an equivalent effect. Humans are very good at rationalising contradictions.
[10:34:39] Ben Sanders says: doing stufies that result in an obvious conclusion are not going to affect people who were ignoring the obvious conclusion anyway
[10:35:01] Julian Gold says: which is precisely the motivation for censorship
[10:35:41] Matt Kelland says: No - the motivation for censorship is to ensure conformity to social norms.
[10:36:27] Julian Gold says: well maybe: but IMHO it's a better motivation for censorship (which generally I do not support)
[10:36:44] tom kelly says: scary media is scary. we are hard wired as social animals to protect those we see as vulnerable from scary stuff. problem is - as arrogant monkeys we all see many others as inferior and vulnerable.
[10:56:43] tom kelly says: does anyone mind if paste the last hour of the chat to the company blog?
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