I recall GTA having way less cops than in real life too, which definitely is what is happening in a lot of cities.
On the plus side, perhaps I can mount flamethrowers on my subaru and live out my 90s childhood fantasies if big US cities keep on going down this path.
> I recall GTA having way less cops than in real life too, which definitely is what is happening in a lot of cities.
Are you sure about that? I saw a lot of patrolling police in the game, which would be highly unusual for all cities I lived in. Additionally, getting a wanted star makes police appear nearly immediately - while in real live I've seen times from a few minutes (urgent situations) to an hour and beyond (for minor traffic accidents). So I'd argue the police is far more present in GTA.
Well it has had a resurgence too. When I open Twitch randomly it seems like 80% of the streams are GTA V for some reason. It wasn't like that a few months ago.
> Rep. Marcus Evans Jr. wants to amend a 2012 law preventing some video games from being sold to minors. Friday, he filed HB3531, which would amend that law to ban the sale to anyone of video games depicting “psychological harm,” including “motor vehicle theft with a driver or passenger present.”
> Besides addressing carjacking, the bill also changes the definition of a “violent video game” to one in which players “control a character within the video game that is encouraged to perpetuate human-on-human violence in which the player kills or otherwise causes serious physical or psychological harm to another human or an animal.”
The fact that this legislator seriously proposed this, much less entertained the idea, proves we've got some seriously incompetent people running the government.
How can I possibly think Rep. Evans has sound reasoning and is a compentent policymaker for everything else Chicago has to deal with?
We are living in the age of moral indignation and outrage rather than intelligence and understanding. On the one hand, it does nothing to address the problem. On the other hand, that's good because it means there is more fuel for outrage in the next election, too.
"moral indignation" is timeless. But it does feel uniquely current to have two political parties that seem to use it as their primary currency (in the US at least).
I have trouble recalling any major legislation after the Affordable Care Act that wasn't fully grounded in moral indignation or virtue signalling.
Well, the age of enlightenment was well over a century and people seem to like moral indignation and outrage more, so I'd guess we're gonna stick with it for a while.
The 90s were the peak of legislators trying to shift blame onto violent videogames and other media. Do you remember the uproar following the release of Mortal Kombat? Or the mini-satanic panic over magic cards?
Not to mention the big Satanic Panic over backmasking in music and Dungeons and Dragons and women working outside the house and leaving their kids in Satanic preschools and, before that, the panic over Rock'n'Roll music and, before that, the panic over Jazz and, before that, the panic over the Foxtrot...
Come to think of it, there seems to be a panic every time the culture changes.
It was. The late 90s and early 2000s were chock full of moral panic about video games in general and Grand Theft Auto specifically, with speeches about "murder simulators" training our youths to kill being quite common.
> The fact that this legislator seriously proposed this, much less entertained the idea, proves we've got some seriously incompetent people running the government.
Hillary Clinton also tried to make GTA illegal, which is a large part of why Trump became president.
And a fairly simple read of the link will indicate that what's being discussed is the enforcement of the ESRB ratings so kids get age-appropriate material. Not the banning of video games.
The ESRB isn't a governmental body, its more like an ISO/ASME. What's being discussed is to write laws that would be enforced by a governmental-body, not by an industry-body, with fines/penalties/criminal-indictments collected/issued/enforced by that government.
Once legislators are involved, the ban on games sales would happen at a country-legal level, albeit only for children. Did I get that wrong? Does anyone here know more about the ESRB that I'm missing?
A fair question generally. But also one that's not very relevant to this thread. There are already age restrictions on many activities anyway and proponents on both sides.
The point was that the parent poster was talking about a full ban on games and posted an example which did not support the assertion.
> The point was that the parent poster was talking about a full ban on games and posted an example which did not support the assertion.
It was basically a full ban on video games for anyone under 18. IIRC even games like Super Mario Bros. and PAC-MAN could have been banned for violence under the proposed standard.
I don't know about anyone else, but I read the sentence as a causal opinion, mentally adding an "I think" into his phrase. I wasn't sure if his "fact" had any truth, but "effect" is debatable in almost all cases. And that's a useful mnemonic to have, because it allows you to avoid the common trap of needing to "prove" someone wrong on the internet.
A*****17: Hillary Clinton also tried to make GTA illegal, which _I think_ is a large part of why Trump became president.
He’s right that Hillary tried to ban violent video games but it was long before her election and there’s no evidence to suggest it had any bearing whatsoever on the election.
There was other stuff she did in the past that had no relevance to the election that I think turned off a lot of voters in 2016, whether that specific issue was something important to people, I'm guessing at least a few.
My specific indifference to her was her connection to Monsanto, the company.
Why do you think 4chan users were spending all their free time making pro-Trump and anti-Clinton memes? The GTA ban was one of the main things Clinton did to make that demographic hate her.
I wonder how targeted that was - I remember a ton of crap surfacing from that particular cesspool m but never saw this one. It seemed a lot more like Gamergate just kept going and added the more mainstream conspiracy theories.
I’d also be very careful about taking anything they say at face value. The slogans change but the targets remain consistent.
I don't think it played any part in her loss to Trump, but Clinton did push for video game legislation while a Senator, in response to the GTA "Hot Coffee" controversy.
The United States Family Entertainment Protection Act (FEPA) was a bill introduced by Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and co-sponsored by Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Tim Johnson (D-SD) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) on November 29, 2005. The bill called for a federal mandate enforcement of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings system for video games in order to protect children from inappropriate content.
The FEPA would have imposed fines of US$1000 or 100 hours of community service for a first time offense of selling a "Mature" or "Adult-Only" rated video game to a minor, and $5000 or 500 hours for each subsequent offense. The bill also called for a FTC investigation into the ESRB to ascertain whether they have been properly rating games.
> Besides addressing carjacking, the bill also changes the definition of a “violent video game” to one in which players “control a character within the video game that is encouraged to perpetuate human-on-human violence in which the player kills or otherwise causes serious physical or psychological harm to another human or an animal.”
Unless I'm totally misreading that, it sounds like GTA isn't even the tip of the iceberg. That's... a lot of games?
I mean, besides all the obvious (every FPS, arguably many RTSs, etc) I'm pretty sure this would even ban Minecraft?
Such demagoguery. Material forces, such as poverty, and availability of guns, play second fiddle to video games and even language in the 2020's. One can't not talk about connections between these material forces and crime.
I know criminal justice reform is an extremely contentious topic, both from a data standpoint and from a moral standpoint, but one can't just not talk about connections between changes in the law and crime.
I don't live in Chicago, but in my city the police are saying that due to the decriminalizations of 'quality of life' crimes, and the elimination of cash bail for almost anything that isn't extremely violent, they are demoralized as they arrest someone and they either don't get charged, get released immediately, or get a desk appearance ticket. When we ask them why violent crimes have skyrocketed, they tell us, our hands are tied. Maybe the cops are lying, maybe not, but it's at least on the table as discussion topic.
... or we can ban all violent video games. Hey, here's an idea, let's ban all porn, that should solve all the sexual assault issues too. Let's ban alcohol and that should reduce violence, and ban smoking and that'll reduce lung cancer. It's so simple when the demagogues propose a solution.
Being insensitive to those concerns is not necessarily wrong. The level of concern about being targeted by criminals seems to have almost no relation to the level of risk.
They have problems with all sorts of violence and theft, so your solution is to ban the most notable item targeted for theft? I hope you're joking, because this proposal is just as bad as the one in the article.
> Eliminating GTA will have about as much impact on carjacking as eliminating Call of Duty will reduce world wars or banning Minecraft will decrease structure-destroying “mobs.”
> What such bills accomplish is not crime reduction but political protection. It gives the appearance of action from legislators who do not want to take more decisive or direct action. It is easier to blame a video game than state or city enforcement policies.
Setting the absurdity of the situation aside, how can limiting the personal freedom of your citizens be the "safe choice" compared to criticizing or changing policies? And be considered a "less decisive action"? Especially in the USA, one of the countries which arguably values personal freedom the most. This is really not a good direction.
Tesla might be on the right track to solve the issue.
Having no spare parts available and repairs only available at select service center means they could potentially refuse service to anyone who used parts with stolen serial numbers.
That would make them worthless to steal.
As for banning a video game, if he can get the first amendment repelled, sure. Good luck!
I believe their point was that they would refuse service to vehicles that used those parts, theoretically making a theft of a Tesla for spare parts pointless.
> refuse service to anyone who used parts with stolen serial numbers.
Apple didn’t lock the parts yet afair. I recall a couple years ago they tried to lock screens and a lot of devices bricked. But I wish they locked them: where I live virtually everyone I know have their phone stolen at least once.
You don't need a tesla service center to service a tesla. Neither would we want one else tesla vehicles will become entirely unownable by those making less than 70-100K a year. Affordable repair is the lifeblood of lower income people. Without it work will cease.
my understanding is that significant share of [Big] car stealing business is for export to other countries (obviously not to the countries like Germany or UK :).
The vast, vast majority of cases of car theft are not theft to fence the car, but rather as an untraceable means to commit further, far more profitable crimes.
That happens for high end stuff. Common cars end up in chop shops and the parts are sold to collision and repair shops, frequently under the same roof.
just checked - there are large sources of "common car" used parts (used 2005 Honda Civic headlights for example at $30-80/each without delivery where is non-OEM new in US is $100-150/pair) in the large Far East Russian port of Vladivostok from which those parts sold and distributed across Russia. Naturally much of this is the used parts from dismantled cars from US and Japan, and there is no way to establish provenance that any given part came from a legally dismantled car.
Most modern "phone home" trackers utilize cell networks to send updates on their current location. I'm not sure if Tesla's are designed to operate on foreign networks, but once they are off the network, they can't phone home.
It's not uncommon in port cities for stolen cars to be on a ship less than an hour after their theft - not exaggerating.
Unless you notice your car missing and check it's location within this time-frame, you might not be getting it back.
As much as many on HN hate the Apple ecosystem for being so closed, its security is a major selling point and it would be interesting to see if Teslas are more secure in that regard.
>The idea is that the government can regulate what you are enjoying and modify your desires and actions. It is the ultimate expression of paternalistic governance theory.
As usual, Turley's hyperbole can be seen from the moon. Laws against the sale of heroin primarily prevent people from enjoying heroin so they will not desire heroin. Laws against child pornography prevent people from enjoying pedophilia so they will not harm children. Laws against street racing prevent the enjoyment of speeding so people will drive more safely. Laws against hate crimes control certain self-reinforcing criminal dynamics. The last three do refer to a real harm-to-others, but the motivational intent of the law is obvious.
Wikipedia states: "Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences". Indeed the legal concept of punishment still maps well onto the behavioral psych definition of punishment, and the latter is routinely used as a model to critique and inform the former.
That's not to say I support this video game ban, nor even am I saying I don't think it's stupid (it is). But all of this "the government is trying to control your thoughts!" chicanery is just that. Everything is trying to control your thoughts.
Oh I'm sure increase in carjacking is due to video games, and not at all related to growing economic inequalities and stress which were recently amplified by Covid... /s
Statements like this don't inspire sympathy to me and probably others. I was poor too growing up, but I didn't carjack anyone. It's more complicated than "violent video games beget violence" and it's more complicated than "poverty begets violence" and it doesn't make it more OK.
It doesn't need to inspire sympathy, it just needs to be a much more likely cause/effect explanation than video games.
Why was there an increase in carjacking in Chicago?
My guess is Covid, at least it seems a pretty good candidate to start digging deeper if there's a correlation. Less people in the streets, more parked cars, lots of people without a job having nothing to do and no good source of income.
One way to refute this would be to profile people cought carjacking. Are they rich? Do they still have a job? Are they kept busy with activities? If so, that could disprove my theory, otherwise it could reinforce it.
We could also look at if they actively and frequently play violent video games, though I'd be more likely to believe in a coincidence or a reverse relationship here, if it was the case, based on rational.
Edit: Also, you said "I was poor" past tense. So I'm not sure you'd count as a valid sample, it might be adults that carjack who knows. I also didn't say poor specifically, I said inequality and stress. Poverty can contribute to those, but there are other factors to inequality and stress, like lack of opportunity, neighborhood, access to good schools, troubled household, etc.
People demand that you do X, not understanding/forgetting that you doing X requires that dozens of others also agree with you on doing X. Decision making in a democracy is something most people would never have experienced first hand. What percentage of people have ever had to go into a room and get 29 out of 59 to stop what they are doing and listen to you? Instead, people mostly read the news to judge what you do and "having conversations" is deemed as "not doing anything."
This is the guy who decides to focus on Powerpoint presentations as that is all the boss will pay attention to.
Absolutely. Understanding and compassion is important - it's still a sign of stagnancy and incompetency in our leadership positions: the best of the best should be at the lead, and these people are not behaving like leaders - they're not behaving as if they are witnessed by their peers, by society; we need people who care what others think about them, their behaviour, the consequences of their actions - and who assume or believe that all of their actions will be accounted for; and perhaps these people needed to have a live video feed on them to help keep them in check, as part of protocol - to actually be witnessed, to create a container for integrity.
Just recently during the Robinhood hearings there was another Rep that was asking why Robinhood wasn’t moderating Reddit and other big social media sites. Speaking with such conviction that you’d think it was the smartest idea ever, if you knew absolutely nothing about the internet. Some of these people are out of touch.
From direct experience working with children I am certain that video games shape how children behave as an individual or in a group.
For example, I see kids playing real life re-enactments of Roblox or Minecraft when they are together. Or create their own games with similar rules, goals or consequences.
A car is so enormous, I don't understand how car theft even happens. Surely it can't be hard to go through the finite number of facilities in a city capable of chopping up a car and find some evidence.
Carmen San Diego was able to steal the Statue of Liberty...
...but seriously, how many places do you think in a city you can store a car? How do you recognize said stolen car? How long would it take to verify the vin numbers? It sounds like something you'd need Hercules or Sherlock Holmes for.
From the article:
> Carjacking is increasing because there is insufficient deterrent.
[citation needed]
I'll buy that increasing the risk of getting caught might deter crime. But just like bike theft, you can't keep an eye on all parked cars, or even a small fraction of them.
And even when you catch someone stealing tires off a car, how hard a punishment can you really give -- hopefully not much.
Maybe we should also why some is stealing tires? Or jacking cars.
Hillary Clinton along with Tipper Gore felt that the cause of societal ills in the 1990s were video games and rap. It was ridiculous and how we ended up with “explicit content” labels and absurdly bleeped out music recordings.
Clinton tried to blame the Columbine massacre on Doom much in the same way Dan White tried to excuse his assassination of Harvey Milk on Twinkies.
Around that time Tom Petty had a song censored, every time it played on MTV the word “joint” was replaced with indecipherable word-like sound.
Once the boomers have died off hopefully so will their insane need to resort to censorship instead of accepting personal and societal responsibility.
> Around that time Tom Petty had a song censored, every time it played on MTV the word “joint” was replaced with indecipherable word-like sound.
Sometimes when searching a song on YouTube, I come across that obnoxious VEVO channel and I have to wonder who the hell is handling the censorship. They’ll bleep out random words and leave like 2 curse words in the next line.
> Once the boomers have died off hopefully so will their insane need to resort to censorship instead of accepting personal and societal responsibility.
that may not do the trick, considering how many in the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts embrace censorship.
The synopsis of the bill (provided at the link above):
> Amends the Violent Video Games Law in the Criminal Code of 2012. Changes provisions that restricts the sale or rental of violent video games to minors to prohibit the sale of all violent video games. Modifies the definition of "violent video game" to mean a video game that allows a user or player to control a character within the video game that is encouraged to perpetuate human-on-human violence in which the player kills or otherwise causes serious physical or psychological harm to another human or an animal. Modifies the definition of "serious physical harm" to include psychological harm and child abuse, sexual abuse, animal abuse, domestic violence, violence against women, or motor vehicle theft with a driver or passenger present inside the vehicle when the theft begins. Makes conforming changes, including repealing a Section concerning the labeling of violent video games by video game retailers.
I am gonna take a atypical/non-standard opinion (for HN) on this -- I wholeheartedly support this proposed bill.
We already have First Amendment restrictions when it comes to the depiction of a certain type of crime (i.e. a certain type of pornography). If that 1st Am. exemption is legal and permissible, then it should constitutional for that exemption to cover other crimes as well.
I see no reason why the depiction of the commission of other types of crime should be legal, permissible, and even popular (as shown by how many buy games like these). You can still make a lot of interesting video games that don't involve gratuitous user-directed violence / other crime.
Heck, I think the whole video game scene will become a lot more interesting and creative once a ban like this is put into law.
One last note: I don't think this bill would lead any reduction in real-world crime. I know that was the reason this bill was introduced, but I find that kind of connection to be spurious at best. I think a real reason we should ban depictions of crimes and violence (often where the player is the one perpetrating it), is that it simply is distasteful, and if I may say so--a tad bit morally not-good.
There aren't many games that do not promote physical harm to imaginary entities. Even Minecraft does this, and that's a healthy game where the main focus is not even on killing, it's more on the building side.
Even something like Factorio involves violence against "animals" (whatever those aliens are).
Mario would be banned.
This leaves Tetris I guess and puzzle games in general. Frogger is also too violent as it involves harm to an animal by motor vehicles. Pacman involves violence.
Should movies be banned too? There's a lot of gratuitous violence in them.
Much like movies, most games are about some sort of conflict. Sometimes this conflict is violent, sometimes it isn't.
Also how does leaving people with no outlets to blow off steam helps them behave in real life?
The 'video game scene' is extremely creative already, if you just move away from mainstream publishers.
> I think a real reason we should ban depictions of crimes and violence (often where the player is the one perpetrating it), is that it simply is distasteful
I find this to be incredibly distasteful, but I would not advocate for speaking this aloud to be banned. You, on the other hand, might be inclined to ban your own opinions, if sufficient numbers agree with me?
