Read a really good article at Gamespot today about the dangers of gamer entitlement.
http://au.gamespot.com/features/the-dangers-of-gamer-entitlement-6350732/
Society is just another way of enforcing cultural norms.
Religion is just another way of enforcing cultural norms.
Politics is just another way of enforcing cultural norms.
Media is just another way of enforcing cultural norms.
...
Do you believe in the boogy-man? Or does home schooling somehow avoid those lessons? I always thought it would be the otherway around, at least from my (all be it small) contacts with those who chose to home school their kids.
And don't take this as a criticism of home schooling, it's not.
As primary and secondary education is compulsory, either you are Amish or I should report you to the authorities.
There is homeschooling where your mom teaches you from home and there is homeschooling where your mom buys you a bunch of high school level books and says, "you have a test in six months." It's not illegal because I passed the test every year. I taught myself from 4th to 8th grade and surpassed the state's expectations. I don't know what kind of social reinforcement I missed. Anyone care to enlighten me? It seems like everyone else here learned that less fortunate countries get a free pass on stealing.
I home schooled one of my kids because they had something traumatic happen and got depressed and so far behind they were fialing every class and starting to skip because they were losing hope.
The school system was happy to send him to a "special school" with other kids who didn't give a rip so he could get his credits whether he passed or not. We home schooled him instead.
I'm sure this somehow relates to gamers feeling entitled to act out--someone help me understand how.
Oh heck...I'll try.
We are raising kids now to believe that "passing" or "failing" is all relative and it's more important to just do whatever makes you feel good.
So why pay for a game I want to play when it makes me feel good not to. I'll just steal it. It's all about me anyway--that's all that matters. If you try to tell me it's wrong, I'll act out because you're intolerant of and bigoted towards me--it is all about me, remember? You have no right to try to make me feel responsible or ashamed about my actions becasue I'm doing them for me and you don't really matter compared to that.
^^^ I think you hit the nail on the head there.....
That's pretty cool.
There certainly is a lot of that going on ...
plus, at least in state schools, there is stuff like Study Blue that helps kids cheat like there is no tomorrow.
Study Blue and Bit Torrent teach kids that stealing is a good thing and (indirectly) that incompetence is to be desired.
Maybe he actually went to school, and just didn't learn much of value?
I got the math, most of the English, and some science out of my formal education, but the history rewrites, social engineering, and environmental hose job ruined the rest of it. It was a regular occurrence to discover this or that part of the curriculum was utter bullshit. History in particular was horrid, they'd get the dates right and that was about it. You can grow up thinking FDR was wonderful, Hoover was a fiscal conservative, and the roaring 20's created the Great Depression. Most of you have...
must ... not ... go political ...
Not too hard pressed, because that was what was argued by several in this very thread. Black and white, no gray.
I just wanted an acknowledgement of some gray. There were arguments based on economic disparity that others gave that I found compelling. Utilitarian arguments like I gave I think are compelling too.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/02/romania_microsoft_piracy/ Some state leaders even find it compelling. With places like Africa and Asia using a lot of pirated software, they can make similar cases. Money isn't changing hands, but how much money can you expect to extract from these places anyway?
Careful now sean. I don't think 'everyone' thinks that the less fortunate should be held to a different standard than anyone else. Though some home school 'programs' do teach essentially that. I'll assume your home schooling did not have any religious component to it, not so much as learning about religions, but as teaching from a religious point of view.
In any case, I don't know what kind of social reinforcement you missed, but I also have been around enough to know that this nefarious social reinforcement is the boogy-man you seem to be scared of. Oh, it exists, and it can be problematic, but it's not so simple as to say 'you went to school, thus you were indoctrinated in <whatever it is that Sean is afraid we were indoctrinated in>'.
Schools can be good or bad, kids can be good or bad, parents can be good or bad...
You can have a good kid at a bad school with good parents and still get results. You can have a good kid at a good school with bad parents and still have a waste of humanity. There is nothing inherently evil about public education, or indeed, the educators.
On the other hand, I do agree that American society (and maybe others, but I can't speak as well for them) has dropped the ball on expecting *anyone* to actually take responsibility for their actions. This is not something limited to schools, and, indeed, in some schools they are actually trying to buck this trend, yes, even public schools, at least the ones my kids have attended. Of course it only really works when the majority of the community supports such a goal. Down the highway in our closest 'rival' school district the trend is the opposite, and the parents seem to be just looking for reasons to sue the schools, or otherwise make excuses for their utter failure to raise their kids with any sense of personal responsibility. [that should be taken generally, not everyone in that district behaves that way, though, those who do not tend to try and send their kids to the district I live in...]
Theft is theft.
Yes, its an unfair world. Living standards are not equalized across the globe (or the universe?). Game prices are not based on a percentage of a persons disposable income, (if any). Speeding tickets are flat rate. That means a rich person can aford to speed , cause the fine is just lunch money to them. But the same ticket is a weeks pay to me. Unfair. If its an unfair economic issue, (relative game prices, or fines) then fight to make the economic system fairer. I do.
Pirating a "game" is not the same as stealing some bread because you are starving and have not eaten in a week. Stealing a PC (X-box- whatever), however, IS stealing bread from the people who worked to create the game.
When I helped to feed the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why do we have poor people they called me a communist. When I am asked if using someone elses software without permission is the theft, I answer, yes.
It's not, Hoover was a Republican, FDR was a Democrat, and they both did the exact same thing. It's economics, spending your way out of a recession gets you a depression.
Just one question... who is the thief/pirate ?
Is the the asian/african who found the software on some torrent or megaupload site or is it the wealthy European/US guy who upload it?
As now, the main target is these who download but there will be no download if there was not some upload before...
Is Robinhood the thief or is it people to who Robinhood distribute the money?
A lot of media/software are coming from internal leak, from preview send to reviewer, from version send to national media archive... how do you think that there is day 0 pirated version, that some uncut film can be found month before any official public release, that so much pirated film have the word "screener" in some corner...
Be honest, the real thief are not these African/Asian people but the western man who upload it... as now, media are harrassing poor student who have download a illegal mp3 but never i have read about the media business cleaning his own home for suppress the leak, for remove these who make the upload... for a lot of people, robinhood is like a hero when in fact he is the real thief !!!
I don't thing that people who download are thief... but they are guilty of a other crime called "handling stolen goods"
PS: For these who don't know, Robinhood is a legendary character from UK know for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor"...
Austerity measures are a signal of defeat.
I've heard that if FDR had lived a little longer, he would have passed several brilliant pro-worker and pro-middle class bills. I, unfortunately, cannot remember enough about the situation to comment on it further
->Further on Austerity, goverments should be the ones spending (to help provide jobs, etc), while providing incentives for the citizens to save their money and be financially secure.
Instead you have a high emphasis on citizen rewards for overspending, and the noob-trap of refinancing your house. Austerity measures on the government's end would only double the problems of citizen overspending. And that's not even mentioning the (lack of) quality of available jobs + salaries.
It's not mutually exclusive to say that copyright law is a disaster and in need of serious reform (which it is) and to also say that if one takes something that they have no inherent right to without providing equal value in return that they are stealing.
In the Robin Hood myth he is stealing to provide for the populace's basic human needs, not their entertainment. Either way it's theft, but the former is potentially justifiable, the latter isn't.
They are thieves TOO. Just because they didn't actively take it from the creator's hands doesn't mean they didn't take something they had no right to take.
But entertainment is a basic need!
Many modern gamers are androids, whom instead of needing food to survive, need entertainment.
I think I made it pretty clear that stealing is still stealing. No matter the justification or personal ethics of the thief, its still theft. I also agreed this is not life and death stuff we are talking about. There is no lethal game withdrawal if a poor person stops playing and so technically he doesn't need it. They certainly don't deserve 'a free pass', although their societies almost hand it to them on a silver platter.However, games and other social media do have a positive effect and, for some people, break the monotony on a rather bleak existence. Yes, stealing it makes them a thief but its no simple black and white 'you are evil because you stole some money from a corporation in my wonderful country so stop doing it and go back to your cold rice and simply accept you were born to be poor and have less enjoyment than me'.Its not like these people don't do as much work as the people who can afford 10 games a week. Usually they do more work and contribute more to their society (and yours possibly too) than you do. So, by all means brand them with that smoking hot iron of thief, but to do it with such self-righteousness and arrogance is, in itself, unjustified.
Best argument I've heard yet.
I'm not sure if you're referencing one person in particular or not. I think it's worth pointing out, 4 pages later, that the posts that started the piracy/thief discussion were in regards to a particular poster that specifically said he paid for games when he had the money and downloaded them when he didn't.
So the discussion didn't start over the morality of poor third worlders trying to escape their bleak existence. They started over the idea of stealing games for convenience when you indeed could pay for them with a little foresight and savings. For what it's worth.
Indeed. However if you will read plenty of the arguments since, it developed into exactly a discussion over the morality of poor third worlders trying to escape their bleak existence. Except, remove "third world" from that cos I didn't even touch on the third world and nobody mentioned it. Those guys are happy if there is a computer in their part of town/slum/village. I am mostly talking about the second-world like China/India/richer parts of Africa and poorer parts of Europe/a large part of south America and certainly south east Asia. These comprise most of the world's population.Have a look back:
"Its a video game. They have the right to charge whatever they want for it. It's not robbery. you have the choice of not buying it. You don't have the right to their games for any reason. Sorry you live in a poorer nation, but making video games isn't charity work. It isn't a resource of life or death.
We are all debt a hand in life, and we must make due. There is no hand that life dealt anyone that makes pirating video games okay. Sorry. No justification for this behavior. No grey area."and,"Morality is subjective. It has many factors, including laws. I am curious to know which country you live, though your lack of honor prevents me from believing anything you say. Every citizen in a country must follow a social contract with the society. Even if your country has decided that intellectual property is not something that can be stolen, you are stealing from my country. There is a problem in this world that we are all very different and have different laws. Many laws do not follow the codes of morality I have learned, even in my own country. America has alot to learn about making sure the rich follow the same rules as everyone else. Your country needs to teach its citizens that the poor need to follow the same rules as everyone else. There is no absolute morality, but there are certain hardcoded morals in our genetic makeup. Killing is wrong. Rape is wrong. Stealing is wrong. Even though you are stealing something that is just a copy, it is not right to take that which you have not earned. That is dishonorable and on some level you know that. Otherwise it is unlikely that you would go so far to justify your actions. "
and,"We are all debt a hand in life, and we must make due. There is no hand that life dealt anyone that makes pirating video games okay. Sorry. No justification for this behavior. No grey area. You think it is greedy for someone to make something of value and begrudge someone else who takes it and uses it without providing equal value? Seriously? Congratulations for undermining the entire world economy and the very system that has led to the greatest amount of human progress in history. "I could go on further but there is no reason to make this post even larger than it already is.EDIT: re-read your post. It was indeed true that the poster several of you got so inflamed about would have been able to, with some foresight and savings, purchase legally what he needed. Doesn't change the fact that most of the world isn't in that position.
Sean, Kantok, you guys seem to be stuck on that piracy is theft. It's not. Don't make me post the handy guide I'm sure you have seen a thousand times before. Let's just stick to the dictionary like Kantok did before.
2. the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc.
You see? It's unauthorized reproduction or use, not theft. Big difference, no matter what the industry and their lawyers try to make you believe. Because other than with 'regular' theft of physical good, you leave the original. The creator can still sell it, no potential customer has to be disappointed.
Now, I'm not saying that pirating games is always ok. If you're a reasonably well off person who can afford to buy a game, and that game meets certain criteria (let say for instance it complies with the Gamers Bill of Rights, and has a good demo), there is no real reason to pirate. If you are well off but the game doesn't meet criteria, I say pirate it. If it turns out you like the game, seriously consider buying the game.
But if you are not well off, I say pirate away! The argument that they should just go out and work (harder) is just a lazy generalization. Ever heard of the working poor for instance? People that work hard trying to make a living, but that according to you should just work harder (wow, I'm sure they've never thought of that) or can just go jerk off if they want entertainment. Culture and entertainment are human rights and needs, and you have no right to make people who want it feel bad or even criminalise them for acting on that. Neither do you have the right do decide what kind of entertainment is appropriate for them. Like TorinReborn said, we only have one life, and every person has the right to enjoy it as much as he or she can, in whatever way that person wants. Denying someone a life experience for arbitrary reasons is just cruelty. (Yes I know we are talking about video games, a luxury product, but it is the principle that counts.)
I like lobster, caviar and filet mignon...but can't afford to eat it everyday while other people living large and wealthy can. I'll just have to take it when the grocer isn't looking. I'm poor--why should I be denied? I need it.
You don't "need" a game.
Piracy.. the discussion that keeps on giving.
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