On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 04:33:12PM +1000, Andrew McGlashan wrote:
Yes, that is true to a point. But smoking effects
more third parties
in bad ways than gaming (on the whole). Walking down the street with
cigarette smoke wafting into my face and beard isn't pleasant at all.
you might seem credible if you didn't equate 'unpleasant' with 'causes
harm'.
you'll get thousands of times more toxic crap in your lungs while
walking down the street from car and truck exhaust than from a passerby
smoking.
the only evidence that smoking has any effect on third-parties is when
smoking is allowed in enclosed spaces without ventilation or
extraction fans, where people (i.e. workers) are required to spend many
hours. this has, quite rightly, been banned for several years.
many other businesses with even worse air-pollution problems - e.g.
electronics manufacturing - have excellent ventilation and fume
extraction hoods to remove, e.g. soldering fumes.
unfortunately, banning and ameliorating the risk of potentially
harmful practises isn't good enough for the quit-wowsers. harm
reduction/elimination is not the point. they want to impose their moral
certainty, their preferences, their rules on everyone else.
worse, they think they have a right not to be offended or ever exposed
to anything that might tempt them to have a whinge.
If games require you to rape, murder, attack -- in no
particular
order, then why should such a game even exist?
you're absolutely right. we need thought-crime legislation right now!
there's no difference at all between virtual crimes in a game and actual
crimes in the real world.
(btw, any game depicting rape in anything even remotely like a positive
fashion is unlikely to get past the ratings board. they seem even
stricter on such things now that we have an actual adult category for
games)
For some of us
the costs of such things aren't relevant. On any
sort of IT industry pay the price of Coke doesn't matter and as a
stimulant if it allows slightly more work then it will give a good
return on investment.
Principle is far more important than dollars. Marketing says if you
can get away with over charging, then you do so -- more easily with a
duopoly or monopoly [coles / woolworths].
yep, but whose principles? i prefer mine - if it harms none, do what you will.
and i mean real harm, not psychobabble, excuse-for-a-whinge,
i-am-too-a-real-victim pseudo-"harm".
Yes, but even though cigarettes have so many
chemicals, that doesn't
make cigars the answer, there are other alternatives.
the quit-wowsers have banned other alternatives, like nicotine liquid
for e-cigarettes.
There are 3rd world problems and 1st world problems --
many 1st world
problems have people saying their life sucks ... it doesn't, they just
need to improve their perception of what really matters in the world.
you really ought to quit your day job and become a social worker or
health worker. your expertise is sorely needed.
craig
--
craig sanders <cas(a)taz.net.au>