brunothepig said:
I'm going to try as hard as possible not to start ranting about humanity. *deep breath*
Where are these "many studies"? I hear about them often, but I can't seem to find them anywhere... And an R18 rating doesn't mean every game will get through, I would assume Rapelay is one such game, and if it were ever just sold over a counter at the local eb games I would be very very depressed.
And we sure as hell don't want discussion on the matter! Why, that would be like democracy. Why would we want such a horrible thing? I'll stop being sarcastic now Seriously, with that statement he's saying, I and some others have decided this is bad for you, so you don't want it. Hey, don't you start discussing it. No, stop that. Lalalalala not listening.
And how come there aren't more people lobbying to ban alcohol. There are studies sponsored by the government saying that a lot of teen deaths result from underage drinking. How about some stricter laws on it at least? And that's exactly what we want. Stricter laws on the sale of violent games, so that the children are safe, but we (well, you over 18 guys/gals) could acquire them and decide if your children can handle them. How come movies and shows get an R18 rating? Hell, I could go on foxtel right now, and watch some random porn movie. All I need is the 4 digit code for foxtel. Which I know...
To answer the question about studies, most of them exist in various medical and psychiatric journals. The same with any other situation where they are claimed to exist. You hear about doctors and such getting "published"? Well you need to look at the sources they get published in. College libraries and such typically have them, as do medical and law (for legal cases) libraries, including oftentimes massive back catalogs of the periodicals. Of course this doesn't make it any easier for your typical person to find this stuff unless they really dig. In some cases where things get political, there are also efforts to "bury" studies which means that they are removed from most archives, or put into a sealed section of a library to only be viewed on specific request (meaning you need to know what your asking for to begin with, and very specifically). The search for some studies and such can be a major chore, and involve finding someone else listing it in a biliography, locating a library of congress number, and then working from there.
While not exclusive to one party, liberals are in paticular fond of "burying" the opposing side as "hate speech". When it comes to studies on race, homosexuality, or anything else, any study they don't like typically gets buried. You simply hear about how these things exist and have been "debunked" (simply by having opposing viewpoints published), finding a bunch of non-religious scientifically researched stuff that is anti-gay, or supports some racist point of view can be nearly impossible to do for example. You will rarely, if ever, be able to find an initial source.
Most of my limited experience with such things though actually comes from my military interests and such (such as they are). There are for example plenty of books showing American atrocities and such during World War II, and what we really had to do in order to win, with photographs taken by the same dudes who took the mainstream "greatest hour" stuff and the like, but finding that stuff can be REALLY hard and requires someone who is a serious buff. My interest mostly being part of my overall attitude that I think everyone should see that kind of thing, not as part of an Anti-America Agenda, but as part of learning about what it REALLY takes to fight and win a war. The overall message being that we were the good guys, but in the end we also had to be a group of brutal bastards because that is simply what reality requires. I think that injection of reality would help the US when it currently goes to war (by giving the public a forced reality check). I pretty much think we bought our own hype post World War II, and as such have been unable to win a war since.
At any rate, I'm getting off subject. In this paticular case I believe the studies exist but are being buried to an extent specifically so they can be referanced (and verified to exist by those with enough letters after their name) but can't be attacked directly, or see much in the way of serious counter-research conducted. The people involved of course believe they are eiher acting for the greater good, or helping to build a political dynasty they will directly benefit from (right or wrong being irrelevent to the pursuit of long term power for themselves and presumably their family).
The only way I'd imagine you'd get to see those studies, would be to pin someone down for an exact referance, and then chase that referance, and there is a reasonable chance that to get to see anything real you might have to head for DC (or wherever Australia keeps their central library if they have one) and request access to an archive since they might be forbidden to make copies. The fact that few people in their right mind who are in opposition would be willing to do this, is exactly why "burying the opposition" is such a powerful political tool.
What's more the use of "anonymous experts" is because if truely pushed in an academic sense they could out someone and their research, but in general they also want to protect these people. Not to mention the fact that an expert might be with you today, and getting buried tomorrow (depending on your need) so even if you hate what they say right now, you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot, by demonizing them directly, or lionizing them only to see them wind up on the other side six months down the road. Academics being in many cases dedicated to knowlege rather than fitting the facts into some political agenda or social ideal (though then again, many of them do sell out, and those are the ones who tend to be most frequently referanced by name).
