[Logically Speaking] Santorum vs. Gay Marriage

I generally try to keep politics out of Cathode Tan, but sometimes politicians just say things which are simply an affront to logic itself.

And yes, I'm talking about Rick Santorum. Faithful Cathode Tanners also know that I'm a fairly staunch advocate of gay rights - though I generally just consider it advocating human rights. Anyone who has actually spent time with a loving, faithful gay couple and walks away with the thought that "we should totally ban that" ... well, I just can't see how it doesn't come from a place of fear and ignorance.

When the politicians use logic to cover up that fear and ignorance - it requires logic to set that right.

When Santorum is asked about gay marriage, he often applies the "slippery slope" argument, that for instance legalizing gay marriage would in turn open the door to legalizing polygamy.  Here's Santorum laying out his so-called argument:

Rick says that if we are going to have a conversation about one, we have to distinguish the other for him.

So let's do that.

Let's outline Rick's logic.

1. All people have the right to be happy.
2. Because gay marriage would make some people happy, it should be legalized.
3. However, marrying multiple people would also make some people happy.
4. Therefore, if we legalize gay marriage - we will need to legalize polygamy as well.

This is a classic straw man argument.  The formula here goes:

1. You have proposed X.
2. I can prove Y is similar to X.
3. Y is undesirable.
4. Therefore, X is also undesirable.

The problem is, of course, that X != Y.  It's a substitution for a real argument when you lack the facts to actually distinguish X from Y.  This is why it works for Santorum as a stump response.  The potential voter is prepared to talk about gay marriage, not polygamy - and so is placed in the same camp of not really being able to distinguish X from Y.

The first fundamental problem comes from Rick's first statement.

1. All people have the right to be happy.

Which is a) not the original argument and b) isn't factual.  We have a constitutional imperative, as it were, to the "pursuit of happiness" - but we have laws in place because if being a serial killer makes you happy the state still has the right to track you down and place you in the electric chair (your state laws may vary).  So no,  not everyone has the right to be happy.

A more factual opening statement would be:

1. The state should not create laws which impede a citizen's pusuit of happiness without proof of harm to the state or citizens.

At this point we don't need to worry about introducing ridiculous arguments like I can kill people because it puts a smile on my face.  It should also neatly remove equally ridiculous arguments like "legalizing gay marriage would open the door to bestiality or pedophilia" since proof of harm in such cases easily fall under sexual and/or physical abuse.   So let's continue with this as our opening statement (we'll lump citizens and state into one here as well).

1. The state should not create laws which impede a citizen's pursuit of happiness without proof of harm to the state or other citizens.
2. There's no evidence which shows gay marriage causes harm to to the state and therefore should not be made illegal.
3. However, there's also no evidence that polygamy causes harm to the state and therefore should also not be made illegal.
4. Therefore - if we legalize gay marriage, we should legalize polygamy as well.

So ... that's a more realistic framing of Santorum's argument.  And there's one problem, at least for Santorum.  In this state, it actually holds water.  Without proof that polygamy causes harm - perhaps it as well should be legalized as well.

You read it here first: logically speaking - Rick Santorum supports legalizing polygamy.  Once you remove the moral panic aspect of it, at least.  Of course, Santorum's biggest stock is moral panic.  If he's going to try to attack polygamy as well as gay marriage - he should really get some facts on both first.

The case against polygamy is rather complicated and gets very quickly wrapped into cultural specifics like child marriages.  However, existing laws in place should provide the protection of children.  Probably a more utilitarian issue also provides a segue into a core issue of the rest of the debate - legalizing polygamy could likely tear a hole in our tax and estate code that current lawbooks aren't really willing to deal with.  It's not the definition of marriage which causes an issue here, it's the fact that you've now compounded the possibilities of what was previously defined. "1 Man, 1 Woman" simply makes for an enforceable tax code - far more than "X number of men, and X number of women."

The ramifications on divorce alone would keep the lawmakers busy for years.  So we can leave whether polygamy would result in direct societal harm and state that our current legal structure isn't yet equipped to deal with it.

You know, kinda like how lawmakers are currently handling the Internet and plenty of other technological issues.

Since gay marriage is clearly a different issue than polygamy and we've laid out a case for why polygamy should not be (currently) legalized which does not effect our case for gay marriage, our argument now looks like this:

1. The state should not create laws which impede a citizen's pursuit of happiness without proof of harm to the state or other citizens.
2. There's no evidence which shows gay marriage causes harm to to the state and therefore should not be made illegal.
3. Therefore we should legalize gay marriage.

We can remove polygamy completely as it has no bearing on either the original statement nor the outcome.  The only real issue at stake here is our second statement.   There are now studies which show that gay marriage raises well adjusted kids, some evidence that lesbians may be better parents than their heterosexual peers and even some that state it is good for the economy.  Also, statistically speaking - even if gay marriage were to become legal in every state ... the overall percentage of gay marriage would still be extremely small - so any impact on society (good or bad) would likely be minimal making our second statement fairly safe.

The problem Santorum has from a logical perspective is that the slippery slope began not when people began to propose gay marriage - but rather when the federal government got into the business of defining marriage in the first place.  By placing this definition on the books, it clearly opens the door for changing said definition down the road.  If Santorum and his ilk really want to "defend" the nation from gay marriage - the only logical method would be to bar the government from legalizing marriage at all.  Remove the federal definition, and you remove any chance that the government will "permit" it.  By insisting on a definition is to invite a debate on changing that definition - that's simply how our government works.  This would in fact be the most direct route to get what the far right wants - a definition of marriage organic enough to be bound by local laws and morals.

Of course - this would also remove the benefits of formalizing legal marriage.  Tax benefits, a legal framework for familial issues and a definition for estate laws all directly benefit society.  In other words,  all the reasons why legalizing polygamy would be inherently difficult (if not undesirable) are justifications for creating a legal framework for marriage.

So now our argument looks like this:

1. A legal framework for marriage benefits society.
2. Excluding gays from marriage benefits fewer people than inclusion.
3. Including gay marriage into the legal framework will increase the benefits offered from the marital legal framework.
4. Therefore, gay marriage should be legalized.

Any questions?  If you're going to respond in rebuttal, please:

• Don't use religion as justification.  This is why we have separation of church and state.  Leviticus quotes may simply get deleted.
• Same goes for gay bashing.  Take it elsewhere.  Or preferably, nowhere.  Insults and the like may also simply get deleted.
• If you're going to quote studies, please link to them.
• As a warning - beware of editorials which can't prove causation.  Yes, I've read them.

For Sunday: Congress in AutoTune

Love. It. Thanks Klem.

Apple To Ban Violent Games From iPad

Following a policy of purging near porn titles from the App Store to make the iPad a more family friendly device, Apple will also ban games with violent content. According to CNN, the removal may not occur in time for the iPad's release date this Friday - but will follow shortly thereafter:

Cartoon violence may remain untouched, as the new policy will target games with "realistic depictions of gore, blood, removal of body parts, headshots, disembowelments, torture, and actions which may be construed as felonies by federal statute. Other titles may receive a more strongly worded message prior to purchase, including language that some of the actions depicted within the game should not be attempted at home without parental supervision

-- CNN: iPad cleans house, first sex and now violence

I'm guessing the game based on the popular show Dexter won't make the cut as it has nearly everything described there. We may see an increase in titles with "cartoon" violence (would a cel-shaded Call of Duty pass?) - and like the porn purge, any violent titles which remain will likely see a huge increase in sales.

ESA Sues Chicago Transit Authority Over Advertising

The latest update in the CTA's decision to ban certain game ads is the ESA announcing they've filed a lawsuit against the CTA over the matter. The CTA has responded saying that the ban coincides with their ban on tobacco and alcohol products.

So a couple of things here. Let's remember that this all started when Fox News got into a tizzy and decided to kick up a fight about it. I live here in Chicago and there certainly isn't any public outcrying about the ads. The backstory here is that there was a week of violence which made the press and the ads were a convenient way for Fox to get a little more filler.

Chicago has a problem with violence. A GTA IV ad here or there isn't going to change that. It does, to a certain extent, make city officials defensive though, so while I think the CTA is very clearly in the wrong here - I also don't want to make it sound like they're unfounded. There's real cause for concern, especially in some communities, and steps should be taken. This just isn't one of them.

First and foremost we need to remember that the CTA is an organization with deep financial troubles. They've gone through periods essentially threatening riders with "Doomsday" ads about shutting down services if they don't get more cash. To complain to the public about not having any cash and then going down a route which probably not only reduce ad revenues but will probably cost taxpayers thousands in legal fees is simply idiotic. It's feel-good politics, but bad governance.

The claim that the ban is inline with banning tobacco and alcohol ads not only defies logic in general, it won't hold up in court. It's the same distinction that the state tried for limiting the sale of mature rated games to minors and the state got their teeth kicked in for it. And let's not forget that CTA allows R rated movie ads, like the kid friendly Dark Knight with all its animated puppies and whatnot. Oh no wait, that was Bolt, Dark Knight stabbed a guy in the eye with a pencil.

Eventually lawmakers, Fox News, and self-righteous nutjobs like Thompson will realize that while video games might make for a decent scapegoat culturally - they suck as scapegoats financially. Sadly, they probably won't realize this until a couple more increases to some lawyers' bank accounts are made.

EA Hosts GLAAD Event

EA was kind enough to send this along:

This Saturday, EA is hosting an event for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the nation's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media advocacy organization. GLAAD is facilitating a panel on Homophobia & Virtual Communities which will spotlight key issues and include the perspectives of both gaming companies and LGBT gamers. Discussion will revolve around the state of the problem in these communities, policy solutions that have been developed to address homophobia – what’s working as well as what’s not, plus challenges and opportunities.

Confirmed panelists include:

Flynn DeMarco (Alias: Fruite Brute), Founder of GayGamer.net
Dan Hewitt, Senior Director of Communications & Industry Affairs for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA)
Caryl Shaw, Senior Producer in the Maxis Studio (Electronic Arts, Inc.)
Cyn Skyberg, VP of Customer Relations at Linden Lab
Stephen Toulouse (Gamertag: stepto), Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement on Microsoft's XBox LIVE
Moderator: Justin Cole, Director of Digital & Online Media, GLAAD

Event details are as follows:
WHAT: Homophobia in Virtual Communities - Highlighting the Problem and Working Towards Sustainable Solutions
WHEN: Saturday, July 18th, 2009, 11am-1pm
WHERE: Electronic Arts, 250 Shoreline Drive Redwood City, CA 94065

The event is free of charge and open to the public. More information can be found at: http://www.glaad.org/digitalevent

Online registration is closed, see the link in the quote for more information reserving still. Event will be recorded, so it may be interesting to see it afterwards as well.

If Gamers Ran The World

This is (was) in the news feed as well, but thought it merited calling out:

It has online high-score charts; you can compete against people you don’t know to be the best campaigner. On the sly, they turned politics into an MMO.

Now, politics and elections aren’t games - whilst there might be scores for a while, there are greater things at stake than mere scores. But that’s the kind of thing you build when you look at the world in a gamelike way; incentives, readouts, better feedback loops. That’s the kind of thinking that can only become more pervasive as games themselves do.

-- If Gamers Ran The World [Infovore]

(via Kottke)

There have been other articles like this, talking about how MMO's can make you a better manager, etc. I think it's a solid way to frame a conversation about games and what having games as a hobby amounts to being. It's better than assuming that you can learn how to shoot a gun by playing Quake, for instance.

For Sunday: Prop 8, The Musical

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Yes, Palin's Use Of Yahoo Is A Big Deal

I don't normally talk politics on this blog since I prefer to keep it a zone of fluffy goodness - I think the revelations about how Palin uses email is technical enough in nature to merit a mention.

Naturally McCain's campaign is making this out as a serious violation of privacy and law. Which - it is. Absolutely. This was an illegal grab of someone's private communication. There is no doubt about that.

And if the McCain campaign can point me in the direction of the Russian mafia hacker who actually gives a damn about all that, I might give a damn as well. The truth is they don't and neither does any other criminal out there trying to find out what our country's leaders are talking about.

And let's be specific here: the best guest is that the hacker group Anonymous used the most basic method possible to access Palin's account. They simply kept guessing until they got it right.

Should we vote for a ticket which could well put the keys of our nuclear arsenal into the hands of someone whose password may very well have been "password"? I don't think so.

Update:
Clamatius had it right:

As detailed in the postings, the Palin hack didn't require any real skill. Instead, the hacker simply reset Palin's password using her birthdate, ZIP code and information about where she met her spouse -- the security question on her Yahoo account, which was answered (Wasilla High) by a simple Google search.

-- Palin E-Mail Hacker Says It Was Easy


And naturally that's all on top of the fact that simply as a matter of policy, Palin shouldn't have had the account in the first place - at least not for any official usage. Why should we trust someone in such an important office who can't follow such a simple rule?

Nor do I think we should vote for the man who put her dangerously close to that situation either. Perhaps McCain should have spent a little longer googling before choosing his running mate.

Illinois Budget Cuts: $6.25 million out of CeaseFire

The governor also cut a $250,000 grant for Rockford CeaseFire, the grass-roots antiviolence program. In fact, he eliminated state funding for every CeaseFire program in Illinois, a total cut of $6.25 million.

Willie Ashford, violence-prevention coordinator at Rockford CeaseFire, said he didn’t know how much longer the program could operate without the annual grant, which accounts for roughly 75 percent of its budget.

“We’re going to have to look at different funding areas,” he said. “I’ve been writing some grants. We’re looking at some fundraising. We just might have to downsize.”

-- Gov. amends budget: Several projects won’t get state funding

This actually is from August, but it's coming out again in light of recent budget talks as well as the recent streaks of violence we've seen here in Chicago. I bring it up here as an example of lopsided government. Our governor spends over a million defending a fruitless challenge against video games because, according to him, they spur violence - but when comes to curbing actual violence ... he cuts the budget.

On the surface, CeaseFire seems like a solid investment. The average cost per site is $250,000 while every shooting in Chicago costs about $300,000 in court and hospital fees. Maybe if our politicians spent more time actually governing and less time trying to scare soccer moms into voting because little Jimmy might just play some Halo after school - we'd all be better off.

Grand Theft Childhood: The Scary Nightly News

When I interviewed Kutner and Olson for my story, they said right away that Grand Theft Auto was different than “typical violent videogames.” Olson spoke eloquently about how the kids they interviewed loved “the freedom” in the game. She told me that the kids didn’t want to become thugs when they grew up after playing San Andreas, but that they enjoyed playing as a thug.

The other thing they told me that made me want to drop to my knees in gratitude was that kids were totally capable of distinguishing between reality and fantasy. Olson said the kids interviewed knew they were playing, plain and simple. The kids also told her that they found the nightly news far more disturbing than Grand Theft Auto. That, they knew was real, and it scared the bejeesus out of them.

-- REVIEW: Grand Theft Childhood [Next Generation]

The book also points out a few other facts - for instance that 1994 marks the start of declined juvenile violence in the U.S. as well as being when the release year of the original PlayStation.

Take Two Sues CTA Over GTA Ads

The Manhattan federal court suit claims that the transit authority and the external advertising agent violated contractual rights and the publisher’s free speech by pulling the six-week campaign of 385 ads within days of their April 22 debut. It seeks an order for the Chicago Transit Authority to re-run the ads and damages of at least $300,000, Reuters reports.

-- Take-Two Sues Chicago Transit Authority

So not only was the CTA being stupid and pulling advertising at a time when they're desperate for cash, leaving only the bus stand ads which don't actually support Chicagoans ... but it might also have been criminal as well.

So now the already cash strapped CTA might have to pony up cash because they decided to appease a knee jerk and fact free Fox News editorial. These actions aren't harmless. Let's look at one response to Rod Blagojevich’s misuse of state funds for a pointless attack:

Today, my office called each state agency in an effort to schedule meetings between me and each director to discuss their budget priorities.

I wanted to ask some of them why they allowed the governor to loot $1 million from their line items to pay for the administration’s legal fees defending his violent video games legislation, when their agencies had nothing to do with the litigation. Surely they could provide some suggestions on where to cut from their budgets, since based on their generosity to the governor’s legal defense, it seemed they had more than enough money to give.

- Statement from Rep. Jack Franks on State Budget

Now we have a similar brawl starting up. The agencies in questions were related to things like public welfare and economic development. Which do we think is more related to crime in the city - lack of support for underdeveloped areas or a video gamer being advertised on the side of a bus?

Shame on the CTA and shame on Fox News.

GTA Ads On CTA Bus Stops

I can't tell you if this means the ads won't be pulled from bus stops, if they simply haven't been pulled from bus stops yet or if the CTA never even pulled them from buses because they realized the best way to get Fox News to STFU is to simply call them, tell them what they want to hear, and not actually do anything since it's not like Fox News has the journalistic integrity to double check the facts anyway.

The CTA Versus GTA - Chicago Taxpayers Lose

Wow, a story involving junk journalism, Chicago, games and controversy? I'm in.

GamePolitics gives the rundown on the CTA banning GTA IV ads off their buses. Apparently city policy is now being dictated by Fox News as they have determined the ads for the game to be unfit for public consumption after Fox rather loosely tries to link the ads to a rather violent weekend here in the city.

And by loosely - allow me be to be specific. I mean not at all. Not once during the news broadcast does Fox news offer a single fact or heck, even a hastily thrown together statistic, to link the ads to any actual negative activity in the city. Fox offers no proof whatsoever that the ads have any effect at all.

Instead, they bitch and moan a lot about how much possible revenue the CTA might be making off these games. Which is kind of an odd thing to get up in the CTA's grill for considering they've spent the last eighteen months begging the state for cash.

So in other words, Fox News and the CTA would rather raise your property taxes than have your kids see a couple people portrayed in cartoon form in a lineup.

About the only "evidence" Fox offers, other than a few oddly edited man on the street interviews, is Blagojevich talking at some length about what he thinks of video games. Of course, the real punchline to this whole thing, is that Fox naturally leaves out the fact that our dear governor cost us a million and a half in legal fees fighting his fight - only to lose to a small thing called the Constitution of the United States in the end. His fight cost the people of Illinois funds from public health, welfare and economic development.

There's no morality here. The CTA, CTA riders and the taxpayers of Chicago have lost out here again. And if people like Fox and Blagojevich were to have their way, we would continue to lose a lot more in a frivolous and meaningless battle.

Send your thoughts to: feedback@transitchicago.com

Forest For The Trees With Colorado Killer

I'm fighting off some kind of dire sleeping plague, so hold on tight while I attempt to form complete sentences.

This Sunday, Matthew Murray attacked two locations and killed four people, two at a missionary center and two at a Church. Theories abound and of course his relationship to video games pondered, but this struck me as odd:

When I was a teenager my mother would do a pat down to check for music, DVDs and video games whenever I came out of an electronics store like Best Buy or Circuit City.

I’d still obtain things anyways, it was like getting drugs from a drug dealer, EVERYTHING had to be done in secret. lolI remember getting thrown around the room and hit while getting interrogated about whether or not I had video games and DVDs. Then there were the constant interrogations by the church pastors… I remember having to listen to everything in secret, at very low volume levels or with headphones, whether it was video games, TV, DVDs, or music/radio.

-- Gaming Today via All Spin Zone

Emphasis mine. Does anyone else think that kid getting "thrown around a room and hit" might have something to do with his level of aggression?

Or:

All I found in christianity was hate, abuse (sexual, physical, psychological, and emotional), hypocrisy, and lies," writes the poster, who adds that he is one of the "nobodies" "who just wants to be loved and accepted somewhere. I just want to be one of the somebodies.

-- Denver Post

Again, emphasis mine. Anyone else think that maybe this isn't as mysterious as it looks?

Violent Game Study By The Numbers

On Sense:

This is absurd:

"Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one
other well known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger
than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking
on lung ...

Read Full Article, Violent video games worse than smoking?!?

Long time Cathode buddy Sterno points out that comparing violent media to smoking, alcohol and other health factors doesn't make any numerical sense. It's true, the age of modern computing and hence living room game systems has, if anything, brought less violent crime - not more.

To me, this is the biggest point with the scaremongering. It's hard to believe in an epidemic that doesn't exist. If violent television made kids violent criminals, my brother and I would have been knocking over bank and jumping rivers in his Volvo shortly after Dukes of Hazzard aired. Don't get me started on The Incredible Hulk.

With all the PlayStation 2's in the world today, we'd be seeing some kind of mass apocalypse if they were causing violent crimes.

And it's what really gets me about politicians complaining about the Wii and the wiimote as being "more violent". You don't get to extend your argument without first proving your argument. You can't say the wiimote will cause even more violence when you can't prove games cause any violence to begin with.

Study links violent media to aggression and crime

On Gamespot Recent Updates [News]:

University of Michigan professor ties violent media to aggressive behavior,
says they go together like smoking and lung cancer.

Read Full Article, Study: Violent games 'public health threat'

It's really the second part that is a bit unsettling, linking media to criminal actions. The reason you should put that in highlight mode is that it is the stick certain politicians like to use to make censorship a "public safety" issue and not an "ethics" issue.

The old psych major in me, though, would argue with the methodology in the second part, though. It's an interview process, not a controlled experiment. It was a fifteen year follow-up and doesn't state a) whether these kids were watching more violent media to begin with (and if so, why) and b) what other factors might lead to the criminal behavior.

The whole "kids who watch 300 or Gladiator before playing football are more aggressive" argument feels flawed to me as well. Floor hockey is an aggressive sport. Football is an aggressive sport. Getting people pumped up before an aggressive sport is probably going to lead to more aggression in the aggressive sport. Did this guy not study basic biology? It's called adrenaline and if their dads stood yelling at them before sending them into the game - I'd bet they'd be more aggressive as well.

So maybe we should just ban that, too.

Hot Coffee Settled - Bored Media Awaits GTA IV

Take Two settled "Hot Coffee" out of court for some wacky terms. If you swear you were offended by altering your own game so that you yourself could see porn on your own game, you yourself can ask Take Two for $35. It's quite possibly the best deal going on the planet right now. Someone finally found a way for corporate America to pay me for watching bad porn. Clearly, there is a God.

Seriously, I kinda wish Take Two had fought this one. I think they would have won because this was a case made by the media (and the ESRB) and not the facts. I think they would have won and I think there would have been a legal precedent that consumers are actually responsible for the changes they make to software that they buy.

But I can't argue on someone else's dime - so I'm not surprised they didn't. Clearly, it's a shame this didn't all happen on the PSP - where nobody would really care and the ESRB would just squirm their way out of it.

ESRB Continues To Blur Its Message

I exchanged some emails last night with Matt O' Curmudgeon Gamer, which you can read the summary of his opinions on the ESRB's Manhunt 2 statement over there. I poked at him first because he's had real interaction with the ESRB and I wanted to make sure I wasn't off-base with my initial reaction. From his take on things, it would seem rather not.

Let's break this down:

Earlier this week we learned about a hack into the code of the PSP and PS2 versions of the game that removes special effects filters that were put in place to obscure certain violent depictions. We have investigated the matter and concluded that unauthorized versions of the game have been released on the Internet along with instructions on how to modify the code to remove the special effects. Once numerous changes to the game's code have been made and other unauthorized software programs have been downloaded to the hardware device which circumvent security controls that prevent unauthorized games from being played on that hardware, a player can view unobscured versions of certain violent acts in the game. Contrary to some reports, however, we do not believe these modifications fully restore the product to the version that originally received an AO rating, nor is this a matter of unlocking content.

-- ESRB issues statement about Manhunt 2 hacks and controversy

OK, here's the thing about the above statement: it does not represent any departure from the original Hot Coffee fiasco. The modders for Hot Coffee also modified code to remove logic to show previously unshown scenes. The only big distinction is that the PC does not have the same kind of restrictions that the PSP platform has - but that just alters the hill the PSP hackers had to climb to get to the same point.

Let's examine the ESRB's rebuttal to that point, from the same Joystiq post:

The Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas "Hot Coffee" situation involved a scene that was a) fully rendered in an unmodified form on the disc (the Hot Coffee mod did not alter the content that was there, it merely unlocked it), b) not previously disclosed to the ESRB during the rating process, and c) easily accessible to all owners of the PC version of the game. Conversely, in the case of Manhunt 2, a) content that was programmed to be part of the game (i.e., visual blurring effects of certain violent depictions) is being modified, b) the content was previously disclosed to the ESRB, and c) unauthorized versions of software and/or hardware are required to play the modified content.

To say that the Manhunt 2 material wasn't unlocked, because code removed special effects filters, but that GTA material was unlocked, because it switched some flags to allow the scenes to play - is simply semantic. Technically it's the difference of an apple and say, a granny smith apple. For the Manhunt 2 material to be shown at all, the scenes must exist in their unaltered format (just like GTA). Telling the code not to display a blur filter isn't significantly different from telling the code to show scene A instead of skipping it.

The ESRB has engaged in this kind of wordplay before - shifting blame from publishers to developers to modders in their arguments depending on who was asking the question. The only real distinction here is that we are talking about material that Rockstar disclosed, the ESRB rated and Rockstar "edited".

So in other words - the real distinction between the Manhunt 2 content and the GTA content isn't Rockstar, it isn't the publisher and it isn't the modders. It's the ESRB. They've decided to handle this situation in a different way for one basic reason:

Someone did the math and they realized they could get away with it. The PSP is a tiny market compared to the PC, Manhunt 2's controversy is already old news and quite frankly nobody really cares about a subpar game on the world's second rate handheld martket.

The problem with that is that the ESRB continues to act more like a political body than as a standards body. Their message in instances such as this is not necessarily about communication with consumers as it is about damage control.

If the same kind of focus was getting shown onto the situation as we saw with the frantic over-reaction to Hot Coffee, I'd put dollars to donuts that the ESRB would be singing a different tune. If we were talking the Wii version here? Oh brother, watch out.

Sadly, that's precisely what consumers - and especially parents - don't need. Parents don't give two cents, nor should they, whether the material was on the disc, or added to the disc, or hacked from the disc, or if the flag was set by a config file, or if it took a hex editor, or if their kid could run a binary patch, or whatnot. They need to know what happens when they buy a game and what can happen after they bring it home.

This is a failure to communicate - and one that's indicative of a problem with the ESRB in general.

Halo 3 For Jesus

I've already covered that while we have politicians and lawyers making as much green and hay out of the fact that violent video games are evil, that games should not be violent and that violence in games is always bad and will rot civilization to the core ... that while they continue to beat the constant drum of "think of the children", that the Air Force thinks of the children in terms of getting them to be violent with a little Halo 3 to recruit them into real war.

So violence in media is bad, unless it is serves as an escapist fantasy before getting on with the real thing.

Now the New York Times reports that churches are getting in on the action by offering Halo 3 to their youth groups:

Far from being defensive, church leaders who support Halo — despite its “thou shalt kill” credo — celebrate it as a modern and sometimes singularly effective tool. It is crucial, they say, to reach the elusive audience of boys and young men.

Witness the basement on a recent Sunday at the Colorado Community Church in the Englewood area of Denver, where Tim Foster, 12, and Chris Graham, 14, sat in front of three TVs, locked in violent virtual combat as they navigated on-screen characters through lethal gun bursts. Tim explained the game’s allure: “It’s just fun blowing people up.”

Once they come for the games, Gregg Barbour, the youth minister of the church said, they will stay for his Christian message. “We want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell,” Mr. Barbour wrote in a letter to parents at the church.

-- Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church

The quite wonderful Aleks K rightly points out that this undermines the games industry in their efforts to maintain rating standards. It's hard to fight the good fight when the other side sometimes forgets there is a battle at all.

To be honest, I'd rather have fourteen year old kids hanging out in the basement of a church earning frags than, well, a good number of things fourteen year old kids might be doing otherwise. I just think if we're going to get into a "well, it's OK because" type debate we should have started with "well, it's OK because these games don't turn kids into criminals". The next time the media jumps the gun on some school shooter assuming it was all Counter-Strike's fault - I don't want them to go interview BatJack Thompson, I want them to call this priest. Tell them you've had a flood of kids come through your door playing a M rated game and the worst that happened was that they didn't give a donation that Sunday.

Interview With Patricia Vance on ESRB Ratings

Just how the ESRB rates games is often a source of wonderment and curiosity ... actually it isn't, but it should be considering that the ratings on games is a central point in the controversy of what games should be handled by what people of what ages and all that.

Curmudgeon Gamer's own Matt Matthews talks to the woman who can answer these often unasked questions. Here's a sample:

I can't speak to the rating process for any one game, but generally speaking, things like language -- bathroom humor, plays on words, slang -- fictitious or non-descript substances, or use of religious imagery can often be tricky. The presence of sensitive social issues in games, like sexual or racial stereotyping for example, have also led to internal debate about how best to address them from a ratings standpoint.

Though it might surprise people to hear it, low-level or cartoon violence actually tends to be something that receives a lot of thought and discussion. Take for instance an animated character that smacks another over the head with a frying pan. Is that Comic Mischief or Mild Cartoon Violence? To a degree, that's going to depend a lot on the depiction itself. What happened to the character when he got hit? How malicious or realistic was the violent act? How often does it occur? Context is also a consideration. What prompted the action? Is it player-controlled, or is it in a cut-scene?

-- This Game Is Not Yet Rated: Inside The ESRB Ratings System [Gamasutra]