Sims 2 "Worse than Hot Coffee for GTA"; Possible Ban?

No, I wish it were that easy. Actually, I tend to be accosted by random women despite my revolting personal habits. Some of them are quite persistent and can absorb a great deal of punishment before giving up pursuit.

 

No kids! :shocked: No scowling babies nor growling, anti-social teens? From the moment mine were born every Tom, , and Harrietta (with or without children of their own) insisted on telling me how kids should be raised, particularly mine. 99.9% of the advice was foolishness and I ignored it. My children turned out just fine (29 and 27 years old now, hardworking, lots of friends.)

Don't give up yet. For every old sock there is an old shoe.

 

Thompson doesn't scare me. He's posted on a commercial web site, thus inviting response and completing eliminating the concept of "stalking." And as he thinks it was his right to loudly proclaim unspoken prejudiced assertions against EA as though they were fact (I always love "conspiring" as a crime), then I have the right to loudly and/or quietly proclaim the proven fact that he's a nut. I know something about libel and slander law and they require that you do harm to a person with something you know is not true. He is far closer to guilty of that than anyone who wrote to him

And hey, Pescado - all joking aside, young children do not understand death. I work with dying people, many of them young and with children of their own. We are frank and honest with them and allow them to touch the body if they want. They don't get it; it's developmental; their sense of time and permanence hasn't developed. I don't know how this plays out finally in terms of gaming, but a young child who bashes his little sister over the head with a rock because he's mad - or aims and shoots a gun he knows how to use - is trying to solve an immediate problem in the present moment, with no concept of lasting consequences, let alone permanent loss.

 

Hummmm. You know what, I think that Mr. Thompson has a point. He says that if we gamers do not like what he's doing, we need to get involved, write to our media, to our Senators. That he has a right to speak to Hillary. Well, that he does. Guess what? So the heck do I!!!

My Senator just happens to be Mrs. Elizabeth Dole. Isn't she sort of the "Anti-Hillary"? Wonder what she will say?

And the newspaper in my little local town LOVES crap like this. And one of my best friends in town is a local television reporter.

Thomspon, get ready for KristalRose, Super Sims 2 Advocate!!!!


(And, please, children, stop sending that creep "I'm gonna kill you" hate mail. You only make things worse. A multi-million dollar egomaniac like him is not going to be worried with the likes of you. Ever see What Monty Burns does to people on "The Simpsons"? Want some low-life Smithers type setting the hounds on you? Because that's all you'd accomplish.)

 

You must be dealing with exceptionally stupid children, then. I've never had this problem. I've always had an appreciation for permanence. In the same way a toy that you break stays broken, people that you kill stay dead. If the people you're killing don't stay dead, then "assassin" is definitely not the career move that's right for you. Like I said, you're probably explaining it wrong. You need to demonstrate it with an object lesson. Kill or break something, then ask them if they think it'll get better. They'll get the idea eventually. Merely being "frank and honest" and letting even touch the body is not enough. You have to let them actually witness the entire chain of events, then interrogate them not only frankly and honestly, but with flat out brutality. Life is short, nasty, and brutish, and if you want to explain things to children, you're going to have to be that way also. Remember: The first and foremost thing that people understand is destruction. The first thing a baby learns to do is to destroy. Work through that.

 

Well, then, I guess I'm in trouble because I'm fairly tall.

Kids can grasp the concepts of death, Pescado, and they may understand how permanent it is, but they do not view in the same way adults do. Children do not always have the perspective to control their angry feelings and having someone they're mad at be dead doesn't seem that bad to them. Most adults are able to see a bigger picture.

Telling them they would go to jail if they killed someone isn't a bad idea, teaching them right from wrong and keeping the guns locked up, or better, not having guns in a house with small children, is even better.

Even a good kid can get mad enough to want to kill his big brother/friend/school bully, especially if the other child makes them feel helpless.

We just need to be frank with our children and explain the consequences of violence, not demonstrate it ourselves, in other words, be what we preach.

And BTW there's nothing more annoying to a parent than someone who preaches HOW to do something they've never experienced. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but you have no idea what it's like to be a parent until you are one ... I know you like stirring things up. Consider them stirred.

 

LOL! No, I dont have strange kids. In this aspect, they are like every teen Ive encountered. Dont ever say, MY kids will never do that. Some cosmic law will insure that they do. Since I was almost 30 when I had my first one, apparently I invoked this law untold times. Can you imagine, at 65, what that would mean for your children? There might be a handful of perfect kids. Ive never met one. Ive met many clueless parents who think theirs are, though. I do find it funny that you think you were such a perfect child. Id love to have heard your parents version. Im sure they, too, had a few stories to tell on you.

My kids, from 14 to 16, did some amazingly stupid things. No one was hurt. Nothing was criminal. They are still alive. But just so you know, my daughter plays piano and flute at a concert level. She received multiple scholarships. She graduated high school early. She graduated college early. She lives on her own, owns her own business, and is working on her masters. She turned 21 last month. My son is editor of his school paper, captain of the tennis team, plays varsity football, aced the language portion of his SATs twice, took all college level courses this year and passed them easily. At this time he could enter university as a sophomore. He just finished 11th grade. He plays the piano, classical guitar, and drums. He has been voted funniest kid every year since 6th grade. They are both proficient at hunting, fishing, and sailing. Theyve worked part time since the age of 15 and earned every penny of their spending money. They manage to accumulate about 45 hours of community service each year. We find them amazing. Perfect? No wayand wouldnt want them to be.

Please dont ask Pescado about his mate selection process. It will have you banging your head on the desk. His child rearing philosophy? AhI see hes started to share that. Its absolutely fascinating. Ive often wondered if hes ever spent any time around children. I suspect its all based around his own unique childhood. If he ever offers a seminar on this subject, I will be first in line to attend. (He's told me he'd rather die than raise his children like I did. Personally, I find that a tad extreme since I wasn't attempting to raise assassins. )

 

Just A Suggestion. . .

This is a copy of the letter I wrote to both my Senators. Please feel free to take it use some of the phrases to write a letter to your Senator.

 

I think that this started around the time they stopped drowning the defective ones.

Me? Perfect? Hardly. I did a rather large number of horrible things as a child, mostly at my parents' encouragement. My parents specifically encouraged me to do the horrible things they could never get away with, because they knew I could. They offered very specific advice on exactly how to go about doing all these horrible things. If something horribly impolite had to be said, I was the one quietly prompted to say it.

As you can imagine, this greatly detracted from the appeal of doing it.

Good for them. I hope you pointed and laughed. I tended to avoid these sorts of things, mostly to avoid pointing and laughing, and because I tend to overanalyze. Is that really such a bad thing? Plus, it's more fun to watch other people do dumb stuff, then laugh at them. And remember that YOU should never do any such thing.

I used to have some younger cousins. The last of them was killed in battle many years ago. A fine family tradition.

 

He has about one valid point, and thats that children shouldn't view pornography/super violence. However, its in my opinion as a "hardcore gamer" that really any teenager around the age of 13 is smart enough to know whats right and wrong, and should be able to play whatever they want. I play a game because its fun, I enjoy my right to play a game if it has replayability or I like it. It feels sort of Starship Troopers style facist when someones trying to impose their will one mine.

 

I would argue that violence is a stronger risk than pornography. If a stupid child decides to imitate the violence, he may end up hurting or killing somebody without the benefit of plausible deniability. Having spent most of my life from childhood being somebody else's plausible deniability, I know full well how important this is. Most children are not taught this, however.

On the other hand, if a child sees pornography, he's going to react with confusion or disgust. Attempts to emulate it will meet with failure. This may even be briefly amusing. Eventually, the idea will lose its novelty. When he encounters it again later in life, the novelty value will already have been exhausted.

 

I couldn't agree more. I would much rather my child accidentally ran across pornography than graphic violence any day. One person's porn is another person's fun, and I am teaching her that the human body, and many of the things you can experience with it, is normal and healthy. Porn, I can explain, and you're right. Her reaction at her age would most likely be eeeeewwww.

Violence on the other hand causes nightmares and confusion. And it's something small kids can do to each other, might even want to do to each other, and is therefore a lot more dangerous.

 

Ach. Too many to reply to. Been out of internet connection for 48 hours and now accessing on a v. slow laptop in the proverbial disaster area (room filled with cardboard cases, many of which have been knifed open in the optimistic hope of finding something useful -- why is that the labels we apply to boxes when we pack up house cease to make any sense after the boxes have moved a mile from the house they were packed in?)

Too much to reply to, but I hope that no one from here has been dumb enough to harrass Mr T. That would be sheer and pointless folly. I agree with Kristal and others who said that any serious campaigning should be done professionally. I still believe that the first port of call is to write (soberly) to your political representive.

After that I feel that writing letters to local and national newspapers has great value, more so if you can interest a journalist in making more of a feature of the debate.

People who are at school could enlist a sympathetic teacher, anyone could turn to a minister of religion. Most people are not video-gamers and therefore have little or no knowledge of them. They probably think they are all the same (either good or bad) or else have no opinion at all.

Thompson mentioned 30 practise at law as a qualification for identifying the "EA Games conspiracy", which sounds like glib nonsense ... but it's good because it sure leaves me speechless! :(

 

side note here: slimsim, i believe it was an AO rating they were trying to put on TS2.

anywho, i did a new "sticker" from scratch based on your idea. i have it posted below in 3 sizes: small, large, and PSD format (in the zip file).

 

My son the ex-goth went through a phase of setting his GI Joe figures on fire. My other son once tried to help out by scraping the ice off the car windshield with a metal rake. (Ouch.) Together they once decided to play baseball inside (it was cold) and broke four windows. Why didn't they stop after the first window? Good question.

We didn't even have a VCR, let alone video games... guess it was bad genes - oh, except for the adoption thing... or bad parenting... but they turned out okay... or just the bumps of life.

It is awfully easy to have answers for parental dilemmas, whether you have or haven't reared your own. My biggest objection to Thompson et al is that his kids are not my kids, my values are not his values, his goals are not my goals, ad infinitum. Cultural relativity is the excuse for many an ill, and many a good. But moral absolutism isn't good for much, I find.

 

Ive enjoyed the views of the parents here. Its the first time in many years, Ive been around parents who have common sense. My husband and I have always recognized that while our children may have hundreds of friends over a lifetime, they will only have two parents. THAT is our job, our joy, and our privilege. Its the hardest job in the world.

We had our children a little later in life and I chose to be a stay at home mom after teaching special ed for many years. Our home was geared to be calm, organized, and interesting. My kids slept in their own rooms, through the night, very early. We discussed how to handle small problems after they were in bed and decided as a team how we would approach it.

I learned a lot over time. The person that picks them up at school learns everything about their day. Children never share all the details twice. As Kristalrose mentioned, the more affluent were frequently the most clueless parents. They didnt see that their child was terrified of walking into an empty house at 3pm. They didnt know their kid sat at their piano recital watching the door, hoping their parents showed up. These are the kids that have computer access and live on the internet. Every time people humiliate children on various forums for being stupid or irritating or cluelessI see lonely kids who desperately want someone to notice them. Ive played Neopets for many years. It was the first place my children were allowed internet access. This site is filled with thousands of these kids. I spent every afternoon for years being a mom to many. They would confide that they were fat and had no friends. They were shy and picked on relentlessly. Their mom was passed out drunk on the couch and they were going to have to find something to eat for dinner. In fact, what I was cooking for my family was a daily question. I sat up every single night for a whole year with a 13 year old kid. His was a single family home and his mom worked the night shift. He was terrified being home alone at night. Every night about 3am, my msn would flash. zy? Are you there? Yes, baby, go back to bed. Thank you. It never occurred to him that I didnt know his name or where he lived. There wasnt a thing I could have done if something had happened.

When my daughter started high school, she picked the worst group to hang out with. I knew better than to forbid it though. Id take these kids home and most lived in homes that should have been condemned. My kid started to resent that she had to be home at a certain time or that we had to know the who, what, when, and where of her activities. We allowed them to come to our home only. Out of the blue one day, the roughest of all these kids, called me. Mrs.____, weve told her shes being stupid. She has everything wed kill for. She has parents that give a s***. She has a real bed with clean sheets. A real dinner on the table. Clean clothes. You dont smack her around or burn her with cigarettes. She just doesnt get it. I started being among the last in line to pick my kids up from school, activities, ball games. Every single timethere is at least one child that a parent forgot to pick up. How do you forget your child? I cant tell you how many do. Ive taken untold numbers of strange children to their homes. Should games be censored? Id prefer the government stay out of almost everythingand then I think about the sheer number of children out there that fend for themselves. Personally? Id prefer the man attack the real problem. Take some of the redundant and absurd requirements out of the high schools and teach parenting skills.

 

Fabulous post, Zy. Doesn't it just boil down to the fact that kids just need to be loved like anyone else. When we grow up ("well" to steal an adjective from TS2) we kinda know how to count our blessing in terms of how well loved, needed and respected we are by our dependees, dependants, colleagues, friends, neighbours, co-workers and casual acquaintances ... and yes, in my book, a community is a holistic organism and love is given and taken from the largest and the smallest sources. But kids cannot so easily do this. They need to learn by example, from the selfless devotion of their parents and other carers. The only love a child needs or understands is time. Love isn't hugs or ownership or possession or genetic relations; nor is it even hormonal ... for a child. Love is simply some time ... for a three year old 24 hours is 1/1000th of its entire life. To its 25 year old mother the same period is an insignificant 1/10,000th of hers. Yet the parent so often begrudges even minutes let alone precious hours.