Parental controls on consoles

[Thorin]

Boy has this thread ever drifted from the original topic

Heh, no kidding

First idea - relating to what you do or don't allow your kids to do (and how it effects them later) - as Shayne said earlier, my parents placed very few rules on what I did and such.  I was kept fairly well-shielded from porn and stuff like that, but virtually no censorship on violence/language since elementary school.  And what I'd really like to hear opinions on - I was often allowed alcohol from a very young age.  My family is of German descent, and at the time there was no drinking age in Germany (now it's 14 years).  Dad kept me from getting drunk, but I'd usually share his beer's, until I got enough body-mass; I was having beers to myself in my early teens.  And the effect this had on my life - it took the danger and mystery out of alcohol.  When I turned 18 going out and drinking as much as I could hold was the last thing on my mind - I'd been drinking for 10 years already, what makes that day any more important.

Well, if you were living in Canada at the time then your dad was committing child abuse according to the letter of the law.  However, I certainly understand the reason behind it, and many European countries have laws that are more lax when it comes to alcohol consumption than puritannical Canada.



As a parent, I can say that I won't be taking this tack because alcohol affects the brain and its development, and the brain is going through several developmental stages before reaching adulthood.  At the same time, though, I'm already talking to my kids about what alcoholic drinks are, why people drink them, what it does to people, and what kinds of responsibilities are tied to consuming alcohol.  Specifically, I stress that alcohol makes you unable to react properly and therefore you should not operate anything with wheels, and that alcohol can kill you if consumed in large quantities and therefore when you're old enough to consume you should still watch your intake.  When they're older, I'll be talking about what kind of "intake" is still safe.



As a child, my dad did let me try wine and beer; I found the wine was okay but the beer was too bitter.  From the stories I hear now from my mother, the idea of children tasting alcohol when they're young was a common value twenty to twenty-five years ago.

Second idea - this one goes way off-topic, but it popped into my head thanks to this quote from above... "Thanks Thorin especially for sharing -- I as a fellow parent am going through challenges right now, and believe as well that censorship in general is a bad idea, since what is happening is JOE is not able to enjoy artistic creations that JACK disapproves of, just because JACK has a louder voice, bigger wallet, and/or more legsislators that are controlled by either of those.", except I'm thinking more prohibition than censorship - imho prohibition is just censorship of a physical object/material/thing.  Specifically, I'd like your thoughts on cannabis legalization.  If you haven't guessed yet, yes I'm pro-legalization.  But don't read into that that I think kids should be allowed to have it, or that people should be driving around smoking, or anything like that.  Like alcohol and tobacco it needs to remain a controlled substance.  But as in the quote above, just because the anti-legalization crowd has a louder voice, bigger wallet, etc. it is banned altogether.

When talking about legalizing any item that is currently illegal to possess/distribute/use, there are two things that lawmakers must consider:



1. Do users of the item have a propensity to get addicted and commit crimes to make money to feed their addiction?  If yes, then legalizing the item will likely trample the rights of others to safety, well-being, and property.



2. Do users of the item have a propensity to commit crimes while under the influence of the item?  If yes, then legalizing the item will likely trample the rights of others to safety, well-being, and property.



Unfortunately this may mean that some people want to use items that are illegal because most users of said items will commit crimes either under the influence or to feed an addiction.



I specifically say "item" rather than "substance", because things like VLTs can be just as addictive and can cause just as much crime as crystal meth.



Now, I think that cannabis passes muster for the above two considerations.  However, there are still plenty of people who are not responsible during and immediately after smoking pot; my neighbour's youngest son is a prime example, smoking up while backing his truck out of the driveway.  That being said, I think cannabis should be legalized to the point that alcohol is, and that there should be some serious education campaigns teaching people not to smoke up and drive/use heavy machinery/go cliff-diving.  Now compare that to crystal meth, where users tend to commit crimes while on the drug, and commit even more crimes to feed the addiction to the drug.  I think crystal meth should continue to be a banned substance, for the greater good of our society.

[Shayne]

However by you restricting access to items/substances are you not trampling on the rights of those wanting to access them?  Its a catch 22.



Taking it one step further though wouldnt it be better to provide access then restrict it and use education and insentives not to participate in the more tabu items/substances.



While i see that you are "all about the greater good", im of the opposite alignment in that it bugs the living @#$% out of me that you and others feel the need to make decisions for ME when your only looking out for YOU.



Besides, anything can be addicting be it porn, vlts, alcohol, cigs, FOOD, sex, etc.  Would people commit crimes to ease the addictions withdrawl and continue on the high for say food and/or sex...i would thing so given a strong enough addiction.

[Darren Dirt]

IMHO we'd all be better off, and have more clear thinking on these issues -- and thus intelligent debate beyond subjective assertion and baseless speculation, not saying we're doing that btw -- by buying a few books from this site (or this section), and frequently reading and pondering articles from this site.  



- - -



PS: re. "2." Perhaps that is true in some cases, or for some items in "most" cases. However that is never the case for "all" users, and indeed there have been cases of people who commit crimes, even violent crimes, as a result of taking in too much MSG, too much sugar, or even experiencing too much stress-induced adreniline in rush hour traffic, yet others experiencing these same stimuli, including "hard drugs", do not commit crimes. So perhaps these "stimuli" are not the real problem.





But re. "1." -- "Do users of the item have a propensity to get addicted and commit crimes to make money to feed their addiction? If yes, then legalizing the item will likely trample the rights of others to safety, well-being, and property." I disagree, from what I understand the opposite is true. Please hear me out...



Crime by "addicts" of substances goes down when the free market provides those substances, if you are talking about crimes that are committed by those addicts in order to acquire the substance.



- - - A word about "capitalism" - - -



Actually, your position may indeed be true only if the government institutes "price controls" or other such regulation on the "controlled but now legalized substance".



Historically, keeping a product or service at an artificially inflated price results in one of 2 actions by consumers: either (a) they will replace consumption of that item with another (consider what happened when silver prices went way up decades ago, Kodak and others modified their formula so they used less silver in their film), or (b) they will, indeed, commit crimes (either violent, or through "black market" methods) to get that item. Can you imagine if bread factories were ordered by law to charge $5.00 per loaf, and $2.00 of that went to the government as a "sin tax"? Wouldn't some factories be willing to distribute the same product for $1.50 per loaf, "under the table"? Wouldn't some criminally-minded individuals feel it justified to steal the bread and sell it on the "black market", or others to steal just in order to pay for the bread? What's happening with cigarettes nowadays?



Remember most of what we have been told is "free market capitalism" is really "state capitalism", i.e. "corporate welfare" in some form, including price controls among other methods. Something to consider.

[Shayne]

I dont believe price and or availability has anything to do with addictions.

[Mr. Analog]

I dont believe price and or availability has anything to do with addictions.

It's difficult to get addicted to Faberge egg collecting if you make minimum wage.



I'd also like to point out that there is a wide margin between freedom and anarchy. If you let a child run free with no concepts of right or wrong you are relying on some kind of magical built in ability of that child to figure it out for themselves and come to the right decision (not impossible, but not garaunteed either). Parental guidance does not benefit the parent all that much, in fact it costs the parent a lot of time and frustration, it is for the benefit of the child. Now I agree that a child shouldn't be coddled and "protected" from the real world, but by the same token I don't have to let a child get burned to teach them that fire burns.



Parenting is a constant balancing act between dispencing justice, wisdom and love.

[Thorin]

However by you restricting access to items/substances are you not trampling on the rights of those wanting to access them? Its a catch 22.

With that argument, are you not trampling my rights to do whatever the hell I want by not allowing me to murder you?  I do not consider it a catch-22, because I consider the responsibility of ensuring I don't trample others' rights to override my right to do anything I want.  To pass beyond that boundary is to pass from a civil society in which everyone gets as much freedom as possible, to a predatory society in which everyone fends for themself, same as the animals.  Keeping in mind that Man defeats the Animals because we band together and protect our young, our old, and our infirm, to fall back to a predatory society may lose us the ability to defeat the Animals (and I mean all non-human life on the planet, including insects and plants).



Imagine, though: in the type of society you seem to promote, where everyone can do anything they want, this message board to share ideas may not exist because someone may not have liked something said here and decided to blow up the building the server(s) is(are) housed in.  And nothing could be said or done about it, by the rules of the society.

Crime by "addicts" of substances goes down when the free market provides those substances, if you are talking about crimes that are committed by those addicts in order to acquire the substance.

I'm talking about crimes committed to get money to buy the item.  From what statistics I've seen, cannabis users typically earn money to pay for the cannabis and are typically capable of working when not high, as opposed to crystal meth users who typically steal items and sell them for money to pay for the meth and are typically too twitchy/sketchy/paranoid/unreliable to work when not high.  If cannabis were legalized, crime related to it would virtually disappear, as almost all criminal charges related to cannabis are for the possession or sale of it.  If crystal meth were legalized, crime related to it would still occur, as a lot of theft charges are laid against users of it.



I suppose another example would be the use of lottery tickets versus the use of VLTs.  There are numerous people addicted to VLTs who doctor books and steal from their place of employment or parents or friends or children just to continue dropping loonies in the machine.  I'm not aware of any evidence that lottery tickets causes the same amount of crime just to feed the addiction; possibly because it takes longer to buy the ticket?



I do not think that I should be the one to decide what should and shouldn't be available, though.  I'm by no means an expert on the subjects, although I try to stay informed.  I do not consider deferring to a panel of experts to be detrimental to society as a whole, so long as their findings are publicized and their decisions can be scrutinized, explained, and challenged.  In that sense, if I were living in the States at this time I would be squarely against the Patriot Act, and living here in Canada I have a problem with all decisions having to be ordained by Her Majesty the Queen.

Besides, anything can be addicting be it porn, vlts, alcohol, cigs, FOOD, sex, etc. Would people commit crimes to ease the addictions withdrawl and continue on the high for say food and/or sex...i would thing so given a strong enough addiction.

Right.  I have no problem with a decent discussion where all sides get to make their case; if eventually a group representing society as a whole becomes well-informed and makes a decision on whether the item causes or is very likely to cause violations of the rights of members of the society, I will abide by the decision, but I will expect that their reasons are spelled out and the decision can be reversed if it turns out they were ill-informed or pushing their own agenda.  Keep in mind here that I'm perfectly happy letting you have your addictions, as many as you want, right up to the point just before it violates my rights, my kids rights, your parents rights, or Cova's dad's sister's son's nephew's grandfather (clearly, a made up relation that I have no idea if he exists ).

While i see that you are "all about the greater good", im of the opposite alignment in that it bugs the living @#$% out of me that you and others feel the need to make decisions for ME when your only looking out for YOU.

I'm not sure that I'm only looking out for me.  In trying to make society safer for all its members, you also benefit.  If you really want a society where you can do whatever you want as long as you're strong enough to do it, try the slums of Baghdad.  Be prepared to not be the strongest one around, and be forced to do things you don't want to.



Now, what was this all about?  Oh yeah, legalization of cannabis.  I'm for legalization, because from what I've seen and heard users of cannabis are not likely to violate my rights of safety and well-being while using it.



Lets turn this on its head: would you be for or against the legalization of driving a car while under the influence of a large amount of alcohol?  My answer would be no, because drunk drivers have a very high tendency to get into accidents and hurt or kill people, thereby violating their right of well-being.

[Thorin]

PS: re. "2." Perhaps that is true in some cases, or for some items in "most" cases. However that is never the case for "all" users, and indeed there have been cases of people who commit crimes, even violent crimes, as a result of taking in too much MSG, too much sugar, or even experiencing too much stress-induced adreniline in rush hour traffic, yet others experiencing these same stimuli, including "hard drugs", do not commit crimes. So perhaps these "stimuli" are not the real problem.

Did you edit your post?  I don't remember reading this before putting my way-too-long reply together



I haven't heard of cases where a person committed violent crimes simply because of too much sugar or MSG.  Also, a couple of scientific studies (reproducible, with proper double-blind testing) have come out that debunk the myth of sugar causing a spike in hyperactivity.  Basically, both studies showed that parents perceived their children as more hyperactive if the parents had been told their children had been given sugar, even if the children had gotten the placebo, while parents told their children received a placebo labelled them overwhelmingly as unchanged (even though half of those kids were given sugar).  I wish I could find the links to show this to you.  I think it's an interesting concept that sugar-induced hyperactivity is really just a mental psyche-out by parents...



And scientific studies have been run for several banned substances that measure the propensity of users to commit crimes to get money to feed their addiction, including cocaine and crack cocaine, crystal meth, and cannabis.  From the ones I've read, cannabis is shown as not having a propensity to commit crimes in pursuit of money for drugs, while the other two have shown a propensity.  I'm sure if we dig far enough we can find studies about alcohol, tobacco, VLTs, lotteries, etc, but I don't know enough about these items to make even a partially-informed statement.



By the way, did your links to the libertarian books indicate that you think we are discussing libertarianism?  Or that some of us could consider ourselves libertarians while others could not?  I don't know enough on the subjet to know where on the spectrum I sit, so if you want to provide some background info, that'd be cool.

[Thorin]

All this talk about our rights made me look up the official wording of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  Now I'm looking for the wording of the Constitution of Canada.

[Thorin]

Here's the Constitution Acts, although I warn you that it's a lot of reading.

[Darren Dirt]

I'd also like to point out that there is a wide margin between freedom and anarchy.

The dictionary defines "freedom", at its core, as "absence of restraint or coercion". Technically, "anarchy" means "without rulers", not "without rules". Many people think of freedom as "minimal restraint", because of how many times folks like Bush et al promote "democracy" as the equivalent of "freedom". So perhaps this "wide margin" comes into play when that kind of political definition is considered rather than the definition of the word itself. Some seem to consider "freedom" is equivalent to "freedom to do whatever the government permits you to do" while "anarchy" is "do whatever you want even if it harms another". See below, my response to Thorin is related to this belief.

However by you restricting access to items/substances are you not trampling on the rights of those wanting to access them? Its a catch 22.

With that argument, are you not trampling my rights to do whatever the hell I want by not allowing me to murder you?  I do not consider it a catch-22, because I consider the responsibility of ensuring I don't trample others' rights to override my right to do anything I want.  To pass beyond that boundary is to pass from a civil society in which everyone gets as much freedom as possible, to a predatory society in which everyone fends for themself, same as the animals.  Keeping in mind that Man defeats the Animals because we band together and protect our young, our old, and our infirm, to fall back to a predatory society may lose us the ability to defeat the Animals (and I mean all non-human life on the planet, including insects and plants).

Wow, you meant it when you said lengthy post And yes, I apparently added the reference to #2 after my initial submission.





"With that argument, are you not trampling my rights to do whatever the hell I want by not allowing me to murder you?"

^ "whatever the hell I want" is not what any of us are promoting (I presume). "Whatever the hell I want so long as it does not directly cause another individual to experience loss, harm, or injury against their property, liberty, or life" is what I personally am promoting. I am reading a book right now "Anything That's Peaceful", and that title succintly sums it up.



- - -



Oh, and re. "constitution" researching:



constitution (noun) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/constitution

1. The act or process of composing, setting up, or establishing;

2a.The composition or structure of something; makeup.

2b. The physical makeup of a person: Having a strong constitution, she had no trouble climbing the mountain.

3a. The system of fundamental laws and principles that prescribes the nature, functions, and limits of a government or another institution.

3b. The document in which such a system is recorded.



I am presuming you mean something along the lines of "3a", but the question is, did you find anything? AFAIK, "Canada" has no formal "constitution", but "The system of fundamental laws and principles that prescribes the nature, functions, and limits of a government or another institution" is based on a mixture of historical customs, common law, legal maxims, and case law. I might be mistaken, though. Some claim that in 1982 there was finally a "constitution". Yet that just raises a new question, what was the "constitution of Canada" before then? What about before 1867's "confederacy" or whatever? Oh boy more questions





PS: "Government can not make a thing 'legal', they can only stop making it 'illegal'." -- some guy I heard somewhere.

[Shayne]

While Thorin does take the "extreme" reverse on my position (as most people do) about killing people, i agree that i shouldnt trample on your rights, but to group ALL "crystal meth" users under a violent crime umbrella seems a little unfair.  Suppose i use it on a regular basis, in my home, without disturbing anyone, shouldnt i be allowed to? If my wife wants an abortion shouldnt she be allowed?  If i want to marry my boyfriend shouldnt i be allowed?  None of these effect you or society other then morally, but your morals should have nothing to do with mine.



I'll accept the fact that morally im a tad closer to Anarchy then i am Democratic.  I believe that people can make up their own minds, while sure their are some that obviously cannot, i do not think that others should make the rules for others.



Now I do know that we need an organized set of rules, an organized government, and a basic charter or rights and freedoms.  Given that, i do not see why any substance needs to be illegal, or any device needs to be illegal.  If a person gets high on crack and murders 36 people, well, we have rules for that, but for you and your society to dictate what i can and cannot do to myself, i just dont see how you have the right.



Perhaps the sci-fi zero tolerance for ANY crime might be the best way to handle it.  Insta-death penalty.



By banning different drugs and or devices, its just a form of pre-crime-prevention.  Just because it could be bad, it could kill people, we outta ban it...just doesnt seem like the right way to go about it.

[Thorin]

"With that argument, are you not trampling my rights to do whatever the hell I want by not allowing me to murder you?"

^ "whatever the hell I want" is not what any of us are promoting (I presume). "Whatever the hell I want so long as it does not directly cause another individual to experience loss, harm, or injury against their property, liberty, or life" is what I personally am promoting. I am reading a book right now "Anything That's Peaceful", and that title succintly sums it up.

Hmm, perhaps therein lies the difference.  I see value in banning items that have a high likelihood of directly causing such experiences.  As I've tried to point out before, though, such bans should not be knee-jerk reactions but carefully considered decisions based on scientific evidence gathered by responsible groups of people and mulled over by other groups of intelligent, responsible people.  As an example of a knee-jerk reaction, Ecstasy used to be legal and then became illegal to possess/distribute/use when it was found that large groups of teens and young adults were taking it.  There was no conclusive evidence that property crimes were being committed to buy Ecstasy, nor that users tended to do things that endangered those around them while they were high.  Should it have become a banned substance?  I don't think so, by the measures I proposed early to determine whether something should be banned or not.

Oh, and re. "constitution" researching:



constitution (noun) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/constitution

1. The act or process of composing, setting up, or establishing;

2a.The composition or structure of something; makeup.

2b. The physical makeup of a person: Having a strong constitution, she had no trouble climbing the mountain.

3a. The system of fundamental laws and principles that prescribes the nature, functions, and limits of a government or another institution.

3b. The document in which such a system is recorded.



I am presuming you mean something along the lines of "3a", but the question is, did you find anything? AFAIK, "Canada" has no formal "constitution", but "The system of fundamental laws and principles that prescribes the nature, functions, and limits of a government or another institution" is based on a mixture of historical customs, common law, legal maxims, and case law. I might be mistaken, though. Some claim that in 1982 there was finally a "constitution". Yet that just raises a new question, what was the "constitution of Canada" before then? What about before 1867's "confederacy" or whatever? Oh boy more questions

I was referring to 3a as you list it.  Canada does a have a specific formal Constitution, started off with the Constitution Act of 1867, enhanced by the Constitution Act of 1982, and amended and supported by other acts passed from time to time as listed in the Schedules attached to both the 1867 and 1982 Constitution Acts.  Before Confederacy in 1867, Canada was governed in whole as a Dominion under the rule of Her Majesty, the Queen of England, ruler of the British Empire.  And Alberta was called "Rupert's Land"

PS: "Government can not make a thing 'legal', they can only stop making it 'illegal'." -- some guy I heard somewhere.

Legal/Illegal is a boolean state.  It is either one or the other, never both.  Therefore, to stop making it illegal is to make it legal.  In fact, the entire job of the legislative arm of our system of government is to declare things legal or illegal.  The default state is to be legal, until a law can be passed to make it illegal.  A future law can then be passed to make it legal again, if so desired.



I wanna say here, too, that it is not the job of the legislative arm to actually run the day-to-day operations of the government.  For instance, even the creation of budgets is not actually done by the legislative arm; rather, civil servants make such documents and a law is then proposed to make that document in effect for the current year.  After the law has been passed, it would be illegal to do something with the money that is specifically disallowed in the budget document.

[Shayne]

While we are at it, lets clean up the grey area in our "rules".

[Mr. Analog]

Note: the follwing post is OT but I have to say my $0.02

The dictionary defines "freedom", at its core, as "absence of restraint or coercion". Technically, "anarchy" means "without rulers", not "without rules". Many people think of freedom as "minimal restraint", because of how many times folks like Bush et al promote "democracy" as the equivalent of "freedom". So perhaps this "wide margin" comes into play when that kind of political definition is considered rather than the definition of the word itself. Some seem to consider "freedom" is equivalent to "freedom to do whatever the government permits you to do" while "anarchy" is "do whatever you want even if it harms another".

1. Offtopic



2. Vastly observational, if we consider some of the other available definitions for freedom, your comparison to anarchy falls apart. The definition I perscribe to is "the freedom to choose", that isn't to say that the consequnces of such a choice aren't administrated by the people who represent our will (the Gov'mint). I could choose to kill someone, however the consequence of that is that if found and convicted I go to jail. I can still choose to do it, I just get punished if I do. Some countries actually go out of their way to enforce rules like, what you can and can't say, what you can wear, what Gods you can pray to, etc.  They do not give you a choice, they simply impose.



I really don't think there is really any question about the differences between freedom and anarchy, no matter which way you bend words.



Incedentally, in my opinion Anarchy is the single most narcissistic political belief anyone can have. Anarchy elevates the self above all others with no restrictions. It declares that everyone is right, even in contradiction. No society has ever or will ever work this way.

[Ustauk]

It's a fine line between regulating society and allowing freedom of the individual to screw themselves over.  I have not done any illicit drugs, but I'm not against the decriminalization of marijuana, as the side effects are for the most part no worse then smoking, which is already legal.  I believe that it is right to make crystal meth illegal, because the side effects can really screw a person  over and can cause severe societal problems, both from addiction related crimes and severe health consequences for the user.  I've quote the side effects of meth from the wikipedia article on it.

Adverse effects

Compulsive fascination with useless repetitive tasks (see Punding)

Severe psychological addiction

Acne

Depression

Amphetamine psychosis

Erectile dysfunction (see "crystal dick")

Long-term cognitive impairment due to neurotoxicity

Tooth decay ("meth mouth")

Damage to immune system

Persistent anhedonia with chronic use

Death