Pak_43

I suspect Wiki is also pretty thorough on the list of films and books I put up, or at least thorough enough to form an opinion on?

Okies, no worries... have you played GTAIV?

Because it's entertaining? Is this not a socially redeeming value? I'd like to dig out some examples and see if you could you tell me if they have no socially redeeming value, as an exercise? Is that ok? I'm genuinely interested in this, I've tried to pick some stuff that I think you'll be familiar with but obviously that's my take on what might be popular... Films... Aliens A Clockwork Orange Angela's Ashes Starship Troopers Brokeback Mountain Resevoir Dogs Books... Gullivers Travels Dracula Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit Harry Potter (any one) The Silence of the Lambs Jaws

And I suppose the millions of people that enjoyed GTAIV (I'm assuming it falls under your definition of "gratuitously violent product") means it has "no redeeming social value", isn't entertainment a socially redeeming value? If entertainment isn't a socially redeeming value then should we do away with films? or board games? Or, god forbid, books?

The plural of anecdote is not data....

The Crucible of War by Barrie Pitt about the N. African campaign, has nothing but good to say about the Aussies performance in N. Africa...

Indeed, possibly an attempt to knock out production of the merlin for the bombers that used them?

They had 2 pretty good goes at knocking out industry in Sheffield on the 12th and 15th December 1940 , neither put a dent in production afaik... Of course the fact that it isn't easy to do, shouldn't have stopped the British government diversifying their production bases. T the BoB book does say that with another 6 weeks of attrition at that rate it would become problematic, but does fail to say that it was highly unlikely the Luftwaffe could have kept up that rate of attrition for 6 days never mind 6 weeks. IIRC it was noticable to the Luftwaffe top brass that during their big pushes the morale of the bomber crews dropped alarmingly as the casualty rates started to hit home...

According to "The Battle of Britian", By: Richard Hough & Denis Richards, Chapter 16, The Strategic Turning Point. "Another three weeks at the same rate of attrition, and they (The Planes) would be exhausted - even sooner if there was serious damage to the aircraft factories (or, worst of all, to the Vickers works in Sheffield, where the only drop-hammer in Britain capable of forging cranshaft castings for the Merlin engine was working round the clock, producing eighty-four (84) stampings per shift)." Might explain Britain's eagerness to get an alternative engine maker sorted in 1940...

Malcolm Gladwell addresses this fact in his book "The Tipping Point" and backs it up with some good evidence (imo). Needless to say the impact (or lack of) of video games is not examined as a major motivational factor as to why crime rates go up or down.

No, of course you're not addressing those individuals, but some perceived mass of mentally unstable subnormals incapable of separating fantasy from fiction from reality? How do these supposed thousands of people survive in our modern society? Could they be holding down jobs, paying taxes and voting governments in and out of power? And if these supposed masses are having their minds twisted and altered by playing video games how come there aren't hundreds of incidents of people acting out their most outrageous fantasies taken directly from games such as GTAIV in the streets all over the world? GTAIV has sold in excess of 6 million copies and in fact sold 3.6 million copies on it's first day out. With the levels of debauchery and violence going on in the game that you suggest influence people you'd have thought there would be a massive spike of violence several weeks after the release of the game as all those poor, mentally disturbed psycho's mentally masturbate to the sex and violence on their screens before grabbing their keys and heading to the towns and cities of the world to commit mass murder... Funnily enough I don't think any such crime wave happened, certainly not near me, or in fact near anyone I know. What about near you? Notice any whacko's running around blasting a cap into the ass of nearby motorists while receiving text messages on their phones saying to go and deliver some drugs? I'd have thought we'd have been knee deep in them after 3.6 million sales on the first day. I'd have thought there'd have been a direct and easy to make correlation between sales of such a game and the levels of violence endemic in society. I'd have thought those who opposed violent video games would have been desperate to draw a parallel with some pretty unrefutable data that would have closed the book once and for all on the subject. I'd have thought that the media would have gone crazy-go-nuts (c. Strongbad) over this massive crime spike and splashed all of the dead bodies all over the news...

I'm no different or more special than any other individual of 18 years plus, no more able to differentiate between a video game and reality than anyone else. Let's put down the "of course I'm only thinking of the plebian masses and what's best for them the poor deluded ignorant peasants" and give them the same credit your apparently giving me. You presumably have some examples in mind when you talk of "in part inspired and fired up by what they've seen and done in some game or another"?

Actually I think GTAIV is a great game, with a fantastic storyline and deep characterisation. Of course if you want to run around jacking cars, dealing in drugs and shooting innocent bystanders while ignoring the plot etc. you can, but it's a very, very clever game that deserved all the accolades it got in my opinion. Of course it's the poster child for the "video games are all nasty and horrible and are bringing down society" collective but that's chiefly (imho) because the company that produced it correctly worked out it can use the "moral majorities" moral outrage to good advertising effect and thus clean up financially. The irony of which allowed them to laugh all the way to the bank and home again wearing their huge money hats...

Your not the only skeptic mate... http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article

"In my personal opinion, Steam has "sweet-packaged" a pretty intrusive DRM system by putting the "community features" in front and keeping the rest in the background." I'm not sure about "sweet packaged", it's a rational choice for me, I'll trade some DRM for the ability to play with my mates quickly and easily any day...

If you want to get organised with your mates online, get them into the game your playing with the minimum of fuss and have a chat / voice at the same time then Steam rocks, it's much more than an e-license system and that should be recognised here I feel...

Have to agree with you DBaron, played the demo and did exactly the same thing with the same results. I didn't get my general killed but did lose all of my artillery early on which seemed to make no odds...

I'd agree with that summary completely. I'll retract my rather sweeping statement about distrusting intellectuals, it doesn't bear examination as I should have realised... Although I did dig up a link about Churchills leadership style, worth a read.. http://homepage.eircom.net/%257Eodyssey/Quotes/History/Keegan_Churchill.html#6

That's not my point, my point was to criticise the governments policy of appeasement when it really was the only viable strategy and yet he was part of the government that ran down defence spending is (imho) hypocrisy, but your absolutely right, the UK government had many other challenges at the time not least the populations wish to avoid war at all costs..

Churchill was renowned for not trusting his military experts and backing his own judgements, he was also inherently a gambler when it came to strategy. He distrusted intellectuals (which was why he got on so badly with Wavell) The 2 battleships sent to the Far East without any air support was basically done on his say so, and a rude awakening for him of how naval warfare had changed. OTOH he could galvanise people like nobody else, and his vision in backing Bletchley Park with everything he could showed a remarkable foresight about the benefits it could bring, the success in keeping it a secret throughout the war showed Churchill at his best, being prepared to sacrifice short term success for the long term gains of keeping their codebreaking secret...

For Churchill you could make the case he was a major hypocrite when it came to defence spending in the early 30's? Not a popular view but Corrigan's "Blood, sweat and arrogance" has some fairly compelling evidence (which isn't to say I agree with everything Corrigan says by a long shot..) He was basically part of the government, and voted for, the extension for several years of the 10 year rule (that defence spending was predicated on the fact that Britain would not go to war in the next ten years.) The major politician who opposed this approach and was responsible for the turnaround in defence spending in the mid to late 30's? Chamberlain.... If you have time, read at least some of Field Marshal's Alanbrookes diary, it's a day to day primary source account of dealing with Churchill, which drove Alanbrooke to the brink of despair at times... (I'll make the point here that I am a huge admirer of Churchill and what he did during the war, but Churchill is often portrayed as the saviour of Britain and an opponent of appeasment, the reason appeasement was the only viable strategy was because the government he was in had reduced defence spending to such a low ebb it was impossible to go to war)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5613065.ece Well done sir, a great innings...

Never mind, here's the future for Apple users... http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary

John Ellis in "Brute Force" pretty much has the numbers on this one, and IIRC it's irrefutable that making the entire Japanese capital ship output into Aircraft carriers would have made no difference,the sheer industrial might of the US would have just ground it into dust over a slightly longer period of time..I'll dig out the numbers when I get home from work...

Talk to the Sherrif and get the mission to defuse the bomb...