Daily News Spin — March 27, 2001 (Tuesday)

Indiana Judge and the Raters of the Arcades

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has granted an injunction against Indianapolis' ordinance limiting violent videogames. The judge argues that no link between violent games and violent behavior has been shown and that shielding children from "violent images" will deny them their First Amendment rights and ill prepare them for the responsible exercise of their adult rights. Here's a bit from the judicial decision:

The issue in this case is not violence as such, or directly; it is violent images; and here the symmetry with obscenity breaks down. Classic literature and art, and not merely today's popular culture, are saturated with graphic scenes of violence, whether narrated or pictorial. The notion of forbidding not violence itself, but pictures of violence, is a novelty, whereas concern with pictures of graphic sexual conduct is of the essence of the traditional concern with obscenity.

The judge then continues, making some strong points:

Children have First Amendment rights....This is not merely a matter of pressing the First Amendment to a dryly logical extreme. The murderous fanaticism displayed by young German soldiers in World War II, alumni of the Hitler Jugend, illustrates the danger of allowing government to control the access of children to information and opinion. Now that eighteen-year- olds have the right to vote, it is obvious that they must be allowed the freedom to form their political views on the basis of uncensored speech before they turn eighteen, so that their minds are not a blank when they first exercise the franchise....People are unlikely to become well- functioning, independent-minded adults and responsible citizens if they are raised in an intellectual bubble.

No doubt the City would concede this point if the question were whether to forbid children to read without the presence of an adult the Odyssey, with its graphic descriptions of Odysseus's grinding out the eye of Polyphemus with a heated, sharpened stake, killing the suitors, and hanging the treacherous maidservants; or The Divine Comedy with its graphic descriptions of the tortures of the damned; or War and Peace with its graphic descriptions of execution by firing squad, death in childbirth, and death from war wounds. Or if the question were whether to ban the stories of Edgar Allen Poe, or the famous horror movies made from the classic novels of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein) and Bram Stoker (Dracula). Violence has always been and remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even obsessive theme of culture both high and low. It engages the interest of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault are aware. To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.

Sorry for the length, but it's difficult to excerpt this argument. There are plenty of other good ideas that the court touches upon. It's a decision well worth reading.

Thanks to Supertanker for the heads up.

The sci-fi behind the SMAC

Happy Puppy has an interesting three-part series that looks at Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, taking a close look at the science fiction elements in the game that have inspired a series of novels.

Alpha Centauri was cold, unforgivingly deep science fiction, but they populated it with a human soul--seven human souls to be exact. They gave the game and its various factions real character, not just general tendencies. Characters, who not only represented these diverse factions, but embodied their philosophy. Sister Miriam the zealot, Nwabudike Morgan the shrewd exploitation capitalist, Santiago the fanatic survivalist, Deirdre the embodiment of a militant Green Peace, Zakharov the "mad" scientist, Yang the totalitarian socialist, and the soft spoken Pravin Lal, the gentle peacekeeper (so long as the terms of that peace are his). Stereotypes certainly, but these characters seemed real in diplomacy. They were so real you could develop grudges or loyalties with them because of their actions during a particular game.

Quarter to what?

Looks like we'll be late with any update to the site today. Tom's out of town and Mark's got a couple of assignments due today to editors, which means he's got to actually start writing them instead of just thinking about them and hoping they write themselves.

We'll get a fresh page of news up, but we're not sure when. Sorry about that.

Want something to do in the meantime? Check out refdesk, one of the handiest sites you'll ever see. It's owned and maintained by Matt Drudge's dad, of all people.

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