Yep, I agree. I just wanted to point out those two examples because they so effectively laugh in the face of the standard and both proved so with their cult-like following. I was so pleased to see a bong sitting on the coffee table of my GTA in-game residence. Finally a video game character I can relate to 
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Yeah, I think thats the issue at hand here: on the scale of present day moral outrages the war-on-drugs and nudity take precedence over generic violence.
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I dunno, my mom took me to see Midnight Cowboy at an extremely inappropriate early age. When I saw it again many years later I hadnāt remembered any of the disturbing flashback scenes, just Rizzo pointing out the taped windows explaining how that meant the landlord aināt allowed to charge rent. Also Buck rolling around on the TV remote with the Park Avenue hooker randomly changing channels. Then again, my development may not have been entirely normal.
IāM WALKINā HERE!
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Funny, considering that itās easy to argue that nudity and drugs are an individual concern. I have yet to hear anybody provide a coherent explanation of why those would be subject to interpersonal morality.
Everything besides your internal meditations are potentially subject to āinterpersonal morality.ā Other people might see your gross naked body and be forced to confront their own inevitable slow declines. Participation in the drug trade enables it to flourish, and can make you an annoying pain in the ass in public. Personally, Iām perfectly fine with those things, but itās intellectually lazy to claim that nudity and drugs canāt possibly be of concern to anyone else.
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I didnāt say that people canāt be a concerned, but these correspondences are not very direct, and do not imply any moral obligation. I am strictly anti-coercion, probably more than most people. To me, social coercion mostly involves taking what is oneās own personal problem with something, and making it other peopleās problem. This usually involves shifting peopleās perceptions of personal and civic responsibility - or even their perceptions of the possibilities of such.
How intellectually honest is your first example? If somebody feels that I am somehow indirectly forcing them to confront themselves, isnāt that their problem? Their own lack of personal understanding? Is anybody āforcingā them to do this? And how are these realizations fundamentally different from any other awkward insights they may experience?
Your second example is based upon some implicit assumptions. How is drug trade different from any other kind of trade? Is there something less honest and fair about buying and selling drugs versus anything else? There is a circular logic that such trade is immoral because it is criminalized, but the criminalization itself was done for authoritarian reasons to protect people from themselves.
Ah, what we have here is a semantic misunderstanding. I take āmoralityā to mean something like social coercion or received wisdom, as distinct from āethics,ā which is a rational structure grounded on first principles.
Nonetheless, while Iām against coercion, Iām also (usually, not always) for politeness. Itās rude to sit naked on a bench in a public playground. Itās rude to get fucked up and vomit in someone elseās front yard. Sure, you can argue that vomit is a natural part of the ecosystem and you should be raising your kids not to be freaked out by an old manās hairy swinging dick, but giving up a tiny bit of autonomy, the freedom to do whatever you want, wherever and whenever you want, is the grease that makes the gears of society workable. This is not to argue that there should be a blanket ban (heh) on nudity or drugs, just to keep them where theyāre reasonably expected, behind virtual NSFW tags ā to torture an analogy. The beach has a clothing-optional section, the park has hippie hill; use them.
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True, I thought about saying āethicalā instead. But people commonly refer to sex/drug issues as involving āmoralityā with no deep analysis, so I used this term. Frankly, the ethics behind the legislation of these things I have read was pure religious bias, and IMO appallingly doctrinaire.
Sure, but politeness is not universal. It depends upon many factors such as location, ethnicity, profession, religion, etc. It seems telling that politeness itself is usually not overtly legislated for these reasons.
Well, that is debatable. Why not instead say that it is rude to stare at somebody who is nude in public? I think it is rude to brush oneās teeth on a park bench - but I canāt imagine why it would concern me or anyone else so much as to outrage or call police over it! The mature thing to do would be for me to note my disapproval, and move on to something else instead of making it my business. The hypocrisy is that nudity seems to function as an eye magnet for precisely those people who say that they do not want to see nudity, which makes the whole thing hard for me to take seriously. I see many things I am not thrilled with, but instead of changing everybodyās laws, I instead look at what I like.
What does this have to do with the legality of drugs? It is already unlawful to vomit in somebody elseās yard for any number of other reasons. Saying that such a thing is a drugās fault diminishes the personās personal responsibility for their actions. Blaming drugs never makes for responsible people.
This all sounds a bit hedonistic for my taste. I really dislike āwantā as a motivation for anything. Also, it sounds like you posit āsocietyā as a totality, which I donāt agree with. There is not, and never should be, an over-arching hierarchal society. I think of societies as always inherently plural and overlapping. People and societies I see as being networks, individuals can belong to any number of them at the same time, with their own goals and means. The expectations of people in another society donāt require my approval, because they do not exist on some totalitarian monolithic strata with me. We likely do not share the same values or expectations, and that is perfectly fine.
The only exceptions I make are for issues which do have a practical, non-ideological impact on others, such as pollution and ecology.
I was saying that giving up the freedom to do whatever you want is necessary. Not the hedonistic inverse.
I know. My point was that making concessions about these particular things are more about some peopleās emotional insecurities, rather than about any practical benefits. The āhide drugs and sexā philosophy can be easily traced to a milieu which associated these things with hedonism and paganism. If behaviors are framed from the outset as vice which we may or not makes concessions toward, then dialog is already stilted. I prefer to start from first principles so that people need to be explicit about their biases.
im sorry, are you equating role playing games and strategy board games with fictional characters from a violent tv show ,about drugs and the very real human wasteland, which requires no imagination or skill to passively watch?
enjoy what you enjoy, but please dont equate active play with programming.
Name one of those games please.I canāt think of any that fit that bill.
But most assuredly the right sexā¦
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Hey, mind your aggressive tone, friend. Iām trying to understand, Are you doing your best to explain? I think not, but rather than toss puerile insults, I asked.
I do not understand your point, other than maybe all imaginative play is equivalent?
please tell me how much you disagree with me so you can feel better about yourself now.
I donāt understand you well enough yet to disagree, but youāve sure postured that Iām against you. Nice chip on your shoulder.
Also, eff off.
That was your choice. You made the wine, now drink the cup. Good day sir.
You mean itā¦ isnāt fun?
I played it and my first-hand experience wouldnāt support such claim.
[quote]RIMMER: So there we were at 2:30 in the morning; I was beginning to wish I had never come to cadet training school. To the south lay water ā there was no way we could cross that. To the east and west two armies squeezed us in a pincer. The only way was north; I had to go for it and pray the Gods were smiling on me. I picked up the dice and threw two sixes. Caldecott couldnāt believe it. My go again; another two sixes!
LISTER: Rimmer, whatās wrong with you? Donāt you realize that no one is even slightly interested in anything youāre saying? Youāve got this major psychological defect which blinds you to the fact that youāre boring people to death! How come you canāt sense that?
RIMMER: Anyway I picked up the dice againā¦ Unbelievable! Another two sixes!
LISTER: Rimmer!
RIMMER: What?
LISTER: No one wants to know some stupid story about how you beat your Cadet School Training Officer at Risk.
RIMMER: Then ā disaster! I threw a two and a three; Caldecott picked up the dice and threw snake eyes ā I was still in it.
LISTER: Cat, can you talk to him?.
CAT is sitting with big pieces of cotton wool plugged in to his ears. As LISTER talks to him he takes one of the pieces.
CAT: What?
RIMMER: Anyway, to cut a long story short I threw a five and a four which beat his three and a two, another double six followed by a double four and a double five. After heād thrown a three and a two I threw a six and a three.
CAT: Man, this guy could bore for his country!
LISTER: What I want to know, is how the smeg can you remember what dice you threw at a game you played when you were seventeen?
RIMMER: I jotted it down in my Risk campaign book. I always used to do that so I could replay my moments of glory over a glass of brandy in the sleeping quarters. I ask you, what better way is there to spend a Saturday night?
CAT: Ya got me.
RIMMER: So a six and a three and he came back with a three and a two.
LISTER: Rimmer, canāt you tell the story is not gripping me? Iām in a state of non-grippedness, I am completely smegging ungripped. Shut the smeg up.
RIMMER: Donāt you want to hear the Risk story?
LISTER: Thatās what Iāve been saying for the last fifteen minutes.
RIMMER: But I thought that was because I hadnāt got to the really interesting bitā¦
LISTER: What really interesting bit?
RIMMER: Ah well, that was about two hours later, after heād thrown a three and a two and Iād thrown a four and a one. I picked up the diceā¦
LISTER: Hang on Rimmer, hang onā¦ the really interesting bit is exactly the same as the dull bit.
RIMMER: You donāt know what I did with the dice though, do you? For all you know, I could have jammed them up his nostrils, head butted him on the nose and they could have blasted out of his ears. That wouldāve been quite interesting.
LISTER: OK, Rimmer. What did you do with the dice?.
RIMMER: I threw a five and a two.
LISTER: And thatās the really interesting bit?
RIMMER: Well it was interesting to me, it got me into Irkutsk.
[/quote]
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It seems to me the actual issue is people surprised and confused with the concept of toys being made and sold for adults, even after decades of frequent ānot just for children anymore!ā hack journalism pieces.
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for adults, in the childs toy aisles of a childs toy store.
i suppose a good analogy would be porn in the normal comic books section.
I love toys. Iāve got plenty of them. Thereās nothing wrong with adults liking toys, and thereās nothing wrong with selling toys based on adult franchises.
Selling Breaking Bad toys at ToysāRāUs seems clueless and tone-deaf at best. Certainly there is a ton of overlap between ātoys for kidsā and ātoys for adults,ā and thatās fine. Iām glad that thereās Breaking Bad toys; Iād be happy to see them online, at comic shops, novelty stores, etc etc. But I wouldnāt sell them at ToysāRāUs, for the same reason I wouldnāt sell teething rings and busyboxes at a comic shop.
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