P.C. Shannon

I’m still agitated by the Illinois law about selling violent videogames to minors (previous posts one and two). But then I see these commercials on TV that are designed to inform parents about the V-chip and blocking channels and whatnot. That doesn’t get my blood up at all; in fact, I think it’s a good idea. If the well-intentioned governor of Illinois — or Congress, for that matter — wanted a law that required parental controls built into videogame systems, I would be all for it.

The system I envision would work with the voluntary ESRB rating system that’s already in place. A game disc would contain an electronic stamp indicating its rating. The game system could be set to restrict use of games above a specified ratings level unless a password was entered. A computer system would be harder to lockdown than a console, but the ESRB could be offer a free utility to block running restricted games. In fact, the videogame industry ought to consider voluntarily implementing these measures as a hedge against future legislation.

I support blocking tools like these but not the Illinois legislation that targets retailers. The difference is that tools empower parents while the new law attempts to act in their stead, shifting the responsibilities of parenting from the actual parents to the state.

Previously, I wrote about a bill in Illinois that would impose fines on retailers who sell violent videogames to minors. It looks like it’s going to pass. I still think this is a bad idea. Idiots.

I’ve always wondered why we, as Americans, shun sexual content but are pretty much okay with violence. This seems to be a general rule, but it’s particularly true of the content that we let our kids consume. In Europe, the attitudes are basically reversed. They also have much lower rates of teen pregnancy and violent crime. So on the basis of that data, it looks like teaching kids openly and honestly about sex, rather than teaching them that’s dirty and will kill them, causes them to either not have sex or to do it responsibly. It also looks like exposing people, kids in particular, to violent images results in more violent crime. Interestingly, Europe is also tremendously less religious than America.

I always thought that our attitudes about sex and violence were the result of our Puritan heritage. While that’s probably true to a certain degree, it turns out that there’s a solid legal precedent for our stance. In an article in the January 10th issue of Time magazine, University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone says, “There is no recognized constitutional principle that allows the government to shield children from violent expression” but there are well defined standards that block sexual content. Plus it’s simpler to categorize sex acts than violent ones, which makes it easier to specify what’s okay and what’s not in laws and policies.

The Time article is really about an effort by the Democratic governor of Illinois to impose fines on retailers who sell or rent games with certain sexual or violent content to minors. Personally, I’m appalled by this. It is the responsibility of the parents to police their children’s activities. You can’t legislate morality and you can’t legislate good parenting, but if parents think it’s okay for their 8-year-olds to play games that involve beating up prostitutes, if they can’t say “No” to their kids, then we as a society have fallen down on the job.

Video games are rated by an industry group, very similar to the way movies are rated. The ratings for games are clear and frequently are more descriptive of why the game received its rating than movie ratings. It’s true that retailers need to check ID before renting or selling games rated for adults in the same way they check ID before selling a pack of cigarettes or tickets to an R movie. (I noticed today that Best Buy does check IDs).

But some of the things parents say in the article are just ludicrous. One man, father of a six-year old boy, compares the governor’s proposal to laws against selling tobacco to minors, saying that in both cases parents need the government’s help to keep contraband out of their children’s hands. It sounds to me like he’s saying that he can’t be bothered to police his children and would someone please do it for him. What we really need are responsible retailers. I bought cigarettes in high school without a problem but got carded well after college. The difference? Responsible retailers.

Another father says of his 16-year-old son, “He can certainly separate reality from the fiction of those things.” I disagree. 16-year-olds are not adults. The vast majority of them lack the abstract reasoning capacity to learn calculus. A kid at this age will say that he understands the difference between fantasy and reality, but I don’t think he really, truly does. It’s like someone who honestly thinks he’s not prejudiced but still tells jokes that involve the N-word.

This attitude that kids are more mature than they really are is also apparent in a mother from Texas who lets her two boys, ages 9 and 15, play Grand Theft Auto, the game that involves beating up hookers. She says, “I want to raise my kids with a sense that I trust them to be good and to know how to set their own limits.” You, ma’am, are a bad parent! A 9-year-old doesn’t know the first thing about his own limits—he’ll eat Oreos until he pukes.

Sadly, this approach is indicative of an attitude prevalent in Baby Boom parents. They hated their parents for being disciplinarians, so they resolved instead to be friends to their children. Teenagers are supposed to hate their parents, get over it. Children of all ages need limits, discipline, and parental involvement. I typically hate those “anti-drug” commercials, but the ones encouraging parents to know their kids, to discipline them for being bad, and to not be afraid of disciplining them are right on the money. The parents of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold tried to be friends to their sons and let them do their own thing, and we all know what happened. I’m not saying the parents are solely to blame, but a little more involvement and they would have found the boys’ collection of firearms and pipe bombs.

The bottom line here is that parents need to be involved in their children’s lives. They need to screen everything their children consume, from food…

In this Wired piece, Bruce Sterling agrees with my recurring theme that science in this country is in jeopardy. He makes the connection much more soundly than I have between the President’s fundamentalist beliefs and the erosion of this nation’s position as the worldwide leader in biomedical science. This reminds me of a point made by Chris Rock’s character Rufus, the thirteenth and only black apostle, in Kevin Smith’s film Dogma. Beliefs, Rufus says, are problematic; ideas are better. You can change an idea, you can have a wrong idea, but a belief is central and core, something you hold onto, something that defines who you are.

First, consider an example removed from Western theology and all of our prejudices that go along with it. Suppose you are an anthropologist studying a remote tribe in the Amazon jungle. Among this tribe’s mythology is the idea that women get pregnant by bathing in a particular pond at a certain time of day. There is a woman in the tribe who desperately wants to have children, and every day for a year, she bathes in the pond at the appropriate time, all to no avail. You decide to help this woman. Ignoring issues about cultural interference for the moment, what do you say to her?

Obviously our idea about heterosexual intercourse is a much better one because it works reliably and stands up under scientific testing. The tribe’s idea about the pond works inconsistently at best. We can say our idea is a fact. But you can’t just waltz up to the woman and boldly declare that she’s wrong in thinking what she does about the pool and that you magically have the right answer. She will cling to her belief and denounce you as a practitioner of dark magic. But if you offer her a way to save face, to incorporate your idea into her practices, then she will likely take your advice.

Similarly, we need to find a way to make science work with religion. To take a real and controversial example, considers Dr. W. David Hager, Bush’s recent appointee for reproductive health to the FDA. This doctor says that women should pray for relief from severe menstrual symptoms rather than receiving a prescription for the birth control pill. To me, this looks like the pond versus intercourse debate from the previous example. Certainly there’s no reason why women shouldn’t pray - and there is some evidence that prayer does help in some cases — but they should also be able to rely on known, proven facts, like the pill can relieve physical symptoms of menstruation (although it should be noted that the pill exacerbates emotional and psychological symptoms).

There’s no reason for Dr. Hager to not take this position - that the best remedy is a combination of prayer and medicine — except that he believes that prayer is the only solution. That’s fine for his private practice, but it seems negligent for a federal appointee, who sets policies and guidelines for doctors nationwide, to deviate so wildly from facts and standard medicine. I also think it’s negligent for the president to even appoint someone with such a position.

I have to admit, in all fairness to Dr. Hager, that my compromise position, one of both prayer and medicine, is constitutionally dubious. It seems like the ACLU may have something to say about a federal appointee advocating prayer. Of course, this caveat really applies to his present position as well.

In the end, science and religion must co-exist. Science under the control of religion is not science, and religion suppressed by science is dehumanizing. There is a wide middle ground. We just need some level-headed leadership to find it.

This stem cell silliness has produced the most unlikely victors. First Korea, and now New Jersey. Looks like California may not be far behind either. There may be some hope for this country after all.

I read a lot of Wired. This month’s issue has a cover story about the exportation of tech jobs to India. I haven’t gotten to it yet, but this topic has been in the news a lot lately. It got me thinking about whether biotech jobs would ever be sent overseas to cheaper labor markets. I worry about this because since I decided to go back to school, I have fully expected and planned to get a job in the private sector rather than trying for an academic position.

Moving tech support or programmers to another location is a fairly straightforward proposition. All you need is a desk, a computer, a telephone, and then just route the calls. Moving a lab is a very different beast. In addition to the physical space, there’s a lot of specialized equipment, stocks, samples, chemicals, and chemical waste. Not to mention that the scientific community in this country is much stronger and more respected. The brain-drain historically is from India to the U.S.

However, the research climate in this country is changing. Politico-religious pressures are dampening stem cell research. The intellectual property laws are stifling innovation. We’ve already seen this situation drive prominent researchers to other countries. It seems likely that, without a major reversal in policy, this American brain-drain will continue. The United States will not be a leader in biotech.

It’s a conclusion that seems preposterous to us. The U.S. has been number one for so long that we can’t imagine being anything else. The Russians couldn’t either and certainly now are having hard a time not being a superpower. But the historical fact is that all empires fall. Maybe biotech is the beginning of the end for the U.S.