Ok, so, I was always aware the average person was dumb. That's kind of a given. There were some flavours of dumb I didn't know that existed, but it's all a rich buffet of stupidity. Flavours like, as a friend regaled to me, some kids getting fired from Red Rooster for sexual harassment. What did they do, you ask? Slipped napkins with their names and phone numbers into meals for attractive female customers. Good going, dipshit. I'm sure that pretty lady would love to hook up with the grease monkey behind the counter of her local chicken shack. I suppose points for confidence, but still, tremendously retarded. So, that's the bottom of the barrel, then you move slowly up the ladder, and people are still kinda stupid, no news there, but what gets me? Elected officials should not be stupid. It should be a prerequisite for the job. At least, you'd think. I suppose it's more "convince people you're not stupid" but you'd have to be a little intelligent to pull that off, right? Ugh, disillusioning.
Anyway, why ragging on elected officials this time? Well, to anyone who is a gamer or is friends with gamers, the R18+ issue is probably old hat. To the uninitiated, Australia has no R18+ rating for video games, resulting in two options for games that should wear these labels: They are bumped down to MA15+ or refused classification and banned. The thing is, the vast majority are bumped down, very few are banned. The problem here is that games that should really, really not be played by kids are far more readily available than they should be. However, key players in the political landscape, namely Michael Atkinson (the SA Attorney General) refuse to implement such a rating, fearing it will INCREASE the exposure to violent games kids have, rather than decrease.
Now, I'm not going to get into my views on this (it's pro R18+, duh) because it's pointless. What I am going to get into is the ground rules. The ground rules of a fucking discussion, because it seems like none of you retards know them. You see, there are veritable tonnes of public outcry (and I mean literal tonnes of paper, the biggest petition ever put before parliament motherfuckers!) and a wealth of research on the issue supporting the implementation of an R18+ rating. You'd think it'd be a non-issue, but apparently certain Christian coalitions and Attorney-Generals have the debating skills of a drunken bedwetting mental patient who's not very good at debating. So, the rules:
1) Saying you have "academic research" supporting your position does not mean said research exists. You have to present the research.
2) Making a claim is insufficient; you have to back up the claim in some way.
3) If evidence is presented that refutes your claim, you need an equal or greater amount of evidence that supports it to put it back on level footing; saying you don't believe it is insufficient.
4) Saying you "believe" something holds no weight in a debate. None. Shhh, no argument. It holds no weight.
5) A rational debate is contingent on one party (or both) learning new things, putting their positions up to the burning light of scrutiny and conceding defeat if they do not stand up. You need to be willing to concede defeat if your stance is built on flimsy foundations.
6) You're wrong, Michael Atkinson. Yeah, that's a rule now.
So, that's that. This shit comes up all over the goddamn place, but when it comes up in political discourse that's a new level of insane. I really hope this shit goes the way I want, but I'm not holding my breathe. Feel free to, though.
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