The Vietnamese government just asked ISPs in Vietnam to discontinue access to online games between the hours of 10:00pm until 8:00am. Officially this is being done as a means to combat the negative effects of excessive online gaming.
Kinda sucks, especially on weekends.
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I... actually am not all that angry about that. It's not really fair in practice because of weekends and people with night jobs. And I'm sure there's people with good willpower who game healthily, but I'm certainly not one of them and neither are most people I know, and a law like this would probably be a net-positive in my life.
If I were going to do it I'd set the limit at 11 or 12 for the benefit of adults with different work schedules. But I'm not inherently opposed to the idea
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Huh. Well that just speaks to a radically different attitude about what the role of government should be in private lives, Raymond. I mean I agree with some of what you said that it might be a benefit for many people, but I just think that at some point it stops being either the government's job much less its right to protect us from ourselves. Tobacco being one thing, that's easy to get on board with what with their documented decades-long history of lying, negligence, twisted advertising, etc. Online gaming being quite another.
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I don't actually think the law is a good idea, and wouldn't advocate for it over here. But neither would I be up in arms against it.
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Blayne Bradley
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I would only be against this if it affected me as an adult and if I wasn't somehow reimbursed.
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Clarifying my position on government a bit:
Governments, almost by definition, should be striving to maximize the preferences of their citizens, whatever those preferences are. If their citizens place a higher value on freedom than other particular benefits that might be improved with less freedom, then the government's responsibility is to focus on freedom.
Citizens, theoretically, should try and figure out what their preferences actually ARE and why. And generally, I would hope their preferences are for things that lead them to have the most fulfilled, meaningful, satisfied lives. I think there is danger in NOT emphasizing freedom enough, because a government that does not respect freedom can potentially go down some terrifying roads. If there are options that let you accomplish the same goal without sacrificing freedom, you probably should try those first. But I don't think freedom is a magic quality that is automatically more important than anything ever.
This article isn't quite relevant, but the issues it discusses form a significant framework for my beliefs on choice:
posted
Worrying about online games in Vietnam is really beside the point.
The important thing to realize is that even in China, you don't make a big deal about banning political speech on its own. Instead, the big noisy public initiatives are about pornography, particularly child pornography because, hey even here, who can be "pro child pornography?"
The political stuff really just gets in on the popular support for that (note the Wikileaked sprawl of the proposed Australia ban list from pornography to political parties and controversial issues like euthanasia).
And alas, a quick look at the press freedom index shows that Vietnam is right alongside China, and the sophistication of Internet filtering on political grounds is similar.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Huh. Well that just speaks to a radically different attitude about what the role of government should be in private lives, Raymond. I mean I agree with some of what you said that it might be a benefit for many people, but I just think that at some point it stops being either the government's job much less its right to protect us from ourselves. Tobacco being one thing, that's easy to get on board with what with their documented decades-long history of lying, negligence, twisted advertising, etc. Online gaming being quite another.
I'm a progressive and I don't game and I would be pretty up in arms over such a law.
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I am not sure about the gaming issue. I think it was in China, but didn't a baby starve to death recently while the parents played online games And I seem to remember other major health concerns with the excessive video gaming in Asia. So, if the numbers show that the insane level of playing is a real thing and that public health is at risk, then the government should step in. However, I would need to see the numbers showing this is a legitimate harm and that the stories are not isolated cases of bad parents or teens that need mental health, etc. I suppose the analogous issue would be drug laws in the US, except ignoring the whole war on drug cost in human life since apparently the internet can be switch off easily and selectively by the govt in a way that drugs can't be.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Governments . . . should be striving to maximize the preferences of their citizens, whatever those preferences are. If their citizens place a higher value on freedom than other particular benefits that might be improved with less freedom, then the government's responsibility is to focus on freedom.
Isn't that a little bit fascist? Legalizing "preferences", rather than personal freedom and individual civil liberties, is what enabled the holocaust. Certainly, mainstream public sentiment may have immoral or dangerous agendas, and it's governments place to PROTECT individuals from the agendas of others (see gay marriage in the US and the Westboro Baptist Church). Unfortunately in some countries (like the US) it can take years for the court system to toss out dangerous lawmaking.
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posted
Legalizing preferences is what democracies do in general. We've established certain preferences (i.e. constitutional amendments) as important enough that they should be HARD to overwrite, because we've decided that most attempts to do so would be due to temporary bad judgement. But we still could change them if public opinion changed enough.
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posted
Thanks for the link Mucus. That is the case I was thinking of. Another issue this could be similar to is restrictions on gambling. Even in a game like farmville, there are the mystery boxes. In some online games, those mystery boxes that cost real money contain anything from crap you can easily get in game to super duper amazing, game changing armor. People supposedly spend thousands of dollars clicking on the mystery chests to get the good stuff.
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Another point thats worth making, it was very easy to determine which incident was being referred to, across all of Asia which would probably be upwards of 1.5 billion people. Imagine if I said, there have to be time controls on walking around New York because of "the time some guy got shot," people would have no way of narrowing it down.
A glance at the Wiki article reveals why it was so easy to narrow down. The number of deaths globally is likely in the dozens if not lower with eight total deaths in the United States and two in South Korea, ever. Maybe there are some not listed, but probably not a whole lot more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_addiction#Notable_deaths
So we're probably talking about a rate of deaths that doesn't even translate into 1/100,000 per year, probably more like 1/100 million per year or less.
So what do we expect to happen if South Korea suddenly couldn't game between 10pm and 8am? Well, maybe they drive more to see relatives (risk of increased car accidents) or maybe they spend more time with their family (risk of domestic violence). And then we realise that we only really need one more car accident or one incident at home per year for the whole exercise to come out in the wash. Any more and we're actually doing harm.
And then we consider that things like car accidents and homicides are measured at something like rates of 5/100,000 per year.
So I'm thinking a great big "meh"
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posted
I was thinking more along the lines of encouraging productivity, not in preventing video game related deaths. That's just me...
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Myself as well. I know several people whose grades dropped noticeably while they were playing WoW. If that is a provably common phenomenon (I don't know whether it is), it could have measurable, meaningful effects for a nation. You're allowed to decide that individual choice to play the games is more important than gross education statistics, but I think it's a meaningful decision that warrants careful consideration based on the numbers.
Also, I doubt there's a whole lot of driving going on between 10 PM and 8 AM.
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Don't need a lot. There's a margin of maybe half a death per year to work with.
Cross reference 12.7 traffic-related deaths per 100,000 in Korea with 10% of accidents being between 10PM and 8AM (in Canada anyways) and you're already at 635 deaths per year. You only need maybe a half percent increase in accidents for the "gain" to be wiped out. I say "gain" because its not clear that the ban could have ensured a couple feeding their child for example.
As for productivity, that is probably a lot less quantifiable. But I would guess that between increased use of social networking and regression to LAN gaming, it would probably be a pointless exercise too.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Legalizing preferences is what democracies do in general. We've established certain preferences (i.e. constitutional amendments) as important enough that they should be HARD to overwrite, because we've decided that most attempts to do so would be due to temporary bad judgement. But we still could change them if public opinion changed enough.
Yes, after basic civil liberties are accounted for. But without that....
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Blayne Bradley
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If South Korea did this it would collapse their economy, for it would cutdown on Starcraft productivity.
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quote:Yes, after basic civil liberties are accounted for. But without that....
I believe basic civil liberties (and morality in general) are a preference. An important preference, but ultimately something arbitrary that humans care about that isn't actually written into the fabric of the universe. Most Americans have some degree of compassion, as well as caring about their own self determination. Hence, it is in everyone's best interest to have a government that protects certain basic liberties.
A government that does not share its people's moral preferences is essentially at war with its people. You can't have a theocracy running people who care about freedom of religion, and you can't have a government with Western values come in and expect to effectively rule a group of Islamic fundamentalists.
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posted
You believe that basic civil liberties are . . . a preference? Not in an educated society. I think that the current situation in the Middle-East is proving that. Well, and there's always the Nazi example again.
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posted
I believe a desire for self determination and safety is a preference, and civil liberties are a means that educated people tend to decide upon to ensure that for themselves.
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It's worth noting that the debate over whether civil liberties are moral preferences or truly universal is also playing out in China under the name "universal values":
quote:The term “universal values”, or pushi jiazhi, is a new one in Chinese political debate—surprising given that concepts commonly associated with it, such as freedom, democracy and human rights, have been bickered over incessantly for 30 years. Many Chinese scholars think the debate really took off in 2008 after an earthquake in Sichuan province that killed around 80,000 people. Ten days after the disaster, a liberal newspaper in the southern province of Guangdong, Southern Weekend, published an editorial that praised the government’s swift response. It said it had “honoured its commitments to its own people and to the whole world with respect to universal values”.
That single mention of the term was enough to enrage hardliners. A flurry of commentary appeared in Beijing newspapers and on conservative websites attacking the idea of universal values as a Western plot to undermine party rule. China was preparing to host the Olympics in August 2008 with the slogan, “one world, one dream”. But conservatives feared that embracing universal values would mean acknowledging the superiority of the West’s political systems. In September, after the games, the party’s own mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, weighed in. A signed article accused supporters of universal values of trying to westernise China and turn it into a laissez-faire economy that would no longer uphold “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.
posted
Well, I guess we'll agree to disagree. I believe that there are a natural set of unalienable rights, such as safety and self-determination, that any developed government will guarantee. These rights can be arrived at by simple logical deduction. If a state does not uphold these basic human rights, it will eventually reach a point of revolution or become a failed state.
As we become more developed and reach higher levels of civilization, our culture develops a clearer picture of rights (equality for women, race, sexual-orientation). But they're not deciding them based on preference. An educated populace will demand their rights first. Only after the government has secured the rights of EVERY citizen can it begin to regulate based on preference.
Again, Nazi Germany is an example where they believed that the preference of a majority outweighed the civil liberties of a minority (or several minorities). Outside of the developing world, I don't think that could happen in our modern climate. And it IS happening in the developing world.
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posted
I think you may be differing on what "preference" means. Raymond, could you give an example of something that is not a preference?
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quote:Well, I guess we'll agree to disagree. I believe that there are a natural set of unalienable rights, such as safety and self-determination, that any developed government will guarantee. These rights can be arrived at by simple logical deduction. If a state does not uphold these basic human rights, it will eventually reach a point of revolution or become a failed state.
I don't think we're disagreeing as much as you think. Safety and self determination are (arbitrary) values that almost all people share. Civil liberties are concepts that can be derived from that. The key difference is that I think civil liberties are only a means to an end, and it is possible that an earlier determination we made about them is incorrect. When we enshrine the civil liberties as timeless and perfect, if it later turns out that we accidentally determined one to be too important relative to another, we may be stuck with a bad system.
Laws specifically restrict one liberty to protect another. We agree to restrict our freedom to attack people so we don't get attacked. It is possible, say, that are freedom to drive is less important than our safety.
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posted
@kmboots: I consider the distinction between "preference" and "value" to be pretty slight. (I think I'd say that a value is a specific type of preference). I like vanilla ice cream. I also like being alive and creating art. Each of these things is an arbitrary preference of mine, not something woven into the fabric of the universe. (Some of these preferences are more important than others though).
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posted
It seems to me that you are arguing that societal preference should rule over civil liberties, that natural and inalienable rights are arbitrary values. Under that logic, there is no such thing as objective (versus subjective) rights.
To beat the cat again, the mainstream citizenry in Nazi Germany decided based on preference to violate the objective civil liberties of a minority. Based on your agrument, these WEREN'T civil liberties -- they were "arbitrary values".
Your argument, followed to its logical conclusion, states that all law (even, so to speak, our Bill of Rights) can be modified by the majority based on changing values to the detriment of a minority.
My argument, followed to its logical conclusion, is that our understanding of natural rights will constantly evolve and that valid governments will protect those rights FIRST. Law in a valid country, as such, can only modify laws based on preference whereupon the laws do not infringe on civil liberty.
In the case of Vietnam, they are violating civil liberties. I don't think that Vietnam, however, has matured to the point of placing these types of protections in place for civil liberties. Cases like this, however, tend to be the catalysts that create development toward that societal maturity.
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I don't think it makes much sense to frame the issue as being one of "societal maturity", especially in a place that isn't a democracy like Vietnam, but sometimes not even in a democracy.
When women were given the vote in North America, at most you can say that men matured enough to give women the vote. Or maybe they just realised pragmatically that it was time to do that to avoid unrest. But it doesn't make sense to say that "society" as a whole wasn't ready. I daresay women were more than ready to vote for quite some time.
This issue is only exacerbated in a society such as Vietnam where there is one-party rule and the party doesn't have mechanisms that ensure that it is representive of the people. Let's not beat around the bush, initiatives like this are a cover to consolidate government power and don't really have much to do with what the people want.
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quote:Your argument, followed to its logical conclusion, states that all law (even, so to speak, our Bill of Rights) can be modified by the majority based on changing values to the detriment of a minority.
This is, in fact, how our constitution works. If a supermajority of Americans decided Muslims or Gays didn't deserve rights, they could codify that into the constitution. What system would you propose to avoid that?
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posted
I'm open to changing my framework on morality and government. But so far I haven't seen an explanation of morality that was logically satisfying that WASN'T based around people's arbitrary values.
I also don't consider government a separate entity from "the people." It's just a set of rules that people agree on. (Or a set of rules that one group of people enforce on another group of people, in which case their differences must be resolved, either violently or diplomatically).
The question is which set of rules are the best to agree on, given that we know people like Hitler CAN be democratically elected.
[ February 24, 2011, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
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posted
I don't think it particularly makes sense to think of governments as sets of rules, again particularly in non-democratic states. A government makes rules (or tries to), a government isn't a set of rules itself.* After all, there is no guarantee of rule of law, or that the people in change won't simply change the rules when it suits them.
It is more helpful just to consider the flipside of the phrase "government of the people, by the people, for the people" in the sense that there are states where the government isn't drawn from the people (occupation or apartheid states), by the people (kings and dictators in the Middle East), or acting remotely for the people.
* Although on the other hand, I guess you could sidestep the issue and go all "I am the law!" with dictators like Gaddaffi as a personification of rules?
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quote:* Although on the other hand, I guess you could sidestep the issue and go all "I am the law!" with dictators like Gaddaffi as a personification of rules?
This was sort of how I was thinking of it, but you may be right, that it's not the most helpful way to look at it.
But still, if a government is at odds with its people, what you're really saying is "one group of people are at odds with another." There's not this separate metaphysical entity at odds with "the people." Two groups are in a state of conflict.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: I don't think it makes much sense to frame the issue as being one of "societal maturity", especially in a place that isn't a democracy like Vietnam, but sometimes not even in a democracy.
When women were given the vote in North America, at most you can say that men matured enough to give women the vote. Or maybe they just realised pragmatically that it was time to do that to avoid unrest. But it doesn't make sense to say that "society" as a whole wasn't ready. I daresay women were more than ready to vote for quite some time.
This issue is only exacerbated in a society such as Vietnam where there is one-party rule and the party doesn't have mechanisms that ensure that it is representive of the people. Let's not beat around the bush, initiatives like this are a cover to consolidate government power and don't really have much to do with what the people want.
I believe that all societies, sufficiently advanced (or mature or educated), will recognize the same sets of civil rights. Furthermore, I feel that there are several traits that they will all share: protection of every class and creed, representative government, an impartial court system, etc. In this kind of scenario, I tend to assume that the only differences between countries will be the amount of government subsized charity (health care, retirement, etc) and their views on victimless crimes (drugs, prostitution, etc).
Because I feel that this is a logical assumption, I often forget that it ISN'T the natural conclusion of everyone (projection error). For example, Vietnam would have to have a valid working democracy and court system to be considered mature. Based on this model, however, Vietnam IS much less "mature" than the US. Though, arguably, Canada and most of the EU might be more mature than the US on many levels.
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quote:Because I feel that this is a logical assumption, I often forget that it ISN'T the natural conclusion of everyone (projection error)
I would like to know what your underlying logic is. I think you are mostly right, but want to know what your framework is.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: But still, if a government is at odds with its people, what you're really saying is "one group of people are at odds with another." There's not this separate metaphysical entity at odds with "the people." Two groups are in a state of conflict.
I don't necessarily think that a government can call the people that it controls "its." The most obvious example are colonial governments like Hong Kong pre-1997. The government was mostly appointed by the British and didn't even claim to be Chinese. "The people" as in Chinese people living in Hong Kong really were totally separate from "the government. This isn't a metaphysical question, it is really a question of how much a government really can legitimately claim to be part of "the people."
And this also illustrates one of the reasons I think the "maturity" angle is a non-starter. People in Hong Kong didn't suddenly "mature" when the British decided to open the legislature at the last minute to democracy to mess with the CCP. The people didn't suddenly become less mature when the CCP decided to roll back the timetable for full elections.
The people are largely the same, its the government that changed during handover in 1997.
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The question I want answered before continuing is "how do you define a good government?"
My answer: "whichever government I would prefer to live in, given perfect knowledge." I can't get more specific than that because optimizing for a single metric can lead to unintended consequences.
I think that ultimately, each person is going to have a similar answer, whether or not they can articulate the more precise criteria going on in their head. How can you prefer a government that you'd prefer not to live in?
And then the question becomes, given that each person has a particular "government they'd rather live in," how do all the people in the world negotiate with each other to achieve the government closest to their ideal place to live? The hypothetical equilibrium they'd arrive at is what I'd consider the "best government" at any given time.
What kind of government that is is a question for science, not logic. Whether or not we're capable of finding out the answer right now.
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quote:Because I feel that this is a logical assumption, I often forget that it ISN'T the natural conclusion of everyone (projection error)
I would like to know what your underlying logic is. I think you are mostly right, but want to know what your framework is.
My framework is mostly a logical extension of the following quote:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Philosophically, I believe it to be sound, and it (along with the rest of my framework) seems to hold up to the logic-test.
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posted
I couldn't find anything in that link that really clarified why the truths are self evident. What am I looking for here?
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: The question I want answered before continuing is "how do you define a good government?"
I'm not sure who this is in reply to. I have many ideas and I'm open to new ones, I can't say I have strong feelings on the matter.
I've mostly been responding in terms of "does this make a good model for what government does and how does it behave" rather than anything remotely in terms of how things should be.
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I was interested in a response from the both of you. It was looking like there were 2-3 different conversations going on and I wanted to make sure that everyone involved was using a common frame of reference.
To have a good model of what government does, I figure we should at least have some notion of what it's trying to DO and how we can judge how successful it is.
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