Nanny Pattison soundbite identified
Here it is:
if there is the slightest possibility that X can cause harm, is this worth the risk?
She has said it before, and she’ll say it again. Usually after muttering vaguely about “numerous studies” linking violent films/games to real world violence.
As has been pointed out before, you could replace that “X” with anything. Things with much more reliable evidential links to real world violence.
Things like religion. Is it really worth the risk, Nanny?
I must start by saying that as a general rule I am absolutely against the compulsion to ban stuff and so I am speaking hypothetically here. Were I to become a bansturbator like Pattison, what a case I could build for having religion banned, or at least having it thrown out of our schools and critical thinking taught instead. Of course in practice it would never work, religiots of the past have endured weeks of torture and literally volunteered to be burned alive rather that convert to a slightly different form of Christianity, no amount of banning can defeat that kind of obstinance.
Indeed – one could also simply reverse it with “if there is the slightest possibility that banning X can cause harm, is this worth the risk?”
And there’s plenty of evidence of a cost from banning things – the cost of passing and enforcing laws, the lost productivity from people who are locked up, not to mention the harm to those people affected. This cost translates into money that could be used for things like healthcare, so even if their concern is saving lives rather than monetary cost, the cost of banning things can cost lives.
Car drving, crossing the road, putting your trousers on, drinking, smoking, walking down stairs, lying in bed too long, sex, opening a can of beans…all have caused injury or death…is it worth the risk to allow any of these things to continue?
I can pretty much be sure without any studies htat the people who have started wars, conflicts, blown themselves up have never had a games controller in their hands…
The Sun article where he comments were published was a blatent publciity piece for the game.
Like Beyer before her Viv Pattison does not see the hilarity in lending her outraged comments to tabloid stories which are designed to get the public interested in sex, violence and “filth”.
Dan Factor, you are absolutely right and it always amuses me when the censorious kick off about something that no one was paying any attention to anyway and publicise it beyond the perpetrator’s wildest dreams. The really brilliant bit is that these people are so terminally stupid that no matter how many times it happens they never learn from it and just go on to make the same mistake again.