Like slicing off a stormtooper's arm or head?

O_o

Hahahaha

Why does everyone like sheltering children and conditioning them to living without free speech?

Because everyone's under the misconception that if kids will learn what the word "sex" means before they're 13 or so they'll be traumatized for life. Pretty strange, if you ask me.

There should be a line somewhere, though...would you let a 5yo watch Saving Private Ryan?

I think showing a human being ripped violently apart at a young age is slightly different than them learning what "sex" means. And notice that I said "violently" because I was exposed to the insides of people at a young age thanks to my mom working at medical facilities, and I will damn well make sure my kids understand what they're made of at an equally young age if/when I decide to reproduce.

I went to a hospital or something in 3rd grade for a field trip and they took the class through the bloodbank... I almost fainted so I got to spend the rest of the trip hanging out with the nurses in a separate room with a cool towel on my forehead.

Parents really could care less about violence in movies, it's the sex they don't want their kids seeing.

Wait...so teenagers can't post what they did last night?

Pre-pubecant kids will have a vastly different view on sex, which will probably influence them after they hit puberty. Plus kids that age aren't really mature enough to respect it properly. For instance they might be less likely to really properly understand that sexual molestation et cetra. is really, really bad as a result of them treating it too lightly.

People should be desensitized to life issues as soon as possible.

I'm tired of emo crybabies, and the quacks that give them pills because they're in the pocket of the pharmacutical industry.

Really? That's funny, children were exposed to sex for millennia. In fact, it was pretty standard for the first born to be in the same room as their younger siblings were being conceived. Man, they must have been terrible at functioning as adults. And I'm pretty sure children understand just fine when their parents warn them about "Mr. Jones down the street who might try to touch their 'special' areas." But please, please try to go on with psycho-babble, it's not like I've never taken human sexuality psych courses.

Depression is real, antidepressants are an effective and often necessary short-term treatment, people do ask for them when they don't need them, blah blah blah go educate yourself and all that crap.


Only because sex is considered taboo in western culture. Sex is exposed to children when they are far younger in Europe and especially eastern cultures, and they do just fine.

Went thousands of years without giving 8 year olds happy pills.

I'm not talking about eight year olds. And yes, we did go thousands of years without any treatment, but that doesn't mean people couldn't have used it.

For thousands of years people lived on nothing but meat. Modern dietary science shows us that, while you can live on nothing but meat, you'll live much longer and be much healthier with a more varied died.

For thousands of years people lived without any treatments for cancer. But I bet a lot of them sure could have used it. You see where I'm going with this.

Also, antidepressants are rarely prescribed to children. Ritalin is often prescribed, probably too often because of *****y parents. Sometimes it's legit, sometimes it's not. Maybe more than often it's not, I don't know.

I've known more teenagers, people ages 13-18 on anti-depressants than I know alcoholics.

And it's not just the goth/rocker kids or the emos.

It's everyone.

And it's sick.

I'll just sum it up. Forget about violence. There's no avoiding it; it's on TV, it's in movies, it's in video games, it's in high school halls, etc... Drop everything else; no more sex, no more drugs, no more alcohol, and NO MORE GASOLINE!

Rob, what makes you the authority, calling it sick? Do you even know if they've been helped by them? You aren't inside their personal lives. Hey, maybe it is sick, maybe your community sucks, I don't know. Maybe all the doctors at your local hospital are hacks, but it's asinine to disregard an entire disorder and treatment based on some people you know.

Oh, and how many? I don't know any alcoholics, so I certainly know more people on antidepressants. I also question your experiences because of the incredible bias you seem to have. Not that I think you're lying about anything, but it's a well known psychological phenomenon. Memories are easily distorted or exaggerated to accommodate what we want to think.

What makes you an authority?

HEY I'M IN COLLEGE GUYS AND I TAKE HAPPY PILLS!


That doesn't make you an authority.


Most mainstream happy pills have some pretty nasty side effects, and I've seen too many manifest.

Being sad once in a while is NORMAL.

I understand that some people have chemical imbalances. Thats real.

Alot of the other BS is not.

I'm not trying to shelter kids from sex or drugs, but it certainly isn't my place to provide a site where young kids looking for information about video games can come and learn about knocking some ho up at age 13. There's a healthy way for kids to learn about this stuff, and parents don't necessarily want their kids just randomly coming across it on a star wars gaming site. Even if you disagree with the policy, there are many reasons why it's a good idea to keep the site PG-rated.

1) we won't get blocked by most school internet filters
2) kids don't have the hide the fact that they come here from their parents
3) this really is a site about video games, not sex or drugs
4) there are plenty of places for people to go talk about these things (other than here)
5) sex and drugs aren't all that interesting, anyway

And I'm not only talking about sex and drugs as things that make the site kid-unfriendly. The constant bickering, fighting, insulting, rudeness, etc., that goes on here between old-timers is certainly not good for anyone, the parties involved included.

Problem is, the moderators don't care and like it that way, and the majority of our CURRENT users don't seem to care either.

I think old communities are the most difficult to manage, because it's difficult to get new members due to climates like ours, and as time goes on, the older members tend to migrate elsewhere anyway. So it's a lose-lose for the people and the site.

Well, if it's any consolation, I agree with you, Brian. Thing is, I only moderate the ISB (which is really a good thing, as I doubt I'd make a good mod/admin as a whole), and we all know the ISB is almost as different from Massassi as TACC is or the like...

If we prohibited all that, Rob won't have anything to post anymore.

I can understand that, Brian, I really can. Unfortunately, we need to figure out how to draw new members in. I don't have access to the logs of new comers, but I can assume it's clear that new members aren't coming in nearly as fast as in the good ol' days. All we have are the people who have decided to stay for the sheer community aspect without any real website content to speak of. Unless there's something done to encourage community growth, telling the weathered members that they can't talk about the aspects of life that occur when you turn 18/21 will just alienate the current user base.

Most of the people here wouldn't have anything to post anymore, Steven.

Except for me, since I'm always so polite and more people would come and stay here if they realized that.

no one cares about editing, new games or old, so the draw of the site is really kind of... gone. if we could transform the purpose of the site into something that actually had a modern purpose we could draw in new users. but do we really want to? most people suck anyhow.

Especially this guy named oSiRiS who used to hang around here. Man I hated that guy.

x1

He wasn't talking about banning reality.

Me, my brother, my sister, my father and both my uncles have real, straight up depression, largely caused by genetics. I've had it, at least noticeably, since my senior year in high school. My brother, sister and father even longer. I've taken psychology courses and done a lot of independent study.



I wouldn't say most, but many. I've used Zoloft, Lexapro and Welbutrin without any side affects whatsoever. My sister was on Paxil once, which gave her horrible nightmares. Yes, antidepressants can have some nasty side effects. That's why the patients are supposed to be very closely monitored when they first start out on them.


That's what I'm talking about. And it isn't just genetic, either. They can be triggered by stress, emotional trauma, etc. I think with my dad, for instance, who was a successful businessman for many years, went downhill after being layed off from his VP of sales position at Pace Engineering.


Of course. Do you know anyone who works at a hospital, clinic or urgent care center? Ask them how many hypochondriacs they deal with every week. I mean really, it's no different than anything else.

No, it's not different.


It's not the only over diagnosed "illness" that is also an excuse to make people take pills.

We went thousands of years without treating all sorts of things. That doesn't mean they don't need treating.

Yo. I should be an admin. I would be so righteous, not to be confused with self-righteous I assure you. I could bridge the gap between Brian and the heathen Admins who promote the current level of corruption like JG and MB and all those others who are capable of being summed up in 2 letters.

This is harsh but... admins should be able to ban *******s. When time and again people bring nothing but petty bickering and negativity where it's unwarranted, unnecessary, and not applicable, banning them for 2 weeks doesn't change anything. Meh?

That crap brings Massassi down (ugh ) more than the mere presence of sex and drugs and violence in conversation. As has been noted.

Yes, saberopus, you sure do show your matrurity and ability to admin us all by fingering the two admins who actually do their job...

Hey, Brian, make me an admin too! I'll get rid of all those people who discuss things and bring new topics to the table!

I for one, would be glad to embrace a kid friendly massassi. It's not like the adult conversations are treated with proper maturity most of the time anyway.

I for one, welcome our new kid friendly overlords.

Sorry, been reading too much /. lately

Not outside US of A, no. I'm pretty sure that here, like in most of the world, it's considered that if you're on some sort of anti-depressant pills or go to a psychologist then there's something REALLY REALLY REALLY wrong with you.

I'm with Brian on this one (usually am )
It used to be nice coming here to find out what people had been up to without having to go through all the bickering.
I've stopped posting as often because half the time the original topic of the post is lost and it just turns into an argument over this or that.

Bring back the good old days.

I should be Miss Admin. I believe in world peace.

The problem wit h you guys is that if I try to get rid of what I find inappropriate, I dont hear the end of it.

"whyd you close that?"
"whyd you ban him?"
"You should do this"



I know saberopus was just being silly, but I think the majority of the problem is that if I try to do something everyone thinks I'm out to get them. Im currently going through my finals week, but as you can see from the suggestions thread Ive been trying to think of new things for the site.

If you do have something youd like to see massassi have, please do me a favor and at least post it there so I have it all listed in the same place.