Appropriate response to violent video games?

[Cyborg Girl]

I would definitely not do this.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/life ... cle/395990

But it does seem to have worked. And there is a saying I've heard, purportedly of military origins: "If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid."

[FZR1KG]

Tying them up, blind folding them and telling them that you are going to kill their parents and siblings unless you take this gun and go fight for the cause would work too.
That's pretty stupid to do, but hey, if it works, apparently it's not stupid...

[Cyborg Girl]

That's... kind of a completely different context, I think?

I will note that Jewish families take trips to Israel all the time, though I'd bet most of them stay away from refugee camps.

The whole idea still makes me really uneasy though.

[FZR1KG]

I was addressing the idea that so long as something works, it isn't stupid.
It is stupid if there is an far easier/safer etc way of doing it.

If it is the only way then sure, it's no longer stupid, it's a last resort.

Look at it this way, stupidity isn't what's done, it's what's done in the face of alternatives.
If there is no alternative then it can't be stupid.
If there are many ways to achieve the same thing, then the ones that use the most resources, are the most complex, risky etc, are stupid.

Put it this way, if you are asked to count the number of people in a small room, you don't go purchase a super computer, hire programmers and then some hires cameras and record everything and get the computer to do the work.
You count them by hand.
If it's a bigger room you may have to change your method a little because you don't want to over or under count as people move.

Note that both will give you the solution to the problem. One is stupid. The other is not.

Another example, we had a state government in Australia that was what I called stupid. They had no concept of reality. Thankfully they got booted out. At the peak of their stupidity they hired a group of consultants to assess the viability of a project. Sounds simple enough. But the project cost was $50,000 and they spent $1million on the feasibility study.
Now that is stupid. I thought it was more corruption but whatever.
The obvious solution there is if the feasibility study cost is likely to cost more than about 1% or so of the project cost you don't bother doing it and you let the company know if they go over that figure they are not paying. Since 1% of 50k is $500, any idiot with half a brain knows that by getting a quote with a consultant is going to blow that budget because quotations are built in the price and just getting them there is going to blow the budget without doing any work.

Make sense?