@butmum Too many grandparents have no idea what that little "M" in the corner means, if they notice it at all. And grandparents tend to be the ones who like spoiling their grand kids by buying them anything they want. Either way, the ESRB stinks. I'm fine playing a firefight match in Halo CE: Anniversary with my six year old cousin, who has a blast every time(Anniversary has "blood and gore" in the rating), but I myself am disturbed watching some of the finisher moves in Mortal Kombat, witch also has the "blood and gore" specifier in the rating. The ratings are just too vague. "M" covers too much ground and "E10+" doesn't cover enough ground. I think we would just rate our games like we rate our movies, an uncorrupt, logical, easy-to-understand system that even old people know.
@Shaun373 Exactly right. About fifty years back, a well-educated doctor filed tons of groundless lawsuits about how comic books were producing juvenile delinquents, causing hysteria and neighborhood-wide mass comic book burnings, where horrified parents confiscated their children's entertainment and piled it in a bonfire. Now, whenever a crime is committed, comic-books are never the "cause." Another medium whose development was slowed by the disgraceful blamings.
In some ways, it seems like TV and movies would do more harm than video games. The real issue isn't adults; adults are expected to be above bad entertainment influences, but kids (as everyone already knows). Kids are more susceptible to imitation than anything else, and seeing a charismatic role model murdering and shooting seems more influential than a solidified version of the violent imagination games they play anyway. (I don't know anyone who didn't imagine themselves fighting and killing some sort of bad guy with a stick when they were a kid)
@BradleyAPC89 People weren't exactly fantastic at keeping records back then, so if anyone saw something amazing that had been built a hundred years prior by their ancestors, they had reason to assume that it had been there forever and had been built by superior beings. Also, stories change over time. If someone built something in, say, a month, they might brag about how they did it in three weeks. Then, someone else tells their grand-kids about it, but to impress them, he says two weeks. This process could easily continue until it is shortened down to one day. Also, I have seen the photos of these so called "astronauts," and it strikes me as strange that they don't appear more often. If something had really happened, again, they would appear everywhere, not just once or twice every century. The astronauts are also suspiciously human-like, and I wouldn't say that it would be completely out of the question that what we are seeing are depictions of time -travelers form the future (although that sounds pretty ridiculous, too). Anyhow, chances are so minute that aliens would look that similar to humans that it is basically impossible. Look at us today. We have depictions of aliens everywhere, from Xcom to Predetor to those little parachute thingies that you get for a quarter at gas station vending machines. However, very few people in our age believe in (and even fewer claim to have actually seen) aliens. It is more than likely that some ancient cave artists was bored, and just decided to draw what they thought was a cool picture. Maybe one artist stumbled upon the drawings of another, and decided to make one himself. Also, the Spanish are hardly a reputable source. These were also the people who thought that you would fall of the planet if you sailed too far west. As for Atlantis? No one's taken that seriously since the occult Nazis in the early 30's, and the last real scientist who even considered the idea died about eighty years ago.
(Just thought I should mention that I'm not trying to ruin your beliefs or anything. I just like to argue)
@BradleyAPC89 I totally agree. If any of you out there think that aliens are scheduled to return in 2012, then you're an absolute doofus. Seriously? We're supposed to believe a calendar from an ancient race that didn't even have electricity? They had to stop somewhere. They probably thought, "Okay. We've gone three thousand years into the future, to a time when our civilization likely won't even be around anymore. We're done." Also, you're equally doofus-y if you think that aliens built the pyramids or any of the other "unexplained" stuff. Remember, people had a lot more time on their hands back then, and could have easily built great things with such a massive, willing, and over-religious workforce. If aliens had, in fact, visited this planet, their pictures would be all over the place, not just in a few obviously misinterpreted scrawlings. Also, the ancient gods aren't aliens. They are very clearly based off of animals.
@Longjohn4 We don't hesitate to enslave pigs and cows for our palate pleasure, do we? An alien race, if it had the intention of enslaving, would likely have similar views toward us.
@mingolo Well, remember, we've only had proper physics for about three hundred years, and almost all of our basic physics science is based off of the laws of one guy. It is possible that we could have a civilization on our hands that could be just as old as we are, but has been studying physics for much longer and has discovered much more. We are dramatically more primitive than we should be, because stupid over-religious Christians ruined everything in the Middle Ages, and preventing a solid form of Science from forming. (No offense to Christians nowadays, but you have to admit, those guys five hundred years ago practically encouraged the abolition of advancement)
noah364's comments