The (Current year) General Political/Salma Hayek discussion Thread Part V

[jamil]

Please explain how using a mouse and keyboard or a controller translates to being able to better use a gun. I suppose these kids all know how to use swords like Samurai as well now.

There is absolutely no similarity between sitting on your ass staring at a screen and running around with a gun killing people.

I’m not asserting they do. I only conceded for the sake of argument that it doesn’t matter if it does make them better at something. The point was, there is no evidence that it changes their character to turn someone who would never have harmed anyone otherwise, into someone who will now harm people because and only because they played an age appropriate video game.

 

[Ingomike]

I have many issues with this.

First:



Second:

As gun owners, we should be very aware of how small details can be stretched to mean something they aren't. Yes? If something tragic were to happen to "INGO User X", and police found a small collection of... oh... four guns in his home... Some in the media would justify calling that an arsenal. I have literally hundreds of games, probably near 1000. Any "journalist" could probably cherry-pick a few of them to create an image of me that would be wholly inaccurate.

Finally:

"He then decided to take the games to real life, in the video in his mind he was not killing innocent elementary kids, he was visualizing being the star like in the video game while lashing out at a society he did not fit in."

This is created by you. This is fiction. This is how you believe it played out, (possibly) presented as fact. Just want to clear that up.

I too am growing weary of precisionism in post replies. I have no more fu****g insight into the damaged mind of the shooter than anyone else. I should have added the word "probably".

What I believe remains.

Video games and movies can make humans want to emulate them.

Video games and movies can teach skills both good and bad.

Some people are fu***d up and should not be exposed to violent video games and movies.


I want to add, there by no means is an explosion of incidents involving perps that may be affected by games anymore than there is affected by the guns they obtain...

 

[BugI02]

Hold that thought. I have to go pay my property tax (which I always do on the last day possible)

 

[VulpesForge]

Are people taught to place a low value on another human's life, or is it in the genome?

If they are taught, why couldn't carnage-infused video games be a contributor to that 'education' just as well as absent father figures or lack of a moral framework. No one influence can be said to be the critical one, but to my mind that just suggests all the potentially corrupting influences should be considered

Provided the video game is age appropriate, every study suggests catharsis through violent video games with the exception of that one guy in the 90's who's goal it was to prove that video games were bad in the case against the columbine kids. This is the equivalent of being an anti-vaxxer today.
Age appropriate meaning so long as parents are paying attention to what their children consume. Fatherless or single parent households are an entirely different subject and shouldn't be conflated with games causing violence. Single parent households produce far more violent or maladjusted children regardless of video games. This has been studied and can be considered one of the key factors crucial to influencing young minds.

 

[VulpesForge]

Hold that thought. I have to go pay my property tax (which I always do on the last day possible)

My grandfather use to do this. I understood his reasoning then, but does it actually make a difference in the long run? What's with you oldsters?

 

[ArcadiaGP]

with the exception of that one guy in the 90's who's goal it was to prove that video games were bad in the case against the columbine kids

Jack mother****ing Thompson? That disbarred attorney activist? I think that's who you're referencing.

...

Couple quick questions:

I almost thought there were two different discussions going on when I saw the FBI/rise in violence stuff... because none of it was pertaining to games. Not sure of its relevance when games aren't tied to it at all... unless we're trying to say "violence rose around 1980 to today" and pretend it has exclusively something to do with games, and not every other media form ever.

Rape was mentioned. I've seen rape in far more TV and movies than I have any video games. I'm struggling to think of a video game that depicted it (not shovelware). I think I could come up with an attempted sexual assault, or even implied... but those can be legit story-building mechanics.

 

[VulpesForge]

Jack mother****ing Thompson? That disbarred attorney activist? I think that's who you're referencing.

...

Couple quick questions:

I almost thought there were two different discussions going on when I saw the FBI/rise in violence stuff... because none of it was pertaining to games. Not sure of its relevance when games aren't tied to it at all... unless we're trying to say "violence rose around 1980 to today" and pretend it has exclusively something to do with games, and not every other media form ever.

Rape was mentioned. I've seen rape in far more TV and movies than I have any video games. I'm struggling to think of a video game that depicted it (not shovelware). I think I could come up with an attempted sexual assault, or even implied... but those can be legit story-building mechanics.

Jack Thompson, that's the guy!

Basically, yes. I'm drawing a correlation between the rise of video game usage and the drop in violent crime. That also stands to reason that rape, included in the violent crime statistic, has gone down. The argument was video games cause or contribute to violent behavior. If this was true, the massive influence and use of video games increasing exponentially since the 90's would almost certainly be reflected in the violent crime statistics. That's what I'm basing my argument off of. Video games don't cause violence, they cause catharsis provided age appropriate and parental guidance where not age appropriate.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Stories:
Half-Life (and sequels)

What a coincidence, all Half Life games just went free to play until April 1st. Granted, they've always been inexpensive.

https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/Half-Life

(Have to click through to the store page for the game to see)

 

[VulpesForge]

What a coincidence, all Half Life games just went free to play until April 1st. Granted, they've always been inexpensive.

https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/Half-Life

(Have to click through to the store page for the game to see)

This would be amazing if I didn't own them all.

 

[jamil]

I'm not one to use the phrase "wrong side of history" often...

... but...

You might want to approach this from a facts/research angle instead of the feelings angle.

You feel games could contribute to people acting out, but there's no data to show that.

We can always include other forms of media and entertainment... but then you'd lose the "bash the youngsters" thing.

First: wrong side of history. There are some legitimate uses, and some retarded uses. While making a deductive argument, you state you’re on the right side of history, you’re saying that the facts you can’t prove now, will someday be provable, that’s a legitimate use. If you’re arguing something subjective, maybe even on some moral grounds, for example, we should have open borders. And then then claim you’re on the the right side of history. No. That’s bull****. You’re on the right side of your own opinion.

You’re making a deductive argument here. It’s fine to be confident that in the future facts will prove you right. You’re either correct or not.

 

[jamil]

https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/explorer/national/united-states/shr
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Crime Data Explorer

Go ahead; explore 'Victim Circumstance' where 'arguments' are the largest count of any categorizable information, or 'Murder Victims by Weapon' where edged weapons are #2 (after firearms) or 'Victim's Relationship to the Offender' where
'acquaintance, stranger and other-known to victim' are the top three categorizations

Would you conclude that random violence is on the upswing?

Can you prove that if there is an upswing that it is attributable to playing video games?

 

[jamil]

A first-person shooter, mechanically, trains the player to locate and identify targets (usually by aligning a pointing element with the target and inputting a "select" command using a controller of some type) in real time within the confines of the rules of gameplay.

A shooter isn't much different than a game like candy crush in base mechanical gameplay...you find a desirable target, then move a cursor to the target and select it using some type of interface.

The difference is in the context, given to the player through animations.

Candy Crush offers the player a colorful display with movement and sound that lets us know we've accomplished the task...identify and select an appropriate target.

Shooters do the same thing, but within the visual context of fantansy violence...and I think this is the real hang-up for people who see video games as a potential influencer of violent behavior.

A shooter doesn't train a better soldier...it dosen't teach toughness, personal discipline, riflery...maybe it coule be argued to help with target identification and selection...but that seems like a fairly cerebral skill to me.

Do shooters numb their players to the violence they depict? I think that's a really fair question to ask, and...I don't know. I have played shooters for years, and I have never felt the desire to act out those behaviors on the street. If anything (speaking for me, alone here) I'd say that shooter video games offer something of the opposite...a way to act out my most violent fantasies in a totally harmless space. If I have a really bad day, I can always load up Red Dead Redemtion 2 and take Arthur into town on a murderous rampage...all the catharsis of violent outburst with none of the real-world repurcussions.

To me...the shooter takes the same place as violent comics, books, and movies...it affords a way to express our inappropriate desires in an appropriate forum.

Does that move the conversation more toward the answer you were looking for?

My avatar is Darth Vader, but I could never be a good Sith. Not even in fantasy. I couldn’t bring myself to having Arther just randomly murder people. It’s not that I didn’t want to harm innocents. They’re just npc’s. I didn’t want Arther’s character to be besmirched. It’s irrational. But there it is.

 

[nonobaddog]

Jack Thompson, that's the guy!

Basically, yes. I'm drawing a correlation between the rise of video game usage and the drop in violent crime. That also stands to reason that rape, included in the violent crime statistic, has gone down. The argument was video games cause or contribute to violent behavior. If this was true, the massive influence and use of video games increasing exponentially since the 90's would almost certainly be reflected in the violent crime statistics. That's what I'm basing my argument off of. Video games don't cause violence, they cause catharsis provided age appropriate and parental guidance where not age appropriate.

There are so many other variables involved I don't think ANY correlation is valid.

 

[BugI02]

Can you prove that if there is an upswing that it is attributable to playing video games?

Can you prove there isn't?

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Can you prove there isn't?

I know this isn't the standard that you hold for other claims.

Absence of proof isn't the proof of yadda yadda.

Why pass the onus to someone else?

 

[BugI02]

I think we needed to look at violent crime in general as the theory of video games cause violence and not just a specified target area in a specific year as that gets too specific and is easily skewed. What we're looking at is the generally accepted "violent crime is going down since the repeal or expiration of the Clinton era AWB". Raw numbers are easily manipulated. Per capita is the only accurate way to acknowledge statistics. I understand how it might seem nothing is changing but density on the surface. If there is a set amount of crime within a population and the population increases yet the crime remains the same, the crime rate per capita reduces. This means that a core group is causing the problem and not necessarily birth rates or immigration to the populace. This indicates an overall decrease in crime as the likelihood of crime committed per person has decreased. There are concentrated areas of crime versus new people committing new crimes.

Her district has a reduced crime rate because the likelihood per person to commit a crime has decreased. Yes the raw number of crimes has increased, but you have to account for population growth and this is why raw numbers are so thoroughly misleading.

You are confusing the general with the specific. What we experience, which is what really matters to the individual, is more closely related to the specific

Example: Would you feel good about flying on a 737 Max right now? After all, their death rate has fallen precipitously in the past year

 

[BugI02]

I know this isn't the standard that you hold for other claims.

Absence of proof isn't the proof of yadda yadda.

Why pass the onus to someone else?

Because if neither one of us can prove our positions, one is just as valid as another excepting for our particular biases in how we wish to interpret things. Gamers don't want to believe games might be eroding morality toward a lowest common denominator, but what should I conclude when they cite statistics that don't prove their claims?

 

[BugI02]

There are so many other variables involved I don't think ANY correlation is valid.

This ^^^

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Because if neither one of us can prove our positions, one is just as valid as another excepting for our particular biases in how we wish to interpret things. Gamers don't want to believe games might be eroding morality toward a lowest common denominator, but what should I conclude when they cite statistics that don't prove their claims?

I, personally, wouldn't be satisfied using this as a way to win/stalemate a discussion. It feels dirty.

People here talk about studies that can't find any links to video games influencing violence.

You've provided no counter-argument or study that proves otherwise. You're going to take that as a 'W' with this odd logic?

 

[BugI02]

There is a standard the FBI uses that list five types of crimes. Violent crime consists of five criminal offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and gang violence; taken from the Wikipedia that links to the FBI website, which can be followed easily enough. The chart I linked is consistent with the FBI data. If there is other data in there it simply follows the same trend. All of this is available on the fbi.(gov) website.

First person rapist video games don't exist to my knowledge, but I can appreciate the thought experiment. FPS games activate different parts of the brain than actually shooting people or violence does, and I would have to see the data on whether or not these "FPR" games affected the users psyche in a significant way and whether or not sexual crime increases could be directly linked to the usage of such a game. I would personally find such a game rather abhorrent as I'm sure most of the market would, which is most of the point of your using it as an example, correct? Either way, without that data point and the knowledge of how it affects the brain we can't tell. They would almost certainly be two different avenues. However, to my knowledge you can over the shoulder perspective bang a hooker in some of the Grand theft auto games and then kill her to get your money back, and I'm sure there are other examples, but the violent crime rate according to the FBI statistics is still at a 30 year low.

Indeed, now take it a step further. Would random murder games be found abhorrent by most of the 'market' twenty or thirty years ago? So, what direction are standards being pushed? Is the lowest common denominator for abhorrent what we want to hold sway. We're not talking about art pushing boundaries like impressionism or cubism did, we're talking about Vlad the impaler as artist (at least I am)