Anti-VG Propaganda

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by Talyn, Oct 29, 2010.

  1. Talyn

    Talyn Reality Hacker

    This -
    http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104830-Killers-Confess-in-World-of-Warcraft

    Was written in response to -
    http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/...sday_101028/20101028/?hub=BritishColumbiaHome


    The anti-video game propaganda machine revs its engine once again as "EXPERTS", who remain uncannily unnamed, claim that fantasy and reality are blurred to some video game players.

    As one poster in the Escapist thread pointed out: 11,999,999 WoW players haven't (as far as I know) murdered, and statistics tells us therefore that only the previously disturbed will kill and that it's correlation, not causation.

    If this had happened fifty years ago and if the killers had been black and gay those would probably have also been causative factors according to the media. Video gamers should become a recognised minority group.[/rant]
     
  2. Microlamia

    Microlamia Banned Banned

    Agreed. I'm not a gamer myself but it drives me mental how people lazily throw the blame on video games and other fictional violence rather than deal with messy social problems.

    Unless you have some sort of mental problem where you fail to dissociate fantasy from reality, fictional violence can't make you hurt anyone. I'm a sucker for violent movies, but the rare few times I've hit anyone in self defence (not counting MA contests) I felt like a rapist for laying a hand on another human being.
     
  3. Gary

    Gary Vs The Irresistible Farce Supporter

    I played Tenchu once then spent the rest of the day standing in shadows, arguing about ancestry and trying to buy shuriken on the internet.
     
  4. Hatamoto

    Hatamoto Beardy Man Kenobi Supporter

    Video games have saved lives from my wrath :p We all have those days when you wanna climb up a clocktower with a rifle. When I feel like that, I do, but I do it via GTA 4 or something instead.

    Retards who think video games make people violent make me a lot more violent than video games ever have :p
     
  5. Microlamia

    Microlamia Banned Banned

    Exactly the same here.

    Which is better? Taking out your negative feelings vicariously in private, or actually lashing out?
     
  6. Gary

    Gary Vs The Irresistible Farce Supporter

    You joke but GTA releases are usually accompanied by a couple of weeks of low crime rate. Also as the technology has improved crime has been lower than before.

    http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/violence_and_videogames
     
  7. Moi

    Moi Warriors live forever x

    Video games don't make you violent. Watching Rocky makes you violent :)
     
  8. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    On balance I think this article is pretty reasonable. It does name "experts" further down the page which just wasn't that long. Granted, the fact that there was a link to a violent video game is why this made the news. However the psychologist does say that these kids would have shown signs early on.

    This is a matter of parenting. A lot of excuses have been trotted out for kids who won't behave because it's not PC to blame the parents. The latest excuse for kids with HDAD is that there is a genetic component. Well fantastic. There's a genetic component to everything we do. People need to stop looking for excuses and deal with life.
     
  9. Gary

    Gary Vs The Irresistible Farce Supporter

    Sex and the City makes me violent, Rocky makes me want to go train.
     
  10. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    Australian soaps make people violent :bang:
     
  11. Emil

    Emil Valued Member

    What bugs me about this kind of thing is that the parameters upon which this theory is based is completely skewed. many reports seem to suggest that violent video games are a gateway to violent crime, based on some annecdotal evidence of a thug who also happens to play video games. This is not very scientific, is it? Where are the statistics?

    If statistical evidence seemed to suggest that out of 100 convicted violent criminals between the age of 16-25, 90 happened to play violent video games, then some might suggest that violent video games breed violent crime......... this isn't quite right though. A better parameter is looking at the people who just play video games, and ascertaining out of 100, how many have committed violent crime (for arguments sake lets say 1). The former situation suggests that 90% of convicted criminals between the ages of 16-25 play violent video games. However, the latter suggests that only 1% of gamers go on to commit violent crime. This is the figure to be focussing on, yet somehow, journalists just can't seem to grasp this elementary math. Saying that video games lead to violence in real life because some criminals happen to play them is ridiculous.... it's like saying that milk is a gateway to alcohlism because 90% of alcoholics started by drinking milk :confused:

    But is suppose that's tabloids for you..........

    Em
     
  12. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    Personally I think people have this whole thing the wrong way around. Games don't make people violent. People with a predisposition for violence are drawn to violent games that allow them to act out their fantasies. Consciously or subconsciously.
     
  13. Hatamoto

    Hatamoto Beardy Man Kenobi Supporter

    Yknow what makes me angrier than driving around shooting people? Driving around and not being able to shoot people. Racing games, to me, are far more anger-inspiring, and because there's no release in game (we've all chased someone down in GTA to toy with him till we get bored, then shooting him in the crotch) it all gets bottled up. Simulation still leads to stimulation, and that pent up anger and frustration is real, even if the event that caused it has nothing to do with real life.

    As a teen, I swore like a sailor because I was exposed to Bottom and The Young Ones and such like, but I also watched tons of Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies. Some of us, apparently it doesn't include the idiots who think games lead to violence, actually know that lashing out with physical violence is seldom a good plan.

    I feel insulted when I read about that sort of thing because it insinuates I'm just a monkey that will imitate ANYTHING I'm exposed to. I suggest exposing these people to copious amounts of porn, then making them go at it and see if they imitate anything they saw. actually that sounds like an interesting study in itself. Commence research xD
     
  14. Microlamia

    Microlamia Banned Banned

    Exactly. Very good points there. The idea that people are drones who can't help imitating whatever poops down their input channels is so insulting. Yes, when I saw Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil 2, I started wearing mesh tops and exercising feverishly so I could be super-defined and harsh looking just like her. But you don't see me make someone bite the curb because I saw it in an 18 rated movie, however much they annoy me. Funnily enough, I can judge when it's okay to emulate someone from a movie and when to draw a boundary between fantasy and reality.
     
  15. Blade96

    Blade96 shotokan karateka

    People write that for the 0.1 percentage of people who would fall for that stuff like maybe students being severely bullied in class and might see something on tv and......Or else someone not all there. Tv wouldnt affect normal people.
     
  16. Microlamia

    Microlamia Banned Banned

    Yeah. I don't think it's even that. Plenty of people are bullied at school. I was bullied in school. You don't see me in jail for acting out a scene from the 18 rated slush I watch. It's when someone fails to dissociate fantasy from reality that you have a problem.
     
  17. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    Mesh tops? It's not true unless there's a picture :evil:
     
  18. Blade96

    Blade96 shotokan karateka

    Happens to some. It happened to me when I was severely bullied thats why i said that.

    Wouldnt happen to me now though as I'm all better now. :) all that was more 'n 15 years ago.
     
  19. Microlamia

    Microlamia Banned Banned

    I meant with an opaque top underneath.

    Like her:

    [​IMG]

    Uploaded with ImageShack.us
     
  20. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    :( now I have a sad :( ... Do you do bandages? Milla was in The Fith Element :D

    Anyway! There are a whole range of mental health disorders that involve the mental patient not being able to properly separate reality from fiction. And rather boringly this can even be truth of a run-of-the-mill psychopath.

    It's also a heck of a lot harder for kids to shoot people if they don't have easy access to fire arms. Indeed of all the cases I've seen in the news, the kids had very easy access to fire arms. Their parents owned fire arms. Taught their kids how to use them. Encourage them to use them. And then left them laying around or easy to get at.

    You don't really have to be Mystic Meg to see what the potential future is there.
     

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