Columbine Student on VG Violence 411
Sophia wrote in to mention some discussion of Video Game Violence on 1up.com this week. Brooks Brown had the experience of attending Columbine High School around the time of the now infamous shooting incident. Via his blog, Brown goes into a detailed discussion of Why Violence in Gaming is a Good Thing. From the article: "GTA isn't about fucking hookers or killing cops. It's a story of a guy who got screwed trying to get back on top. It is, by nature, a story game. Postal 2 may let you kill anyone you want in bloody and disgusting ways - but that's not what it is about either. It is, by nature, a tech demo in the abilities of programmers and AI. it is WE - the gamers - who change what the game is about and determine what happens. It is the person playing who determines what the game contains." Jane Pinckard has a quick reaction to his post. More commentary on this subject is available via John Davison's Blog, who met Brown at a taping of a news program which was ostensibly to be about gaming in general. Instead he was ambushed about violence in games and ended up walking out.
Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:4, Insightful)
The big story never seemed to quite make it to the front pages or the TV talk shows. It wasn't whether the Net is a place for hate-mongers and bomb-makers, or whether video games are turning your kids into killers. It was the spotlight the Littleton, Colorado killings has put on the fact that for so many individualistic, intelligent, and vulnerable kids, high school is a Hellmouth of exclusion, cruelty, loneliness, inverted values and rage.
From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Todd Solondz's "Welcome To The Dollhouse," and a string of comically-bitter teen movies from Hollywood, pop culture has been trying to get this message out for years. For many kids - often the best and brightest -- school is a nightmare.
People who are different are reviled as geeks, nerds, dorks. The lucky ones are excluded, the unfortunates are harassed, humiliated, sometimes assaulted literally as well as socially. Odd values - unthinking school spirit, proms, jocks - are exalted, while the best values - free thinking, non-conformity, curiousity - are ridiculed. Maybe the one positive legacy the Trenchcoat Mafia left was to ensure that this message got heard, by a society that seems desperate not to hear it.
Minutes after the "Kids That Kill" column was posted on Slashdot Friday, and all through the weekend, I got a steady stream of e-mail from middle and high school kids all over the country -- especially from self-described oddballs. They were in trouble, or saw themselves that way to one degree or another in the hysteria sweeping the country after the shootings in Colorado.
Many of these kids saw themselves as targets of a new hunt for oddballs -- suspects in a bizarre, systematic search for the strange and the alienated. Suddenly, in this tyranny of the normal, to be different wasn't just to feel unhappy, it was to be dangerous.
Schools all over the country openly embraced Geek Profiling. One group calling itself the National School Safety Center issued a checklist of "dangerous signs" to watch for in kids: it included mood swings, a fondness for violent TV or video games, cursing, depression, anti-social behavior and attitudes. (I don't know about you, but I bat a thousand).
The panic was fueled by a ceaseless bombardment of powerful, televised images of mourning and grief in Colorado, images that stir the emotions and demand some sort of response, even when it isn't clear what the problem is.
The reliably blockheaded media response didn't help either. "Sixty Minutes" devoted a whole hour to a broadcast on screen violence and its impact on the young, heavily promoted by this tease: "Are video games turning your kids into killers?" The already embattled loners were besieged.
"This is not a rational world. Can anybody help?" asked Jamie, head of an intense Dungeons and Dragons club in Minnesota, whose private school guidance counselor gave him a choice: give up the game or face counseling, possibly suspension. Suzanne Angelica (her online handle) was told to go home and leave her b
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:2, Informative)
weirdos (Score:5, Insightful)
Your point about "The killers at Columbine weren't geeks, nerds, goths, dorks, weirdos, metalheads, skaters, or punks." is true. But I don't buy your conclusion. The groups you point to have found outlets for their frustrations. "I'm a homicidal maniac," says Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family Movie, explaining why she apparently didn't dress up for Halloween. "They look like everybody else."
Re:weirdos (Score:3, Insightful)
Again you miss the point, I can only wonder sometimes at this culture. We are disconnected from nature to such a degree that we think killing in general is a bad thing. I am not talking Human killing, I am talking killing anything even a fly or ant. We as a culture in general meaning Western Judeo-Christian has come to the insane conclusion that killing is so wrong even the thought is sinful. Now de
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:3, Interesting)
I went to a couple different boarding schools (moved) from 5th-Sophomore year. Strangely enough there tends to be less exclusion than at public schools. Sure there's always the kid or two that gets picked on but they're still your friend and they know that, they just happen to be the Cartman of the group.
Empathy for the perp. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Empathy for the perp. (Score:3, Interesting)
It is just sad you are true. Anyone that looks into the recent (as in 30 years) history of the US will understand at least some of the antipathy against the US. Just the fact the US has a history of wanting to influence other country's politics will have set some major antisympathy...
The really sad thing IMO is that Osama got what he wanted: the US full of fear - NO, it was not about those people, it was about the
Re:Empathy for the perp. (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple; the people in charge of the US don't *want* him to be captured. (Witness pulling out of Afghanistan when we knew he was still there.)
The reason for this is simple: control. Right now, the US is one of the most paranoid places in the world, and this paranoia is being fed by the White House, because it gives them power.
Want to pass blatantly unconstitutional laws? Say the "T" word, and watch your opponents' political power crumble.
Want to run a police state? Have Federal agents armed with machine guns "patrol" major cities, and tell the sheeple that it's necessary to keep them safe.
If Bin Laden had been captured, people might ask "why do we need all of this?" Bush/Cheney need a bogeyman to keep the sheeple properly afraid, so that the real terrorists (the ones in the White House) can maintain their power hold.
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:2)
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not exaggerating or being sarcastic when I say that that statement brought tears to my eyes. I'm sixteen years old, and I know so very many parents who react like this. It really makes me think of the age-old statement of how people fear what they don't understand. Columbine was a tragedy, and just because us geeks don't play all-American sports (at least not all of us), and we don't (all) cheer at said games, it doesn't mean that we're not affected by killers.
It's sad what the media sometimes portrays geeks and nerds as.
- dshaw
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:5, Insightful)
If they tested the kids that shoot up their schools, they would probably find they are sociopathic or mentally ill in some other way. Perhaps violence in media inspired them to commit their crimes while young, but it was probably bound to happen at some point in their lives.
And now for my story. I apologize in advance if it's tedious, but as someone who almost chose to commit these same acts, I feel it's applicable.
I believe I may have mild sociopathic tendencies, which were aggravated by parents that, though decent, didn't pay much attention to anything I did, and by the "popular" students, who picked on me incessantly through my junior high years. I first fantasized about humiliating them. The longer it went on, the more it escalated. I planned to kill myself to escape the daily misery. A single thought kept me from trying: "They'll win." Then I fantasized about killing them, by many gruesome means.
Mind you, while all this was happening, I wasn't a gamer, and my prior gaming experiences consisted of "Pitfall" and "Breakout" for the Atari 2600. I can't say for certain whether violent gaming (which was available, I just didn't have any new gaming systems) would have changed any of that. Knowing my personality at the time, it would have been more a release valve than anything.
I had access to guns and knives. I had the rage, and probably the tendency to commit what would have been the first such incident (and by a female, no less!). What stopped me from carrying out these deeds I plotted? It wasn't my parents. It wasn't lack of exposure to violence, since I'd seen my fair share of violent movies. It was that same thought that kept me from taking my own life. "They'll win." I would have been villified, they would have been cherished. Those cruel bastards certainly didn't deserve glowing memorial praise. So I did my best to ignore them. Luckily, I moved to a distant town right before high school.
We can't point the finger at any one cause of these crimes. In my case, a combination of factors contributed to a possible outburst, but there was just enough elements lacking that I kept my common sense and was able to overcome the impulse to act. Maybe I wasn't ill enough, maybe my parents were just good enough, maybe the torment didn't go far enough, or maybe I was just too afraid. I know for certain that the emotional torture I'd been put through all those years ago has permanently affected my mental state.
I lay most of the blame for what I almost did on two parties: myself, for taking so much stock in what others thought of me, and all the ignorant adults and peers that saw the problem, but chose to ignore it for whatever reason.
A postscript: shortly after I moved from that town, I saw in a local news broadcast that one of my harassers had been killed in a car accident. I smiled. Does that make me a bad person?
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:3, Interesting)
A teenager's mind is controlled on little more than assumptions and hormones, the mix of which is pretty much give or take given the kid. Now we might say that a well adjusted kid will be in one direction or another, but I come from a place where I've seen a very large spectru
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:3, Interesting)
6th paragraph down. That was us. What do you know? None of us shot anyone and ended up doing anything violent. Most of us graduated college fine. One of them ended up a computer science major with a degree from Yale and a rabid Slashdot reader, so maybe they should put a warning out for kids like us... Do we still have LAN parties and play shooters? Of course!
Thanks Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey all. What we need to do is instead of just sitting on Slashdot discussing the problem, make the counsellors and principals and parents realize that this problem exists and make them pull their heads out of their asses. What I have done is taken the very first comment on this page (the one I am replying to right now), which was EXTREMELY insightful btw, and have made a nice PDF out of it. I am making an anonymous hotmail account and emailing this to my guidance councellor.
I suggest everyone else do the same.
I myself am sort of a mixture of some sort. I am friends with all of the "cool kids". I smoke pot with them. I get so drunk I can barely see straight.
I also run Linux on my desktop at home and read Slashdot. So I know how things are on both sides of the fence.
At school, the bigger kids used to pick on me. Then I would pick on the even weaker. I did this until shortly after I read a commentary similar to these ones about Columbine.
Ever since that day, I'm the person who is always telling my own friends to fuck off and leave the nerdy kid ive never met before alone. Most of the people who pick on other kids do it to fit in (at least I did), so that they aren't put in the "geek's" shoes. They want to fit in with the other bullies.
The thing that fucking pisses me off, is that the Teachers have the power to stop this, and they just don't care. They know little Johnny gets beat up every day at Lunch, yet they would rather run off for a smoke break instead of letting him work on homework in the classroom during Lunch, or even just watching him from afar. Some other kids beat the living shit out of another "geek" and get suspended for a few days. That little geek brings a pocket knife to school to try and be cool and fit in with the popular people, and he gets expelled and a letter sent home for it.
Columbine, while being a complete and utter tragedy, was also a glowing oppurtunity. If only stories like this, and comments like the first one for this story, were posted on the front page of the newspaper, instead of fucking stupid articles like "Are Violent Video Games Going to Make Your Kid Kill?", maybe all of the bullies, teachers and principals would realize that those students died not only because of the two "crazy kids" but because of people like themselves. That the principals at Columbine, the teachers, the counsellors, the parents of the killers, are owed just as much blame as the killers themselves. That this mass murder was the fault of Society and not the fault of the "nerds". It could have made all of the difference in the world, even if it only saved one kid from being bullied. But instead of taking advantage of this oppurtunity, America (and Canada where I live, as well as numerous other countries) instead went on an all-out witch-hunt, while being so incredibly naive...and, well, downright fucking stupid....that they just made the problem worse.
So I say everyone print off the first comment for this article and make sure as many people as possible see it.
Re:Columbine? Jon Katz is calling! (Score:3, Informative)
But this comment stripped away fifteen years from me. Again I feel like the undersized freshman entering into a very different world.
I get it. I was it. I am it.
At my school I was met with a combination of revile and contempt. This emanated from both the population of the school and some of the teachers.
Why? Because I had commited the cardina
*cough cough* Derrida *cough cough* (Score:5, Funny)
*weeps*
Re:*cough cough* Derrida *cough cough* (Score:3, Funny)
Re:*cough cough* Derrida *cough cough* (Score:2)
Re:*cough cough* Derrida *cough cough* (Score:2)
That may be too obscure for
Re:*cough cough* Derrida *cough cough* (Score:2)
Postal 2 was about AI? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that there is anything wrong with that.....
The real danger is with racing games. Try racing an Audi S4 around in Project Gotham all day, then hopping into a real S4 to go to the grocery store. Dangerous stuff.
Re:Postal 2 was about AI? (Score:2, Funny)
Think of how I felt after I played Katamari Damacy...
Re:Postal 2 was about AI? (Score:2, Interesting)
That I agree with. I played Midtown Madness (can't remember which) for a few hours straight, then went straight out driving. It was such an effort to restrain myself at traffic lights, queues etc. That was the most I've ever been effected by a game I think.
(Of course, I'm a rational guy, it was actually somewhat reassuring to have realised q
Re:Postal 2 was about AI? (Score:5, Funny)
Luckily, I live in reality and was amused by that thought, not inexoribly drawn into it like a moth to a flame.
Re:Postal 2 was about AI? (Score:5, Funny)
driving games vs. reality (Score:3, Informative)
If you own an Audi, join the Audi Club North America [audiclubna.org] and come to one of the driver education events (actually, the DE events are open to any make/model, except trucks, including SUVs). I'd claim it was a plug, except it's not- I'm a volunteer, the club is a non-profit organization, and the chapter that I volunteer with donates a fair amount of money at the end of the year to ch
Violent Games Mask the Real Problem (Score:2, Interesting)
In Japan, many kids play violent video games and see softporn pictures on the television. You will commonly see bared breats during the prime time on the television. Yet, the rate of violent crime, including violence (i.e. rape) against women, is much lower than that rate in the USA.
Re:Violent Games Mask the Real Problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Violent Games Mask the Real Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems to me that America tends to kill people. And that's probably why there's a high crime rate- people will usually prefer to do criminal acts to try to avoid dying.
Re:Violent Games Mask the Real Problem (Score:5, Funny)
You had me until this sentence:
Re:Violent Games Mask the Real Problem (Score:5, Funny)
3. 1999 called and wants its "high return of mutual funds" back. Actually, so do I.
Interesting Parallel With Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
If the political push continues against violence in video games (and I think it will), it will be interesting to see if this "war on game violence" plays out the same way. That would mean either some kind of certification to use games or perhaps some biometric age device hooked up to game players. I don't believe games harm anyone, btw, but in politics perception is everything.
Can I Type What I Want In This Sig? [whattofix.com]
Re:Interesting Parallel With Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
It's now (well, since roughly the 60s) that illegal drug use is so pervasive among youth. The legislation that's a reaction to that is not that drugs have been made illegal, but our efforts toward persecuting those who deal in or use drugs have been increased (the War on Drugs, it's called now).
Re:Interesting Parallel With Drugs (Score:5, Interesting)
If I recall correctly, Opiates were first banned because there was fear and panic that 'drug crazed negroes' would rape white women. This was in San Fran, or one of those more westernly of the United States Cities.
This was also what stirred the first (recorded) police increase of calibre size, as it was thought that anything below a .38 would not be enough to kill someone on Opium.
Also, the reason Drug Use is pervasive amongst youth is because it is forbidden. You make something verbotten, and its appeal instantly skyrockets among teenagers, mainly because teenagers have a built in mechanism whereby the seek to break as many rules as they possibly can, due to the fact they need to explore and find the boundaries of what is acceptable behaviour, and more importantly, what they can get away with.
Probably important to becoming a well-rounded adult.
Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Informative)
1937 saw the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act. Harry J. Anslinger (Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner) testified in hearings on the subject that the hemp plant needed to be banned because it had a violent "effect on the degenerate races," notably Mexican immigrants.
Here's a nice section of a wikipedia article: War On Drugs, 20th Century [wikipedia.org]
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:2)
Thank you very much. That was actually one of the Wiki Pages I was thinking about when I was posting. Unfortunately, the Caffiene is not strong with me at the moment.
Re:Interesting Parallel With Drugs (Score:2)
China has had laws against the use and sale of opium longer than America has, d
Re:Interesting Parallel With Drugs (Score:2)
You were right. I was wrong. It was done over the fear of white women visiting Chinese opium dens and being taken advantage of by their runners.
Wiki Link to Prohibition on Drugs [wikipedia.org]. However, I was only half wrong about the gun thing. It was an increase from .32 to .38 Calibre, because of fear of blacks on cocaine, not opium
Re:Interesting Parallel With Drugs (Score:2)
What would game prohibition bring? (Score:2)
Anyway: Prohibition of alcohol gave us 150 proof home distilled gin.. Prohibition of cocaine powder and coca leaves gave us crack cocaine.. prohibition of opium gave is Heroin and Oxycontin; prohibition of marijuana gave us hydroponic weed and hashish.
Re:Interesting Parallel With Drugs (Score:2)
Its amusing that we still think of ourselves as living in the 20th century.
In the late nineteeth century, the Sears, Roebuck catalog had page after page of patent drugs, cure-alls for every disease, contents unadvertised, but likely to be a potent mix of opium and alcohol.
Opium in U.S.P. strength was 28 cents for a four-once bottle, $3 a dozen, in 1897. Hypodermic syringes, sold in portable cases like that used b
Re:Interesting Parallel With Drugs (Score:2)
You may not like ratings, but people who have kids and want to know the content of a movie do. How the system is implemented might not always be perfect. How studios react to this (eg. by making more "child-friendly" movies as their big-budget productions) is up to them. It's not because of the rating system, it's because they make what people will pay for. If they aren't making movies you like, it's because either not enough people agree wi
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The chicken or the egg... (Score:5, Insightful)
What you really want is to compare the percentage of people who commit violent crimes out of two groups: those who play violent video games and those who don't. This sort of thing has been done with, say, television before, but it's nearly impossible to construct proper groups, so data is not useful.
Really the problem, in my opinion, is that parents don't like they way their children behave and need a scapegoat. This isn't terribly surprising. The same thing happened in the 60s and 70s, but then the scapegoat was drugs. (I guess it's still one of the scapegoats now.)
Re:The chicken or the egg... (Score:2)
Re:The chicken or the egg... (Score:2)
+5 Insightful! I think we are headed that way. I don't want this to degenerate into a gun rights flamefest, but what the heck -- this is a Columbine article and it's bound to happen sooner rather than later: I think the reason that places like DC, Illinois, and NYC prevent law-abiding citizens from owning handguns is because those citizens 'might' shoot somebody, someday. Sounds to me like future crime is already legislated
Re:The chicken or the egg... (Score:5, Insightful)
It could be argued that the more violent the behavior exhibitted during a video game, the less likely that person is to exhibit violent behavior in the real world. The more a person is able to submerse themselves in the game's environment, and accept it as a temporary "reality", the less likely they'll be to have much of an urge to perform similar acts out on the streets.
All people, to one degree or another, build up certain levels of anger, hostility, and rage over time. It's important to have an outlet for these emotions that doesn't actually involve hurting other people.
I don't remember the author, but there was one who stated something along the lines of "writing is the only thing that keeps me from going on a killing spree". I would suspect that many other authors, and lyricists, hold similar sentiments.
a LOT higher than 90%, IMHO (Score:3, Insightful)
E.g., World Of Warcraft currently has some 2 million subscribers. If a whole 10% of them were that influenceable, you'd have some 200,000 people running around with swords trying to slash their class mates.
In reality, we have, what? Maybe 10-20 people who were anywhere near (debatably) influenced by games, out of maybe that many millions of gamers. We're not even talking one percent, we're talking maybe 1 in a million.
And were games the real reason there? Or is
Re:The chicken or the egg... (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact I would bet far more murders are committed claiming "god made me do it" than "GTA3 made me do it".
But banning video games is fashionable, hip, cool, and trendy -- banning the bible is not.
My review of Grand Theft Auto (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My review of Grand Theft Auto (Score:3, Interesting)
But seriously. GTA is about violence. Face it. We like killing things. Guns are fun! Acting out our fantasies in any way is usually fun. The point is maintaining the division between fantasy and reality which people these days are pretty crap at. For example, the male fantasy of women is percieved by women to be the ideal. Hence they end up with this stupid distorted fa
Re:My review of Grand Theft Auto (Score:3, Interesting)
I was never much into the GTA games, but last year I was given GTA:San Andreas as a gift. I have to admit that the game can be fun without indulging in gratuitious violence. As the parent mentioned, there are taxi, police, fire, and EMT missions to take on, there are delivery missions, collectibles, mini-games, races, stunts, etc. It's a very large game world with a lot of stuff to do, and gratuitious violence is only one part
I doubt video games cause violence (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe a video game simulation is nothing compared to how convincing real events illustrating the true nature of gruesome human behavior, and we're basically fed with this daily through television. People call watching it educating.
Really? (Score:2, Funny)
Then I think there's something wrong in my version...
Re:The Oracle of Columbine (Score:2)
Ah, but can he make a sweeping statement! (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with his blog entry is that he talking about the vast majority and not the absolute minority. And while I don't think that video games on their own create killing machines, they are an influence. That is the problem, the summation of all factors is what causes the problems!
Here is the kicker, in his last statement he says the killers were "f'd up". Well, duh, yeah! However, they blended in since our society does not think twice about violence and that is a problem.
Re:Ah, but can he make a sweeping statement! (Score:2)
The problem is that (100-99.x) is non-zero.
A small percentage of people are nutty as fruitcakes, and there are a lot of people. 0.5% of 200,000,000 citizens is a million nutters in America alone. If only 1% of the nutters are dangerous, then thats 10,000 gun-crazed loonies on the loose.
Clearly, if GTA was not allowing them to release their tensions in harmless ways, we would have loads more shootings, stabbings, etc! Praise be to God for violent Vide Ga
Re:Ah, but can he make a sweeping statement! (Score:2)
Yeah, no wonder, look at what boring stuff he played in [imdb.com]!
Straight from the source. (Score:5, Funny)
Right...?
Violence in VideoGames (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Violence in VideoGames (Score:2, Funny)
What if you found a scroll of genocide?
Pac-Man (Score:2, Funny)
I think they call this "rationalizing" (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider Civ III in the same vein. (Score:5, Insightful)
As an example, how many people have played Civilization III?
So... what's it about?
Is it about a brave tribe of people who are struggling to establish a civilization under your benevolent leadership, and advance their learning and culture while they peacefully expand, only to be constantly attacked by less enlightened and/or more warlike cultures?
Or is it about a tribe of people who have fallen under your evil domination, who you will then guide forward through the ages in an orgy of conquest, until you stand astride the Earth as its sole Overlord?
Or is it just a bunch of pixels being moved around by the in-game AI, and you're a video gamer with a few hours to kill, amusing yourself by trying to defeat the AI opponents in the game?
It can be any one of those things, depending upon the imagination of the player.
Re:Consider Civ III in the same vein. (Score:2)
Games like Civ III are too abstracted to be of any use to the discussion here.
I think it remains fair to question to question the consequences of games like GTA that continually up the ante, drawing the player into ever more brutal and "realistically" staged modes of play.
At some point, will we be seeing children introduced into these games, as couriers, hostages, innocent bystanders, perhaps even as playable characters, not NPCs? If killings
What about catharsis? (Score:3, Interesting)
After a while, crammed in with the same people in close proximity for 6 days out of 7 for weeks on end, the rough edges of everyone's personality starts to grate on your nerves.
Then we started setting up LAN games of Ghost Recon: Desert Seige during the lunch hours. It was great.
For an hour a day, I wasn't a sardined-in cog in a corporate m
Re:Consider Civ III in the same vein. (Score:2, Insightful)
I can think of two ways right off the bat:
1) There is no chainsaw. There is no back alley. There were no assasinations. It's a game. None of it is real.
or...
3) You *are* the main character, and you *are* commiting horribly unspeakable crimes, but it's solely for the purpose of rising to the top of the criminal underworld as part of a long-running secret operation to completely dismantle the criminal organization a
Choice quote (Score:2, Insightful)
Someone spells it out... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you leave your kid all day around games/movies/music/newspaper/TV, and you don't spend the time educating him, telling him about right or wrong, loving him, that sort of "old fashioned" stuff, well, maybe he will grow up with a skewed view of life.
The thing is that parents (even bad ones) are voters, so it's hard from the policital point of view to say "hey, you're bad parents! you're to blame!". It's much "safer" to blame "those darn videogames and rock music!" because videogames and songs don't vote!
Anyway, maybe we as a society should start paying a bit more atention to parenting. After all, to put it in Scott Adam's words, we need a license to drive/fish/whatever but to be a parent we only need a couple of organs. And maybe between all the people that have those organs there are some who can't take care of themselves, let alone a child...
He's 100% right (Score:3, Funny)
- Mortal Kombat characters executing fatalities to demonstrate advancments in sprite scripting technology.
- Serious Sam's technical display of hugely explorable levels and efficient creation (and removal) of hundreds of agents simultaneously.
- The Playboy series of games which push the boundaries of graphics and strive for photorealism.
- Duke Nukem feeding strippers money and getting them to take their clothes off displayed revolutionary bounce-physics.
GTA:SA (Score:5, Interesting)
Shocking really.. who would of thought you that? I've only ever used a prostitute once just to see WTF it was that happened, then I couldn't careless.
GTA-BS (Score:5, Insightful)
So it's about a guy who got screwed and is trying to get back on top... On top of what again? The criminal world? By enacting all sorts of violent mischief? Who just happens to fuck hookers and kill cops along the way?
Now don't get me wrong, I love videogames, but the line this guy is trying to rationalize is so thin as not to even exist. It's as if the author is trying to explain away the fact that the game is putting you in direct control of a quasi-gansta whose missions are to almost exclusively commit acts of violence against rivals and society at large. I mean, let's not sugar coat this here. You can't divorse the two concepts, as well as the fact that it becomes more than "just a story" when you have user interaction. You're programming your brain with tactics, responces and behaviors in order to operate in that environment. I'll be the first to say most pleas of Videogame violence is way too overrated, but I'll also be up there in saying that it's not as harmless as some of the developers would have you believe. For most well adjusted people, it probably IS harmeless. But for a developing child? You have to be fucking kidding me. There's a reason sesame street exists and it's to program kids. Or, conversly, you can program them with GTA. Both purposely or inadvertantly will do the same thing, and to try and totally absolve yourself of the potential impact you're making on anybody playing is rationalist idiocy.
And yes, the parents have the biggest role in that development. But I wish these devs would call their games for what they are instead of trying to hide behind this conjured BS.
Re:GTA-BS (Score:5, Insightful)
There is, however, a great deal of evidence that indicates that parents play a huge role in whether or not their children grow up to be good citizens or nasty little fucks. Reams of evidence, in fact. A veritable mountain of evidence.
If you want to have a real effect on whether or not kids are going to turn into worthless pieces of shit, it isn't videogames that should be regulated - but who gets to be a parent in the first place.
Max
It isn't the video games... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the fact that mankind has an inborn propensity for violence. The problem isn't violent video games, but that we haven't addressed the fundamentally violent nature of mankind.
Lenin and Hitler killed millions before the first video game had been invented; our violent nature is as old as recorded history.
Instead of blaming a scapegoat (video games), parents would be better off recognizing this fundamental trait (propensity for violence) of human nature and teaching their children to overcome it. After all, keeping the kids away from violent video games won't keep the bullies from bullying, nor will it keep them from getting angry... The ability to take revenge isn't limited to those who have played violent video games.
Yep (Score:2, Interesting)
Practice makes perfect (Score:2)
Zonk and blogging stories (Score:2)
Freedom to do what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of the three games he focuses on, I have only played GTA, but while that games does allow you to do many things, the majority of the things it lets you do are violent. Where is the option to bring peace between the clans through negotiation? Where is the option to join the police, and help deal with the clan warfare through proper authorities? Going further, where is the option to help out the poor and homeless at the soup kitchen? Where is the option to move out to the suburbs, and get a real job, have some kids? Where is the option to travel to other countries, learn new languages, trek across the Andes?
While its true that fucking a hooker, then killing her to get the money back is not part of the main game of GTA3, and was only discovered by some sicko, there is no option to give her some of the hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars that you end up with up with to sponsor her through college.
I like GTA, and I don't think that violent video-games necessarily cause people to be violent, however it is very naïve to say that games like GTA are completely neutral, and it is games that make them violent
Re:Freedom to do what? (Score:2)
I'm not sure how much of the GTA series is limited by hardware. Maybe a few years down the road hardware will improve, and someone at Rockstar will take t
This is all such bullshit. (Score:2)
Grammar? (Score:2)
Takes One to Know One (Score:3, Interesting)
If they'd started such a study 10 years ago, we'd already have a decade of developmental psychology to study, with actual data on subsequent violence (or its lack) by the people being studied. Such a study is, of course, incumbent on those who'd make a claim that violent games "cause" violent acts, or violent people. But the industry would do itself a favor by clearing the air with such a study. Of course, if they perhaps have such a study already, though unpublished, that shows that there is a cause/effect, they'd be in serious trouble. Although suppressing such studies in the tobacco business just put off the inevitable, with much higher cost to those liable, as well as those unwittingly damaged.
Just hearing from a person who grew up in the Columbine environment, which fostered such a violent event, doesn't convince me. He might be more sensitive to violence, having seen it played out, but he isn't any more expert in child psychology itself. In fact, his closeness to the event could just as easily influence him to engage in denial, that he's that similar to the killers, or capable of it himself, with their common background. Especially when he believes that children's choices are entirely their own responsibility.
More of a commentary media (Score:3, Interesting)
Elections Go well in afghanistan country is enjoying the best economic growth it has ever had, reporting Opium traffic on rise and taliban still holding out.
20/20 Stages Explosions in cars auto companys are filleted by lawyers.
I don't really want to go into the media's coverage of aids and environmental except to point out that because of them (by and large) our policy on these issues might better have been framed by hysterical children.
I can go on this is just things off the top of my head. My point is that the media is by far doing greater violence to the body politic than video games. There is no real standard of liability for reporters and if you look at shield laws in most states if they use anonymous sources they can just make up whatever they want. A prime example is the sacramento bee where a reporter had been doing queen for a day sob stories about people for 20 years. The problem most of the people didn't actually exist.
Just things to think about when you see the News Media gathering to bang the drum on an issue.
I don't know about you, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Geez (Score:3, Insightful)
I was a geek in high school. I'm sure many here were. Y'know what? Any isolation I felt - and yes, there was quite a bit in the first few years - was largely my own fault. I had people try really hard to be nice, to include me, etc and I just didn't know how to respond. I mostly got confused, or thought they were trying to tease / mock me. In my defense, that's because that used to be a problem, but I think mostly because of my lack of social skills rather than any geekyness. I was one of those people who wakes up one day and says "huh. People. Who would'a thought."
One I learned some utterly minimal social skills, things improved a lot. This frequently meant walking home talking about coding / maths with a couple of friends, though that's not all I did. Anyway
Having come from that, and reading stories like this, is terrifying. I've never heard of anything even remotely like this here (Western Australia). It makes me even more frightened that before about the increasing American media influence and cultural influence* here - because it makes me even more inclined to believe the place, collectively, is insane, though obviously most of it's citizens are just fine.
Pass the cluebat.
* Yes, I know I'm responding to an American article on a website largely full of Americans. I wouldn't call either of these the mainstream American, though.
Here sits one of many Columbine casualties (Score:3, Informative)
I was even a proponent of instituting calm. Made specific efforts to hush the fear of the same happening at our school, making sure that everyone knew that the situation is isolated; no helicopters would be flying into our school after taking off from Columbine. Asking the teachers and counselors if I should aid in the ensuing lock-down.
I didn't go to school the next day. Coincidentally, the most changed that day. April 21st carried more repercussions for the alternatively clothed students of the US than any other. All across the country, Principals came on the PA system urging students to report any students who exert qualities they may think to be "violent or psychotic." Without investigation or inquiry, the reports of hundreds of thousands of students were acted upon. In one day, the Colorado School systems saw more suspensions and expulsions than the decade previous in total. This fact was not realized for QUITE some time due to lack of referrals or reports, it was by hall passes and hourly absence roles that suspensions and expulsions were tallied in the federal investigation made in late May. I dodged the first wave of cleansings by merely missing a day of school.
The months that ensued didn't heal any wounds. The years past since the event aren't letting them heal either. In naught but a week, the media had managed to engineer quite an affective scape-goat out of the "Trench Coat Mafia." They actually managed to make a scapegoat out of practically every counter-culture icon at the time. "Insane Clown Posse," "Doom," "Marilyn Manson," "Anarchist's Cookbook," "Internet Chatrooms (which at the time were counterculture). The political "Hot wording" of the event to gain votes had managed to do the same to every new counterculture icon for quite some time. "Grand Theft Auto," "Mortal Kombat," "Dungeons and Dragons," "Pagans," "Wiccans." In one fell swoop all the kids congress critters thought were little freaks in highschool are now conveniently oppressed to the convenience of their children's "Safety."
And unbeknownst to anyone was the legal rampage that was the bills coming to vote. Measures that betray almost every fiber of meaning in the words "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" were being passed by the dozen. Public Schools were given almost complete and total control over the children that were enrolled there. You see, it used to be that the parents were brought in for a meeting when children were suspended. It used to be that the parents were urged to get counseling for their children, and that counselors names were given. Today, children are assigned counseling and expelled or suspended if they don't agree to it. It used to be there was a group decision between both vice principal, counselor and usually the principle himself when suspension was involved. Now suspensions are handed out by a single person.
Through middle school, specifically 7th grade after Columbine all the way through 8th grade; I had managed to get suspended 11 times. Were it not for the hard work of one very passionate counselor I would have been expelled after the first occasion. There are many good teachers and counselors that kept me afloat for quite some time, but to no avail. They had all the heart they needed to make a difference, they just couldn't put a dent in the negative influence that was society in general. Here you are, not able to af
Re:Who cares (Score:2)
If you aren't honorable in your life, are you really going to enjoy a game that makes you play honorably? Seriously, you can't take your lessons in life from videogames, whether they're positive or negative. A game that doesn't let you shoot innocents isn't teaching you anything, it's just making you play a certain way.
Re:Who cares (Score:2)
If he was trying to imply that by his experiences at Columbine, he can better pass judgement on this issue then he was wrong. Some deal with violence every day in thier
Re:Who cares (Score:2)
RT Fucking A... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know if I entirely agree with him...I noticed that I was getting a bit desensitized to real-world violence (on the news, in the movie "Fahrenheit 9/11") after a few years of avidly playing Unreal Tournament, and put down for a while. However, he has definitely the right to say what he has to say, and by dint of what he's experience he's earned the right to say it with some level of authoritativeness.
Re:This makes the author an expert? (Score:3, Insightful)
For those of you who don't know me - i went to columbine, i was friends with both killers and the killed, had reported the killers to the police, the cops did nothing, etc.
From Davison's blog:
Today I got a note from Brooks Brown, who if you can cast your mind back all the way to 1999 was the Columbine student who warned police deputies that Eric Harris was building pipe bombs and had threatened to kill him. "I was that guy on the show with you," he said. "Wondered a few things - firs
Re:Postal 2...a "tech" demo? (Score:2)
One that I still like to this day, and which is a combination of both the tech and gore, is the ability to throw petrol on the floor, and light it with a match : You're even able to make a cool trail of it, and it will catch fire all along where you've thrown the petrol.
Was freaking hilarious when the local fanfare/band comes strolling through to
Re:Postal 2...a "tech" demo? (Score:3, Interesting)
The AI was the tech breakthrough, it had nothing to do with graphics.
Re:tetris anyone (Score:3, Funny)
death is everywhere.
if you let it.
Re:tetris anyone (Score:3, Funny)
- "Yes, we're looking for a game that doesn't have any violence."
"Easy enough. I've got lots of games without violence. Anything in particular you want?"
- "The game can't have any violence at all."
"Ok."
- "I mean nothing."
"Well, Crash Team racing doesn't have any violence in it."
- "Yes it does. You can hit each other's cars."
"Uhm.. ok...so, no conflict at all you mean?"
- "Yes."
"Hmm... Here, try Bust A Move. It's a very good game with no conflict."
- "We've tried it before. It's too violent."
"...Too v
Re:Violence is Good (for sales) (Score:3, Insightful)
Games provide an outlet where there are no consequences; as such they can reveal underlying desires or curiosity in people. I've found the games people play and how they play them is more a reflection of the player, and not so much influenced by the game.
For example in GTA getting enjoyment from going a