And...?

Call of Duty - World at War allowed players who compete online to be Nazis, or Soviets, against Allied forces. Where was the outrage then?

"I'm also tired of hearing about 'innocent victims'; this is an outmoded idea. There are no 'innocent victims'.

If you're born on this world you're guilt, period, fuck you, end of report, next case. Your birth certificate is proof of guilt."

~George Carlin, spreading wisdom.

"Australian Council on Children and the Media"

Which massacre-iffic video game were all those German children playing in the 1940s?

We could go further back in history....to which games did Hannibal or Ghengis Khan expose their youths, respectively?!?

How about Alexander "the Great"?!? Did he promulgate any particularly violent films and/or games in his time???

Anyway, some terrified Aussie journalists...that's the best you've got?

"The children, the children...think about the CHILDREN!"

What a mindless mindset!

FUCK the children. If reality is too hard-hitting for them, then let them be simple fodder for Darwinian processes.

Call of Duty rawks.

Anybody who has problems with the internal morality of a given video game has waaaay too much time on their hands and they should prolly go join a bowling league or sommat.

Be Well.

Stephen Pinker on "A History of Violence"

"The first is that Hobbes got it right. Life in a state of nature is nasty, brutish, and short, not because of a primal thirst for blood but because of the inescapable logic of anarchy. Any beings with a modicum of self-interest may be tempted to invade their neighbors to steal their resources. The resulting fear of attack will tempt the neighbors to strike first in preemptive self-defense, which will in turn tempt the first group to strike against them preemptively, and so on. This danger can be defused by a policy of deterrencedon't strike first, retaliate if struckbut, to guarantee its credibility, parties must avenge all insults and settle all scores, leading to cycles of bloody vendetta. These tragedies can be averted by a state with a monopoly on violence, because it can inflict disinterested penalties that eliminate the incentives for aggression, thereby defusing anxieties about preemptive attack and obviating the need to maintain a hair-trigger propensity for retaliation. Indeed, Eisner and Elias attribute the decline in European homicide to the transition from knightly warrior societies to the centralized governments of early modernity. And, today, violence continues to fester in zones of anarchy, such as frontier regions, failed states, collapsed empires, and territories contested by mafias, gangs, and other dealers of contraband."

Anyway, regarding what Hobbes had to say about the state of nature...if RCade weren't around, I'd be making many of your lives nastier, more brutish, and shorter...LOL!

'tis not the primal thirst for blood, but rather the inescapable logic of anarchy, my fellows!

"if RCade weren't around,"

You would still be talking to yourself on a smaller street corner.

"You would still be talking to yourself..."

I thought that's what all philosophy majors do...?

#7 | Posted by Zarathustra at 2009-10-30 03:33 AM | Reply | Flag: not even a philosophy minor

My schizophrenic symptoms notwithstanding, Zatoichi, the blind swordsman, I'd like to hear about your point(s) of contention...do you think Dr. Pinker is full of shit?

If so, please enumerate why. Be specific.

And please, don't be shy about backing up your personal proclivities with reputable sources...

Anyway, I'm eagerly waiting for any rejoinder from the blind swordsman...can he actually mount a rational counterargument? Backed by FACT?

Mr. Science is up to bat here...I've cited my sources...old geezer: please point to ANYTHING that disproves my point of view.

Fucking asshole.

"All Zatoichi can do is denigrate others"

All? Really?
Like you need help?

This is where Zatoichi proves that he's ueber-smart...much more so than Dr. Stephen Pinker of Harvard University!!!

______________________________
__

"All? Really?
Like you need help?"

It's clear to any reader that I've provided ample documentation for my arguments...

...meanwhile, all you've provided, oh-so-blind Swordsman, is "Yeah? That Ain't Right! Because I said so!"

Please, tell me: among my (now many) postings on this thread, with which, in particular, do you disagree? Sir?

Anything? Anything at all?

Methinks Zatoichi is a defender of the myth of the "noble savage"...

...if one reads the "history of violence" link I provided upthread, one shall see that Zatoichi's favored myth is just that...nothing more than a bullshit story!!!

The doctrine of the noble savagethe idea that humans are peaceable by nature and corrupted by modern institutionspops up frequently in the writing of public intellectuals like Jos Ortega y Gasset ("War is not an instinct but an invention"), Stephen Jay Gould ("Homo sapiens is not an evil or destructive species"), and Ashley Montagu ("Biological studies lend support to the ethic of universal brotherhood"). But, now that social scientists have started to count bodies in different historical periods, they have discovered that the romantic theory gets it backward: Far from causing us to become more violent, something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler.

To be sure, any attempt to document changes in violence must be soaked in uncertainty. In much of the world, the distant past was a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it, and, even for events in the historical record, statistics are spotty until recent periods. Long-term trends can be discerned only by smoothing out zigzags and spikes of horrific bloodletting. And the choice to focus on relative rather than absolute numbers brings up the moral imponderable of whether it is worse for 50 percent of a population of 100 to be killed or 1 percent in a population of one billion.

Yet, despite these caveats, a picture is taking shape. The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon, visible at the scale of millennia, centuries, decades, and years. It applies over several orders of magnitude of violence, from genocide to war to rioting to homicide to the treatment of children and animals. And it appears to be a worldwide trend, though not a homogeneous one. The leading edge has been in Western societies, especially England and Holland, and there seems to have been a tipping point at the onset of the Age of Reason in the early seventeenth century.

Slaughter civilians? I guess they got the "modern warfare" part right.

Not being even a philosophy minor, I was wondering if Zat and his burgeoning big brain could explain to me the theory of anomalous monism?

I'm also unfamiliar with token-identity. And, not to be repetitious, but psychophysical causation is giving me troubles. Please explain? I'm hopelessly lost....

Or, on a different level, perhaps Zat could enlighten the unwashed hordes on the operations of the ventrolateral and medial prefrontal cortices vs. the amygdalae regarding conscious vs. subconscious, automatic appraisal and value judgements?

What's your email address, Zat? Could you please write my paper about "source monitoring" for me for my human memory class?

Since you know everything?

obama said BIG changes were coming to the United States.

"The consequences of terrorism are just abhorrent in our community and yet here we are with a product that's meant to be passed off as a leisure time activity, actually promoting what most world leaders speak out publicly against," she said.

They don't understand that the game is telling a story, much like a movie. It's not "promoting terrorism" or turning it into a liesure time activity any more than a movie about terrorists would, it's showing it, and putting the gamer in the first person perspective. It will likely also have the gamer popping the terrorists heads off with an LMG in later levels.

If this is promoting terrorism, then so are movies about the same thing.

Is that paper-silhouette-guy at shooting ranges a civilian?

Slaughter civilians? I guess they got the "modern warfare" part right.

That has been the direction war has been moving for centuries. In the good old days, armies would set up camp in a field, have lunch, then form batle lines and slaughter each other, with the winners getting in some looting pillaging and raping before heading off to the next battle, but comparatively few civilians casualties.

Wow, Zat sure wound that pantpisser up. You know you've hit your target when you get the multiple posts in a row, not once, but twice.
What a bitch.

As for the game, who fucking cares? GTA lets you kill anyone you want. Cops, hookers, civilians, etc Why would a war game (with awesome throat slashings) be held to any different standard?
I'm pissed you can't shoot your teammates...Or can you in this new one?

Is that paper-silhouette-guy at shooting ranges a civilian?

#22 | Posted by Shmoopt

Right? They're pixels of light on a screen idiots. At best, an animated choose-your-own-adventure video story. I don't play video games... haven't had time for games for years, but don't have any issues with those that do. No one forces me to, so I choose not to buy those games. You don't have to buy it. You're kids don't have to play it.

This is the same panties in a bunch shit they've pulled since first-person first came out. Remember Wolfenstein 3D? Wasn't there a group sympathizing with the Nazi's cause it showed them getting shot?

I don't believe video games promote the degree of desensitization needed where one can't honestly discern the difference between seeing the reaction to keystrokes on a monitor to murdering actual people in reality. People have been shown being murdered for years. Am I more likely to be a murderer because I hit the play button on the VCR to watch The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, or even the Twilight Zone? I could see possibly running into a snag in my theory if I was forced to watch Barney - the purple dinosaur for hours on end, but hey...

As long as we can turn off the arty and helo attacks we'll be OK!

I'm pissed you can't shoot your teammates...Or can you in this new one?

#24 | Posted by 101Chairborne at 2009-10-30 12:13 PM

You had to select "hardcore" game types.

Nothing better than knifing the stupid fuck losing the game for your team while everyone else pulls their weight, and sitting on his dead skull. If only reality afforded us that same option.

If you could commit hate crimes in the game, NorthGuy3 would be first in line to buy it.

Blah, blah blah...how many of you pontificating dill weeds will actually play the game? My copy's pre-ordered, as there's a persistent rumor that there might not be enough pressed for release to meet the demand. This title is heavily anticipated, so my advice is pre-order Modern Warfare 2 if junior is writing letters to Santa about it.

I just finished Uncharted 2. Possibly the best video game experience I've ever had. If you have a PS3, you should have this game on your shelf.

On the Rousseau/Hobbes point of contention, pretty much all of human history points to Hobbes being a LOT closer to the truth.

It is possible to find tribes here and there that have a reputation for being peaceful (usually true, and ALSO usually VASTLY overstated by self-deluded hippies). The thing is, you can also find plenty of cases of civilized people behaving just as well. I've lived in areas where people did not lock their doors, and I remember as teen the doors starting to be locked.

if you are playing these type games ps3 you are missing out. they have nothing on a hotrod pc

Command and Conquer Generals let you play as the terrorists. If you beat the game with the terrorists, they end up getting their hands on a nuke and hitting the Eiffel Tower with it. "Yeeay, I beat the game!"

That has been the direction war has been moving for centuries. In the good old days, armies would set up camp in a field, have lunch, then form batle lines and slaughter each other, with the winners getting in some looting pillaging and raping before heading off to the next battle, but comparatively few civilians casualties.

#23 | Posted by northguy3 at 2009-10-30 12:09 PM | Reply | Flag

Surely you jest. Look up:
The civilian casualty rate of Germany in the 30 Years War (up to 1/2 of the entire population in some areas);
The destruction of Jerusalem over and over and over again from 70 A.D. through the Crusades (complete destruction - over and over);
Alexander the Great laying seige to his enemies (he threw bodies laden with bubonic plague at the civilian population)
The Spanish, Portuguese, English, and later, the US conquest of the native tribes in N and S America;
Anything having to do with the Mongol invasions, etc.

These were, no joke, off the top of my head - who knows what I would find if I used Google. As you see, warfare in the "good old days" was pretty crappy - just like war today is. Civilians have always been a target in warfare, from 5000 years ago to today.

Blah, blah blah...how many of you pontificating dill weeds will actually play the game?

#29 | Posted by dutch46 at 2009-10-30 12:58 PM

Too bad you're on the PS3. I'd love to show you the business end of my M21. I imagine you would have contributed greatly to my head shot achievements.

#25 robot

I don't believe video games promote the degree of desensitization needed where one can't honestly discern the difference between seeing the reaction to keystrokes on a monitor to murdering actual people in reality. People have been shown being murdered for years. Am I more likely to be a murderer because I hit the play button on the VCR to watch The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, or even the Twilight Zone? I could see possibly running into a snag in my theory if I was forced to watch Barney - the purple dinosaur for hours on end, but hey...

First, how can we take somebody seriously on this particular topic whose pseudoname is "robot"? Doesn't that belie the "humanity factor"?

To address your statement:
"people have been shown being murdered for years". You base that on hollywood movies. There is no comparison betwen the two for multiple reasons: First, in this game you are literally placed in the position doing it yourself. Second, the movies don't depict random machine gunning masses of citizens in public places. Third, in gaming, such as earlier versions of COD, you at least are in a war scenario, assumably shooting the "bad guy". There is a level of desensitization in the existing game. This takes it to a whole new level. The depiction is very similar to very sensitive real-world historical massacre events (admittedly Mumbia admitted by the creators). Whether that desensitization is to the point of "discern the difference between seeing the reaction to keystrokes on a monitor to murdering actual people in reality" is not necessarily the point. The degradation of the value of human life is further desensitized where it is no longer just shooting bad guys in war, instead randomly gunning down scores of unarmed, citizens in public places?

With any intellectual honesty, that cannot be justified.

I do agree with poster that it is less a question of "terrorism". It doesn't matter whether it can be labelled as terrorism. The label actually distracts from the heart of the issue.

Actually, it also distracts the issue whether children age 15 should be allowed access. That means that randomly killing citizens made into "fun" is ok for adults (perhaps because their brain is more developed)? Then what is next? Where is the line drawn?

^.^

While I am generally against the coarsening of the society, one of the things I have been surprised at is that people don't get that for most sane people, violence in games does not lead to anything else.

It's been said. In GTA, you can run over anyone, and GTA has been the target of these same people. Basically, whenever a game comes out that is really violent or full of gore, the authorities in Australia quickly whine about it, then ban the game.

To address your statement:
"people have been shown being murdered for years". You base that on hollywood movies. There is no comparison betwen the two for multiple reasons: First, in this game you are literally placed in the position doing it yourself. Second, the movies don't depict random machine gunning masses of citizens in public places. Third, in gaming, such as earlier versions of COD, you at least are in a war scenario, assumably shooting the "bad guy". There is a level of desensitization in the existing game. This takes it to a whole new level. The depiction is very similar to very sensitive real-world historical massacre events (admittedly Mumbia admitted by the creators). Whether that desensitization is to the point of "discern the difference between seeing the reaction to keystrokes on a monitor to murdering actual people in reality" is not necessarily the point. The degradation of the value of human life is further desensitized where it is no longer just shooting bad guys in war, instead randomly gunning down scores of unarmed, citizens in public places?

With any intellectual honesty, that cannot be justified.

#35 | Posted by L_RContrarian at 2009-10-30 02:04 PM

If you don't play these games, you shouldn't be allowed to comment on them like you know what you're talking about.

Games like HitMan or GTA would be better examples of games that glorify murder or terrorism.

COD:MW2 is going to show you the terrorism so you see how awful it is, and then let you blow the fuckers out of oblivion.

This isn't really groundbreaking. I'm pretty sure Grand Theft Auto lets you drive all over dozens of people on the sidewalk. You can also just walk up to a stranger and shoot them in the head.

NORTHGUY3 and BARTIMUS

How much slaughter, rape, pillage, etc occured varied MASSIVELY, and for a varity of reasons.

Some wars, at least in part, really and truely were fought with the highest degree of honorable behavior. Others not so much, and in some cases it was the same troops involved in remarkable good behavior in one conflict, and bad behavior in another.

Much of the American Revolution, and U.S. Civil War was fought with high standards of behavior. (I'm sure some idiot will cite an exception, and try and claim the exception was the standard) And even when Sherman did his March to the Sea, he AVOIDED pitch battles, and as much as possible targeted PROPERTY.

There are a number of cases of women on the battlefield from these wars, and other than stray shots they were EXTREMELY safe. (However, stray shots did kill some, such as the famous cases of the nurse at Gettysburg)

One key in these cases, is that the civilians were confronted with a MASS of soldiers, most of whom were decent young men. Alone at night, encounter a small group of soldiers, or individual soldier, it the result depends on the individuals (and always will)

In contrast, the 30 years in Germany was fought by troops that were often PAID by pillage. To make matters worse, the conflict had religious fuel (thus literally being one of the things that inspired the U.S. freedom OF religion).

Back on the U.S. front, the Indian Wars often got very brutal. In part, this was due to the nature of tribal warfare (when territory changed hands, the tribal fighting is as brutal as anything, and just because the U.S. Cavalry was one of the 'tribes' did not change that...)

One HUGE reason modern western militaries DESERVE massive and HUGE credit is for their adoption of modern military rules of conduct on the battlefield (a sort of chivalry...) as an ideal to be strived for.

One HUGE reason modern terrorist and (most) modern revolutionaries DESERVE massive and HUGE condemnation is their adoption of tactics that DELIBERATELY put modern militaries into impossible ethical/suicidal situations (willing Human shield being one example, suicide bombers being another, etc,....)

Heck you could shoot the good guys in Delta Force and Siphon Filter 10 years ago.

Heck you could shoot the good guys in Delta Force and Siphon Filter 10 years ago.

#41 | Posted by laylakerunner at 2009-10-30 03:05 PM

Games don't kill people, people kill people! :-D

If those of you who claim these games are devaluing the human life to the point one might be more inclined to kill, do you feel owning a gun is more dangerous? Just wondering. Guns are as inert as a hammer. Games, as some claim, have suggestive powers ya know.

I LOVE CofD. I play CD4 at least 1 game every night. For off of you who have wanted to kill me ...now is your chance. Gamer Tag - Fitzel.

Not sure about killing civilians...to win the war in Germany we killed massive amounts of "civilians" (Dresdan) as did the Nazi's (London). Wars are to be Won - our mistake has been ..and continues to be fighting with our hands tied behind our backs. When a 14 year old girl walks toward you with a grenade in her hand..is she an "innocent Civilian?".

If you cannot shoot her due to rules of engagement ..you are going to die.

As Patton said..."the goal is not to die for your country..it is to make the other SOB die for his"

Australia always pulls this shit their pants-wetting censor board finds something "too violent."

They don't have a rating higher than "15" for video games in Australia, so if it's too extreme for a child of 15, it's too extreme, period. Or so I've read.

#37 lod
If you don't play these games, you shouldn't be allowed to comment on them like you know what you're talking about.

what utter nonsense! So, if you don't play such games, you have no common sense about the desensitization social or interpersonal impact or have any right to comment on the morality?

That logic is pretty convenient, with only those that are attracted to such things then has a right to have an opinion! Then your answer is there is no line to draw, because the only thing that matters is the entertainment value!

3 Words... GRAND THEFT AUTO

And for the reocord... and Parent that does not follow the age/rating guide by allowing a 10 year old to play such games, is adding to the pool of screwd up desensatized children who find it ok or funny to beat other kids with a railroad tie.

I LOVE CofD. I play CD4 at least 1 game every night. For off of you who have wanted to kill me ...now is your chance. Gamer Tag - Fitzel.

#44 | Posted by foshaffer at 2009-10-30 03:46 PM

If so, I'm coming for you.

#37 lod (continued)
It's going to be part of a story, and it will be very dramatized. And in the end, the same player who saw the murder first person will be handing out the justice first person. If anything, it could make a person "more" sensitive to the matter.

It's dramatized, therefore it's ok? What does that mean? "The same player who saw the murder in the first person"? I'm wondering did you watched the same video I did? The "first person actor" performed random murder on scores of unarmed civilians. How is that justice? Sounds like you are already a statistic of the desensitization that is the basis for the concern!

Live or Die,

Yes 360...Son has a football game tonight so will not be on line until after about 10:30 or 11.

Bring it on!

what utter nonsense! So, if you don't play such games, you have no common sense about the desensitization social or interpersonal impact or have any right to comment on the morality?

That logic is pretty convenient, with only those that are attracted to such things then has a right to have an opinion! Then your answer is there is no line to draw, because the only thing that matters is the entertainment value!

#46 | Posted by L_RContrarian at 2009-10-30 03:50 PM

The game plays like a movie, so pretending that movies have some extra artistic value regarding the subject matter that makes it more nuanced while the game is simply "random machine gunning" of civilians is bull shit, and outs you as someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.

#43 robot
If those of you who claim these games are devaluing the human life to the point one might be more inclined to kill

The games are devaluing human life period. You don't address that at all.

Whether that leads to killing, that is a separate question. Do you recall the incidences IRL attributed to Grand Theft Auto? Just one example.

Live or Die,

Yes 360...Son has a football game tonight so will not be on line until after about 10:30 or 11.

Bring it on!

#50 | Posted by foshaffer at 2009-10-30 04:00 PM

It's on.

One HUGE reason modern western militaries DESERVE massive and HUGE credit is for their adoption of modern military rules of conduct on the battlefield (a sort of chivalry...) as an ideal to be strived for.
#40 | Posted by USAF242 at 2009-10-30 02:45 PM | Reply | Flag

This is exactly the point I was striving for. While civilians do get in harm's way during war, since WWII there has not been a "target civilians as a strategy" directive by most modern governments. The idea that this was the general policy in the olden days (as Northguy stated) is patently false, as it was the policy of governments for millenia to directly target their enemies' civilians.

Wow, 53 comments huh?

Must be a helluva game!!! Might have to go pick it up now.

Probably will be a helluva game.

And you'll get to offend a bunch of Australians and other assorted nanny staters, religious folk, and whiney asses just by playing it!

Heck, if I were the CoD guys, I'd make the next round of targets Aussies.

Sold!

Liver...re: your #43...the only game I regularly play online is GranTurismo. Come the release of GT5 in Feb/March/whenever, you can find me at the Nurburgring.

Oh, and your head shot count wouldn't be as high as you've deluded youself into believing. I prefer the 360 for shooters, but I don't play them online. Not enough time in my long day and way too many dill weeds.

I used to play CounterStrike online on a PC, but using a keyboard eventually resulted in lingering episodes of carpal tunnel, necessitating my switch to consoles.

Hopefully you'll be able to gang rape 15 yr olds outside of their high school. Talk about a First Person Shooter.
CHA CHA CHA

"Heck you could shoot the good guys in Delta Force and Siphon Filter 10 years ago.
#41 | Posted by laylakerunner at 2009-10-30 03:05 PM

And many real time strategy games, like Age of Empires, declare you the victor after wiping out every enemy building and unit, including farms, univserities, peasants, merchants, etc.
#42 | Posted by LIVE_OR_DIE at 2009-10-30 03:10 PM

The much harder and far better strategy is to take them over, make their resources and buildings your own. That's the only way to get foreign tools. But you would never know that if you merely blasted every kingdom into atoms.

Sweet!

those jackasses should know to run the other way when they hear a fire fight.

-----

Hopefully you'll be able to gang rape 15 yr olds outside of their high school. Talk about a First Person Shooter.
CHA CHA CHA

#60 | POSTED BY YOUGOTHURT AT 2009-10-30 05:11 PM | REPLY | FLAG:

Clearly you havent played many Japanese "Dating" sims.

#61 | POSTED BY REDLIGHTROBOT AT 2009-10-30 05:59 PM | REPLY | FLAG:

ANOTHER moron who insists that because i saw something i am destined to do it.

I have seen amazing things both real and fictional.
I know the difference.

I have seen people fly unassisted by mechanical devices in movies.

And yet strangely uninterested in trying it out myself.

I have watched people Shoot heroin into their veins. And yet, still no interest in trying it out my self.

I have literally seen tens of thousands of dead many shot down by me, and yet, in reality i know full well that unless there is a REALLY good reason, that i will never, ever do that. Have no interest in doing it. I dont want to kill anyone. However if given a choice between my own survival and an attackers, its me all day.
Given a choice between a loved one and an attacker, its my loved one all day.

Quit using the Movies, books, whatever to justify your own failings as a human being.

I dont let Fiction dictate what is right or wrong.

Whether its Call of Duty or the Bible.

its all the same.

oh and this is not a new feature.

Counterstrike, which i believe was 1998 or so, you could kill the hostages as either the terrorists or the counter terrorists.

in fact as a terrorist, it was often a solid strategy to do so as its a real hassle to keep an eye on em.

Australia has a long history of censoring games, and even going so far as to make it a crime to import them yourself.

gotta love thought crime :D

Oh and here is my last two thoughts on this.

I watched the video.
And lo and behold am not running out to join a terrorist cell, or gun down an entire airport of real people.

#51 live!
you could've done a little research on the subject before saying something stupid about "random machine gunning."

I simply watched the video and spoke to what was depicted. Random shooting of un-armed, civilians! The context of my statement was Robot was trying to make a comparison between Hollywood movies.

If you don't like the game...don't play it.

The much harder and far better strategy is to take them over, make their resources and buildings your own. That's the only way to get foreign tools. But you would never know that if you merely blasted every kingdom into atoms.
#61 | Posted by redlightrobot at 2009-10-30 05:59 PM

LOL

Alright now, quit trying to fool everybody. No one in their right mind would play a game like that the way you're suggesting. You'd have to destroy nearly everything first anyway. Leaving a few civilian structures up so you can capture them and "spare" their lives is bull shit and you know it.

I simply watched the video and spoke to what was depicted. Random shooting of un-armed, civilians! The context of my statement was Robot was trying to make a comparison between Hollywood movies.

#65 | Posted by L_RContrarian at 2009-10-30 07:41 PM

But thanks for admitting that your opinion was based off of a very small clip of the game embedded in a very subjective article.

Shooting pixelated people is just like going through with the real thing!

~ Pants-pissers

The decline of killing and cruelty poses several challenges to our ability to make sense of the world. To begin with, how could so many people be so wrong about something so important? Partly, it's because of a cognitive illusion: We estimate the probability of an event from how easy it is to recall examples. Scenes of carnage are more likely to be relayed to our living rooms and burned into our memories than footage of people dying of old age. Partly, it's an intellectual culture that is loath to admit that there could be anything good about the institutions of civilization and Western society. Partly, it's the incentive structure of the activism and opinion markets: No one ever attracted followers and donations by announcing that things keep getting better. And part of the explanation lies in the phenomenon itself. The decline of violent behavior has been paralleled by a decline in attitudes that tolerate or glorify violence, and often the attitudes are in the lead. As deplorable as they are, the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the lethal injections of a few murderers in Texas are mild by the standards of atrocities in human history. But, from a contemporary vantage point, we see them as signs of how low our behavior can sink, not of how high our standards have risen.

~ Pants-pissers

#69 | Posted by Zarathustra at 2009-10-31 03:49 AM

Pants pissers:

Never has that label been more accurately assigned.

Most of the people making a big deal out of this story in the first place are old fogeys...well, fuck them, and fuck the rest of the baby-boomers!

They've collectively done quite a number on this country - not to mention the rest of the world.

They, with their high-and-mighty morality, stood by as we trained and funded death-squads in Latin America...and supported the Mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 80s...and bombed a pharmaceutical plan in Khartoum...and they were more concerned about their Viagra pills and stock options than opposing the illegal occupation and subsequent destruction of Iraq!

Time to stop listening to these baby-boomer assholes!!!

Violent videogames aren't much of a concern for grown-ups.

But it's well documented and understood that children mimic what they see on the TV screen.

That's why advertisers spend so much time and money going after children, their brains are so impressionable. Get 'em while they're young, you've got 'em for life.

Australia hasn't noticed that adults play videogames. I suspect the vast majority of gamers today are over 18. And a "M" rating isn't a death sentence the way a NC-17 is for a movie. (Except in Australia, apparently.)

Remember Wolfenstein 3D?

Lawls.

There were cheats in the original DOS Wolfenstein which gave the shooter invincibility, choice of weapons, endless ammunition, the ability to walk through walls, add or delete characters, and the ability to change the actual design of the game floor plan. I liked to add extra guard dogs, turn up the volume, and see how long it took to kill a roomful of them with an automatic weapon. Listening to the explosions, seeing the dogs fall in bloody heaps . . . good times.

#70...I'm a video game playing, baby boomer asshole you whiney GenX/Y dill weed. My generation stopped an unjust war. What has your's accomplished that comes any way near to that?

The question's rhetorical. And turn that ball cap back around the way it should be. What are you, a catcher?

#67 lod
Robot's comparison was perfectly valid. These games are basically a movie

I only posted the portion of my statement that was relevant. You need to go back and read the original post. Your statement is very simplistic and not well-thought out.

"Remember Wolfenstein 3D?"

Lawls.
Spud used to play the shiat outta that one back in the day.
Blowing Hitler's brain out with automatic weaponry is cathartic as fuck.
Be Well.
#72 | Posted by dethspud at 2009-10-31 04:12 AM

Violent videogames aren't much of a concern for grown-ups.
But it's well documented and understood that children mimic what they see on the TV screen.
That's why advertisers spend so much time and money going after children, their brains are so impressionable. Get 'em while they're young, you've got 'em for life.
Australia hasn't noticed that adults play videogames. I suspect the vast majority of gamers today are over 18. And a "M" rating isn't a death sentence the way a NC-17 is for a movie. (Except in Australia, apparently.)
#71 | Posted by snoofy at 2009-10-31 04:00 AM

I wasn't sure if I should comment further..

For example: If you watch BET and MTV the thug gang videos are what kids do imitate. The fronts, rides and bitchy punk attitudes. This is adopted by people who relating to the images and they carry themselves with the "style" they observe. Sometimes, like in my neighborhood, this results in conflicts in public places and people do get hurt. When fights erupt in the street after a game - I'm frightened for people who enjoy basketball, and the NFL is almost as bad. Even "rational adults" are susceptible when conditioned and then stimulated correctly. We've got to confront this image programming directly, it's impacting everyone.

While the music glorifying thuggary and ganghood has many good and bad aspects - it's multimillion revenue being one perspective, there's even a very popular fashion industry. The thug programming has permeated the least-protected and provided-for citizens - our black youths. It's industry is keeping pace with the remnants of our racism stigma, and mostly profiteering from it. I'm amazed that parents aren't more interested, but if they are repelled by the music it's just that much easier to impact their children. Now we have metal detectors in schools. Amazing.

And video games of the most directly violent sort induce an even deeper level of mental access. The music is included, the fashions are presented, pympy rides, hookers, drugs, hand-held weapons, anti-authority scenarios and lots of bleeding - from everything. If a person isn't concerned with these things, they are merely enjoying a terrifying atmosphere or releasing aggressions in a truly non-physical manner.. but they aren't non-violent, and they aren't necessarily therapeutic for everyone. We've all probably heard that "you are what you eat" and "your input equates to what you output", and perhaps that follows for every manner that we put ourselves to use, particularly the impressionable, data-thirsty minds of the youth who do imitate everything they are attracted to. Even Pokemon was banned in schools. Just consider that.

I don't really like bloody games but it's not always because they are too horrifying. On the contrary, gore gets stale. Blood covering and oozing everyplace pales. Lame predictable stories, obscenely over-wrought violence, uninventive music, hand-held guns being the main means to interface and that always results in the "solution". Horrible, not horrific. Predictable, not playable.

This spreads into the Call of Killing style crap. I'm cool with goals and particularly the use of teamwork - most military scenario simulations should strive for the ideals of a unit, right? But now the scenarios include real-world experiences like the Mumbai bombings from just last year and somehow that feels deeply offensive. I don't object to fighting, but maybe it's too close to home still? Too fresh? And that it's been programmed so quickly makes it apparent that the game designers have no concept of that. I'm uninspired thus far. Hopefully there is rhyme to their reason and undoubtedly it's a playable, action-packed thunderfest, but I somehow doubt that it will tell the entire story correctly, and it will merely glorify the violence. They must not understand the vocabulary of reality, just it's deconstruction.

People are impacted by what they experience and the gaming "experience" is intentionally quite addictive. Let's hope that those hours of gameplay includes more than just desensitization.

Maybe I'm entirely looking at this backwards. The tools are being used for re-enacting a real-world terrorist scenario whereby the player is participating in the plot. I imagine 9/11 military simulations could do us some justice.

Perhaps this game should be shipped with flag-draped coffins stickers.