I wanted to talk about Jack Thompson’s latest disgusting scheme (he said he would donate $10.000 to charity if someone made an absolutely revolting game about going on a murder spree against real members of the video game industry, then someone did it, and he said his offer was just “satire”, then the Penny Arcade guys donated the $10K to charity - in his name - and now he wrote a letter to the police asking them to arrest the PA guys…), but everything that could be said about that has already been said elsewhere.
So, instead, I’m writing about one of the possible ways that that creep could be successful:
Equating someone’s stated goals with the person himself.
Consider that example: Jack Thompson says he wants to prevent school shootings and cop killings… by banning violent video games.
Now, preventing school shootings and cop killings is a laudable goal, certainly. But:
- Thompson doesn’t really want to do that, he only craves attention, fame and money
- there’s no relation between video games and violence, several studies have already indicated so
- none of his attempts, if successful, would actually lower real life violence
- his methods have been despicable - lies, personal insults, threats of lawsuits against people for simply disagreeing with him.
However, to a certain… let’s say, “more intellectually-challenged” segment of the population, it’s easy to make the jump from:
- Jack Thompson is trying to prevent cop killings
(which is already untrue, but let’s even imagine that it was true, that he was simply misguided instead of being what he is)
to:
- Anyone who opposes Jack Thompson’s methods, or criticizes him, is in favor of cop killings.
To anyone who uses reason, that’s absurd - there’s no way to logically conclude the second from the first (even if the first was true, which it isn’t). But it’s easy to get confused, and perform that leap of “logic” - “he says he’s in favor of X, so anyone who criticizes him is against X”. Or the other way around.
It happens the same way, but on a larger scale, with a certain current American president. He says he’s fighting terrorism. Whether he actually is, or not, isn’t important - anyone who disagrees with him or his methods, or criticizes him in any way, is “supporting terrorism”.
Just like anyone who opposed Senator McCarthy was “a communist”. He said so, and people believed him.
People, please think a little more about things like this. A person isn’t defined by his stated goals, which are usually laudable, but by his actions - and you aren’t against those goals when you notice that his actions don’t actually do anything to accomplish such goals… and say so.
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You’re absolutely right. Some people just do everything with the main if not only goal of engrossing their bank account and get even more famous or just to be cover on magazines. That’s the old story of all the models that participate on world beauty contests always say their wish is to end war and have peace all over the world… words come easy. For achieving those goals they repeatedly use the same schemas like taking a position against violence by banishing violent games or cartoons and so on. Yeah, because as everybody knows the guilt of world’s violence is totally and absolutely due to TV and those games! Remember Quino’s sketch where one of the children says: “I’ll destroy my gun toy because I don’t want that no toy teaches me how to kill! I’d rather learn it on my own!” The interesting part is that it works! Always works because people mostly have short memories and don’t think! That’s the same reason why reality shows have the better audiences all over the world: People just don’t wanna think! Also they don’t know anything on Mathematics because negation of A implies B is not reciprocal.
“there’s no relation between video games and violence, several studies have already indicated”
I’m sorry - there IS empirical evidence to show that violent video games and media effects the brains of children, making them more apt to be violent. I have seen brain scans of kids after playing violent video games, there is a reduction in activity in the frontal lobe that persists for three days. Prolonged exposure to violent media has been shown to permanently effect the areas responsible for impulse control and judgement - making them malnourished. underdeveloped
It’s a bad interpretation to say that a study PROVED no link. Sceintific method states that you can not prove a negative hypothesis. You can have a hypothesis that states, “video games have a behavioral link to violence” and a particular study failed to prove that. To have a hypothesis that, “vidoegames do not have a link to violence” cannot be proven using scientific method. this is just not how research works in th real world.
A true statement is this, “some studies have failed to prove a link between video games and violence, while some studies have shown a link.”
I won’t argue the motivations or politics of the situation since I just don’t know the situation. I think both sides of th argument have abused science beyond all semblance of what could be reasonably considered “truth”.
Can you post links to those studies? Every single one I’ve seen says there’s no relation - and, besides, crime rates have been going down for years.
Anyway, the main point of this post isn’t really video games and violence, or censorship, or anything like that. It’s, instead, the common phenomenon of how a guy can say “I’m protecting children”, and he instantly becomes uncriticizable, because anyone who does so is “trying to harm children”… whether the guy is actually doing anything for children or not. You scream that you have a laudable goal, and anyone who criticizes you is against that goal.
What the fuck is wrong with you that you want to fantasize about this type of violence anyway? You have to be a sick fuck to play these games in the first place.
Oh, and you want the links? Here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9013744/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051012082710.htm
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/23/1728_56903
http://www.mindfully.org/Health/2005/Video-Games-Aggression19aug05.htm
I mean, come on. Have you heard of a google search?
Please don’t assume things about me that you don’t know. Being rude isn’t a good idea either. I didn’t even say I was a gamer myself (though I am), or that I played violent games (rarely - though I will resist any attempt to ban them as another ignorant attempt to legislate morality.)
As to those studies, I’ve seen more stating otherwise. But, of course, when you want to prove a point, it’s easier to “count the hits and ignore the misses”.
Besides, those studies mention M-rated games (for 17 or older), being played by 13-15 year old teenagers. If you don’t follow the instructions on the box, you can’t complain, right?
From my understanding and knowledge we are a product of our environment. Children and
even adults will imitate what they see. Some will take on the trait of killing and some don’t
Not sure why that is. But I have seen it enough times to realize we don’t think about these
kinds of things till it is to last. Not even saying it is good or bad. But there is always a
cause and effect.
Aloha..