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Comments 16

boffo97 September 24 2006, 16:16:47 UTC
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"As Williams points out, every new medium has been condemned by the older generation when it was new... As the report states, 'Often, focusing attention on the medium is a convenient way of assigning blame while ignoring complex and troubling problems... blaming an external force like media provides an excuse to ignore the primary risk factors associated with juvenile crime and violence, which are abuse from relatives, neglect, malnutrition and above all, poverty."
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And the next logical step is that ignoring all these risk factors in favor of a scapegoat is ultimately harmful to society.

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elcurse September 24 2006, 18:26:50 UTC
I'm not challenging the validity of those facts, but where are the ESA's sources? At least when JT makes a claim, he backs it up with a source, however poorly he understands it.

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trooper6 September 24 2006, 18:35:27 UTC
At this point in time, video games are pretty ubiquitous...most crazed gunmen are going to have played video games...like most of them are going to have watched television...I bet all of them have consumed alcohol...milk. I bet all of them had access to guns.

I mean just because people have something in common doesn't mean it is the cause. Like that weird article that came out last year equating Star Trek with pedophilia because a bunch of the pedophiles the police in Canada arrested also liked Star Trek.

Commonality does not equal causality.

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boffo97 September 24 2006, 21:05:16 UTC
That's the big problem with the evil one.

He hears about a tragedy from what one would consider the typical gamer demographic (which is becoming quite large), and he assumes that:

A> The person is a gamer.
B> Games caused the tragedy.

Assumption A ends up true most of the time just based on blind statistical luck. Of course we have seen in the Robida case where it was not, and rather than just admitting that, he throws a tantrum, threatens the DA, and ultimately claims that Robida ditched his games, while leaving all his Neo-Nazi stuff around for anyone to find.

But after a while of tracking this, he has, let's say, 20 murderers who also HAPPEN to be gamers, and to someone who doesn't know anything about logic or statistics, that looks like there might be some kind of link (until you bring up ideas like all 20 are also eaters of bread, and things like that).

And of course he has no explanation for the MILLIONS who game and never commit any violent acts, something that shouldn't be possible if games are CAUSING violent acts.

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trooper6 September 24 2006, 18:37:55 UTC
Video games back in the day didn't involve thieving and killing?

Was he playing the same video games I was? Space Invaders...actually all of the scrolling shooters. Lots of the text games has all sorts of theiving and killing. There was even Leisure Suit Larry. It wasn't all just Pong.

And yeah, I remember video games being in bars and restaurants...those funny table versions of Ms. Pac Man. They always had cigarrette burns on the them.

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andrew_eisen September 24 2006, 19:13:19 UTC
“But making sport out of theft, murder, prostitution and senseless destruction seems wrong on every level.” - Tom Martin

Ever play Cops and Robbers or Cowboys and Indians when you were a kid? Same thing.

Andrew Eisen

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Set sarcasm to 'kill' kharne83 September 24 2006, 19:37:05 UTC
Yeah, but you see those don't count because they weren't video games.

You see, when you turn something into a videogame it gets filled with magical violence causing... stuff*. And it turns people into killers! Cops and robbers can't make you a killer because I played that when I was little and I don't want it to count so it can't.

Cynic sence, tingling...

*coincidentally, this is the same mystic stuff that makes bottled water better than normal water, helps pills cause you to loose weight, and make a $5 shirt cost $50 when you put a brand-name logo on it.

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blitzfitness September 24 2006, 19:49:02 UTC
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You beat me to that very point.

As an extra note, my friends and I used to claim that the other 'missed me' no matter how false that was. That's important because we didn't know about video game god-moding yet.

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eternallegenduk September 24 2006, 19:59:55 UTC
I wonder if that works now among the CS kids in the playground. (Do kids still play in playgrounds, or have they been banned yet?)

"Bang bang! You're dead!"
"omg hax!"

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xdarkbasex September 24 2006, 23:17:41 UTC
Why is prostitution one of the main focuses? How many games actually involve prostitution? Grand Theft Auto does not account for all games in existance. While Take-Two releases "Bully" (even though it's freaking T for Teen, JT), Nintendo releases Mario Soccer and no one takes note. This happens thousands of times, as any gamer knows, there are a thousand "kid-friendly" video games for every "Mature" or violent video game.

ugh

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zippydsmlee September 25 2006, 02:37:37 UTC
Vampire the masquerade: bloodlines has prostitution ,so did Fallout1-2 a PC game and I mabye can think of more games that has it in it 0-o
LOL
they jsut hate sex and violance when its not wining them wars and or expanding their rule....

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