"Active Shooter" video game lets you be school shooter

[OldLady]

''Active Shooter' video game pulled after huge backlash

The issue isn't so much whether it's pulled down or "banned", it's that it existed in the first place and there are people who are fine with it. That's a reflection of us.

Banning something this horrible is just a band aid; the much bigger task is a culture that created it.

At one time, such a "game" wouldn't have even occurred to someone. But now, meh, who cares.
.

I agree with you that our culture has decayed, deteriorated in the last decades, Mac.

But I want to suggest something really radical here --- don't be upset, it's just an idea.

Maybe this is a GOOD thing, a school shooter game, because then violent kids can do it virtually, but not in reality. I read years ago that rape attacks dropped after porn on the Internet became widely available. And that a lot of teens playing Grand Theft Auto (where they get points for running over people, I've heard) is good because then they aren't outside at night doing crimes.

People are naturally violent: man is man's wolf. So if they have an outlet for that violence that doesn't actually hurt anyone, maybe that's better than what's happening now.

I'm pretty sure they looked into that with child sex offenders to see if viewing child pornography on line would keep them off the streets. The results were that child sex offenders are NOT to go near it; it seems to lead from fantasy to eventual reality. These are people who already have a problem, much as the kids who play some of these video games do.

 

[G.T.]

''Active Shooter' video game pulled after huge backlash

The issue isn't so much whether it's pulled down or "banned", it's that it existed in the first place and there are people who are fine with it. That's a reflection of us.

Banning something this horrible is just a band aid; the much bigger task is a culture that created it.

At one time, such a "game" wouldn't have even occurred to someone. But now, meh, who cares.
.

I agree with you that our culture has decayed, deteriorated in the last decades, Mac.

But I want to suggest something really radical here --- don't be upset, it's just an idea.

Maybe this is a GOOD thing, a school shooter game, because then violent kids can do it virtually, but not in reality. I read years ago that rape attacks dropped after porn on the Internet became widely available. And that a lot of teens playing Grand Theft Auto (where they get points for running over people, I've heard) is good because then they aren't outside at night doing crimes.

People are naturally violent: man is man's wolf. So if they have an outlet for that violence that doesn't actually hurt anyone, maybe that's better than what's happening now.

I'm pretty sure they looked into that with child sex offenders to see if viewing child pornography on line would keep them off the streets. The results were that child sex offenders are NOT to go near it; it seems to lead from fantasy to eventual reality. These are people who already have a problem, much as the kids who play some of these video games do.

lol my girl - the reason child pornography has to be illegal is because WATCHING it produces the MONEY it takes to GET THE KIDS IN THE MOVIES. It's defacto molesting the kids by proxy with another person's genitals for your viewing pleasure. You're an accessory to a literal crime, DIRECTLY, by funding it.

 

[Synthaholic]

Don't like it don't download it. Simple as that. It shouldn't be banned.

How about a game where you get to rape Melania and Ivanka? Would you be OK with that, too?

False equivalency. This game isn't naming people. In it, you're a faceless, nameless guy/girl killing faceless/nameless people.

Ok, no names, but it’s obvious that it’s Melania and Ivanka.

Or, what about a game where you rape little girls? You ok with not banning that?

 

[G.T.]

Don't like it don't download it. Simple as that. It shouldn't be banned.

How about a game where you get to rape Melania and Ivanka? Would you be OK with that, too?

False equivalency. This game isn't naming people. In it, you're a faceless, nameless guy/girl killing faceless/nameless people.

Ok, no names, but it’s obvious that it’s Melania and Ivanka.

Or, what about a game where you rape little girls? You ok with not banning that?

Shock value doesn't seem like that compelling of a reason to ban free speech. Consumers can be the judge whether it was tasteful or not - hell, even some will consider it distasteful and STILL buy it so it's not even an accurate depiction of "thought" THEN.

There's a lot of nuance in the reasoning capabilities and function of the human mind. Micro-managing is never a good idea, unless it's an act which intrudes upon the freedom of another.

 

[Some Guy]

Ok, no names, but it’s obvious that it’s Melania and Ivanka.

Or, what about a game where you rape little girls? You ok with not banning that?

If i had to take a position, i'd say yes. However illegal and abhorrent the acts depicted in the game might be, they're not actually harming anyone, so who am i to advocate for the government to suppress that person's ability to create and sell a product... beyond my own ability to not pay for it and not play it? If you believe in liberty then you accept the good and the bad that comes with it.

I'd prefer to see the person who came up with it shamed and ostracized peacefully for it. See them lose their money and time for deciding to undertake that endeavor, just like Valve here has scrapped the project after public backlash. Mission accomplished.

 

[Synthaholic]

However illegal and abhorrent the acts depicted in the game might be, they're not actually harming anyone,

Ahh, so you also think conservatives are full of shit when they try to blame video games or rap music for crime? That’s good to hear.

 

[OldLady]

Reading Stephen King is the equivalent of going in the Haunted House at the fair or the Haunted Hayride at Halloween. It's meant to be scary.

And sitting in front of a screen playing a video game is the equivalent of sitting in front of a screen playing a video game.

I gave this some thought yesterday and approaching it from this angle actually made me question if these games were as bad as I thought. You had to approach me through books, and then the wheels started turning.
Ultimately, I still think it is dead wrong to have first person shooter games, but I understand why people have "fun" with them. Maybe banning them is not the answer, except in the same way Roseanne was just "banned," by private industry saying it's bad business to hire a racist. We'll see what happens; seems whatever business put this game forward has no social conscience.

The disconnect is literally your lack of trust in human beings other than yourself.

99.9999% of people can distinguish between a game, book, or movie and real life just like you can.......but you don't trust that they can, which is where your feelings come from.

I tried to tell you, it's obviously an incorrect feeling because we are, as an objective fact, a less violent society.

Don't tell me what my feelings are, G.T., or that I am "incorrect" or "old" or "irrational." It is just viewing this issue from a different perspective. You don't have a patent on the "right" answer to everything, however much you think you do.
Lecture over.

It is an interesting question: Does media simply reflect our reality or does it shape it? Which came first? Regardless, it becomes a feedback loop. Which came first doesn't really matter at this point. First person shooter games as entertainment reflect the 10,000 + gun homicides a year in this country and the great popularity of guns in our culture. We shoot people. It is what 10,000 plus people a year choose as their option if they're pissed, if they've got a social conflict, if they're just plain nuts and looking to go out in a blaze of GLORY.

Glorifying shooting people doesn't need to be part of our culture. Yet we allow it in music, movies, tv and video games. And now we have people defending a video game that allows you to be the school shooter because it is "Freedom of Speech?" To steal a phrase from our President, that's sad.

We got a whole lot of people to stop/never start smoking through incremental social pressure; it's no longer a popular thing to do in most circles. One of the first steps was "banning" smoking from tv shows and removing advertising from print media. We could mount a similar campaign about using guns. ALONG with spending much more attention on mental health services and whatever else.

But I see the entering-the-haunted-house side of the argument, too.

Its not a matter of simply one's perspective ~ and all apologies, but being unclear on the facts does seem to be a function of age. You're purposefully choosing hard-headedness over the reality on the ground. That's not a function of me, my personality, your implication that Im a knowitall or anything else ---- it is objective reality.


You continue to ignore what you actually seem to have a problem with: HOMICIDE.


Does a dead person care if they were killed by gun, or by motor vehicle? The tool is irrelevant, it's the psychotic inclination to think that it's ok to murder.

The statistics PROVE, (NOT A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE, BUT OBJECTIVE FACT*) - that our current culture produces LESS murderers.

That means - that in-terms of what we all have a problem with (homicide....people killing people)....we are doing BETTER as a culture.

That's not a debatable fact, as its not subjective. Its hard data. Its not my perspective on the hard data, its the hard data.

Guns being the tool of choice is a matter of convenience, for psychotics.....not a matter of there being more psychotics or that movies and games are producing psychotics. The numbers literally prove that, because you can directly correlate the rise of violence in games, lyrics and movies....to a DECREASE in homicides.


You are focused solely on the tool, and ignoring an overall picture of a MORE civil society, statistically. Thats lazy. Thats intellectual sloth. Blaming me, is personal. I'll remember that, though.

Fuck you, G.T. I'm done discussing this with someone who can't keep the personal shit out of it. "Intellectual sloth," my ass. I'm not forgetting it either.

 

[TNHarley]

And sitting in front of a screen playing a video game is the equivalent of sitting in front of a screen playing a video game.

I gave this some thought yesterday and approaching it from this angle actually made me question if these games were as bad as I thought. You had to approach me through books, and then the wheels started turning.
Ultimately, I still think it is dead wrong to have first person shooter games, but I understand why people have "fun" with them. Maybe banning them is not the answer, except in the same way Roseanne was just "banned," by private industry saying it's bad business to hire a racist. We'll see what happens; seems whatever business put this game forward has no social conscience.

The disconnect is literally your lack of trust in human beings other than yourself.

99.9999% of people can distinguish between a game, book, or movie and real life just like you can.......but you don't trust that they can, which is where your feelings come from.

I tried to tell you, it's obviously an incorrect feeling because we are, as an objective fact, a less violent society.

Don't tell me what my feelings are, G.T., or that I am "incorrect" or "old" or "irrational." It is just viewing this issue from a different perspective. You don't have a patent on the "right" answer to everything, however much you think you do.
Lecture over.

It is an interesting question: Does media simply reflect our reality or does it shape it? Which came first? Regardless, it becomes a feedback loop. Which came first doesn't really matter at this point. First person shooter games as entertainment reflect the 10,000 + gun homicides a year in this country and the great popularity of guns in our culture. We shoot people. It is what 10,000 plus people a year choose as their option if they're pissed, if they've got a social conflict, if they're just plain nuts and looking to go out in a blaze of GLORY.

Glorifying shooting people doesn't need to be part of our culture. Yet we allow it in music, movies, tv and video games. And now we have people defending a video game that allows you to be the school shooter because it is "Freedom of Speech?" To steal a phrase from our President, that's sad.

We got a whole lot of people to stop/never start smoking through incremental social pressure; it's no longer a popular thing to do in most circles. One of the first steps was "banning" smoking from tv shows and removing advertising from print media. We could mount a similar campaign about using guns. ALONG with spending much more attention on mental health services and whatever else.

But I see the entering-the-haunted-house side of the argument, too.

This convo is more than just perception, my dear. It is statistics. It is reality.

You becoming an acolyte of 2AGuy? If you want to talk statistics, tell me about the 10,000+ who die every year from gun homicide. That is not acceptable to me. Sorry it is to you.

Personally, i dont give a shit about thugs killing thugs.

 

[G.T.]

And sitting in front of a screen playing a video game is the equivalent of sitting in front of a screen playing a video game.

I gave this some thought yesterday and approaching it from this angle actually made me question if these games were as bad as I thought. You had to approach me through books, and then the wheels started turning.
Ultimately, I still think it is dead wrong to have first person shooter games, but I understand why people have "fun" with them. Maybe banning them is not the answer, except in the same way Roseanne was just "banned," by private industry saying it's bad business to hire a racist. We'll see what happens; seems whatever business put this game forward has no social conscience.

The disconnect is literally your lack of trust in human beings other than yourself.

99.9999% of people can distinguish between a game, book, or movie and real life just like you can.......but you don't trust that they can, which is where your feelings come from.

I tried to tell you, it's obviously an incorrect feeling because we are, as an objective fact, a less violent society.

Don't tell me what my feelings are, G.T., or that I am "incorrect" or "old" or "irrational." It is just viewing this issue from a different perspective. You don't have a patent on the "right" answer to everything, however much you think you do.
Lecture over.

It is an interesting question: Does media simply reflect our reality or does it shape it? Which came first? Regardless, it becomes a feedback loop. Which came first doesn't really matter at this point. First person shooter games as entertainment reflect the 10,000 + gun homicides a year in this country and the great popularity of guns in our culture. We shoot people. It is what 10,000 plus people a year choose as their option if they're pissed, if they've got a social conflict, if they're just plain nuts and looking to go out in a blaze of GLORY.

Glorifying shooting people doesn't need to be part of our culture. Yet we allow it in music, movies, tv and video games. And now we have people defending a video game that allows you to be the school shooter because it is "Freedom of Speech?" To steal a phrase from our President, that's sad.

We got a whole lot of people to stop/never start smoking through incremental social pressure; it's no longer a popular thing to do in most circles. One of the first steps was "banning" smoking from tv shows and removing advertising from print media. We could mount a similar campaign about using guns. ALONG with spending much more attention on mental health services and whatever else.

But I see the entering-the-haunted-house side of the argument, too.

Its not a matter of simply one's perspective ~ and all apologies, but being unclear on the facts does seem to be a function of age. You're purposefully choosing hard-headedness over the reality on the ground. That's not a function of me, my personality, your implication that Im a knowitall or anything else ---- it is objective reality.


You continue to ignore what you actually seem to have a problem with: HOMICIDE.


Does a dead person care if they were killed by gun, or by motor vehicle? The tool is irrelevant, it's the psychotic inclination to think that it's ok to murder.

The statistics PROVE, (NOT A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE, BUT OBJECTIVE FACT*) - that our current culture produces LESS murderers.

That means - that in-terms of what we all have a problem with (homicide....people killing people)....we are doing BETTER as a culture.

That's not a debatable fact, as its not subjective. Its hard data. Its not my perspective on the hard data, its the hard data.

Guns being the tool of choice is a matter of convenience, for psychotics.....not a matter of there being more psychotics or that movies and games are producing psychotics. The numbers literally prove that, because you can directly correlate the rise of violence in games, lyrics and movies....to a DECREASE in homicides.


You are focused solely on the tool, and ignoring an overall picture of a MORE civil society, statistically. Thats lazy. Thats intellectual sloth. Blaming me, is personal. I'll remember that, though.

Fuck you, G.T. I'm done discussing this with someone who can't keep the personal shit out of it. "Intellectual sloth," my ass. I'm not forgetting it either.

Fair enough, goof. I was completely as reasonable as possible in the face of some odd-ish anti information propoganda.....I'm not sure there's an intelligible conversation to be had there, in light of that.

 

[Some Guy]

However illegal and abhorrent the acts depicted in the game might be, they're not actually harming anyone,

Ahh, so you also think conservatives are full of shit when they try to blame video games or rap music for crime? That’s good to hear.

Not sure where you're getting that.

I said that they're not harming anyone in that it's not a video of an actual act being carried out. No one is being killed/raped as a result of you playing that game or the game existing in the first place, so it's not aggressing someone directly.

The effects of that kind of thing on malleable brains is an entirely different argument. I think abhorrent behavior and interests begets more of the same. So yea, this kind of shit is in incredibly bad taste, and while it's impossible to completely quantify, has led to the degradation of our society to the point where too many kids get the idea and then carry out murdering their classmates at school.

 

[aaronleland]

I like both GT and OldLady. Can we all make love and make up?

 

[G.T.]

I gave this some thought yesterday and approaching it from this angle actually made me question if these games were as bad as I thought. You had to approach me through books, and then the wheels started turning.
Ultimately, I still think it is dead wrong to have first person shooter games, but I understand why people have "fun" with them. Maybe banning them is not the answer, except in the same way Roseanne was just "banned," by private industry saying it's bad business to hire a racist. We'll see what happens; seems whatever business put this game forward has no social conscience.

The disconnect is literally your lack of trust in human beings other than yourself.

99.9999% of people can distinguish between a game, book, or movie and real life just like you can.......but you don't trust that they can, which is where your feelings come from.

I tried to tell you, it's obviously an incorrect feeling because we are, as an objective fact, a less violent society.

Don't tell me what my feelings are, G.T., or that I am "incorrect" or "old" or "irrational." It is just viewing this issue from a different perspective. You don't have a patent on the "right" answer to everything, however much you think you do.
Lecture over.

It is an interesting question: Does media simply reflect our reality or does it shape it? Which came first? Regardless, it becomes a feedback loop. Which came first doesn't really matter at this point. First person shooter games as entertainment reflect the 10,000 + gun homicides a year in this country and the great popularity of guns in our culture. We shoot people. It is what 10,000 plus people a year choose as their option if they're pissed, if they've got a social conflict, if they're just plain nuts and looking to go out in a blaze of GLORY.

Glorifying shooting people doesn't need to be part of our culture. Yet we allow it in music, movies, tv and video games. And now we have people defending a video game that allows you to be the school shooter because it is "Freedom of Speech?" To steal a phrase from our President, that's sad.

We got a whole lot of people to stop/never start smoking through incremental social pressure; it's no longer a popular thing to do in most circles. One of the first steps was "banning" smoking from tv shows and removing advertising from print media. We could mount a similar campaign about using guns. ALONG with spending much more attention on mental health services and whatever else.

But I see the entering-the-haunted-house side of the argument, too.

This convo is more than just perception, my dear. It is statistics. It is reality.

You becoming an acolyte of 2AGuy? If you want to talk statistics, tell me about the 10,000+ who die every year from gun homicide. That is not acceptable to me. Sorry it is to you.

Personally, i dont give a shit about thugs killing thugs.

I mean, there's that and it has its wisdom.......... but there's also a child and an empty canvass - - - before he becomes a thug, right? -

The cycle is poverty, albeit the hard-headed would have us believe it's because of lyrics. The cart before the horse - - poverty, then desperation, then an exacerbated thuggy culture. When people mocked community organizing out of one side of their face, and wanted black fathers to man up and learn how to be a man out of thin air out of the other - - - it's hard to take that shit with anything more than a grain of salt. There's no full-on answers or approach to these things, it's multi-faceted and it doesn't by any stretch begin with banning language.

 

[OldLady]

I gave this some thought yesterday and approaching it from this angle actually made me question if these games were as bad as I thought. You had to approach me through books, and then the wheels started turning.
Ultimately, I still think it is dead wrong to have first person shooter games, but I understand why people have "fun" with them. Maybe banning them is not the answer, except in the same way Roseanne was just "banned," by private industry saying it's bad business to hire a racist. We'll see what happens; seems whatever business put this game forward has no social conscience.

The disconnect is literally your lack of trust in human beings other than yourself.

99.9999% of people can distinguish between a game, book, or movie and real life just like you can.......but you don't trust that they can, which is where your feelings come from.

I tried to tell you, it's obviously an incorrect feeling because we are, as an objective fact, a less violent society.

Don't tell me what my feelings are, G.T., or that I am "incorrect" or "old" or "irrational." It is just viewing this issue from a different perspective. You don't have a patent on the "right" answer to everything, however much you think you do.
Lecture over.

It is an interesting question: Does media simply reflect our reality or does it shape it? Which came first? Regardless, it becomes a feedback loop. Which came first doesn't really matter at this point. First person shooter games as entertainment reflect the 10,000 + gun homicides a year in this country and the great popularity of guns in our culture. We shoot people. It is what 10,000 plus people a year choose as their option if they're pissed, if they've got a social conflict, if they're just plain nuts and looking to go out in a blaze of GLORY.

Glorifying shooting people doesn't need to be part of our culture. Yet we allow it in music, movies, tv and video games. And now we have people defending a video game that allows you to be the school shooter because it is "Freedom of Speech?" To steal a phrase from our President, that's sad.

We got a whole lot of people to stop/never start smoking through incremental social pressure; it's no longer a popular thing to do in most circles. One of the first steps was "banning" smoking from tv shows and removing advertising from print media. We could mount a similar campaign about using guns. ALONG with spending much more attention on mental health services and whatever else.

But I see the entering-the-haunted-house side of the argument, too.

This convo is more than just perception, my dear. It is statistics. It is reality.

You becoming an acolyte of 2AGuy? If you want to talk statistics, tell me about the 10,000+ who die every year from gun homicide. That is not acceptable to me. Sorry it is to you.

Is that honest?

I said that it's alright?

I'm not sure why you have such an emotional detachment from objectively analyzing a situation so that it can be properly addressed.

If homocides overall are DOWN, we can all agree that's a GOOD thing and start from there - YES?

Or - would it be better if homocides go BACK UP - but they're spread across a more even distribution of murder weapons?

Please answer both as honestly and as objectively as you can - I'm kind of at my limit here with your fingers in your ears and being personal thing.

''Active Shooter' video game pulled after huge backlash

The issue isn't so much whether it's pulled down or "banned", it's that it existed in the first place and there are people who are fine with it. That's a reflection of us.

Banning something this horrible is just a band aid; the much bigger task is a culture that created it.

At one time, such a "game" wouldn't have even occurred to someone. But now, meh, who cares.
.

I agree with you that our culture has decayed, deteriorated in the last decades, Mac.

But I want to suggest something really radical here --- don't be upset, it's just an idea.

Maybe this is a GOOD thing, a school shooter game, because then violent kids can do it virtually, but not in reality. I read years ago that rape attacks dropped after porn on the Internet became widely available. And that a lot of teens playing Grand Theft Auto (where they get points for running over people, I've heard) is good because then they aren't outside at night doing crimes.

People are naturally violent: man is man's wolf. So if they have an outlet for that violence that doesn't actually hurt anyone, maybe that's better than what's happening now.

I'm pretty sure they looked into that with child sex offenders to see if viewing child pornography on line would keep them off the streets. The results were that child sex offenders are NOT to go near it; it seems to lead from fantasy to eventual reality. These are people who already have a problem, much as the kids who play some of these video games do.

lol my girl - the reason child pornography has to be illegal is because WATCHING it produces the MONEY it takes to GET THE KIDS IN THE MOVIES. It's defacto molesting the kids by proxy with another person's genitals for your viewing pleasure. You're an accessory to a literal crime, DIRECTLY, by funding it.

I'm aware of that. I was speaking specifically to the suggestion that doing the shooting on line would keep people from doing it in real life.

 

[Synthaholic]

However illegal and abhorrent the acts depicted in the game might be, they're not actually harming anyone,

Ahh, so you also think conservatives are full of shit when they try to blame video games or rap music for crime? That’s good to hear.

Not sure where you're getting that.

I said that they're not harming anyone in that it's not a video of an actual act being carried out. No one is being killed/raped as a result of you playing that game or the game existing in the first place, so it's not aggressing someone directly.

The effects of that kind of thing on malleable brains is an entirely different argument. I think abhorrent behavior and interests begets more of the same. So yea, this kind of shit is in incredibly bad taste, and while it's impossible to completely quantify, has led to the degradation of our society to the point where too many kids get the idea and then carry out murdering their classmates at school.

it’s not a different argument. You said the games aren’t actually harming anyone.

 

[G.T.]

The disconnect is literally your lack of trust in human beings other than yourself.

99.9999% of people can distinguish between a game, book, or movie and real life just like you can.......but you don't trust that they can, which is where your feelings come from.

I tried to tell you, it's obviously an incorrect feeling because we are, as an objective fact, a less violent society.

Don't tell me what my feelings are, G.T., or that I am "incorrect" or "old" or "irrational." It is just viewing this issue from a different perspective. You don't have a patent on the "right" answer to everything, however much you think you do.
Lecture over.

It is an interesting question: Does media simply reflect our reality or does it shape it? Which came first? Regardless, it becomes a feedback loop. Which came first doesn't really matter at this point. First person shooter games as entertainment reflect the 10,000 + gun homicides a year in this country and the great popularity of guns in our culture. We shoot people. It is what 10,000 plus people a year choose as their option if they're pissed, if they've got a social conflict, if they're just plain nuts and looking to go out in a blaze of GLORY.

Glorifying shooting people doesn't need to be part of our culture. Yet we allow it in music, movies, tv and video games. And now we have people defending a video game that allows you to be the school shooter because it is "Freedom of Speech?" To steal a phrase from our President, that's sad.

We got a whole lot of people to stop/never start smoking through incremental social pressure; it's no longer a popular thing to do in most circles. One of the first steps was "banning" smoking from tv shows and removing advertising from print media. We could mount a similar campaign about using guns. ALONG with spending much more attention on mental health services and whatever else.

But I see the entering-the-haunted-house side of the argument, too.

This convo is more than just perception, my dear. It is statistics. It is reality.

You becoming an acolyte of 2AGuy? If you want to talk statistics, tell me about the 10,000+ who die every year from gun homicide. That is not acceptable to me. Sorry it is to you.

Is that honest?

I said that it's alright?

I'm not sure why you have such an emotional detachment from objectively analyzing a situation so that it can be properly addressed.

If homocides overall are DOWN, we can all agree that's a GOOD thing and start from there - YES?

Or - would it be better if homocides go BACK UP - but they're spread across a more even distribution of murder weapons?

Please answer both as honestly and as objectively as you can - I'm kind of at my limit here with your fingers in your ears and being personal thing.

''Active Shooter' video game pulled after huge backlash

The issue isn't so much whether it's pulled down or "banned", it's that it existed in the first place and there are people who are fine with it. That's a reflection of us.

Banning something this horrible is just a band aid; the much bigger task is a culture that created it.

At one time, such a "game" wouldn't have even occurred to someone. But now, meh, who cares.
.

I agree with you that our culture has decayed, deteriorated in the last decades, Mac.

But I want to suggest something really radical here --- don't be upset, it's just an idea.

Maybe this is a GOOD thing, a school shooter game, because then violent kids can do it virtually, but not in reality. I read years ago that rape attacks dropped after porn on the Internet became widely available. And that a lot of teens playing Grand Theft Auto (where they get points for running over people, I've heard) is good because then they aren't outside at night doing crimes.

People are naturally violent: man is man's wolf. So if they have an outlet for that violence that doesn't actually hurt anyone, maybe that's better than what's happening now.

I'm pretty sure they looked into that with child sex offenders to see if viewing child pornography on line would keep them off the streets. The results were that child sex offenders are NOT to go near it; it seems to lead from fantasy to eventual reality. These are people who already have a problem, much as the kids who play some of these video games do.

lol my girl - the reason child pornography has to be illegal is because WATCHING it produces the MONEY it takes to GET THE KIDS IN THE MOVIES. It's defacto molesting the kids by proxy with another person's genitals for your viewing pleasure. You're an accessory to a literal crime, DIRECTLY, by funding it.

I'm aware of that. I was speaking specifically to the suggestion that doing the shooting on line would keep people from doing it in real life.

It wouldn't keep them FROM, or CAUSE THEM TO - murder anybody. Doing that takes mental illness.

When son of sam was murdering people because his dog said so.....(the games are the dog in this analogy)..........................he wasnt killing anyone because the dog said so. He was killing them because he was psychotic.

 

[OldLady]

Don't tell me what my feelings are, G.T., or that I am "incorrect" or "old" or "irrational." It is just viewing this issue from a different perspective. You don't have a patent on the "right" answer to everything, however much you think you do.
Lecture over.

It is an interesting question: Does media simply reflect our reality or does it shape it? Which came first? Regardless, it becomes a feedback loop. Which came first doesn't really matter at this point. First person shooter games as entertainment reflect the 10,000 + gun homicides a year in this country and the great popularity of guns in our culture. We shoot people. It is what 10,000 plus people a year choose as their option if they're pissed, if they've got a social conflict, if they're just plain nuts and looking to go out in a blaze of GLORY.

Glorifying shooting people doesn't need to be part of our culture. Yet we allow it in music, movies, tv and video games. And now we have people defending a video game that allows you to be the school shooter because it is "Freedom of Speech?" To steal a phrase from our President, that's sad.

We got a whole lot of people to stop/never start smoking through incremental social pressure; it's no longer a popular thing to do in most circles. One of the first steps was "banning" smoking from tv shows and removing advertising from print media. We could mount a similar campaign about using guns. ALONG with spending much more attention on mental health services and whatever else.

But I see the entering-the-haunted-house side of the argument, too.

This convo is more than just perception, my dear. It is statistics. It is reality.

You becoming an acolyte of 2AGuy? If you want to talk statistics, tell me about the 10,000+ who die every year from gun homicide. That is not acceptable to me. Sorry it is to you.

Is that honest?

I said that it's alright?

I'm not sure why you have such an emotional detachment from objectively analyzing a situation so that it can be properly addressed.

If homocides overall are DOWN, we can all agree that's a GOOD thing and start from there - YES?

Or - would it be better if homocides go BACK UP - but they're spread across a more even distribution of murder weapons?

Please answer both as honestly and as objectively as you can - I'm kind of at my limit here with your fingers in your ears and being personal thing.

The issue isn't so much whether it's pulled down or "banned", it's that it existed in the first place and there are people who are fine with it. That's a reflection of us.

Banning something this horrible is just a band aid; the much bigger task is a culture that created it.

At one time, such a "game" wouldn't have even occurred to someone. But now, meh, who cares.
.

I agree with you that our culture has decayed, deteriorated in the last decades, Mac.

But I want to suggest something really radical here --- don't be upset, it's just an idea.

Maybe this is a GOOD thing, a school shooter game, because then violent kids can do it virtually, but not in reality. I read years ago that rape attacks dropped after porn on the Internet became widely available. And that a lot of teens playing Grand Theft Auto (where they get points for running over people, I've heard) is good because then they aren't outside at night doing crimes.

People are naturally violent: man is man's wolf. So if they have an outlet for that violence that doesn't actually hurt anyone, maybe that's better than what's happening now.

I'm pretty sure they looked into that with child sex offenders to see if viewing child pornography on line would keep them off the streets. The results were that child sex offenders are NOT to go near it; it seems to lead from fantasy to eventual reality. These are people who already have a problem, much as the kids who play some of these video games do.

lol my girl - the reason child pornography has to be illegal is because WATCHING it produces the MONEY it takes to GET THE KIDS IN THE MOVIES. It's defacto molesting the kids by proxy with another person's genitals for your viewing pleasure. You're an accessory to a literal crime, DIRECTLY, by funding it.

I'm aware of that. I was speaking specifically to the suggestion that doing the shooting on line would keep people from doing it in real life.

It wouldn't keep them FROM, or CAUSE THEM TO - murder anybody. Doing that takes mental illness.

When son of sam was murdering people because his dog said so.....(the games are the dog in this analogy)..........................he wasnt killing anyone because the dog said so. He was killing them because he was psychotic.

No, it doesn't require mental illness. Pissed off people who are perfectly aware of what they're doing and that it is "wrong" shoot people every day.

 

[Some Guy]

However illegal and abhorrent the acts depicted in the game might be, they're not actually harming anyone,

Ahh, so you also think conservatives are full of shit when they try to blame video games or rap music for crime? That’s good to hear.

Not sure where you're getting that.

I said that they're not harming anyone in that it's not a video of an actual act being carried out. No one is being killed/raped as a result of you playing that game or the game existing in the first place, so it's not aggressing someone directly.

The effects of that kind of thing on malleable brains is an entirely different argument. I think abhorrent behavior and interests begets more of the same. So yea, this kind of shit is in incredibly bad taste, and while it's impossible to completely quantify, has led to the degradation of our society to the point where too many kids get the idea and then carry out murdering their classmates at school.

it’s not a different argument. You said the games aren’t actually harming anyone.

Correct, they're not directly harming anyone. "No humans were harmed in the making of this video."

From there, it's a matter of opinion as to if and how much a given game or type of game contributes to a culture that could influence someone to commit an act that directly aggresses someone. I'm on the side that it's up to society (each individual more specifically) to live virtuously, and self police themselves into finding certain types of media abhorrent and therefore not pay people to create them. If there's no market, then there's no product.

 

[OldLady]

I like both GT and OldLady. Can we all make love and make up?

I was careful to be respectful; G.T. doesn't know how. So, no.

 

[G.T.]

This convo is more than just perception, my dear. It is statistics. It is reality.

You becoming an acolyte of 2AGuy? If you want to talk statistics, tell me about the 10,000+ who die every year from gun homicide. That is not acceptable to me. Sorry it is to you.

Is that honest?

I said that it's alright?

I'm not sure why you have such an emotional detachment from objectively analyzing a situation so that it can be properly addressed.

If homocides overall are DOWN, we can all agree that's a GOOD thing and start from there - YES?

Or - would it be better if homocides go BACK UP - but they're spread across a more even distribution of murder weapons?

Please answer both as honestly and as objectively as you can - I'm kind of at my limit here with your fingers in your ears and being personal thing.

I agree with you that our culture has decayed, deteriorated in the last decades, Mac.

But I want to suggest something really radical here --- don't be upset, it's just an idea.

Maybe this is a GOOD thing, a school shooter game, because then violent kids can do it virtually, but not in reality. I read years ago that rape attacks dropped after porn on the Internet became widely available. And that a lot of teens playing Grand Theft Auto (where they get points for running over people, I've heard) is good because then they aren't outside at night doing crimes.

People are naturally violent: man is man's wolf. So if they have an outlet for that violence that doesn't actually hurt anyone, maybe that's better than what's happening now.

I'm pretty sure they looked into that with child sex offenders to see if viewing child pornography on line would keep them off the streets. The results were that child sex offenders are NOT to go near it; it seems to lead from fantasy to eventual reality. These are people who already have a problem, much as the kids who play some of these video games do.

lol my girl - the reason child pornography has to be illegal is because WATCHING it produces the MONEY it takes to GET THE KIDS IN THE MOVIES. It's defacto molesting the kids by proxy with another person's genitals for your viewing pleasure. You're an accessory to a literal crime, DIRECTLY, by funding it.

I'm aware of that. I was speaking specifically to the suggestion that doing the shooting on line would keep people from doing it in real life.

It wouldn't keep them FROM, or CAUSE THEM TO - murder anybody. Doing that takes mental illness.

When son of sam was murdering people because his dog said so.....(the games are the dog in this analogy)..........................he wasnt killing anyone because the dog said so. He was killing them because he was psychotic.

No, it doesn't require mental illness. Pissed off people who are perfectly aware of what they're doing and that it is "wrong" shoot people every day.

I'll take your word for it? Without any study of neuro-toxins, anxiety issues, ANGER issues, etc....no mental illnesses whatsoever, just a bad mood?

Alright - lol! Sure!!! But even so, there's LESS people doing it now. Sigh of relief, for damn sure! More violence in movies and games, pretty please.

 

[G.T.]

I like both GT and OldLady. Can we all make love and make up?

I was careful to be respectful; G.T. doesn't know how. So, no.

I disagree on even that - and call bullshit. I'd still secks you up faster than Marky Mark at a funky bunch reunion tho