Deadly Games

[Hildegard]

Doesn't this line of thinking from our national "leader" coupled with daily exposure to real violence (news reports about the war) cause violence?

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NO

[Reveilled]

Isn't Japan having growing problems with teenage gangs and street violence? I'm not saying that it is liked to video games (I don't believe so), but I'm not sure how correct it would be to say Japan isn't having any problems.

[EnderAndrew]

Any country where you can buy used panties in vending machines is perfect in my book.

 

:darque:

[Reveilled]

Any country where you can buy used panties in vending machines is perfect in my book.

 

:darque:

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I wonder how they get them. Do they have an assembly line with lots of schoolgirls sitting on a conveyer belt while mechanical arms fit them with panties?

[Darth Flatus]

Isn't Japan having growing problems with teenage gangs and street violence?  I'm not saying that it is liked to video games (I don't believe so), but I'm not sure how correct it would be to say Japan isn't having any problems. 

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Maybe their samurai genes are reawakening.

[Darth_Schmarth]

Because the Samurai were violent thugs???

[Musopticon?]

Last ones were.

[Reveilled]

Because the Samurai were violent thugs???

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Well, that would depend on whether having "honor" or discipline would disqualify one from being a thug. They were the warrior servants of brutal and opressive feudal lords.

[E_Motion]

Some interesting statistics:

 

An estimated 89,000 cases of child sexual abuse were substantiated in 2000 in the United States. (http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/factsheet/childsexabuse.htm) (Interestingly, there has been a 40% decline in the estimated number of child sexual abuse substantiations since 1992.)

 

Two Japan Times articles report a total of 466 arrests in Japan for the year 2004 for child molestation. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getart...n20050601f2.htm

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getart...n20050520a2.htm

 

Japan Population, 127,214,499 (July 2003) http://education.yahoo.com/reference/factbook/ja/popula.html

 

U.S. Population, 290,809,777 (July, 2003) http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004986.html

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Note that these statistics are not an exact comparison. But the absolute difference in the per capita numbers is astounding.

[Darth_Schmarth]

I'd say European kings and armies were pretty brutal too, you know.

[Walsingham]

I'm surprised you weasels didn't come up with anything other than knocking this. I don't know. I go away for five days and you learn to live in peace and harmony. Tsk tsk tsk.

 

1) Video games and movies don't make you violent.

 

HOWEVER, there are quite a few studies that suggest they shape the way we choose to be violent. A quick example is the 'craze' for the gangsta grip on hand-guns. Bloody stupid way to hold a gun, but it was the way you were 'supposed' to shoot a gun, and thus people did it. The clinical studies showed that kids fought the same amount if they saw a violent film, but the type of violence, and the use of objects mimicked what they had seen.

 

2) People pester criminals to know why they did things. The truth is usually a lot more complicated and tedious and even embarassing than them steadfastly claiming a videogame made them do it.

 

3) Personally I do think there is a small effect from violent media on people. That is insofaras it helps them square their primitive and unrelated urge to be violent with their conscious mind. Someone who can think of reasons why they should give in to a violent impulse will be more likely (but not very much more likely) to do it than someone who cannot, or who recognises it as just an impulse.

[Whitemithrandir]

Don't blame Rockstar North

They're just trying to earn a buck.

Blame the kid's parents.

[Reveilled]

I'd say European kings and armies were pretty brutal too, you know.

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I never said they weren't.

Of course, lots of European Kings stopped being quite so brutal a whole lot quicker than the Emperors of Japan... "

[Laozi]

Don't blame Rockstar North

They're just trying to earn a buck.

Blame the kid's parents.

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the only thing I blame R* for is making the same game over and over again. How many times can you kill a whole lot of cops before its time to just move on?

[metadigital]

Japan has even more sex and violence in their videogames and cartoons and they have no problems.

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Well, I would have said they don't have the same problems with violence. They certainly have problems, but more to do with their rampant sexual fetishisms ...

[SteveThaiBinh]

Isn't Japan having growing problems with teenage gangs and street violence?  I'm not saying that it is liked to video games (I don't believe so), but I'm not sure how correct it would be to say Japan isn't having any problems. 

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Japan's violence is growing but from a very low starting point, so to Japanese observers it seems to be out of control, whereas from a Western perspective it's relatively low. Having worked in a Japanese school, I tend to think that the growth in violence has a lot to do with problems in Japanese schools.

 

Japan's relative lack of violence is a strong argument against a link between video games and violent acts, although that's only one of the possible links you might want to draw. A link between video games and violent feelings seems to have more research behind it.

[E_Motion]

Great points about Japan and violence. Regarding any link between violent feelings and video games, ppl need to remember that a common problem with analyzing any statistical link is jumping to a cause-effect conclusion. A statistical link alone doesn't evidence a cause-effect relationship. Often two things are linked because they are both related to a third element (which can be the cause of the linked items).

[alanschu]

I think a violent video game can be a good escape.

 

 

I'd much rather someone go to town in CS when pissed then to walk through downtown with weapons.

[Damnhippies50]

People need to realize that their have been a lot more crazy killers before video games.

ex. Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Gacey, etc.

All those people did a lot worst thing then this guy, and they didnt have video games. People just need to realize that not everybody is a good person and that there are a lot of sick and violent people.

[metadigital]

It is also extremely difficult to establish a causal link between a single factor (like violent images) and an eventual outcome (violent behaviour) because of the almost limitless variables.

 

Some doctors have insufficient numeracy skills to comprehend statistical variances; e.g. the just struck-off Professor Sir Roy Meadow, whose evidence wrongly convicted several innocent mothers of killing their babies because of an illness he was championing "Munchhausen by Proxy", and he admitted that he had "a weak grasp of statistics", yet he quoted figures like "a million to one" and "winning the lottery".

[Reveilled]

Some doctors have insufficient numeracy skills to comprehend statistical variances; e.g. the just disbarred Professor Sir Roy Meadow, whose evidence wrongly convicted several innocent mothers of killing their babies because of an illness he was championing "Munchhausen by Proxy", and he admitted that he had "a weak grasp of statistics", yet he quoted figures like "a million to one" and "winning the lottery".

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He was forbidden from practicing Law?

 

Don't you mean he was struck off? Some language nazi you are! "

[Calax]

It's funny I posted on the bbs there the linky that Ender gave us to the PBS study, and they didn't care what a study said unless it said that there was the slimmest chance that videogames would lead to massive amounts of violence and that they should ban them for all time... Screwey parents huh?

[alanschu]

Are you confusing Ender with me again???

[EnderAndrew]

You're another one of my accounts.

[alanschu]

Ah yes clearly.

 

Still, I'm not sure what "BBS" he's referring to.