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- Hundreds of pages of digital ink was spilled pointing out that, actually, there is no proven connection between digital mayhem and the massacres that have become a commonplace part of American life. Even The Associated Press felt the need to include the catty pseudo-observation that "decades of research have failed to find such a link" in its short write-up of Trump's meeting with executives from the gaming industry on Thursday.
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- What does it mean to say that there is no connection? Virtually every single one of the pasty psychos who have shot their classmates and teachers in the last two decades has played such games. What would count as evidence? Notes from the killers acknowledging their massive debts to Sniper Elite 4 in the plain, logical English for which murderous lunatics are known?
Posted just to spin francopoli up because he seems like he needs someone to rage against today.
http://archives.forusa.org/blogs/ivan-boothe/5-reasons-targeting-violence-media-wont-help-heal-our-society/12004 Want to make people REALLY and I mean REEEEEEAAAAALY uncomfortable? Ask how many of these kids are from divorced families. Ask how many are from single mother homes. Ask how many of these kids are from homes where the parents lost their jobs due to globalization. How many of these kids have been drug through the family court grinder. As movies and media has become more violent, crime went down. But blaming movies and games? you can do something about that. Broken homes and divorces? Good luck fixing that and ever winning an election again.
In other words: If these kids enjoy violent video games, is it because of some addictive quality of virtual violence, or is it because they needed to satisfy that destructive urge? Many things can make one bitter and quietly yet furiously wanting justice from the world itself. Children are not immune just because they have smaller emotional vocabulary to express than the preachers of adults. I notice that when people protest something about themselves with vigor, that quality they possess. They know it and want it to be false. Under certain conditions, introspection could be reached, for those people to look inside, at the monster they don't want to look at, and admit how wrong they were. It was disenchanting to realize for the first time that I can't do anything about it. I can only hope that introspection might come.
Put yourself in the place of a 13 year old boy. Mom and dad are divorced. You get to go to court a few times a year because mom and dad are using you as a pawn for resources and not really paying attention to your needs as a 13 year old slamming into the wall we call puberty. Because the "adults" in your life are shit you pull inward. And were do the awkward 13 year old boys go to deal with frustration and the need for community? Plug in the PC/XBox/Switch and play games. Online nobody gives a damn if you are a poor kid in South Chicago or a Hillbilly in West Virginia all that matters is can you play. Now you have an outlet. Play enough and you start to see the same faces and build a report with them. Some of those people will even become friends. Everyone needs an outlet for anger, hostility, frustration. Video games are making people LESS violent. Not more. There will always be outliers. But the reality is that we live in the safest human society ever created. The odds of you, even in Russia, being the victim of a violent crime is near functional zero as long as you are not involved in the illegal drug trade. These mass shootings get a lot of press and I would like to prevent these things, but even adding them to the total, violence is down.If these kids enjoy violent video games, is it because of some addictive quality of virtual violence, or is it because they needed to satisfy that destructive urge?
You had me curious. This is the only school shooting in Russia so far. Homicides? 11.31/year/100,000 people in Russia vs 4.88 in the US. Would it surprise you to hear that we never hear about this? When that police major went shooting people in the store? We all heard. When the bombs go off as "terror acts" (even after they become unofficially recognized as FSB work), we all hear it. School shooting? Not a god damn word. There's no war in Ba Sing Se. (And... damn, the second part turned out long. Sorry. I guess I needed to let it off my chest) Don't need to: I was that boy. My parents didn't divorce, but not much would change if they did: ownership over me would still be wielded against the other spouse every few months, but then things would settle down and we all act like nothing happened. (You'll notice by my usage of "ownership" that I'm still bitter about the whole thing) Took me years to realize that this kind of thing is fucked up and that's not how relationships work in other families, where there's rapport, support and understanding. I, as a person, amounted for little in the family — and if I didn't do well at school, I amounted to even less. It was the case for many of my classmates; school and the time between classes and coming home, however, was much-desired respite for many. After school day is done, they, at 13, would drink beer and do something crazy, like drive around in a stolen car or fight in some quiet place over personal insults. Drugs started to get involved soon after. Is it any surprise once you look at it from above? (Shit like that would happen even in "good" schools: some burnt-out, attaboy of a student would have a bag of some new shitty drug found in their backpack) Me? I was a good boy, so I took it stoically — to the point of apathy. The first kind of music I got hooked on was hardcore Russian rap that I got downloaded to my phone by an older school student. I listened to it with the headphones because I knew no one would approve it, let alone see if maybe I'm not doing well. Then I went blatant and turned on the speakers; no one cared. Then came the sharpest, dirtiest dubstep I could put my hands on. As I grew older, mostly intact, I turned to hard rock — because I got a chance to heal. I got into music that leaves most people overwhelmed because things got easier. By the time I was 16, my mouse-crosshair coordination was fiiine. I got off scoring the most kills in Call of Duty multiplayer, to the point of being accused of cheating every second round. I'd lull myself to sleep with power fantasies every week; I imagined beating up the bullies so they can't stand no more. Still have scars from cutting myself, hidden under the viril fur. It was intense. I'm still alive because of how repressive my parents were. I couldn't possibly consider going against them back then in such a blatant, blunt fashion. I couldn't possibly do the bad thing. I'm alive because of how fucked-up I am. I'm healing now, but I still have strong, deep-seated issues that would take a decade to unravel and shed. My sense of intimate privacy has been violated, so I can hardly trust people, which means I can hardly connect, which means lacking the support network I so desperately need. My capacity to change the world has been destroyed, and though I'm perceptably getting over it, I still feel powerless from time to time. That I'm moving forward at all is a miracle. What if there are so many others who lack the same... whatever set of qualities that let me persevere? That one isn't a hypothetical. The kid that shot up the school in Moscow? One of the best students — whom some would describe as "strange". No one thought to check up on him: he's doing well in school, and that's all that matters, right? Some people ace things in school naturally; some are pushed to their limits to do as well.The odds of you, even in Russia, being the victim of a violent crime is near functional zero as long as you are not involved in the illegal drug trade.
Put yourself in the place of a 13 year old boy.
Personally? I'm worried that nobody legitimate is willing to look at benzos and violence now that the Infowars crowd has taken the link into their precious bodily fluids. It's not like we haven't seen this shit before. Side effects may include difficulty urinating, moderate weight gain and murder
My favorite part, personally speaking, is the syllogism: IF: violent video games cause violence AND: the author enjoyed violent video games THEN: the author should be violent Yet the article starts with Because I was 13 years old and the above scene was unfolding on my friend's PlayStation, I am not writing this column from a maximum security prison. He's gotta be trolling.I remember it like it was yesterday. I had just robbed a drug dealer and was peeling out in my getaway car — also stolen — and thinking about my next score when I saw her: a woman in high heels and a very small bathing suit. She motioned towards me and I let her get in the car. We performed a blurry parody of marital intercourse. After she got out of the vehicle, I ran her over. Then Judas Priest came on the radio. I cranked the volume and roasted the tires of my sports car beneath the orange moon.
Oh alsoWhat does it mean to say that there is no connection? Virtually every single one of the pasty psychos who have shot their classmates and teachers in the last two decades owned a bible. What would count as evidence? Notes from the killers acknowledging their massive debts to Soddom and Gomorrah in the plain, logical English for which murderous lunatics are known?
Virtually every single one of the pasty psychos who have shot their classmates and teachers in the last two decades has played such games. [Citation needed.]