I would venture that the overwhelming majority of US tank commanders at the Battle of 73 Easting had sunk at least a few quarters in Battle Zone...
Posted on 09/20/2013 2:30:24 PM PDT by South40
Actually, guns can be used for legitimate and useful - life saving - purposes. Ultra violent and graphic games/movies/tv serve no useful purpose. At best, they are mindless time wasting “entertainment” (think bread and circuses) and there is no doubt they affect emotions and the mental state of those who indulge. Of course not everyone is affected the exact same way. R_Kangel makes some excellent points.
Whatever people “take in” with their sensory organs affects the mind and emtions - desires, fear, anger and so on. It’s not even debatable. It’s what people do with those thoughts and emotions that is their choice. But children and teenagers have little to no control or discrimination over their thoughts and desires.
It’s a long topic. But the bottom line is that yes, what people read/watch/listen to etc affects them in very deep ways. That is why advertising and propaganda work. And reading good, decent, uplifting literature has a different effect that junk or porn.
It’s just a simple law of nature. Humans are influenced from outside stimuli.
Should such ultra violent games etc be illegal? That’s another topic.
We’re so far off the cliff into depraved barbarity that debating whether such games etc should be illegal is as worthless as debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Playing cowboys and Indians when we were kids is not even slightly akin to playing ultra violent graphic video games and the like. No comparison.
I’m wondering why the technical media of games couldn’t be used to teach things that are good. It’s a little-considered but very open secret that anything hell can do, other than sin, heaven can do better. But to someone used to thinking like hell, heaven seems insipid. That’s because hell has all the good stuff trapped in sin. But heaven can turn hell’s game right back around. God is waiting to be willingly glorified again. God won’t ever shove a salvation down somebody’s throat. But He will provide it gladly when asked.
Well, to one who insists on looking through gospel eyes, one can see deficiencies in both paradigms. Not all Indians were evil; not all cowboys were good. Stereotypes invite the conflation of ultimate good and evil with their dwelling places among men.
At least some cowboy vs. Indian battles were to the good, however. None of this stuff based on stealing could be to the good. (Now if it was a Repo Man theme that might be better. Just as an idea to toss out there.)
Very good observation.
I don’t know the answer.
Other than that the very medium isolates people in their own little imaginary worlds where they control everything and can forget their own identities and problems, and live vicariously. Such types of entertainment lend themselves very easily to the dark side. When I was a kid (ancient times) we kids played cowboys and Indians - and sometimes just Indians - with other kids. Hide and seek, and all kinds of other games, regular or made up. We only played indoors if it was bad weather, and then we made up other games, read, made things, or played board games. Not isolationist imaginary worlds were the player is god in his own little realm.
My childhood seems as though it was 100 years ago, life was so different.
The cowboys and Indians we played was very basic, we were quite young, and the main fun was figuring out how to “die” the most dramatically. We actually had a lot more fun playing just Indians - making tipis, making pretend fires, gathering berries, just imitating what we read and heard about the Indian way of life. We lived on acreage with meadows and woods so there was a lot of room. Perfect place for kids, then.
The answer (on an earthly plane) will be someone with a deep gospel conviction willing and positioned to use such resources. It’s that easy, really. Even if they didn’t know much about the technology, they could direct programming contractors concerning what they want the games to depict and how they want the games to behave.
Probably not much time was spent philosophizing on what it would mean to be a cowboy or an Indian. They were just there, they fought, they killed and died. I’m not an over sensitive peacenik hippie here, but I can’t conflate custom with ultimate virtue.
I would venture that the overwhelming majority of US tank commanders at the Battle of 73 Easting had sunk at least a few quarters in Battle Zone...
Looks like they changed the poll.
“Do you think the efforts to kill Obama’s health care reform law will be successful?
Yes 25%
No 74%”
Drug and alcohol problems have more to do with violent behaviors than games.
obozocare poll now.
Replace "ultra violent video games" with "right-wing hate radio", and you just said what the Leftists were saying after Loughner shot all those people in Tucson. You make the same argument Klinton made after the OKC bombing.
Blaming inanimate objects, no matter how low an opinion you have of them, for the bad decisions and actions of others, is dangerous. Not only is it factually wrong, but it cuts both ways. It's a slippery slope we don't want to go down.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Amen.
Your arguments are specious.
“Right wing hate radio” is another lie, not factual. Rush Limbaugh, who Clinton specifically mentioned, never spoke the kind of words that inspired hatred or violence, despite the lies of idiots. I used to listen to him, when he first started in Sac. and for some years after.
And I never said that “inanimate objects” are responsible for peoples’ actions. Where is your cognitive thinking? It’s really a boring waste of time when people make up stuff I didn’t say, accuse me of saying it, and then argue with the figment of their imagination.
If/when you address the actual points that I made, we could discuss. I have less than no interest in straw man arguments.
For you to accuse me of using the same arguments Clinton used is nasty and totally untrue. Why? Because the fact is right wing radio was and is not hate inspiring, whereas it is a fact that watching ultra violent graphic games etc does affect minds and emotions of those who indulge. Note the word “affect”. The word “affect” doesn’t mean “makes them go out and shoot dozens of people”. Words mean things. Just as there is a difference between reading, for instance, a geometry text book, and a porn magazine. They’re both reading material with graphics, right? Different effect.
I don’t know if you call yourself a libertarian or not, but your complete lack of discrimination and use of straw men is similar to the kind of unrelated-to-reality “arguments” they use.
"...whereas it is a fact that watching ultra violent graphic games etc does affect minds and emotions of those who indulge."
Which is it? Are inanimate objects like video games responsible for people's actions, or aren't they? Or are we splitting hairs over the meaning of "responsible for"? Maybe I just don't understand your argument, but it sure sounds to me like you're saying the outside stimuli of video games (which are inanimate objects) inspire people to violence. But you also said you didn't say that.
"For you to accuse me of using the same arguments Clinton used is nasty and totally untrue. Why? Because the fact is right wing radio was and is not hate inspiring, whereas it is a fact that watching ultra violent graphic games (inanimate objects) etc does affect minds and emotions of those who indulge."
First of all, I'm not "accusing" you of anything. I'm pointing out your flawed and dangerous argument, and how that same tactic has been used by our Leftist enemies...like Bill Klinton after the OKC bombing.
Now...you know it's a fact that talk radio doesn't spread hate and call for violence against people (I agree with you). But Leftists "know" it's a "fact" that it does. Similarly, many people -- many Leftists among them -- "know" it's a "fact" that video games are harmless past times that don't inspire anyone to do anything wrong. But to you, it's a "fact" that they're vacuous wastes of time at best (which I don't necessarily disagree with), and inspire people like Alexis and Lanza to commit heinous acts at worst (which I completely disagree with).
The "fact" is you're both wrong...Leftists about talk radio and you about video games. No gun, no video game, no talk radio show, no set of song lyrics, no movie and no TV show ever caused someone to pull a trigger. For whatever reason -- sickness, immaturity, depression, hatred, whatever -- every shooting was caused by an individual or individuals pulling the trigger. The gun didn't cause it, the Rush Limbaugh Show didn't cause it, and Grand Theft Auto didn't cause it.
Now...how is that a straw man argument?
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Video games are very animated.
For someone who is not right in the head some games can probably set him off, for others not right in the head it keeps them from going off.
Let us just agree to keep the impressionable youngsters off the games until they get a moral foundation.
You type many words.
They mean little.
Have fun fighting with yourself because my time is too precious to waste trying to discuss with someone who doesn’t see the difference between “direct cause” and “tendency to have an influence”. If you can’t understand simple concepts, I can’t help you understand.
Useless waste of my time.
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