Slashdot Mirror
Uncensored Media Considered Harmless
"Columbine spoke to a larger issue, and it's really a matter of culture. It's a culture that somewhere along the line we begun to disrespect life, where a child can walk in and have their heart turn dark as a result of being on the Internet, and walk in and decide to take somebody else's life."
- George W. Bush, presidential debate, October 11, 2000
The term we're looking for is "manufactured crisis." That's what we need to start calling it, this supposed violence in our schools.
I don't need to provide you with more quotes from Bush, Gore, Cheney and especially Lieberman about how disgustingly violent our culture has become. You can't pick up a paper without seeing at least three people moaning about violent movies, the violent internet, and worst of all violent video games. They're infecting the minds of our children, don't'cha know. It'd be the new national pastime if it weren't 200 years old: grumping about those damn kids.
Let's counter disinformation with some real numbers. Here's an annotated timeline showing the increase in violent imagery, and the corresponding decrease in actual violence.
1993
Students' nonfatal violent crimes:
1,438,200.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages:
49.1.
Let's consider 1993 our baseline year, the pre-Doom year. That blockbuster was not released until December 1993, so I think we are safe to assume that it did not begin darkening hearts until 1994 or later. By the end of 1993, the internet's two million host machines include 500 webservers.
Demolition Man, Kalifornia and Falling Down are in the theaters.
1994
Students' nonfatal violent crimes:
1,424,200:
a 1% decrease from the previous year.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages:
51.2:
a 4% increase from the previous year.
In 1994, shareware Doom, downloadable from the evil internet, shatters existing gaming records. Its bloody graphics and Satanic imagery shock and offend many who are easily shocked and offended. In an era where 200,000 is a great-selling title, 1994 sees the first of fifteen million gamers who download and play Doom.
Meanwhile, the web grows at an annual rate of 341,000%, becoming the 2nd-most popular type of data; among the three million machines on the net, there are too many webservers to count.
The movies Pulp Fiction, Timecop, True Lies, Children of the CornIII, and the politicans' favorite Natural Born Killers are all released in 1994.
1995
Students' nonfatal violent crimes:
1,290,000:
a 9% decrease from the previous year.
Total under-18 murderers:
2,169.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages:
46.1:
a 10% decrease from the previous year.
In 1995, the web becomes the most popular internet service among the net's four million machines. Shareware Doom continues to rack up downloads. Doom II: Hell On Earth, released last October, takes over as the violentest game ever, with an initial release of half a million units.
The Basketball Diaries, Braveheart, Se7en, and Die Hard3 are released.
1996
Students' nonfatal violent crimes:
1,134,400:
a 12% decrease from the previous year.
Total under-18 murderers:
1,683:
a 22% decrease from the previous year.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages:
41.6:
a 10% decrease from the previous year.
1996 is a banner year for violent images. Doom II continues on its track to eventually sell two million copies. Duke Nukem 3D, aimed at the young teenage male market, gives our nation's young boys a healthy mix of strippers, jokes, and mass slaughter with machine guns. Soon after, the breakthrough title Quake offers unprecedented visual accuracy: blood, gore, and murder are now illustrated with detail that makes Doom and Duke Nukem look cartoony.
Scream is released in theaters to tremendous success, along with Broken Arrow, CrowII, Sling Blade, and the excellent Fargo. Meanwhile, there are now 9 million hosts on the net.
The effects of all that horrible media violence in 1996 appear in 1997's statistics...
1997
Students' nonfatal violent crimes:
1,055,200:
a 7% decrease from the previous year.
Total under-18 murderers:
1,457:
a 13% decrease from the previous year.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages:
38.8:
a 7% decrease from the previous year.
In 1997, there are 16 million hosts on the net. At year's end, QuakeII is released, and is quickly banned in Germany for its even-more-realistic violence. And Con Air, Face/Off, Starship Troopers, and Scream2 are released in theaters.
1998
Total under-18 murderers:
1,169:
a 20% decrease from the previous year.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages:
36.0:
a 7% decrease from the previous year.
In 1998, Quake II hits its sales stride and begins corrupting young minds. Grand Theft Auto, one of the more vilified and censored video games, is released. The web crosses the 300-million-page mark.
Brace yourself for the movie list: Lethal Weapon4, Saving Private Ryan, American HistoryX, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Ronin, Urban Legend, Blade, and the crappy remake of Psycho hit the theaters.
The result?
1999
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages:
32.1:
an 11% decrease from the previous year.
There it is. In the four years between the release of Doom and Quake II, the number of killers under the age of 18 in this country plummeted. A drop of 46% in just four years is nothing short of astonishing.
Long-term graphs are even more valuable. Click through to these, they're small and quick:
- The homicide rate, 1900-1998. We are experiencing the longest and steepest sustained dropoff in violence since the Great Depression.
- Homicide offenders grouped by age, 1976-1998. The number of teenage killers is steadily falling.
- Average age of homicide offenders, 1976-1998. The average age of the American killer has been rising since 1993.
Last month, I watched CNN as my friend Bennett Haselton got grilled opposite Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). After CNN's introduction telling us what to think - cutting straight from footage of Doom to footage of crying Columbine students - the Senator explained how violent games cause children to commit violent actions. He wants to keep dangerous weapons like Quake away from our kids.
That's how the Senator - who voted against secure handgun storage, and twice against child safety locks - positioned himself as our noble defender of children.
How do the posturing panderers justify their crisis-du-jour? How'd we end up with the phantom of media-created child violence as a major election issue, while violence plummets?
The facts speak for themselves. If seeing violence has any effect on children's actions, it obviously makes them calm and peaceful.
So here's the slogan for my campaign: our kids deserve the best in first-person shooters. In my America, every family will have free movie tickets, 300 megatexels, and low-ping broadband. Let's put an end to frame rates under 30Hz. For our country - for our safety - we can leave no child behind.
(Sources: US DOJ 1, 2, 3; OJJDP 1, 2, 3; FBI UCR; Blues News; crime.org; poynter.org.)
Isn't there already a Klingon summer school?
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
First, I think 'force' is the wrong word -- 'encourages' might be a better word
Second, it's oppression from many sources -- government (laws that force kids to go to school, to go to the school that their parents choose, to not be able to take care of themselves [get a job, place to live, sign contracts], to stay with their parents until 18 [or possibly emancipation] or be a criminal, etc) schools (I could go on for hours -- but forced 'education', teachers and administrators who will protect 'normal' kids, but not geeks, gay kids and other non-normal kids [I'm reminded of a recent letter to the editor I saw from a high school cheerleader who didn't understand why gay kids at her school didn't feel safe -- every time *she* had a problem the vice principal immediately took care of it -- also, a friend of mine received written death threats from a group of boys for several weeks, her VP told her 'well, if you weren't so vocal about it it wouldn't be a problem -- when she was overheard mentioning to a friend that she was taking martial arts to defend herself *she* got suspended for threatening them -- zero tolerance = zero tolerance for difference of any type, not zero tolerance for violence in general), parents (who essentially have every legal right to do nearly anything, and to enforce nearly any rule, on their kids, until age 18...many abuse this) etc etc
At some point, it all adds up.
Yes, other kids are a problem -- but do you really think that those other kids would be a problem if adults weren't enforcing rules of 'cultural normality' -- or even if the adults weren't enforcing contact with those kids (as an adult, if I have a problem with another adult, I generally can avoid that person without becoming a delinquent. This is not the case for most kids)
Well, not many. And, from his book, Gore is not far off from this.
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
There is no reason for this type of language. I don't think much of Nader, nor his platform, but we should keep the debate civil. Is Nader a socialist? I'd say so. Are his supporters? Quite possibly. Are they loud-mouthed? I should hope so! But there's just no reason to call them bastards. With all the bad policy they advocate, I'm sure you can find something better than individuals to attack.
However, your implicit argument is that if everybody had an IQ above 125, we'd have less misunderstanding, less violence, less hate, less whatever. This I think is bullshit. I've known a lot of very intelligent people who were incredibly violent, a lot of very intelligent people who were so hidebound and conservative they thought the internet should be banned for its violence, and a lot of very intelligent people who really should have been stood up against a wall and shot a long time ago for being such assholes. Intelligence is not the only answer. It's something we should work on, but many other things are too.
If we're looking for utopic solutions (gengineering), we could look at finding infallible tests to prove that people are going to be good parents before allowing them to have children. We can look at societal aid to parents, both in training them how to be good parents, and in providing the support systems so they can continue with their lives. We can look at societal aid for kids growing up trying to figure out life. Better mentoring systems (with good mentors, for once!), better educational systems that reward intelligence and good behavior and stop encouraging bullies with lying faces who can suck up to teachers. Things like that.
We've got a lot of problems, and pure intelligence ain't the only answer.
Jeff
a chip off the old block?
i remember one of the State-Of-The-Union Addresses given by GHWB (senior for those who don't keep up with initials) i think in '90, he was talking about winning the war on drugs, and how we have to stop the trend of younger children getting into harder drugs. and then he listed some: heroin, cocaine, crack -- except exactly when he said "cocaine" he absentmindedly rubbed his nose!
i actually *did* fall off my chair laughing.
---
the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
Okay, seriously...+1 insightful? I am not posting in support of any candidate. I just think statements like that are really stupid. People call bush an idiot, and people call gore a habitual liar. And it seems that whatever party you belong to, that ususally determines which of those statements you agree with. It's ridiculous. Not so much that you made that post -- I expect that kind of worthless crap from time to time -- but that somebody actually modded it up as insightful? What the hell kind of moderation is that? How about modding it down as offtopic or as flamebait or even as a troll? The point of this news item was to talk about the politicians' views of the internet and the entertainment industry, not to bash any particular candidate. Do you think gore or cheney or lieberman are any different than bush in that he's ignorant as to the true nature of the internet and what it "causes" people to do? I don't think so. So why don't you think about what your motives are for modding up such a stupid useless statement before you do it next time.
btw, kudos to the one person that did mod it -1 flamebait.
"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."
Time is fun when you're having flies.
-Kermit the Frog
FWIW, he kept them unloaded in a gun rack (which did have a lock but he usually didn't bother). It was his choice to do so just like it was your dad's choice to keep his (presumably loaded) locked in a drawer. The problem with a lot of these gun mandates are they're exactly that - mandates. You have to keep a gun lock on when you're not using it. You have to keep it locked in a gun safe when you're not using it. There are situations where that may not be good for someone, especially if they feel threatened or don't have kids running around. I don't think the government should have the ability to determine what steps you have to take to protect yourself because they vary too greatly between individuals. I certainly don't know what's best for my neighbor so how could the some bureaucrat in DC know what's good for him?
But kids, especially little ones, don't always listen, no matter how much you tell them. I think your dad took a pretty big risk that you would listen, even with the education he gave you.
Again, this is something best left up for a parent to decide rather than a government. I was mature enough at 7 to have my own gun. Little Joey may be mature enough to watch a scary movie at 10. Franky may not be trustworthy enough to play down at the playground without supervision at 12. Suzy may not be stable enough to use a knife at age 15. I don't think the government can effectively determine what's best for everyone because everyone is GREATLY different. The best we can hope to do is give parents the education they need to help make decisions for their children. I don't have a problem with the movie rating system being used as a rough guideline to let parents know the severity of the flick. I don't have a problem with a violence rating on games. I don't have a problem with minors not being able to buy their own firearms. I do have a problem with a government that would say "Children are not allowed to see x until age y else their parents will be prosecuted and face z years in prison" or "Parents who give their children (some type of) access to guns are psychopaths who need to be locked up to protect their children from their harmful influences." I believe individuals are the ones who can best determine their own needs and that government is too broad and distant to effectively mandate those needs.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
There is no attempt to make a direct link between teen violence and video games anywhere in his argument.
He was not attempting to make a direct link, as far as I can tell. He was simply saying that what little evidence exists concerning the causal relationship (if any) between pretend violence and actual violence seems to suggest the opposite of the claim being made by George W. Bush et al.
"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat." -- John Lehman, Secretary of the US Navy 1981-1987
note to parents, teachers, monkeys(legislators):
RGB #FF0000 != blood;
=======
==( ====     !=   a gun;
=
=
($$, big house, etc.) != parenting;
spend time with your kids and try to understand them (especially if they are nerds/geeks/unpopular). if you don't, you only have yourselves to blame!!!!
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
The scariest thing about this election is the fact that the two leading candidates agree on most of the issues that concern us most.
Aha, but according to http://www.algorelovesyou.com/, Al Gore is 97% in love with Video game violence!
And if you can't believe comedy websites, who can you believe?
Michael
...another comment from Michael Tandy.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
If Ralph Nader receives >= 5% of the popular vote, the Green Party will qualify for federal campaign money for the 2004 election.
The Libertarian Party has never accepted federal matching funds, despite qualifying for them. They have always relied entirely on voluntary donations, because of the belief that it's immoral to take your money by force and spend it on things you don't believe in.
That's just one of many differences between the two. I would echo what Hard_Code said... put some time into researching the candidates (webwhiteblue.org is a good start) and vote for who you believe in without regard to who's ahead in the polls, etc.
--
I cannot say that belonging or not belonging leads to youth violence. I look at gangs and see a bunch of adolescents who belong somewhere. Namely in the gang. They've got an identity, supportive peers, and they've got a stable place in the world. Yet, they commit crimes and kill. Crime is not due to one, and only one cause. Rampage killers like the ones in Colombine are often loners, socially isolated, and abused. However, rampage killings account for such a small amount of violence, youth or otherwise that when they happen they make national news. And, that's something to be aware of: crimes that make the headlines are by their very nature novel--or abberant--from what is otherwise going on.
Meanwhile a good followup to the numbers in this article would be an anylsis of who in fact is commiting the crimes. Are the indeed loners? Do they have Internet access? What level of education do they have? Where do they live? I've got a hunch that's biased by my political views and background so I'm not going to speculate too much. I will say that one reason often cited for the down turn in crime is the good economy. That's a trend going on throughout the same period mentioned in the article. Of course, you'd have to be a doofus not see the sarcastic aspect of the article.
In most if not all states, you are required to have the front seat passengers in seatbelts in your vehicle; otherwise, you'll be ticketed.
Unless you're careless, you probably won't get a ticket, however... Typically it's hard for a cop to see in your car to see if you've got a belt on or not. If you fuck up and run a light, go over the speed limit, and so on, however, you will get nailed for not having a belt on. Who's to think that a requirement for child safety locks on guns would be any different? How often are there police in your house inspecting your weapons, anyways? If they're doing that, you've probably already done something terribly wrong...
Is wearing a seatbelt the next step to having your right to drive taken away? Or is it just COMMON FUCKING SENSE?
I've got half-brothers, and a father with guns. He believes in gun ownership, as do I. They found his guns in his closet, unlocked and loaded; they said they "tried to figure out if it was loaded, but gave up" and so played with it anyways. And I nearly lost a sibling because of it; the gun went off and the bullet passed within inches of his head and blew through the bedroom window.
Supposing there was gun lock legislation, and one had suceeded in blowing the head off of the other. If the law hit my dad with a beefy fucking fine for that, or even jailtime for endangerment, sure, it'd be the last thing he needs, but HE'D DESERVE IT; even after losing a child. This is my biological father I'm talking about here, and I care for him. It sucks, but I feel I have to take this stance. My siblings aren't stupid, but they are young and ignorant; and ignorance is NOT bliss - more often death.
headonfire
The most common question when something like this happens should be, where were the parents? Where in that child's childhood did they not have the love and nuturing they needed? Who was giving guidance and support when they were hurting?
The parents were probably both at work trying to provide some level of a decent life for themselves and their children. The single working parent is a rare and endangered species not just because of how hard it is to make decent income in America, but also because they leave society to rear their children and guide them. Remeber also that the government has made it very difficult to punish children, spank a child for doing something horrible and you may end up a criminal. Those who grew up in a single parent home lacked the guidance needed from the missing counterpart, grew up with no father or no mother and the one parent of course having to work as hard as they can to provide food, shelter, and clothing. Again, this leaves society to rear their child and instill upon them all the values and morales they will need to be a healthy well adjusted human being.
Where were the politicians when all of this was happening? What did the politicians do to try and combat this ever growing American trend? Were they giving more funds to the building of prisons and law enforcement agencies so more people could be sent to prison for petty things and learn what it is really like to be cruel and teach THEIR children those values? Were they voting themselves raises instead of trying to come up with a solution to the amazing lack of parenting taking place? They were pointing fingers at something else, focusing on a different scapegoat.
Why do these kids have all this unsupervised access to the net? They do not have a parent home with them to guide them and teach them. Nobody to help them work through the numerous problems of growing up in today's society. Nobody to teach them how to PROPERLY deal with their anger, how to deal with stressful situations. Where were the faculty when these children were be victimized by bullies removing the feeling of safety from school for the victim?
Instead of trying to shoot blindly in the dark and pin blame on what is the bandwagon cause of all problems in America, maybe the politicians should try curbing the media who makes the biggest deal of all over such unfortunate things like Columbine. They EXPLOIT the suffering of others to broadcast an uncensored message to America that they can be noticed and heard like that. Look back at an earlier time in American history when you always had a parent home to guide and rear children and one parent working could make enough to support a family. In a day when family values were valued, you just were simply not plagued by problems like these, and keep in mind that things were not kept under such a tight and intense watch back then.
"Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it."
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)
Hoplophobe - a person who has a morbid, irrational fear of, or aversion to guns, firearms
Vote Harry Browne for President!
I run GOTH.NET. Wouldnt you know it, alot of goths wear trenchcoats ... these guys wore trenchcoats! they MUST be GOTH! which means of course, GOTHS ARE MURDERERS! ...
... I still have it up to this day at http://www.goth.net/columbine.html
I received ALOT of email and backlash over the whole columbine thing. I even got contacted by reporters -- I ended up having to post my reply on the main page to stop the tide of 'you murdered our children' comments
Its things like this that really highlight how much of our lives are controlled (not reported) by the media.
First, I'd like to state that I found this article to be rather good on the whole, and exactly the type of thing that *needs* to be written if this whole issue is to be exposed for the fraud that it is.
However, it contains one irritating grain of hypocrisy that for various reasons I feel I MUST point out.
quote:
"...After CNN's introduction telling us what to think - cutting straight from footage of Doom to footage of crying Columbine students - the Senator explained how violent games cause children to commit violent actions. He wants to keep dangerous weapons like Quake away from our kids.
That's how the Senator - who voted against secure handgun storage, and twice against child safety locks - positioned himself as our noble defender of children."
I agree that the introduction you describe, cutting from Doom to Columbine, was indeed designed to "tell us what to think". But in your very next paragraph you commit the same crime. By pointint out how the senator voted on these gun control issues, you have implied that voting against gun locks is as wrong-headed as censoring violent media. Regardless of how one feels about gun control, the implication that it protects children better than censorship is every bit as much "telling us what to think" as CNN's combination of imagery.
And, correlation of statistics aside, isn't this really about freedom? Content creators have an inalienable right to depict violence, and content consumers have an inalienable right to... well, consume that content, yes? Saying that you support the freedom of expression and reception of that expression while at the same time opposing the freedom of self-defense (which includes storing firearms in a way that knee-jerkers consider "unsafe" but that actually allows you rapid and sure enough access) is like saying you want more government programs with less taxes, or dry water, or any other silly example you could think of. It contains an internal contradiction.
But that's only if you take a principled look at it. But even if your perspective is purely pragmatic, it still doesn't hold water. Consider a lock with a key. To be able to access the gun when you need it, you'll need to have the key close at hand. That means either wearing it around your neck while you sleep (or similar measuers) or leaving it in a place where it could be stolen (by your gun-obsessed child, I suppose) or lost. Consider a lock with a combination. If your child has enough resolve and unsupervised time to find the gun in the first place, he has the time to go through all 1000 combinations. And if you've done the horribly irresponsible thing and not taught your child proper gun handling and firearm ethics (indeed this lack of proper training and respect is what causes most children to become fascinated with guns to the point of a fatal accident), it's likely that your child *will* either acquire the key or the combination, and cause an accident. But assuming either type of lock keeps your kid(s) from using it, it keeps *you* from using it as well. And what's the point of having a gun for self defense if when you need it, you're unable to use it?
At any rate, views and even facts about gun locks and (un)safe storage aside, my real point is that Slashdot and its authors should not condemn another media outlet, be it CNN, the NYT, or the Podunk Post for "telling us what to think", then turn around and to the exact same thing.
MoNsTeR
It's really quite simple: these politicians are manufacturing an emotionally charged issue for their own gains.
my father had a scout, old, smelly, noisy, but it got you where you wanted to go. it had been previously registered as an "offroad pleasure vehichle"
Kid 1: I'm here because my parents were too lax. They never paid any attention to me. They let me do whatever I wanted. When people complained about me, they'd say "that's too bad". It didn't matter what I'd done. . . . .
Kid 2: I'm here because my parents were too strict. They wouldn't let me do anything. Whenever I went out, they wanted to know exactly what I was doing and where I was going. I felt smothered. I had no freedom whatsoever . . . .
____________________
Yeah. Go ahead. Blame the parents. Blame the internet. Blame the kids. The main purpose in blaming is to avoid looking for where you can take responsibility for your part in the problem. As long as you're unwilling to look at your part in the situation, there's no power to really affect the end result.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I would venture to say that we have had very few presidents, if any, after WWII who were anything more than well trained actors in the public eye. Why do you think Reagan was so popular? Plus, did you notice that in each debate, Gore parted his hair to the left, and Bush to the right? The conveying of image is EVERYTHING!!!
Harry Browne is actually on the ballot in 49 states - the Arizona Libertarians are busily engaged in civil war, and have nominated L. Neil Smith, a science-fiction writer. That'll sure help their credibility, eh?
Ph'nglui mgwlanafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgahnagl fhtagn. Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
It's called market share. I bet I can go to Circuit City and get a computer with Mac OS. Quit your whining and take a stance against a company by boycotting their products, but don't get the federal government involved.
Private schools work because parents who pay extra to educate their children want to make damn sure they're getting their money's worth.
So public school parents don't want to make sure they're getting their tax dollar's worth?
How many times each day do children view advertisements that have an underlying anti-school message...
The problem is that in America we somehow have a culture that fosters a fear of becoming more intelligent than the people around us. Smart people are attacked as "geeks", "nerds", "dweebs", "dorks", etc. because that's the popular thing to do. Nobody wants to be the geek, except those few of us who are bold or who just can't help it. :)
There's a mentality among the young in America that smart people must be picked on and taken down and somehow convinced to stop trying so hard to be smart. And sadly, sometimes a few kids are convinced and give up learning in favor of social ascendence.
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Bear in mind at the same time, that the other 'mainstream' candidate doesn't seem particularly fond of the 1st amendment, either - being part of the push for government mandated 'V-Chips', 'ratings' on television programs, etc. (I don't actually have a problem with either of those two things, it's the 'government mandated' part that worries me).
In my opinion, voting for one of the other candidates (Harry Browne is my personal favorite, but even Ralph Nader, in my opinion, is a better choice than 'TweedleRep or TweedleDem').
No, neither are likely to actually WIN this election, but the more people who show willingness to vote for "someone else", the more people will consider doing the same in the next election.
Naturally, this only applies in the US. Are other 'free' countries having this kind of problem as well (limited candidate choice)?
Joe Sixpack is dead!
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
'Authoritarian' would probably be a better word to describe the type of society the U.S. is becoming:
http://www.dictiona ry. com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=authoritarian
--
It's Eminem's. Everyone knows that!
Bush is against the internet, and Gore invented it. Nader and the potheads should die.... I should run for President... Damn fools!!!
...and I'm not sure we should trust this Kyle Sagan either.
Other factors are very significant. See: Homicide Rates, 1900-1998
Killings fell throughout the Great Depression.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Columbine is the most overrated news event of 1999. I know I'm going to be accused for 'making light of the shootings' and I am 'not respecting the victims.' Well, Fuck you. 13 people were killed, you'd think that they killed 15 HUNDRED people with all the media coverage after the shootings.
Also check out this quote from that fucking idiot Greg Zanis: "It's the darkest moment in American history." (http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/04/20/co lum bine.03/) Are you telling me that 15 deaths is a bigger tragedy than WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, and the Civil War? And nobody ever told this dumb fuck to take some history classes and learn that 15 deaths is NOTHING in the 220 year history of the United States?
And why was the 1st anniversary of the event NATIONAL news? It's certainly local news, but not national news! And I am tired of the media saying "We haven't learned much since the shootings." Yes we have: we have learned that kids who play Doom, Quake, Cops and Robbers, who wear anything black, who write scary horror stories, can identify with the killers, or own nail clippers or key chains are mass murders in the making.
I am fucking tired of all these 'Zero Tolerance' policies that are supposed to 'prevent another Columbine'. It only teaches kids that: anything can potentially be used as a weapon, kids have no rights, and every kid is a potential murderer.
We have become a society that is afraid of its own children, only because a few of us have actually killed in revenge.
That's right, I said REVENGE. It wasn't the video games, the movies, or the Internet (anybody who thinks the Internet is to blame for kids who kill is an idiot). Especially since violent movies such as Pulp Fiction are made for ADULTS, not children. It was because these kids were made fun of for years and decided that they would fight back. That's the only reason.
I suppose a lot of people that are reading this have been made fun of by their own peers. Sometimes by people who you didn't even know, but knew you. When that happened, didn't you want revenge, didn't you want to fight back, didn't you want them to beg for mercy, didn't you want to treat those pig fuckers the way they treated you? That is why Eric and Dylan killed, and that is why I cannot feel much sympathy for the victims (no, I am not condoning their actions, I can sympathyze with the killers for being treated like trash).
Crime among youth has been going down, but if you watch the news media, it seems to be going up, up, up!
Why are so many people blaming the Internet for kids killing kids? Because bomb materials can be found on it? Why?
Why isn't anybody blaming the bullies, who made fun of Eric and Dylan, for the shootings?
AND I am sick of my entertainment being edited to 'not offend anybody' or 'prevent youth violence'. I want Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker UNCUT!
Face it, people. Columbine is overrated. (If you ever find anybody who thinks otherwise, smack some sense into him or her. And be sure to smack Greg Zanis twice.)
People keep attributing crime to one thing or another willy-nilly, but the only thing that crime has ever been reliably attributed to is the ratio of the median income for the majority of the population to the median income of the rich. When this gets too wide, crime goes up. When it narrows, crime goes down. It's been narrowing. Crime has been going down. It was very narrow in the fifties. Crime was low. In the eighties, with inner-city blight and practically no means of employment for inner-city youths, crime went sky-high.
Crime isn't caused by guns; it isn't caused by violence in the media; it isn't caused by bad parenting; it isn't caused by lack of government or increase in police patrol; it isn't caused by war or peace. There are criminal tendencies in all of us, and when desparation gets high enough, the crime line on the bell curve moves and we get more criminals. When there is readily available employment everywhere, the line moves away from the center, and fewer and fewer people excersize their criminal tendencies.
That is the only reason anyone has ever been able to prove. The correlation between personal wealth and crime is extremely easy to demonstrate, whereas even parenting is hard. In Columbine, it is obvious that bad parenting had something to do with it, but there are plenty of situations where good people come from bad homes. Statistically, bad parenting isn't significant anymore than violent movies and games are. And availability of guns has nothing at all to do with crime rates except to act as a deterrant to petty crime, so a high saturation of guns in a society will reduce the instances of burglary and robbery and a certain decrease in homicide, but will certainly not increase these things unless they are in the hands of criminals only.
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither. - Thomas Jefferson
"Columbine spoke to a larger issue, and it's really a matter of culture. It's a culture that
somewhere along the line we begun to disrespect life, where a child can walk in and have their
heart turn dark as a result of being on the Internet, and walk in and decide to take somebody
else's life."
Perhaps you should read that again. It has nothing to do with the internet, it has to do with the responsibility of people. The point being, if children were raised properly, and supervised properly while they were in their formitive years, the internet wouldn't turn a child's heart dark, nor would anything else.
However, when the internet is used as a babysitter for children who's parents aren't interested in making the time to actually raise them, then the chances are increasingly good they're going to turn out screwed up, whether its the internet that does it, TV, gangs, or whatever else the current media crisis is.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
However, the actual truth of the matter is that these politicians do not see a problem in search of a solution. They see opportunities.
The first is to get the "soccer mom's." The soccer mom's don't like those video games, but buy them for their kids when the kids whine. They don't really believe that they are going to turn their kids into killers, they just think theses games are "icky." (And they think that that kid up the street, with the permissive freethinking parents needs more restrictions. If his parents won't do it, then by Gum, the government will have to.)
The second is to get the grumpy old people's vote. These people don't like teenagers, period, and anything that makes the kids miserable is fine by them. "Lousy longhaired kids, they think they're so smart. Well, when I was a kid they had a shortage of rubber, and I had crummy toys. Why should those punks have it better than me."
The third are the Religious Right. These people vote reliably, but their mentality resembles that of Carry's Mom in the movie Carry. In other words they're nuts, but the politicians want their votes.
The movie and TV industry would probably like to duck for cover, "Get those video games, they're to blame." Besides, if the kids can't play video games, they might sell a few more tickets to Scream XXIV.
Politicians also like power, and the ability to wipe their feet on the US Constitution. This gives them a chance to further suppress the First Amendment. Heck, it might just be video games, but it's a start!
So, politicians will always want to keep this issue around. It's not something the vide game industry could fix by self-censoring, politicians will always want to flog this issue, and they'll always find an excuse to do it.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
It's only if you have a weak mind to actively engage in such activities is when it becomes a problem.
Respond to s
I never said that. But there is more incentive for private school parents to get involved.
Now some public schools have serious problems: crumbling buildings, lack of space, special needs students, etc. These issues must be addressed immediately. If we're to spend more money on public education, we should spend it in these areas. But there seems to be this belief in the US that money will solve all the problems. The point I am making is that money isn't everything. Participation is what really counts.
Indeed. I'd even take this one step further and say that in the US there is intense pressure for young people to conform. Students feel compelled to dress in the latest fashions, eat at the trendy restaurants and listen to the empty, soulless pop hits of the day. It's ironic that in a country known for innovation we don't allow our children the slightest bit of freedom.
But that is a much wider issue than education. We start somewhere and pressure advertisers to stop the school-bashing. And I don't want to see lots of sappy ads about how "school is cool." Either don't mention school or integrate a positive message in subtle, non-bludgeoning ways.
--
Yeah, and I wish that not everybody believed every single thing they read on web. Take this criticism with just as large a grain of salt as you have apparently taken the third parties' candidates' legitimacy in the first place.
realchange.org is the ONLY site on the web that I have found that has bad things to say about Nader (other sites just paraphrase this site). For the large part, this site seems to be out to just criticize and slander candidates because it feels like it, for the sake of criticism itself. Most of what is there about Nader is out of context, and I don't really put much credibility in it.
Please, be at least as skeptical of your sources of criticism than of the subjects of the criticisms.
In the grand scheme of things, yes, Nader is head and shoulders above most of the other candidates. And if that just means the other candidates are sleazier than you thought, well, so be it.
I dare you to find a SECOND source to qualify, put in context, and legitimize the statements on this site. If you do, come back then...if not you're just propaganting unsubstantiated criticism.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Maybe he'll be around for the next election...
There was nothing in the original constitution that was prohibitive of slavery, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea.
I would be all in favor of an amendment making it illegal to transfer wealth from one individual to another without voluntary consent. It's called "freedom".
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Okay. Speaking as a parent who has raised a kid (she's now 23)... You can't blame it all on the parents, and you can't blame it all on the culture. The job of parents is made much harder by a nihilistic, libertine anything-goes negative culture. Those who say the problem is parents obviously haven't seen how hard it is to deal with these issues - quality time or not.
When kids get to their teen years (I suspect many on this net are there, by age or emotionally), they pay a lot more attention to those of their own age than their parents. That is their nature. It is part of growing up. And during those times, the influence of popular culture is enormous.
As an extreme example, look at how the popular culture in Nazi Germany led many kids to become SS members. In many cases, these kids were not bad and neither were their parents. But the constant indoctrination from the culture of their time (controlled by Goebbels rather than Hollywood and the Record Companies) was enough to turn many of them into brutal killers.
Parenting counts - no doubt about that. But culture is a powerful influence. And beyond that, possibly in the Columbine case, one encounters genetic or developmental biological issues that occasionally turn someone into a monster no matter what their environment.
The only good weather is bad weather.
"Vote for Al Gore if you think the first five amendments should be eliminated"
Once we lose our "Second Amendment Rights" we will have no tools left to attempt to recover our "First Amendment Rights" when they too are taken away.
Right now, restrictions on amendment #2 are much more popular and easy to pass than trying to restrict "free speech" or "freedom of religion" rights. In the short term, we are significantly closer to losing our second amendment rights than our first amendment rights.
For that and other reasons, I shall hold my nose and vote for Bush. Not because I agree with all of his views, but because I consider him to be the least dangerous of the two viable presidential candidates.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I sympathize with your comments, and I would like to add my thoughts as to why the culture repeats the meme "those who can't do, teach." I say it myself sometimes because, even though teaching might have been my natural field to go into, teaching is not exactly lucrative compared to other fields. It comes down to pay and prestige, and right now, teaching just doesn't cut it in those areas. Therefore, it seems as though it's the educated people who [for some reason] can't achieve in the private sector who are turning toward teaching as their only resort. Maybe that's not true, but for those of us who longed to be a teacher when we were young, it feels real.
I think we should start treating teaching for the high-level profession it is. We should pay teachers like we pay doctors and give them the respect that other professionals get. It's no wonder teachers feel they need a union, when facing the many problems you and many others are addressing here.
I'd also like to add that here in the SF Bay Area, the teaching population is in great decline due to the high cost of housing (plus the other normal work stresses), and there has been talk of subsidizing housing for teachers! Imagine that. If they were paid something like the programmers (who are largely doing less work) were paid, there would be no problem.
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
I think that most people are able to recognize this article for the reductio ad adsurbem that it is--i.e., if you are going to insist upon drawing a causal conclusion from the violence data, the causality relationship would go the opposite way. From an educational point of view this is often a more effective approach. Try to explain the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc to the sort of people who draw such conclusions just seems to them like quibbling. But show them that their own reasoning leads to a conclusion that they don't want to accept can get them to actually question that reasoning.
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
That there is a correlation between my access to my firearm and my child's was exactly my point, but you took it in the opposite way as it was intended. I see it as "a gun lock may keep my child from having an accident, but it also prevents my from defending myself", you took it as "an unlocked firearm may allow you to defend yourself, but your kid might kill himself with it". Which brings me back to what I said about firearms education for your children. I was how to shoot and properly handle rifles and pistols when I was seven years old, and got my first gun for xmas when I was 12. Needless to say, I've never killed anyone or accidentally discharged a firearm in any way. I was smart enough to never say to my friends, "I know where daddy keeps his guns!", because I knew that guns were tools and not toys.
You also *presume* that gun locks actually do reduce accidents, which is far from proven. I was a smart kid, and you probably were too. If knowing it was wrong didn't stop you or I, we could have gotten the locks off those guns no question about it, and we would have had the same chance of accidentally discharging the supposedly "safely stored" weapon. No accident prevented.
I'm not saying that exactly 0 accidents will be prevented, or even that more people will die because they couldn't defend themselves than children will be saved (though I believe the latter would be true). Regardless of that, my firearm is my property, and I have an absolute right to use it in any way that is not an INITIATION of force. Simply storing it a certain way is not a willful act of force, and thus cannot be legitimately prohibited. (also note that using it in self-defense is RETALIATORY force, which is not only a right, but considered by many to be a duty)
MoNsTeR
The problem is, the the laws that are passed to "make it harder to own one", or to "demonstrate responsibility" do little to keep criminals from buying guns. If you read the actual laws, it's clear that the ultimate goal of the authors is to legislate firearms ownership out of existence.
We ban cocaine. We banned alcohol. We severely restrict fully-automatic weapons. Criminals still can get anything they choose.Gun control only disarms the victims.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Little defensive, aren't you? If there's any hypocrisy here, its from the senator, not Jaime.
Face it: kids die every year in gun accidents at home, and thats not likely to change. The faster and more easily a parent can get access to a gun, the more easily a snooping 4 year old will find it and shoot his brains out. Now, name a single person who has died from a computer game.......
We don't even know if Jamie is in favor of gun control or not; he was just pointing out the inconsistency between voting against gun locks which would help reduce accidents (and actual deaths) but railing against video games that have never hurt anyone.
You're certainly right about PRC's ability to conquer Taiwan. On the other hand, Chinese leaders understand that even possibility of the nuclear strike is bad enough. Also, military guarantees to Taiwan mean that the US can act not only with troops, but also with trade and other embargo. It won't kill China, but its role in the world will be significantly reduced.
As for India and Pakistan, you can't destroy all the country with nukes, but they both have enough to destroy 3-10 major cities thus bringing life to a halt (and killing many millions). This holds them.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Libertarians are the only party for individual freedom and responsibilty. So, if you think you can run your own life vote for Harry Browne.If you can't run your own life then Nader or Buchanan or Gore or Bush will be happy to do it for you!
"What violence is in a dictatorship, propaganda is in a democracy." During war time, the information available was deliberately limited to pre-edited propaganda reels and edited front-line reels. Then, came Vietnam. The Television media was somewhat edited, but was raw. This swayed public opinion against the war. Watergate as well brought the people against the government and made people believe the media more redily. Then, you have Reagan, an actor who knew how to play the cameras. He was trustworthy, because he knew how to be. And Bush showed The Perfect Political War, the Iraqi Attacks. 90+% opinion polls. Now, we have the Internet. A technology which crosses boundries, which crosses nations with a dot-uk, dot-gr, dot-iq, dot-cn, dot-ru, dot-cd, dot-whatever-two-letter-ISO-code. You can see the rest of the world through a different nation's set(s) of eyes, and in a nation like ours where the media is highly controlled and pro-gorment and pro-megacorp, this is dangerous. China's solution was the Great Firewall, one of whose major crackers I had the priviledge of seeing a few months ago. However, in a nation of free-speech and free-media guaranteed by law, this is impossible. So what's the solution? Condemnation. The internet's bad, and naughty, and rotten, and filled with violence, and lies, and porn. And because people still believe the megacorporate media, they believe the lies more readily than the truth because of the infallibility of the source. Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys said that the best way to combat the media is to becaome the media. I guess that's one of the purposes of Slashdot.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
yes, but which culture?
the "culture" of a computer game?
the "culture" of a web page?
i don't think so.
try these:
the culture of consumerism
the culture of apathetic convenience
the culture that places the activities, opinions, and appearances of media-fabricated celebrities at a higher level of importance than the world or the community
the culture of the kill-or-be-killed teen years
If my memory of grade school serves me well (hint: it does), then nothing has a larger impact than the very culture of childhood.
nothing is more disturbing than the culture of public school, which is an evolutionary concentration camp where one unpopular statement, one mismatched item of clothing, one act of resistance against the conformist rules brands you as insignificant, a loser, a waste, nothing.
there can be no doubt that the influence of some web page i surfed through a couple of times pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of hours spent being run through the Status Quo Transmogrifier that is the education system.
russ suggests a little farther down that if these kids were inherently disturbed, then "isn't more restriction and licensing for weapons the _only_ way to limit their killing?"
i'm not so sure.
my question is: Wouldn't it be best to stop wasting our time complaining about some game/movie and spend more time giving kids something they can hold onto other than the hypermutable treachery of adolescent identity? If some kids are inherently disturbed, how is throwing them into a depersonalizing system with 2000 of their equally selfish, anxious, and uncertain peers going to help them overcome their nature?
I guess we could cut off their opposable thumbs to deter them from ever using a physical object as a weapon, but perhaps it would be more effective to work to counteract the culture that says "you are your job", "you are your possessions", "you cannot attain substance unless you make this much money, drive this car, wear these clothes, weigh this much, spray this perfume, have clear skin, have straight white teeth..."
these types of images are the source of the worst damage to a developing person.
personally, i find FPS games more boring than shocking. ["oh look, i just made a bunch of green and beige pixels turn black and red and then randomly disperse themselves in clumps toward the bottom of my screen. yay"]. what shocks me is that there are millions of americans who truly believe that if only we can keep those other evil people from electing {Gore,Bush} then we can begin to build a bridge to the 21st century, whatever the hell that means.
the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
Wow, I like how you put that :).
Question reality.
As someone who pretends to be at least semi-intelligent, I know that video games, the media, and the internet do not cause violence, nor do they promote crime.
This is my opinion.
However, if these things don't cause crime or violence, I must ask myself - what does?
Actually, I must not ask myself what causes violence and crime, I must instead ask myself "Why am I not violent and/or a criminal?"...
This is the root question. I am not saying I don't get angry, that I never throw things out of anger, that I don't ever yell - indeed, I have done all of these things, and will probably do them again in the future. However, overall, I am not a criminal, nor am I violent. So, why not?
I think (personally) it comes down to one thing, and one thing only:
Respect.
I am not violent because I respect myself and others. I am not criminal because I respect others and their property.
One thing I have noticed, growing up, is that respect seems (for a lot of people - not all) to come with age and wisdom. It is also something that can be taught. In fact, I would argue that even if respect is instilled at an early age, you still gain more respect as grow older. What makes me say this?
I have seen interviews on TV done with older individuals who, as younger teens and adults, commited various attrocious crimes (murder, rape, etc), but now see the error of what they have done (many times after spending long amounts of time in prison), and are trying to get youths around their neighborhoods to change, to be better individuals. I have also personally seen individuals who, as they got older, gained more respect.
Recently, I got my first driving ticket, for speeding. I was doing 85 in a 75 mph zone. What does this have to do with anything? Well, when the cop hit his lights, I looked at my speed, saw that I was speeding - and thus rightfully deserved the ticket. No prob there. After I got home (knowing that I typically speeded all the time, even going 15 miles to/from work), I decided to do an experiment:
For one week, I would try going the speed limit, and see how it was. I would respect my fellow drivers, and drive more safely. So, what did I find?
First, I found that speeding didn't help me any in the first place at such short distances - and extra 10-15 mph only saves a few minutes, if that, on trips of such short distances.
But most intriguingly (perhaps because before, I was one among many), was the blatent display of lack of respect of other drivers. Now, these same drivers would "get on my tail", urging me to go faster, plus I tended to notice more of the "insane" drivers on the road. I also noticed the ones who gave the same respect as I was now giving.
After the week was up, I continued driving at the more conservative speed. I have since found (it has been over a month now) that I find it less stressful driving to and from work - less stressful driving everywhere, in fact - since I am not having to concentrate as hard as I did driving at major speeds. I can also spot the less respectful drivers on the road quicker, and get out of their way, as well.
Lack of respect - this is what causes the majority of violence and crime in America.
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Voting against gun locks makes sense, for a number of reasons.
1. A lock on my gun will at the very least make it difficult to ready my weapon to defend my life, family, and home. At the worst, it will outright *prevent* me from doing so, say because I lost the key or forgot the combination. And if on top of that I don't have kids, then there's no chance of an accident being prevented, and thus no possible positive value whatsoever.
2. It is my absolute right to use my property (here, my gun) in any way that is not an INITIATION of force. Simply storing it in a certain way is not a willful act of violence, and thus cannot be legitimately prohibited. (note that use of my firearm in self-defense is RETALIATORY force, another absolute right).
3. Kids are smart. Could you have gotten the lock off of a gun when you were a kid if you didn't know any better? I could have, no doubt. All a kid would have to do is sit around guessing combinations, or just find the key, and the lock's as good as non-existant. The kid's also smart enough to pick a time when daddy's away, so he has a bunch of time to guess numbers or hunt for the key, whereas when your house is being broken into you have mere seconds to ready your firearm.
4. An irresponsible gun owner, who has children, and puts a lock on his gun creates for himself a false sense of safety. What a responsible gun owner does is take his kid to the range and teaches him how to properly handle and shoot a gun, and to respect it for the dangerous tool that it is, like my Uncle Marc did with me when I was 7. And because I knew proper gun safety that young, I got my first gun for xmas when I was 12, a beautiful Ruger 10/22 that I still have and love (I'm 19). Because I've known proper firearms ethics, I've never shown my friends where the guns are, or played with a loaded gun, or anything of that foolish nature. For the irresponsible gun owner who doesn't teach his kids about guns, that lock is indeed ALL that insures against an accident, and it is flimsy insurance indeed.
5. Laws mandating "safe storage" are unenforceable, unless we really do repeal the 4th Amendment (remember when we had protection from unreasonable searches and siezures? I don't, we lost it before I was born). The police would have to knock on your door, ask you if you own any firearms (this is already a hideous violation of your rights), and then if you say yes, you'll have to show them where and how your guns are stored, and the police will have to decide if it's "safe" or not. Of course, to even show up, they'd either need no 4th Amendment restrictions, or a proper warrant (and how would they get a warrant if the only evidence are the guns themselves?).
So, to summarize why no intelligent person should vote FOR gun lock laws:
1. They're counterproductive.
2. They violate our rights.
3. They don't work.
4. They're counterproductive.
5. They're unenforceable.
MoNsTeR
This is still worlds apart from guns, which have no other use other than the one they are designed for: to kill, maim, incapacitate or otherwise cause damage to people or objects.
If you want to make the purpose of a car that basic, do the same with guns. Firearms are designed to launch projectiles. No more, no less. What you do with that from there is up to you. It is impossible to design a firearm that can do that if it is inappropriately misused.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I don't know. I haven't even noticed that. I don't -- I have known people who chalk up *everything* to genetics. I used to have a boss who was half japanese -- I'm a quarter -- he used to claim that my computer skills came from the japanese quarter of my genes -- I didn't have the heart to tell him that my mother (my maternal grandmother is japanese) didn't at the time know how to turn a computer *on*, much less be a seat-of-my-pants unix admin.
My friend, you are terribly amusing.
First of all, I don't agree with the current system. If you read my last paragraph you'd see that I stated I was being sarcastic. It's difficult to identify sarcasm on the net, but even if you took my entire post as being serious, how did you come up with my "agreeing with the system"?
Oh, I suppose I should attend to my use of the cliche "stood up against a wall and shot" while I'm here laughing at your attacks. It's a cliche. A figure of speech. As in, a way of using speech, not to be literal, but to show with images.
I'm also really curious how you got the belief that I am opposed to the Bill of Rights or to freedom (and why you capitalized it).
Yes, I'm laughing at you. Your responses were so amusing.
Jeff
I don't know how to break this to you, but, well, this is true. What Nader means when he says that all scientists agree that we cause global warming is that all government-paid scientists agree that we cause global warming. The reality is anything but clear. I'm sorry you've been deluded into believing that the voices of science are unanimous. They are not. It's fine to believe whatever you want about pollution, global warming/cooling, or anything else. But claiming that all others share your view is ludicrous.
the United States should not be a leader in cleaning up the environment.
We shouldn't. The US should be a leader in cleaning up its own environment, and doing the best we possibly can not to cause damage to other nations. That does not mean we should spend trillions of Americans' dollars cleaning up Fuckistan just because the people there can't seem to be bothered to care for their own country. Be a leader, yes. But it should be leadership by example, not by force or intervention. And I strongly suspect that your (and Nader's) ideas as to exactly how to go about making and keeping our land, water, and air in good condition differ a great deal from mine (hint: if yours include legislation, or don't use the word "stewardship," we differ). But that's another matter.
America hasn't been a "free country" in a long time, if you're referring to the right to do whatever you want and damn the consequences. America hasn't been a "free country" this century if you're referring to children's rights. Children don't have rights. Children are frighteningly close to property of the country and their parents. Their parents have the right to raise them however they wish, unless and until they begin a narrow category of action known as "abuse" (which I won't even get into the hypocrisy regarding), at which point the govenment can take away the kids and raise them however the government wants.
Children are a perpetual, self-sustaning second class. They have effectively no rights, and no voice to complain about it. Get used to it. It's been going on since forever.
Your "draconian laws" are there to "protect" children, who are obviously impressionable in their youth and thus need protection. They're also there to aid parents in preventing kids from violating their will. Because, after all, children must never ever think for themselves. Until of course they become adults.
Yes, some of the above is sarcastic. Some of it is real. No I didn't bother to separate it out. Why? Because you're going to read it through your understanding of the world, and take from it whatever your brain feels like taking from it. So why should I bother with the effort to make it easier for you to disagree with me?
Jeff
I agree that it does make a very good point. I agree that it is a very satirical peice. I agree that most of The Onion is like that (and I'm more likely to know -- I do read it regularly).
But I disagree with one word: "however". I think satire is a great way to make points like this. You should say: It is satirical and it makes a good point (or even so it makes a good point), not however it makes a good point.
jamie, as usual, is hyperventilating as only an earnest and idealistic youngster can do. Bush did not blame Columbine on the internet. Think of it this way: Bush could have said that those boys had their hearts turned dark by hanging out on the street corner. If he had said that, would he have been blaming "street corners"? No. He would have been using "street corner" as a shorthand to describe a social phenomenon that is known to or is easy to imagine foments anti-social attitudes. Such forums exist on the internet also. You can argue whether he's right or wrong, but you'd do better to stick to what he meant and not some bogeyman you've invented.
However, the conclusion that can be drawn is that IF media violence encourages actual violence to any real extent (and of course, there is no evidence beyond popular prejudice that it does), that effect is too tiny to be apparent in the face of much more powerful social factors.
>I am saying that guns can safely co-exist with an advanced first-world society without causing extreme violence. How can you say that I am incorrectly inferring a causal link and then go on to assert that there is a causal link (asserting that removing a will remove B is basically the same as saying A causes B)? Also causal links are never as simple as just A=>B. The engine is what makes a car go. But if someone doesn't put their foot on the gas the car goes nowhere. That doesn't imply that the engine is heavily implicated in the going of the car. You can pretty well guarantee if you free up guns in most Western countries you will end up with a significantly increased homicide rate. There may be some unusual countries where this won't be the case but they will be the minority. There are many interesting reasons why both Switzerland and Israel are highly atypical developed countries. And I'm not sure that any country wants to learn anything from the case of Israel.
--
-- SIGFPE
let alone child to be concidering killing someone let alone sitting with a loaded gun waiting to do so.
I wasn't "considering killing someone", I was prepared to defend my right to life when the police refused to protect it. There is a HUGE difference between setting out to take someone's life and taking the life of an attacker in defense of your own.
What happenes when you get mad at someone, say your wife cheats on you with him.
I blow it off... I'm an atheist but I have morality. It's not right for me to kill someone unless it is in defense of my person( or my family ). Going on the offense with a gun would never enter into my mind because I was taught to respect the life of others. You'd better believe I'd be pissed... but rather than being foolish, I'd settle it in a civil manner. Now, if someone were to attack/rape my (future as I'm not married) wife , they'd better be ready to die for their crime if I catch them. It's all a matter of how you use a tool - a matter of offense or defense.
In your mind using a gun is a legitimate way of solving a problem, and its not.
In my mind, a gun is a legitimate way of defending myself and my family from harm( I also hunt deer for food which is yet another legitimate use ). It would be no different than picking up a knife, baseball bat or golf club or any other nearby pseudo-weapon when you're threatened. For some reason, you've bought into the propaganda that guns do nothing but harm people offensively... in fact, they're one of the greatest deterrents of bodily harm when used in defense. Making it illegal to own guns means only the criminals will have them... which means your best defense has become a criminal's best offense.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
The fact that few people say a thing is not proof that that thing is false. Merely unpopular.
When I was in college (UCSB, '86), this very issue came up. This funding mechanism was enacted for CalPIRG. Prior to this, a student had to take action to contribute by checking a box on a form or filling out an extra card (I can't recall exactly). Local rable rousers whined about student apathy, their favorite complaint. Imagine, students who actualy study rather than run about and protest. Anyway, some sharpy realized they could make good use of that supposed apathy.
A contribution was billed to you by default, unless you stepped out of the registration line and filled out an extra form to decline. Brilliant! While little Johnnie is stressed about getting into a Calc II section he's not going to be thinking about a buck for CalPIRG.
I even wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Nexus (UCSB's student rag) which they printed. I imagine it's on archive there if you really want to confirm what was going on then. As to whether Ralph had a hand in the changed practices, I really can't say.
As for the issue of R. Nader's relative merits as candidate... ha! Uncle Nanny! Green Party? double HA! If I wanted to live in some scandanavian socialist workers paradise, I'd move to Sweden. But then I'd be paying 50% or more of my income out in taxes. OK, great he's in opposition to big business intersts etc. but he most certainly not in a opposition to big government.
We've been told for so long that we need a big fed to protect us from the nasty ol' world that the simpler among us actually believe it.
The subtext of most of the current political party's policies seems to be "Vote for me and I'll take the other 49%'s money and give it to you." And I'll take a little cut for my trouble. heh.
The entire quote is "if seeing violence has any effect on children's actions, it obviously makes them calm and peaceful." This statement suggests that viewing violence either has a calming effect or no effect at all. Neither of these conclusions can be drawn from the supplied data.
i dunno about that.
bush v. gore
corporations v. government
parents v. social services
capitalism v. monarchism
humans are pretty much the same regardless. like anything else, when it's good it's good, but when it's bad, it's REALLY bad.
i'd rather have a great monarch than a mediocre president.
---
the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
I don't know if anyone else has seen this commercial, but there was an add for voting on the Television a couple of months ago that showed this obese star-trek, internet type geek talking about how most people in today's society don't understand the issues and how he feels that the populace are sheep, etc etc...
Then the announcer comes on "People like this vote... Shouldn't you?"
Hmmm... smart (although lacking hygine) people's vote should be canceled out by the majority!
Remember! Only you can put a stop to intelligence!
--------
Nothing can be done before the tremendous power!
RabidComics
Were the sources they listed on the site too much trouble for you to look up?
----------Forced PIRG Contribution
Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1983 p1
Christian Science Monitor, March 24, 1983 p2
New York Times, March 13, 1983 p20
Actually, the letter referenced in the parent post specifically says :
1. Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn
quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings--"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.
In otherwords, they are claiming that academic learning is not related to IQ, thereby, presumably, negating valuation (or lack thereof) of academics.
I'm arguing that IQ tests test cultural knowledge, academic knowledge and learned pattern matching -- in other words, your argument tends to support me, rather than the letter referenced by swinge.
You lose.
I'vwe done computer comparision shopping before, and to get a Mac, you pretty much are stuck with mail order, online orders, used, a few small Mac-specific stores and CompUSA. Fry's used to carry them, but it's been a few years since I've had one near me, so I couldn't say, now...
--Arcum
"We need a more intelligent, better-educated populace!"
o nferences/testing98/drafts/mcneil_valenzue la.html
I agree, in part...
The REAL problem is HOW we educate. Do we model a system of top down coercion, where the teacher plays the role of an authority figure, more interested in compliance training than learning?
Do we focus kids on competition by making it implicit in all the games they play and everything they do?
Or do we try a more democratic approach to education where genuine collaboration is at least as important as competition?
Competition means keeping secrets. Kids want to win, so they don't communicate. See how this breaks down collaborative learning? See how this isolates?
Same thing with authority. Should we coerce children into following rules, or should we show them the role they play in a democracy so that they develop a vested interest in following the rules that they helped create? We should teach kids from day one how to govern as a citizen in a democracy.
Why isn't critical thinking on the curriculum? Well, it would be disasterous. They'd see right through the stupid things they are being asked to do everyday in school. I don't know about you, but I would never deliberately put myself into a situation like I experienced in school. And I sure as hell wouldn't put a child through that experience!
RE Higher standards, we should ask for higher standards in terms of quality, not test scores. They are two very different things. Asking for higher test scores alone is asking for WORSE SCHOOLS! Don't believe me? We should all learn from Texas:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/groups/civilrights/c
and
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v8n41/
So in closing, you can spend all the money you want. But it won't make a difference unless you spend it wisely.
James.
Well if it is as insignificant as you say, why not include it? It seems to me more had to be done to take it out then not. A 1% decrease could be a very good thing. For one, its a decrease, and two, it could translate into hundreds or thousands of lives. I think even 1% decrease is a good one.
As Homer Simpson said:
"But raising a kid is so hard! Can't the tv do it for me?"
Would it make it sound any better if I said that Rush Limbaugh also think the same way that I do about them?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Sir Joltalot, your problem is not fuzzy math, but practicing fuzzy logic. Any argument can be drowned out by merely arguing the semantics to death. But I do not want to fall into the category of your last paragraph, I am just pointing out that the numbers have probably not been changed in favor of the youth of America.
Also, for everyone out there going on about the candidates of the upcoming presidential election, stop with all of your petty bickering. That is the problem with this country, when all logical thought stops and people just enter an endless cycle of contradictions. And for those of you who are voting for one of the main candidates just because you think he will win, don't. You are voting, not betting at a horse race. And if they only allow the two main party candidates on the ballot, vote for none of the above. This country was founded so that the people would have a voice in the government. And right now, we have only one more candidate than the Russians did under communism, and that is not where we want to be.
It would be very, very easy to rig tests so that members of racial, political, or religious minorities would not be permitted to pass, just as blacks were set up to fail literacy exams required for voting under Jim Crow laws.
Maybe I'm an idealist, but I think if we reach the point that you could actually get away with this, it's already too late.
IIRC, the Columbine kids tried this, and it failed. It's far easier to kill people with manufactured firearms than with homemade explosives.
Do some research. Almost any US citizen can become financially secure enough to pay for their children's education, live comfortably, and buy some of the toys they've always wanted.
/.ers can do this through their employer's 401K programs. The amount you contribute is practically unnoticeable, but the returns of a tax-deferred compound interest plan are staggering! Do the math, you'll probably be surprised. Who wants to be a millionaire? You can, without spending more than a few hours of time arranging it.
You can do this with an IRA, many
I was a complete financial idiot until I read The Wealthy Barber. Everything I've mentioned is discussed there.
It's not hard.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
My great grandmother came over with no money in her pocket in the 20's as one of the new immigrants. Now we're comfortably middle class and both my uncles and my aunt all own their own businesses and are pretty wealthy. Through hard work. You don't think anyone gets rich by hard work than your sadly mistaken.
- tred
> > That's how the Senator - who voted against secure handgun storage, and twice against child safety locks - positioned himself as our noble defender of children.
> If you think Handgun Control Inc. has anything to do with gun safety, you have been smoking too much weed.
While I don't agree with your general sentiments, I do agree that there is an enormous crock of stinky stuff involved.
For instance, who actually uses locks on their handguns?
Scenario #1 -
Dope dealer: Hold on a sec, G-man. We'll shoot it out as soon as I wake up enough to find the key to my gun lock.
Scenarion #2 -
Honest resident of bad neighborhood: Hold on a second, burgler man. Let me take the lock off my gun so I can defend my family and possessions.
Frankly, I think the gun lock issue was a content-free PR move on both sides of the issue. For one side, it was a meaningless "concession" that helped prevent more serious concessions. For the other, it was a meaningless "triumph" that lets them claim progress where none is actually being made.
I suspect a few people will actually use their gun locks. More power to them. But I seriously doubt that enough people will use them to have any measurable effect on the rates of accidental or deliberate shootings.
--
Give me a candidate who speaks out against the war on drugs.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Dumb-asses... I'll put money on it being .the ex anti-troll. Religeous Zealotry, Anon Coward, Kinda rough around the edges... If I'm wrong, it's not by much.
maybe you were being sarcastic, but they already broke several laws while gaining possesion of those weapons. would more laws and restrictions have stopped them? no. would stricter enforcement of the laws they were breaking have helped? maybe. who knows.
"Leave the gun, take the canoli."
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
And don't forget the current sentacing dispairities between powder cocaine (primarily used by whites) and "crack" cocaine (primarily used by blacks), and other laws which, while technically colorblind, have resulted in a fantastic number of black persons being convicted of felonies instead of misdemeanors and thus being stripped of the vote.
Maybe it is already too late. Who was it that said that the US is at that awkward stage, too late to work within the system but too early to shoot the bastards?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
That's a very good point. I was just discussing with a friend some of the factors that line up with, but may not be related to (much less the cause of) reductions in crime rates. Violence in media came up, gun ownership versus restriction came up, health care came up (tangentally), but economic prosperity was something we overlooked. Thanks!
Sad to consider, tho'...
I didn't say that removing anything would remove anything. I stated that I suspect that removing guns from America would impact on crime rates. I didn't even say which way.
This does not alter my argument that the existence of guns within a society is not a guarantee of higher levels of violence.
I suspect the main reason for Israel and Switzerland being atypical is the extremely high level of firearm education in those countries (predominantly resulting from national service).
~Cederic
Jesus, what's wrong with these people?!?! What part of "If seeing violence has any effect..." don't you understand?
anyone beloved by lawyers is automatically suspect in my book
It's a good thing you have that book to tell you what to think; you would otherwise not suspect someone that has gained the affection of more than one lawyer.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I think G.W. was referring to their whacked out website, not the internet in general. Get a grip. Both of these candidates have the IQ of a chimpanzee. The only real difference is that Mr. Gore is an EVIL chimpanzee.
I used to believe that. Then I reconsidered. The problem is not that religion (an outside influence) causes one to become less intelligent. The problem is that less intelligent people are drawn to religion. In the 1st century AD or CE, the Greeks had proven that the world was round and they had a number for the circumference off by about one or two percent. They had logically discerned the world rotated about the sun and had even come up with atomic theory, the idea that matter has a smallest point at which point it was indivisible without changing what the matter was. The concept of using steam as a source for work was proposed, but rejected because "we have slaves to do that." (The idea was that, by lighting a fire by the doors of a temple, water in pipes would boil, the steam would expand, and the doors would open.) Then, Christianity rolled in. By the 4th century AD, the universe rotated about a plate of the earth, which one could fall off. The Western Roman Empire fell apart after Theodoric tried valiantly to salvage it. The Dark Ages in the West lasted for centuries. In the East, in the Byzantine Empire, the intellectuals were all but drafted to the service of the Church. From philosophy, which was condemned as a pagan outbranch, they turned to theosophy. Some new research continued, and some impressive things came out of it (look at Ayia Sophia, a church about 150 meters square, built in an earthquake zone, and lasting one and a half millenia!) However, Europe was thrown back for 1500 years after Christianity, until brilliant people like Gallileo, Newton, Copernicus, and their ilk came up and said, No, this is how the universe works, with numbers and not vaguaries.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
That's irrelevant in this case, because the federal governement is a government "of the people, by the people", not "of the clumps of people, by the states' sizes".
The electoral college essentially gives a weight to each state based on the population. That's almost right, except it rounds the weight to a whole number, effectively screwing 1/2 of the states out of 1/2 a vote, and giving the other half of the states an additional 1/2 vote (on average). Honestly, I wouldn't have so much of a problem if it was done based on the states, if it were done like this:
Everyone votes. Then, a winner is chosen for each state based on the absolute number of votes in that state. Each state contributes to the total descision in a wieght equivelent to the percentage of the nation's registered voteres resident in that state. Essentially a more precise electoral college that doesn't give the electorate the power to make up for the "stupid public" electing the "wrong" person.
Or we could have a popular vote and let that be the end of it, since even though my vote has the potential to be more effective with electoral votes, everyone else *also* has more effective potential, thus increasing the ease at which I'll be outvoted.
--Cloudmaster, posting to an old, old article
How about the problem is guns in the hands of violent criminal people? How about if it were up to the NRA there would be no regulations on who gets guns? Sure the NRA does some lip service about "enforcing" the laws that are already there but if it were up to them those laws wouldn't be there at all. The comment about IQ tests was obviously a joke. Sorry you and the other guy didnt get it. I was trying to indirectly put guns out of the reach of pretty much everyone. IQs over 200 only happen in less than a fraction of 1% of the population therefore almost no one would get a gun. This probably includes me ( I have only taken one IQ test and it only accurately measured to 140). I dont think the police should get guns either. I imagine you are not very intelligent either since you atempted to defeat an argument ad hominem, which is not a particularly smart thing to do. Im sorry my spelling wasnt up to your strict standards. Interesting that you chose to vote for someone who can't even pronounce half of the words his speach writers give him. Also intersting you would vote for either the Libertarians or Nader if either had a chance of being elected since Nader is about as far from the libertarians in the US political spectrum as is possible. I also find it interesting that you wont vote for Gore because he isnt a "friend" of civil liberties. Most republicans i know of only belive in one civil liberty. Freedom of speech to them is some sort of strange clause in the constitution that we would be better off without. Guns on the other hand are a god-given right. After all everyone needs a good phallic object in their life and guns are oh so powerful and manly. Of course a large number of people involved in murders (victim or agressor) have violent pasts. Still inocent people are killed by guns in the wrong hands. I see no good reason for people to have guns. Hunting is not a necessary activity. Some people might like it and what not but by the same rationale heroine and crack should be legal too. I am not sure where you got your information on murder victims and cocaine but i fail to see the relevance or connection to any argument you tried to make. Are these murders A OK because they had cocaine in ther blood? Your prejudice is showing now.
Ah Ha!, Now you 1st Amendment supporters know what it's like to have a God given right infringed upon. Good, wake up America. We 2nd Amendment supporters have been saying this for years. Crime rates dropping, and yet more anti-gun legislaiton required. Well, 1984 didn't come in 1984, but who knows maybe it'll come in say 2001, 2007, 2015. As American citizens we must keep an ever vigilant eye on Uncle Sugar and his minions. Don't forget that Mr. Gore's main squeeze, Tipper (what's that stand for anyway, tipping the bottle) was instrumental on the Game and Music industry rating system we currently enjoy. So, if you think Bush is bad, wait till Uncle Al sets up shop in the White House with his main squeeze as second in command. I think the Bill of Rights will suffer a major blow with this dynamic duo. Muchachos y muchachas adios Hudson ' How bout dem Boyz ' Juicespeare
I believe in God. I do not however believe in religion.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Hey, are you familiar with the "assured mutual destruction" principle ???
;-)
No leader of any big country will do anything to trigger a world-wide conflict, especially after movies about the Cuban crysis of 1963 are filmed and shown to the entire world.
The only reason for not having another full-scale war between India and Pakistan, ex-USSR and USA, Russia and China, Arabs and Israel, PRC and Taiwan is the presence of the non-conventional weapon at the scene (one of the parties or its allies have it)!
It is like giving a loan guarantee - you don't give actual money, just an assurance. And China knows about that; they won't dare to provoke what might become the end of the world.
I am against policing the world by the US; no one gave it the right, so I opposed bombing Yugoslavia and will oppose anything that changes the balance, such as attempts of the US defence contractors to waste my money on nuclear shield (that won't work anyway
On the other hand, I think that IRAQs of the world should not be able to make an unprovoked conquests of their neighbours. I'm also sure that even if the cold War would not finish by that time, the USSR would not try to defend Iraq in military way.
Again, don't forget that you are citizen of the world, and you can't hide in the safe hole when the world war looms.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Someone who is determined to kill you will kill you and if he knows you have a gun, he will take it into account.
What happens when a (illegally obtained) gun-wielding thug breaks into your house at night to rob you? "hold on Mr. Robber, let me take my gunlock off before you shoot me." Even if the crook didn't have a gun, he could just as likely have a knife, baseball bat, pipe, whatever. Millions of crimes are PREVENTED each year because of the threat of a gun wielding defender.
And how many lifes are taken because of this? If the robber knows that he has to expect weapons, he will just "protect" himself better as well. Where shall this end? Is some property really more worth than a life?
I guess this just shows what they teach in the U.K. these days. Maybe the lessons of some 224 years ago were forgotten?
The U.S. Constitution I read does not assure you the right to be stupid and irresponsible.
The 2nd Amendment guarantees us the right to the means of overthrowing a tyrannical government. BTW, it was first used against you people.
-----
You mean you'll put down your rock, and I'll put down my sword and we'll try and kill each other like civilized peo
Perhaps you need to read your history books too, as it was the English government at the centre of the Empire. Scottish, Welsh and Irish citizens, like the Americans, were the victims of this power trip.
And secondly, you're validating my point; people seem to think they get more unfettered rights than "keep" and "bear". There are no special rights for to "obtain", "display", "lend" or "sell" arms in the 2nd amendment.
Does my bum look big in this?
That tears it. I'm moving to Canada ASAP. ASAP, unfortunately, isn't for four years more at least. I'm going to college in California, then I have to get a job that pays enough to allow me to expatriate, as well as a similar job in Canada.
Wake up Canucks, we Americans are running the border (and there isn't even a river to be crossed in the middle of the night! muhaha).
--
Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot.
Hitler was elected. It doesn't make much difference when the majority of the people are sheep who are easily deceived.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
RE Wall St. Article...
That's crap. This is a clear example of a bunch of psycho babbles trying to turn their erroneous opinions into fact by signing a petition. PATHETIC! Their very NEED for such a thing suggests a thing or two.
James.
That's a load of BS. It's only true if you include suicides, which is a stupid thing to include because it's intentional and self-inflicted. If there wasn't a gun handy, the person would prolly just down a bottle of pills or something.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Watch 'The T' kick Liebermans ass!
BytesTemplar.com
That's true. We 2nd Amendment supporters have been saying this too for years. It's not the hardware, it's the software between the ears that does the harm. Hudson Juicespeare
If you want the government to take care of you, they will take care of you as best they know how. That leaves you with three choices: 1.) Teach them how to take care of you in the way you want to be taken care of (but folks with more time and money have better instructional methods), 2.) learn to live with what they want, or 3.) realize that they will never get it right and take care of yourself. The Libertarian Party is running 1400 canidates this election, and they all want you to take care of yourself. As radical as this sounds, it makes sense to a lot of us. Harry Browne is leading Pat Buchanon is lots of polls, and he's passed Ralph Nader in some. If you want to vote for government to decide what video games you can play, what movies you can watch , and how the internet should be made better for "the people", just vote for either Gush or Bore. There isn't a nickel's worth of difference between them. If you think you could make *your* world a better place, visit this site.
Secure handgun storage? Child safety locks? These aren't gun bans.
No, but they do effectively render the gun useless in the event of an emergency in which you need it (i.e. someone breaks into your house or your ex-spouse is trying to break in the door to kill you). Not much better than a ban really.
These two bills are intended solely to prevent children from reaching guns and hurting themselves/others with them.
While I can appreciate the intent, I can't condone their tactics. Education, training, and enforcement of existing laws would be a lot more likely to prevent such things from happening and we'd still have a means of self-defense that was worth a damn when we need it. Look at the situations where a kid gets ahold of a gun. Often the parents or others are fscked up beyond belief and leave the guns laying around for the kids to pick up and walk off with. Think more laws are gonna fix that problem?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Overall this is an excelently researched and written article. I think that it is wasted if it is 'only' posted on slashdot (preaching to the converted). It should be submited to more 'mainstream' media.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
oh yes, i want a president who, when he gets the slightest bit stressed, starts spouting sensationalist media propaganda. yeah, a nationally televised debate is probably a lot of stress, but on a presidential scale? naahhh...
your anecdotal evidence, by the way, does not invalidate anybody else's anecdotal evidence. it's anecdotal evidence. at best, the most it can do is convince someone that a generalization is in fact a generalization.
my gawd, politics are entertaining... until you remember that millions upon millions of people are picking your environment for you, and that most of them aren't thinking. i love our (american) democracy.
[|]
Take a look at states with concealed carry laws. Violent crime has gone down even further in those states precesely because a criminal doesn't know if his next victim may kill him. Where do we see some of the most violent crimes today? Airports... because the criminals know that their victims are unarmed. How often do you hear stories out of major tourism places like Florida regarding foreigners being targetted? Criminals have to think twice before they go after someone who's armed
Where shall this end? Is some property really more worth than a life?
When criminals realize they will either spend the rest of their life in prison doing hard time or be killed by attacking an armed victim. Crime persists today because the penalties for committing them are too light. If a criminal is forced into hard labor in a system that supports PENANCE, he'll think twice before committing some crime against another human or society at large. If they think they're going to get their wrists slapped or suffer a mild punishment of 3 meals a day, cable tv, free college education, free weight room, etc, what provides the impetus for them to act in a legal manner? It sounds nice to think we can rehabilitate people but something like 75% of all parolees violate their parole and go back to prison... we need to tell them "If you commit a crime, you will be punished for it... and you can't blame society or your parents. You're not a victim... you committed a crime of your own will." Is property worth more than life? Certainly not... but only some violent crimes are caused by desire of property - many are the result of a desire to hurt another human (see rape, serial killing, bombings, etc). Would you want your mother to be able to have some amount of self protection from a rapist or would you rather her tell the attacker "but you're only supposed to want my property"?
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
Forced contributions to his college PIRG groups:
College PIRG groups, which Nader founded and leads despite his denials of control, use an astonishingly undemocratic, even coercive funding mechanism that Ralph designed. Once a college approves, all students are automatically billed a few dollars out of their student fees to support the local PIRG. To avoid paying, students must make a special trip to the Registrar and fill out a form so they can get their $2-6 back. Most don't of course, out of inertia or because they aren't even aware they're funding Ralph. That's why record and book clubs use the same mechanism. Nader, like most consumer advocates, opposes these billing methods as a rip-off - unless they fund his own groups. One PIRG worker estimated that at Penn State alone, forced payments would have brought in $270,000 a year, while a voluntary checkoff would only have raised $30,000
There's much more. I wish people would apply the the same level of suspicion to third-party candidates that they apply to popular candidates.
-$20? I wanted a peanut.
On my recent trip to Israel I found some interesting facts. In Israel approx 90% of the population ownes some sort of gun or conceiled weapon, but the gun crime rate to population is one of the lowest in the world. I'm not just talking about one portion of the population but Arab, Palenstinian and Jewish citizens alike. Just a few days ago I was hit hard by someone who quoted "why if everyone in Israel had guns, the'd be killing each other like in America!" Think about it, most of the rioters from the news are attacking with stones when probably most of them own some sort of weapon. Some of the reasons behind their actions are pretty resonable. The gun licence laws in Israel are pretty strict. Background checks are required and licencing has to be renewed every few years. If someone's gun is lost or stolen, they have to suffer criminal charges for it. Gun education is extrememly high in Israel (besides the fact that many citizens are requred to serve in the army). Also if anyone dared to pull out a gun in the streets, they would be as good as dead since either the soldiers or many of the citizens with conceiled arms would open fire. The last time a child was killed from toying with a gun was a few years ago. The main killers in Israel are terrorists and most of the deaths are sensationalized by the US press. This is a side note before most of the recent conflicts. I've been raised in a family where gun education was a standard. I was shooting Rifle and Shotgun at targets around 12. My father discussed the power of the guns and kept them safely stored away in one section of our garage where I could of easily gotten them. I never though once of using a gun to kill anyone. To me, a gun is another tool like a kitchen knife or a lighter, to be used for pratical purposes and respected. Again, this type of education starts at home. Anyone who only thinks of death and killing masacres when they think of guns is speaking out of a fear and ignorance of something they don't understand. As for Doom like games, I've been fragging my friends for years, and enjoying it. It's not like I'm going to go out, grab a gun and start killing people. Overall, this is just a issue to avoid the other problems facing the country, such as poor education in inner city schools. Just my two cents (and first post)
"Do realistically violent games and movies desensitize kids to the real thing? No doubt."
Evidence, please.
"Does it do so to the point where actual violence is much, much easier to commit? Unprovable."
If it's unprovable, why are you wasting our time?
"There are plenty of things that can cause a decrease in crime statistics, from better policing to bad reporting."
How about a decrease in violent criminal activity among young people? Apparently you're trying to dodge the conclusion Occam's Razor gives us because it doesn't fit your thesis.
"But claming that there's no correlation at all between virtual and actual violence, even in sarcasm, is just dodging the issue and irresponsible in the extreme."
Since you're the fool who's trying to demonstrate that there is a correlation against the evidence, the burden of proof that there's a correlation between actual and simulated violence is on you, and you not only don't meet it, you have asserted above that it's "unprovable". You make so little sense that I wonder if you're a politician yourself.
So you get your news from National Public Radio, also known as an organization that has stood firmly with the National Association of Broadcasters in it's attempt to preserve megacorporate domination of the airwaves by backing the attempt to overturn FCC regulations allowing low-power community radio stations onto the air citing "excessive interference". You didn't hear about that on your favorite radio station, either, did you? What else aren't they telling you?
You expect us to be impressed by your listening to NPR? Better to provide evidence that you're an informed citizen worthy of being listened to on public policy issues, and you've failed to do that as well.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Warning: tangential thread. May cause blindness, stomach upset, diarreah, headache, coma, death, or itchy itchy rash.
Money itself isn't the problem. The problem is the way it's allocated.
A school's budget for any given year is determined by how much money they spent the previous year. A school can get by for a year under budget. But then they have to spend the rest of the budgeted money, or else next year's budget is cut.
Here's a scenario: the school goes along for a year -- paying the faculty and staff, buying a few new books, repairing most of the broken desks, replacing the beakers in the science labs and the basketballs in the gym, and there's not much else that urgently needs to get done. So they've come in under budget. But the administration knows that next year, they're going to need to upgrade the computer lab. There's not enough money in the budget to upgrade now, but if they don't spend that extra money they do have, the budget allowance will go down, and they won't have enough money next year, either. So, they buy a beautiful 5 foot tall brick wall, with the school's name in embossed bronze. I mean, it's nice, but not really necessary, if you know what I mean. Such are the decisions that get made under pressure.
Or maybe the computer lab doesn't need upgrading; maybe they'd just like some leeway in case the boiler explodes, or if there's some other emergency -- my former high school had a couple real bad fires last year. A school may get by under budget this year, but it doesn't tell anything about what will happen next year. Unfortunately, the system for determining budgets thinks it tells a lot.
So progressively, even while attendance steadily grows, budget steadily drops.
If budgets were actually determined in a sensible way, or if the school was allowed to invest budget surpluses and earn interest, or something... Schools could save up money for several years to build the much-needed new wing; they could keep current editions of textbooks; they could buy replacement tiles that match the original tiles' color.
The violence scare is doing nothing to help matters. During my senior year of high school, the school hired a staff of six (6!) security guards, and installed a number of cameras around the school. This is for a school with about 1600 kids, in a predominately upper middle class neighborhood, with four churches and a retirement home within a minute's walk. We were lucky to have one hallway fight a month. The security guards' job consisted of stopping the infrequent fights after a minute or two, trying to keep people from skipping class, and hassling folks. (Once, a dried boutinierre that a friend of mine had hung in his locker was confiscated.)[/rant]
Sorry, I'm done.
Seriously though, I think it'd be good to know how those numbers were arrived at. It *is* 'fuzzy' math in that sense.. I generally agree with the arguments presented by many /.-ers who have posted here, and the numbers *do* back up a lot of things that I've thought over the years.
Still, the first thing you learn in any statistics class is that you can 'prove' anything you like, if you screw around with enough numbers. How is a victim of a violent crime defined? Exactly how violent does it have to be? Is a hold-up at a convenience store with a knife 'violent,' or does somebody have to be hurt? If they have to be hurt, how badly.. etc. Maybe the reason there's only 30 - 50 victims per 1000 is because a crime, in order to be considered violent in this context has to involve firearms. Or something. We don't know, and that makes the whole thing more or less useless.
I find this increasingly often with Slashdot, that there are arguments here with which I agree, but nobody bothers to provide evidence to support their arguments, so two disagreeing people get into flame fights over who's right, when maybe one could convince another if they had some evidence. Or.. at least maybe they could *understand* each other instead of flaming. Oh well.. and maybe this is redundant, I'd just like to post out that any stats prof will tell you that you can 'prove' anything, and any history prof will tell you never to rely solely on stats.. and I think that's reasonable.
"Caffeine is not an option. Caffeine is a way of life."
Sarchasm: The distance in understanding between a person who makes a sarcastic remark, and the person who completely fails to grasp the slightest clue of what the speaker meant.
I don't usually flame Slashdot commenters en masse.
I'll make an exception for every single one of you who paid way too much attention in Stats class and far too little attention in English.
Jamie's point wasn't that we need more violence. I don't care what he said; it doesn't take more than a few moments of reflection to realize Jamie's point was to brutally shred the conjecture that A) Video games have turned our kids into bloodthirsty murderous beasts and B) The people wishing to blame everything on violent games have any legitimate intention of truly protecting our children(as opposed to just trying to make a quick political buck).
Seriously, folks. Figure it out.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
If so, sign the pet ition @ e-thepeople.com: "We, the undersigned, hereby state that each of us is the child whose heart was turned dark by time on the Internet, as mentioned by the Governor during the second Presidential debate.
Further, we hereby declare the Governor to be a big smirky doofus."
we come in peace for all online
I guess what was to be proved is that saying that Doom etc. caused violence to increase is nonsense.
It's the same as saying that showing a bare leg or a naked breast in movies causes more rapes.
Patrick
The facts speak for themselves. If seeing violence has any effect on children's actions, it obviously makes them calm and peaceful.
:)
I think this is inaccurate. The effect of the Internet and video games is that kids are at home surfing the net and playing games. They have something to captivate their interest enough that they aren't blowing each other's heads off.
--josh
--sysadmin for ibm's ebusiness web farm
This shows only the problem of guns - criminals will choose the weekest point. What's the consequence of this? Everyone has to carry a gun at every fucking single place. Who has enough money can buy himself enough protection and we see the results - crime still exists, it's just concentrated in a few places and guns won't change anything about it.
If a criminal is forced into hard labor in a system that supports PENANCE, he'll think twice before committing some crime against another human or society at large. If they think they're going to get their wrists slapped or suffer a mild punishment of 3 meals a day, cable tv, free college education, free weight room, etc, what provides the impetus for them to act in a legal manner? It sounds nice to think we can rehabilitate people but something like 75% of all parolees violate their parole and go back to prison
What's wrong about education? What lots of people don't realize is that jail doesn't rehabilitate anyone. If he goes back into the same environment, he will show exactly the same behaviour as before. If you want to fight do something about society, take care that there is no reason to commit a crime. I know that's not easy, but it's the only way. Guns are no answer!
Wow!
.. i just want to declare genocide on the human race.
.. how dumb are these people? I worked technical support for many months .. I already know.
.. oh when .. will people look to these troubled kids' parents for the problem.
.. let's see .. the Columbine case:
.. they go out and slaughter a bunch of "jocks" at their high schoool.
... I just don't care. I think I'm going to register myself as a corporation and get one of those nifty swoosh logos. I figure, once I register myself as a company, I'll be practically untouchable by the government, so I'll practice my ritual mass murders of politicians.
That was a really good article.
Every time that I hear a politician, someone on in the media, or some ignorant bastard on the street; start bitching about how the internet killed those poor kids
I would ask
I wonder when
Hmm
Kids treated like shit in school, probably also treated like shit by their parents (this fact was probably covered up by the media, to preserve the 'perfect' american image)
Well, from my experience in High School, when I was awake anyway, the "jocks" tended to be over competative assholes, not all of them, but the ones that thought the school sport was the most important thing in their lives. They insulted many of the intellectual and "odd-ball" students, probably, becasue their parents treated them the same way.
THIS COUNTRY IS FUCKING PATHETIC
I don't watch the news very much any more
Maybe not.
--
you are not what you own
it's a sig, wtf?
The genie is already out of the bottle... there is no way you're going to eliminate guns from the hands of criminals in the US so the best thing to do is to have an educated and armed populace to defend themselves. If a criminal thinks he may die in the commission of his crime, chances are he'll think twice about doing it.
What lots of people don't realize is that jail doesn't rehabilitate anyone.
Jail isn't about rehabilitation. It's about paying back society for your crime. The root of the word "penitentiary" is penance... which is defined as punishment to show repent for wrongdoing. We're too easy on criminals today... instead of making them pay for committing a crime, we treat them like they're the victim. They aren't. The chose to commit an act against society and deserve to pay the price for that willful violation of the law.
If you want to fight do something about society, take care that there is no reason to commit a crime.
You're living in some socialist utopian fallacy if you think this is even possible. Humans have shown time and time again the willingness to commit a crime even if there is no reason to commit one. Nobody's desires are the same as everyone else's... Some people are simply wired wrong... even rich people commit heinous crimes despite the fact they have everything they could ever need. Make someone think twice about having to do hard time for committing a crime and keep the prisoners locked up for the full term of their sentence and suddenly the desire to commit crime will plummet.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
That's giving up and I don't want to live in a place of constant war. Search the web for nonviolent defense and educate people about that. It has been practiced in that past and has shown to be very effective. Of course it's not as easy as using a gun.
We're too easy on criminals today... instead of making them pay for committing a crime, we treat them like they're the victim.
Actually they are victims in a certain sense. The problem it's used as an excuse, where it's not. It should be the reason the understand and fight the cause. It's far too easy to blame someone else.
You're living in some socialist utopian fallacy if you think this is even possible. Humans have shown time and time again the willingness to commit a crime even if there is no reason to commit one.
I'm quite realistic that it's not possible today. But I understand the human being as being who is able to learn, that's what brought us here. We just had the industrial revolution, that created huge concentrations of people. Now it's time to learn how to live together. The old behaviour of the survival of the fittest doesn't work anymore.
Make someone think twice about having to do hard time for committing a crime and keep the prisoners locked up for the full term of their sentence and suddenly the desire to commit crime will plummet.
You will hide the problem, but you will never solve it and it will always find a new way to show up again. You only raised the barrier to commit the crime, but you don't remove the cause of the crime.
I've come to the conclusion that the whole gun debate in the US, and the pot debate in Europe represent 2 very different views of governments:
:)
Europe: We don't care much about what you can do to yourself, that's your business. However we will restrict stuff made to harm others.
US: We don't care what you can do to others. But we will restrict stuff made(or grown) that might harm you.
ok.. I havent worked it out completely yet, but feel free to comment
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Once again, it's not an argument for gun control, it's about better education by the people who are supposed to be doing the educating! Which isn't just parents, by the by - it's parents, neighbors, teachers, educating machines like TV, or the mighty internet, or your local library, politicians...Take for instance, what it would be like if there was no mention in the law of 'murder' or 'fraud' or 'Grevious Bodily Harm', because nobody knew what it was. If you took the time to explain it to someone - anyone, they would react with horror. If 'abuse' or 'hate' carried the same weight as, say, 'necrophilia' or 'cannibalism'. Target shooting and computer games would be all you could get, or want.
But then what would we do for fun?
Check the homicide rates in Switzerland. Then consider that every adult male in the country has an automatic rifle in the cupboard.
Compare the rate of domestic murders in Israel to those in America. Then compare gun ownership in the two countries.
Gun ownership does not necessarily lead to higher violence or death rates. You are incorrectly inferring a causal link - this puts you slap bang in with Mr Bush in the propaganda stakes.
I'm not saying that there is no causal link - I suspect that removing guns from America would indeed impact on crime rates. I am saying that guns can safely co-exist with an advanced first-world society without causing extreme violence.
~Cederic
Go read your Jargon file
A Portrait of J. Random Hacker - Politics
I grew up in NYC where contrary to what most people think they know, most of the people killed by guns are in fact not killed randomly by criminals but instead by someone they know or live with. And most people killed by gun in their own home are killed by their own gun or by one kept in their home by somebody else.
Good or bad these are the facts; in NYC the boogie man theory just doesn't play out.
Kennesaw, GA has a law requiring homeowners to own a firearm. I can't vouch for how effective the law is or to what degree it's enforced though.
It's obvious that Bush said it's the culture the kids are growing up in that causes them to go nuts from engaging in normal activities (such as using the internet or playing videogames).
If you elect Al Gorebachov and Joe LIEberman you'll have two of the biggest censors in the Country, Liberman and Tipper trying to label music, software, web sites....
But they'll continue to rake in millions from Hollywood.
The end result will be selective censorship, depending on who donates to the DNC.
I wouldn't doubt that at all.
Of course - I am from boston - my fammily mostly italien and sicilian. My grandmother was a bookie for a while. I have no doubt that the fammily had some mob ties at some point (probably post-prohibition era though - great grandpa bought their house for $8,000 in cash around the 1940s - was always kinda tight lipped about money and stuff)
In any case probably true - what I said about guns was just my guess - probably more fueld by tv images than anything else. Its pretty easy sometimes to overlook things like that.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Don't forget ultra-violent shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in 1995 and X-files earlier.
But the worst part is this:
It doesn't matter how few people get murdered every year, or the comparissons to the year before... the polititions are using this to gain more control of our entertainment and citing the few murderrers left who did it.
I don't think it would matter if ALL murders stopped from this year to it's end. Polititions would STILL use fear, uncertainty, and doubt to encourage people to sacrifice their liberty for an undeliverred promise of safety. Both Bush and Gore are guilty of this.
The real danger is DENYING our base instincts and leaving people to act them out in the real world. But this upsets the religious Jesus freaks, who tell us "thoughts of sin lead to acts of sin". A plainly unscientific and also (therefore) wrong assessment.
By this flawed logic, they can and will take the frag counts of games and ask when this will "spill over" into the real world, even in a murderless society. Bad logic is bad logic, and evidence won't change it.
-Ben
we need better parents!
You'll never get anywhere in politics by blaming the people who vote for you. Even if you're absolutely 100% right. You will never see a politician with this position get elected, which is a shame, since I firmly believe you're right.
When are they going to realize the fact that the crime rate is not a result of any gun control, internet or violent games....
Its a result of the overall standard of living and economy. When people have job, they generally have less time to go around causing problems (and less of a need to do so, why steal the tv when you have the cash to simply purchase it).
Take a look, the last time we (in the us, that is) saw a drop like this was at the end of the great depression... a time when we went from a very high unemployment rate to a very low one...
In the mean time, people will claim that their anti crime programs are working and claim credit for it, and then wonder what happened when the recession hits...
but anyway, my 0.02 worth
People don't pay attn to the mod strings, mostly to just "+1" or "-1".
And there's no way to mod "Funny but true".
--
we need better parents!
I think the Onion said it best:
FBI to Require Background Checks On Child-Care Providers; Child-Havers Unaffected.
--
Kudos to jamie for actually going out and doing the research. Mainstream media is so preoccupied with declaring everything a "crises" they pay no attention to actual facts.
Given those numbers and the supposed "increase" in exposure to violent entertainment, one could logically conclude that violent entertainment actually LESSENS crime.
It seems like such a simple, logical, obvious contradiction -- leaders take credit for decreases in crime rates, while at the same time demanding greater restrictions on personal freedoms in order to combat the "crises". Well, which is it?
The fundamental problem is that Americans get their impression of the rest of the country through their televisions. One horrible incident (such as Columbine) creates the impression that the same thing is happening all over the place. "We have to act!"
Result -- Absurd zero-tolerance policies that get kids suspended for carrying keychains with 1" models of guns.
Geez America. Grow up.
-- In the future, everyone will code Perl for 15 minutes. --
Good luck getting the general population of Slashdot to agree on a candidate. If you picked five Slashdotters at random and asked them who they supported for President, you'd get at least six different answers. The only things we even come close to agreeing on are that Linux is good and CmdrTaco can't spell, and you could probably get quite a few dissenting opinions on both of those points.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not necessarily my own, as I've not yet had my medication today.
Umm, duh. My parents are the reason I turned out the way I did. Their guidance (or the lack of it in some cases) is what shaped me. If my parents were gun-toting assailins, chances are I'd be running around school with at least a nerf sniper gun conveniently found on Thinkgeek. More likely, I'd be carrying a knife or a gun. If my parents were little angels who made sure I stayed away from guns my whole life, I'd still be toting the nerf gun but nothing else. So anyway, I agree that parents are more of an influence than the internet.
"You'll die up there son, just like I did!" - Abe Simpson
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
This was the most insightful and best researched bit of social commentary I've ever read on Slashdot.
I don't fully blame Congress or the candidates in the US for this situation. I hesitate to say this next bit: I blame the competition among the local news programs. I believe that in the competition for viewers, the major networks and their local affiliates learned that highlighting local stories involving violence, sex, and preferably both attracted viewers. The teasers like "see how this ordinary housewife obsession led her to kill her lover, after these messages" wouldn't be used unless they worked. Just as websites are judged by advertisers for their 'stickiness', TV news programs fight to keep viewers glued to the channel. The resulting coverage becomes more focused on violence than the statistics alone would justify.
A second important point is one of perception. The media may run one two minute spot discussing the "drop of violence according to a recent government report" and 200 stories about individual violent acts. To the viewer, the repetition will win out.
I'd like to conclude by saying that we also have ourselves to blame. As the viewing audience, we could select alternate news sources like Public Television (US) or the BBC. But we don't. Instead we gossip around the proverbial water cooler about the horrible carnage on last night's news. Maybe today's news is yesterday's gladiatorial combat.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Essentially the trends have been a downward slide in violent crime. Most kids will not be influenced by tv or video games but there are some that are. We can not say that tv and video games have no effect on all kids.
As Jim Carrey said at this years MTV awards, 'if we just spend some time with our kids, it will be alright.' Essentially he is right. Most of the kids that do the shootings or hurt others are sociopathic, they have no concious. They are disconnected from their parents, hence disconnected from society.
The sad thing is these kids will exist even if all violence was taken out of tv, movies, and games. But they are influenced by it. They would also be influenced by a bird getting mutilated by a cat.
So saying banning violence is the answer is treating a symptom not the problem. Sure the incidence of shootings and ramdom acts of violence may go down but parents will still be ignoring thier kids, the real problem in western society.
illenium.net - ultimate sk8 shop online
Well i agree with most of the stuff in this article, including the conclusions, i question why as we go from 95 to 96, the Student violent crime numbers become Student nonfatal crime numbers. Why were the fatal ones suddenly cut out of the numbers?
I do not support Bush. I think he is an idiot. I don't particularly like Gore, either. I don't think violent media contribute significantly to violent children (they may be related, though). But Jamie is being just as slippery as either one if he's claiming these numbers prove anything.
Example 1:
1993: Students' violent crimes: 1,438,200.
1994: Students' violent crimes: 1,424,200: a 1% decrease from the previous year.
1995: Students' violent crimes: 1,290,000: a 9% decrease from the previous year.
1996: Students' nonfatal violent crimes: 1,134,400: a 12% decrease from the previous year.
1997: Students' nonfatal violent crimes: 1,055,200: a 7% decrease from the previous year
First of all, how did the word "nonfatal" get in there in 1996? Are we still measuring the same thing with different terms or are they apples and oranges?
Second, I notice that student information from 1998/1999 is not given. Why not?
Third, why did you start in 1993? Why not start way back BEFORE violent video games made an appearance to get a baseline? If there was a big jump when gaming started, then recent fluctuations are moot.
All in all, poorly presented--especially since this is a technical forum, you damned idiot, not a pulpit for you to expound your personal political views..
--
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore.
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Bush was *not* attacking the internet. Bush was first of all pointing out that it is the culture, not guns, that encourages Columbine-like behavior. There can be no doubt that the Columbine killers were affected by the culture, and accessed that through the internet.
Bush was attacking the Democratic strawman that a lack of gun laws was the cause of Columbine. It is the folks who want to take guns away that are the greatest threat to our freedom... because they want to take away ALL of our rights except the right to politically correct speech, and the right to any sort of sex we want.
Internet folks shouldn't be so paranoid. The Internet is a big phenomenon. It is no longer the plaything of techies.
As far as parenting goes, there is no evidence that these were bad parents. More likely, one or both of those kids were psychopaths by nature, and picked up on the prevailing dark side of the culture as part of their fantasies. OTOH it is clear that the celebrity culture is what drove them to kill so many... they wanted to become famous, and they succeeded. This was a stated goal of their attack.
The only good weather is bad weather.
You are very much right about parents needing to be more involved. Of course there is the other side of the coin that we then need to make sure parental authority is also not taken away or watered down by the gov't/courts.
Brian Macy
If anything, games such as quake might reduce violence by high school outcasts, not by satiating violent tendencies online, but by creating virtual communities giving these poor souls some sense of self worth and human interaction with peers.
What these statistics do show, however, is that society has been making up a percieved problem of escalating teenage violence even as the numbers show significant drops, and then creating a scapegoat for an imagined problem. It is very frightening that not only this nations voters are happy to go along with this story, but also those who may occupy the highest government office.
Off Topic, but this is very much like the war on marijuana in my opinion. Lets imprision half a million people and kill thousands over a plant that has no scientifically proven ill effects. Why not do the same with violent video games?
The most serious threats to your individual freedoms come from the enormity and unconstitutional activism of the federal beaurocracy. Neither of the major party candidates represent any threat to this system, but if you refuse to vote your conscience, then consider: At least GW dufus talks the talk of individual freedom. The blood-sucker in the wooden suit just plays class warfare.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Oh, and Gore isn't all that great either.
Chicago Nader rally was sold out last Tuesday...*sigh*
[pink beam of light]
To be honest, I don't know if the last part is true or not. It seemed likely that proportion of orphans executed compared with the general executee population is pretty constant from state to state. I thus base my claim on the fact that Texas executes more people than any other state.
--
--
E_NOSIG
I think the reason for this sudden crisis is, although violent crime among teen has dropped, the violent crime that is occuring has begun to shift demographically. More of it is taking place in "nice neighborhoods" historically a problem isn't a problem to the media and politicians until it affects the white middle-upper class. I think that is what's happening in this instance.
Ahh, A nice legally binding electronic signature...
Politicians spout views so disconnected with reality that only those caught up in the whole self-aggrandizing affair find them remotely intelligible or relevant. Same shit, different year. The two main parties are beyond help, and I'm not sure the independents can build a strong enough following while maintaining their integrity to be able to make a difference. Once you stoop to the Democrats and Republicans level, you become them.
Today, most violent crime is still related to prohibition, except it's heroin and cocaine prohibtion.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
It's a pleasure to read articles like this one, with some research behind them. That's good journalism...
I doubt they would actually say irresponsible parenting...that would piss off most of the parents out there. They are, of course, NOT the ones to blame. It is the internet and video games, with thier hidden messages that are turning out kids into killers. I'm also starting to supect rocks and trees too...
This is still worlds apart from guns, which have no other use other than the one they are designed for: to kill, maim, incapacitate or otherwise cause damage to people or objects.
None of my guns has ever been aimed at a person, much less injured or killed one. I fervently hope that will always remain the case...but that won't stop me from using mine to defend myself should the need arise.
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
I didn't interpret that as an attack on someone else's rights; rather pointing out that while the senator wants to regulate something that has, at best, a tenuous association with violence, in the form of depiction, the senator opposes any attempt to regulate a tool which is favoured as an actual method of delivering violence.
Since both gun ownership and free speech are protected by the US Constitution[1], it seems intellectually incoherant to attack depict tools of violence while defending the tools thereof.
[1] I'll let others argue to what degrees.
Correlation does NOT imply causation. You are guilty of exactly the same crime you are accusing GW of.
Just because computer games were on the rise in the 90's and violence among teens was on the decline DOES NOT mean that one caused the other, or vice versa.
Please go read some Richard Fenyman - he had the right idea - what you are doing is pseudoscience, and in the end it will only cloud things up and push us away from the real causes and solutions.
LL
"If you are falling, dive." -Joseph Campbell
Did we read the same article, here?
Violence has been declining for the past half-decade or so. Is everyone taking that point? Actual violence is declining. If you want to postulate that better parenting is the path to lower violence, give parents credit! Saying "we need better parents" in response to an article about the decline of violence implies that you think there's something wrong with declining violence!
Kids are smarter than we think
They are able to hide a lot of things from their parents. They don't have to look at video games or movies to comit violence, it is just a way for them to vent their anger/angst. When you were a kid, were you ever told to beat up a pillow when you were mad? Why not go beat up a graphical representation of 0s and 1s? They are both inatimate! By everyone blaming everyone (and thing) else we leave out the real culprits -- the kids (or whatever you want to call them).
By mentioning Columbine over and over again we are only feeding kids with the idea that if you go shoot up a school it will make you popular on TV. Most kids know it's wrong, but they want a way to feel like they are popular. They want to belong.
Kids are smarter than you think, but they can fall prey to everything that humans can. Don't judge society, but give them a helping hand.
Just a few cents, or maybe more...
~KONala
I don't see how securing your guns at home, or putting safetly locks on them so that kids can't opperate them infrindge on your right to own/use them. I'm all for the 2nd amendment, and i think by law all head of households should be required to take a gun saftey course, and own a gun w/ammo. I heard that was done somewhere, and it had a very positive effect. But requiring that they be locked in a closet? That would only seem to be the common sense thing to do if you have guns and kids....my dad did it so i wouldn't play with something i didn't understand.
I'm sorry, but I have to take exception to this. His article wasn't well presented at all.
He gives great quotes and statistics and backs them up with links to reputable places. But correlation does not imply causation.
There is no attempt to make a direct link between teen violence and video games anywhere in his argument.
Who knows, maybe there was a similar increase in the sales of bananas since 1993; does that mean that bananas are responsible for the decrease in teen violence? Of course not! Likewise, video game usage may or may not have have been a cause (or effect) of teen violence, but no good evidence for that is found in his argument.
This method of saying "look at this graph! this is going up and this is also going up so this must be the cause of that" is really bad science.
LL
"If you are falling, dive." -Joseph Campbell
Nothing new really.
Kids ignored by their parents? Yes of course current generations invented these things didn't we?
I think the real problem is that this is just a large example of what I cold "golden age syndrome" (social psycology probably has a better term but I only had one class in it). Which is the tendancy of people to think "Things were better back when..."
There seems to be a general sense of "things are getting worst". and of course "this didn't happen back when I was a kid".
I am pretty sure that people have been saying this for the past few thousand years, and with the exception of changes caused by technological advances, they have almost always been wrong.
Kids doing violent things? How about Leopold and Loeb? They were teenagers who killed kidnaped and killed a classmate of theirs, back in the 1920s or so.
Ok, maybe prior to the past 40 years or so, semi-automatic guns were not as available. Better weapons certainly allows violence to be scaled up (like columbine) but seriously, its nothing new, just more of the same.
The only real change that I see, over the past 50 years, is the end of the cold war. Now there is no "Big bad enemy" that our media can focus on. So what happens? We hear more about bad things going on at home. Its not the big bad russians who want to kill nuke our children - its the guy next door.
Serial killers, sociopaths, and people who just like being violent, have existed since the dawn of time. The only thing that has changed is our ability to find out about them (and find out about them and find out about them).
Of course, being a MA native, I would be lax to not throw good old Lizzy Borden into the mix. wasn't that over a hundred years or so ago that she felt the need to axe her parents about a few things? (so what if she wasn't convicted - its pretty widely believed that she did it)
To bring out the old cliche "the more things change, the more they stay the same".
Human: Same animal - new toys.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The Internet is full of lies, nothing but lies, and it's easy to prove: The Internet has lies about the monthly civilian death toll in Iraq from the U.S. embargo, which prevents the rebuilding of sanitation facilities and medical infrastructure (no pipes, no pumps, no tools or supplies related to microbiology). The Internet says that about 1000 children a month are being murdered in Iraq by the United States. That can't be true, it is not on TV or in the newspapers.
The Internet has lies about how Turkish forces funded, trained, and armed by the U.S. are waging a war of extermination against their Kurdish population. This has never been on TV or in the papers, so you know it is not true.
The Internet says, that the United States imprisons more people than any other nation in the world, and that last year, the number broke the two million mark. The Internet says most of these people are in jail for doing harmless things that viloate no one's rights or property. That, alone, is enough to prove once and for all that the Internet is full of nothing but lies.
The Internet needs content censorship. In fact, to have a website or post a message, you should have to have a Federal liscence, priced high enough to prevent irresponsible elements from spreading any more lies.
A vote for the lesser of two evils, is a vote that validates evil.
The problem I have with this is that you're basically doing the same thing that the people who blame the internet for violence are doing: spouting off statistics without proving a relationship between them.
Is it really Doom that caused the drop in crime rates? Or is it better law enforcement at the state and local levels? Is it mandatory sentencing? Was it caused by things that happened 15 years ago? PROVE IT, or you are as bad as they are.
I have to say that Bush's quote about the Columbine shootings being related to the internet was weak. It certainly sounded like he was blaming the net, at least in the sound bite that got picked up on the radio this morning.
(On the other hand, I have to point out that Gore's assertion that more gun control would have prevented Columbine is absurd. The killers broke something like 19 different laws getting their guns, the problem was that they didn't get CAUGHT doing it. It was a failure of enforcement, by the police, and the schools, and the families, not a problem of not having enough laws on the books. But with Gore, as with all gun control types, all it will take is just one more little law, and one more little right surrendered. Then everything will be fine and the sun will shine 24 hours a day. And when that doesn't work, they'll do it again. This is off-topic, I know, but I had to say it.)
Jon
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
People have been violent ever since they started walking upright. Its human nature. Taking away illegal guns is impossible. Do you think joe crackhead is going to give up his gun, or will the old lady who lives alone in the ghetto give up hers? Taking away guns is not the solution, if you are set to kill someone it won't matter how, theres literally millions of ways.
By the way there is a difference between having a license to drive and a license to own a gun. The second ammendment states its a *right* while driving a car is a privilege. You can easily take away a privilege but not a right.
Columbine is nothing new, kids have been shooting up schools for years, its happened since the 1930's. Maybe if the parents of these kids happened to walk in on them during the 48 hour bomb making marathon Columbine wouldn't have happened.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I doubt those stats are even available. They would almost certainly show that the vast majority of teen violence occurs between non-white gang members in major cities, where it is already totally illegal for anyone other than cops to carry guns.
Neither fact would be politically correct to point out.
vote libertarian. they know how you feel.
Still, whenever I get into a fight (rarely) or see two people fighting live, the adrenaline starts pumping and I feel like throwing up. And that's just for a simple fist fight. No knives or guns.
I am most definitely not sensitized to live violence!
As the subject says: this is comparing apples and oranges. If someone get kicks out of killing real people, he/she is most definitely gone beyond of what mere simulated violence can accomplish.
So what you're saying here is that a bunch of 0's and 1's are responsible for the atrocities that happened at Columbine. That must be some of that new ass backwards logic I've been hearing so much about. This new learning amazes me could you explain to me again how sheep's bladders can be employed to prevent earthquakes?
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
-- Ernest Hemingway
How is it regulating the right to own them? I don't think such a law should be needed, but unfortuatly people are very stupid and seem to be lacking common sense. Such a law would just say if you do own one, be responsible.
Exactly, finally someone else that gets it. Get ready for the flames from angry parents saying its not there fault!
how long have we been hearing that solution? if no other cause for the crisis du jour seems immediately relevant: blame parents.
in this particular case, especially given that we're talking about a campaign trail:
we need better politics.
---
think! and when you're done that, think more!
Check out this Time article on the effects divorce has on children. To think the media/Internet play a greater influence than parents on kinds is rediculous.
kill_9_1
I believe it has been explained time and time again that the use the military has for playing Doom is to train team coordination, not aiming.
Personally I didn't have any benefit from playing games when I was doing service. It is possible that you will have a better sence of "awareness" in battle however. This would naturally be true for things like driving and such as well.
Not that I don't agree with you but..
You're doing the same thing that the politicians are doing, you're not demonstrating any cause and effect relationship. I could probably make the same argument about how solar flare activity reduces teenage violence but I can't show how one leads to the other.
unless that was your point, in which case I'll shut up.
In today's society it's easy to blame something we don't really understand and become famous for our opinions. If I were to right now state that I believe Snapple bottle caps are to blame for school shootings, I'd probably get at least one supporter. We'd rally against Snapple and their evil bottle caps, with a firm belief that we were doing "the right thing". George W. Bush is an ape, trained to give people what they want. And what do they want? A scapegoat to blame the USA's problems on. No one cares about finding the real culprit as long as they can blame *something* or *someone*. Heaven forbid we blame the parents.
"Dressing in all black is a fashion statement. It's deep, it's meaningful, and it's slenderizing." --Quinn, "Daria"
Who is CmdrTaco endorsing? I don't recall seeing his choice. Personnaly, i'm going with nader.
You'r right. I turned out ok becasue of my parents. We had guns, and my father taught me how to shoot. HE took responsiblity for my upbringing and taught me right from wrong. I've played all those violent games and I'm ok. Plus, everybody is too woried about upsetting someone and not speaking their true views. God forbid if someone wouldn't get elected if they pissed someone off. I like Bush, I don't agree with his views on the internet, but moraly he's a good guy. Gore, I can't trust what he says. If he invented the Internet, maybe we should bring him up on charges because his Internet indirectly killed all those kids. (And watch how fast he back paddles) :)
It is well know that crime rates follow econimic trends. We are currently in the bigest economic boom this side of the 60's. Let's face it.. in the 80's the economy was in a depression. Crime rates rose as a result. Now we are in an economic boom, there is less stress in the general population.. and the crime rates are falling.
Now violance in schools.. that's a good question. Why do kids come in to school with guns and start shooting? It might have something to do with opression.
Yes that is true..its a very scary idea to have to register to exersise your right. Will anyone that has a web page or newspaper have to regisiter to continue to use their freedom of speech? I don't know why that sounds absurd, but applying it to the next amendment is not.
A vote for the lesser of two evils, is a vote for evil. Thank you for your support, and remember, we are counting on you to do your civic duty on election day.
While besides being an excellent graphic novel, the theme of "The Watchmen" is quite important. With the internet, we have a great means to post information,etc. Everybody has a soapbox to stand on and thus a means of preventing what happened in the "Watchmen" (I don't mean what literally happened of course).
Note that due to the anonymous nature of the internet, you do have to take everything with a grain of salt (to say the least) and make sure you consider the source. But it is a means to keep an eye on the gov. and other groups.
A democracy is built on information and intelligent choices. Sorry people, you can't have one without the other.
Quote "WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
Pursuit of Happiness". Notice it says "all Men" - not groups, classes or corperations. MEN (and also women) are the singular unit. Why should one group be allowed to impede on my rights?
Guns!
Drugs!
Abortion!
Think of the children!
Columbine!
the internet!
Sleazy craven politians who intentionally start pushing those buttons should be politically killfiled immediately.
Here's an idea, where there's no consensus, just get the hell out of the people's hair.
You cannot effectively defend your own rights by attacking someone else's.
You can defend your safety (your right to life, if you will) by attacking someone else's rights. You are most likely alive right now because everyone else's right to kill you has been taken away by the government, while this does not prevent every murder, it prevents a whole lot. I know there are plenty of people I would have killed in the heat of the moment if I knew there would be no repercussions from law enforcement, I would drive much faster if the government didn't take that right away, and I would steal food from the grocery store if the government didn't take that right away.
You do obtain security by taking freedom away. In a truly free socity, anyone would be free to take your freedom away.
I believe it was in Philadelphia where this happened. They had a huge drop in home burglary. Interestingly enough, they also had a huge increase in "doorknob vandalism". How do we know if those numbers are valid? It might just be another statistic (worse than a damned lie).
Even if they are true, why would you vote for a chief member of the Clinton-Gore administration which wanted the Clipper chip embedded in everything?!?
You're assuming that criminals would follow the law when buying and selling guns. This is the basic fallacy to the argument that new gun laws would get guns out of the hands of criminals: by definition, a criminal is someone who does not respect the law. The guy who bought the guns for the Columbine shooters already was breaking the law. There are laws already on the books to prohibit that. We don't need more. We need to enforce the laws we have already.
Want an eye-opening? Look how many of the hundreds of thousands of folks who have been denied the purchase of a handgun under Brady were prosecuted - for even to attempt to buy a handgun under the conditions that Brady would prohibit it was already a felony, even before Brady passed. Hint: You won't run out of fingers and toes counting them.
I don't think Gore's license idea is that bad... you do it for your car, which is probably on the same level of lethal potential...
And I kind of doubt that said 14 year old, if he can't get it from his babysitter, is really going to go to the underbelly of new york or wherever to buy it from mobsters...
You can buy guns as easily as you can buy drugs. You don't have to go to NYC to get them.
I don't discount the notion of better regulation in an effort to get cheap, untraceable guns off the street.
Regulations such as these have the primary effect of depriving the poor disproportionately from exercising their right to keep and bear arms. In this, as in other areas, it's apparently okkay for liberals to hate gun owners, something no other group can claim.
Once they get the guns, it's all over.
This is half of the idea...now, combine that with the fact that there's no way to stop them from getting guns, and you see that the problem is intractable - unless you stop them from wanting to shoot up the place in the first place.
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
Its good to have stupid people removed from the gene pool, it can only benefit society. Back in the times when man had to hunt and forage for food the stupid and weak would be eaten by lions which took care of the problem.
If you are stupid enough to leave a gun laying around or don't educate your kids on how easily they can blow their head off its your fault, not the government for letting you have guns.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Wonderful! An easy fix! Just tell me where I can buy some!
Oh.
Never mind. Screw this. I'm not voting for you.
Bruce
Bruce
You are the real Bruce Perens.
There is a community in Georgia whose name escapes me, where every family is required by law to own a firearm. The crime rate is among the lowest in the country over there.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
you draw sweeping conclusions from a sample size of 1? No, you didn't grow up to be a murderer, but neither did you grow up to be a mathematician, scientist or engineer... I hope.
I'v seen a bunch of comments like your, but sometimg hit me as I read yours, not sure why... This article was ment to show that violent media reduced violence. I don't think the statistics show that at all. But I DO think that the facts presented in it do shoe something very interesting.. That there is in effect NO relation between violent media and crimes by young people. It can't prove that it causes more, it can't prove that it causes less, but it does show that they are not linked very closely at all because violent media is on the rise, and violent crimes are not. Unless of course there is some other heavy force acting as a balnce, but I doubt it... Ok, I'm done now :)
Our non-firearm (knife, rock, vehicular, etc) homicide rate is higher than Britain's TOTAL homicide rate (including guns). So even if the US banned all firearms possession, we would still kill each other more often.
Guns are not the problem, the Internet is not the problem- violent criminals are the problem.
New gun control laws in the USA only disarm the victims, and serve to distract politicians and the population from the complexity of a real solution.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I don't know why you're singling Bush out as being opposed to free speech. Gore and Lieberman are the ones running around announcing their plans to censor all entertainment media (that is, when they're not attending fundraisers in Hollywood). Also remember that Clinton and Gore enthusiastically supported the Communications Decency Act (unanimously struck down by a mostly Republican-appointed Supreme Court) and the Clipper chip. Censorship is not really a Democrat vs Republican issue; neither party has any objection to abridging freedom if they think it will help them win votes from soccer moms or bible-thumpers. One of many reasons I'm voting Libertarian.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
>What our Republican candidate failed to mention
>is that his party's bogeymen, the evil Internet
>and its evil twin violent entertainment, have
>brought about a new era of peace.
Jamie,
Perhaps you should turn on CNN. This whole wide world of peace and love which the internet has already brought about is in the process of melting down. The Palestinians are now in what they consider a state of war, the U.S.S. Cole is in the process of sinking (with at least 4 U.S. soldiers dead and a dozen missing,) Serbia is no more stable than it was this time last week...etc., etc. ad naseum.
While I agree that Bush is full of shit, I am appalled at the one sided nonsense that is portrayed as journalism around here.
No...I take that back. I ceased being surprised more than a year ago.
Have you forgotten so readily the PMRC debacle back in the 80's? Gore is no freedom fighter...certainly not for _our_ freedoms, anyway. So your buddy got grilled by a republican...bfd. _None_ of these bastards care about your freedoms, they care about getting elected.
The last time I saw something of such a ridiculous political bias, Sengan got his ass kicked (for a time, anyway.) Of course, at least you didn't disable comments.
-derek
"The things we wizards have to put up with."--Jethro Bodine
>This was the most insightful and best researched bit of social commentary I've ever read on Slashdot.
Repeat after me: CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.
His argument has great numbers, but he doesn't establish a single link between the two. He might as well have put up the number of bananas shipped each year and tried to correlate that with teen violence.
Wake up people, his method of argument is just as bad as the people who claim that video games DO cause violence in teens. You all just happen to like his conclusion better, so you are ignoring that it is pseudoscience.
LL
"If you are falling, dive." -Joseph Campbell
Kids kill themselves with guns 1/10 as often as they kill themselves with a swimming pool. Where's the hue and cry to ban those?
Here in MA, many towns have laws regarding pool safety, mostly so that kids don't get into your yard and drown in your pool. There has to be a fence X feet high, with no gap larger than Y (meaning usually picket fences). Locked (padlocked) gates to access the pool area. Plus you're still responsible even if someone gets around all that and still drowns in your pool. Homeowner insurance is typically higher as a result of this.
I don't recall hearing that homeowner insurance is more expensive if you have firearms - maybe it is.
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
Since Al Gore invented the Internet, I guess we can all blame him.
A choice of masters is not freedom
But I also disagree with Slashdot's statement: "If we really want less violence in our schools, we obviously need more violence on our Internet.
Do you really believe there is some kind of Human Violence Quotient that all humans must maintain? I hope not.
I think the real problem is that the entertainment industry is taking advantage of this lack of supervision to groom super-impulse-consumers.
Ask any parent if they think they're at war with the entertainment industry for the minds of their children -- they'll say YES!! The entertainment industry preys specifically upon people (and especially children) with low self-esteem and brainwashes them into becoming lifelong impulse shoppers.
The more low-self-esteem people out there, the better! One of the most common advertising messages out there is, "You didn't buy a Widget? Now everyone thinks you're weird!!" Unfortunately, many low-self-esteem people find violence and violent video games as a way to feel in control.
If Al Gore created the internet, and the internet causes violent crime, then logically Al Gore causes violent crime!
Come to think of it, I don't really remember to many school shootings before Clinton and Gore came to power.
--------- Beware the dragon, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
> Fully-automatic firearms were readily available
> in the early part of this century.
While true... they were somewhat more bulky than they are today. Also I doubt they were quite as prevalent and easily obtained by people without much income.
> It wasn't much of a problem until
> alcohol prohibtion ignited a violent black
> market.
A good point. Nothing better for the profits in the black market than giving them a new product that they can make cheaply and lots of people want.
However, still besides my point. I seriously don't think much has changed in the past thousand years or so.
A co-worker was just telling me about some letters between people complaining about how "Kids today don't respect their elders like we did. All they want to do is stay up to all hours and listen to loud music" - that were written before the Americain Revolution.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
...The facts speak for themselves. If seeing violence has any effect on children's actions, it obviously makes them calm and peaceful...
Correlation does not imply causation. This article correlates an increase in violent movies & video games with an overall decrease in violent crimes. The claim that exposing a child to violent media makes them "calm and peaceful" is absolutely outrageous. I'm not saying the claim is necessarily false, but you have no direct evidence for this. Only controlled studies with repeatable results can suggest causation.
Here's an example:
Children with large feet tend to be better readers. Does this mean that large feet facilitate reading, or that the language center of the brain somehow influences our growth? No. All it means is that older children (who generally have larger feet) tend to be able to read better than younger ones.
While you accuse politicians of spreading disinformation, you're doing the same yourself. The only difference is that your disinformation conforms to your value system.
how long have we been hearing that solution? if no other cause for the crisis du jour seems immediately relevant: blame parents.
Are parents not legally and morally responsible for their children until their children reach adult age?
The reason that particular solution hasn't gone away yet is because as a general rule parents aren't taking responsibility for their children's upbringing. They pop 'em out, plunk them in front of the TV/computer/N64 and then blame everyone else when their kid turns out to be the next psychopath.
As a parent of two (soon three) children myself, I know damn well how much hard work it is to raise kids (and these kids aren't even old enough to cause real trouble yet!) -- many parents just don't realize how much effort is required and when they do, they slough it off since it's "too much".
So yes, better parents is the answer.
I say that and get flamed,but you get modded up...hmmm :) At any rate, i grew up playing doom, mortal kombat, quake, etc etc and i haven't killed anyone. I can't even bring myself to litter...so i really have a hard time buying its the video games. Maybe its possible if you sit your kid in front of them instead of raising them, but thats not the game's fault the parent is negligent.
I realize that this is not a discussion about gun control, but this is just a stupid analogy. The fact that a car can be used to kill someone is a consequence of physics, not design. A car is designed to move people from one place to another. Since it'd be impossible to design a car that could accomplish this goal but could NOT kill someone if appropriately misused, yes cars can kill people. This is still worlds apart from guns, which have no other use other than the one they are designed for: to kill, maim, incapacitate or otherwise cause damage to people or objects. And let's be serious: I don't think the intent of licensing people to drive was ever anything along the lines of "if we make them get a license they won't go out running people over on purpose!"
i proposed this more than a year ago on mentalhygiene
well, something like this. more violence on the internet==less violence in reality, more porn in school==less violence in school. it's a similar tack, anyway.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
I appreciate the tongue-in-cheek commentary on political hype, but correllating an increase in violent games and movies to a decrease in violent statistics is just as bad as what the politicians are claiming.
(Emphasis mine.)
If you realize it is tongue in cheek, then why do you say it is just as bad? It's not. It's tongue in cheek! Is he really saying that increasing the amount of violence on the internet and movies causes a decrease of violence amoung the young in real life? No.
So he didn't hesitate to shoot a target? Oh, the humanity!
He knew how to use a handgun properly, and had a steady aim? Bah, we need uninformed, uncoordinated individuals in our society.
"A well-regulate militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..." The military uses games to train soldiers in the use of firearms, not in the desensitizing of murder (excuse me, "war"). I don't see the problem with having citizens who know how to use and *respect* firearms. I have a problem with a government that thinks we're all too simple-minded to handle complicated stuff. 'Course, we *do* still have an electoral college instead of real votes, and we *did* end up with bush/gore as our 2 best presidential cantidates, so maybe we are too simple-minded... :)
<rant>
Actually, they should look at what happened when some countries banned violent games. The graphs of ciminal age for those countries durring those years should not be falling as fast as prior to banning games (or should be increasing). This is still just corrolational evidence, but it's more convincing.
Also, it's possible that the "training" and desencitisation kids get from violent video games is exactly what they need to prevent violence. Simply, practice improves your critical thinking during violent situations which leads to a better understanding of the advantages of a nonviolent solution, i.e. kids learn to minimize the effects of adrinolin and/or the violent situation on their judgement processes.
Actually, that would be an interesting studdy. Do kids who play violent video games manage to get out of more fights without violence. If the result's were positive then it would go a long way towards showing that violent video games really do decrease violence among kids.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
She was satirizing their comments more then making her own point. She was showing that if Bush or Gore want to point to the Internet or the Movies as the cause of violence, she can be just as ridiculous in showing that they are the solution to violence.
I'm 100% certain that if you sat down jamie and asked her (I'm assuming it's a female jamie, and if I'm wrong I'm sorry) she would tell you that she doesn't really believe that Doom is directly lowering the rate of violence in this country.
--
RumorsDaily
You'd think so, wouldn't you? My wife is a nanny for 3 boys between ages 2 and 10. Both of their parents are Ph.D.s and are tenured university professors. I think they qualify as "intelligent" and "well-educated".
However, these people are about the worst parents I've ever heard of. The mother has no clue about nutrition (gives her kids cookies or even a bowl of bacon bits for breakfast - I kid you not). The father will leave the kids alone in the house while he goes out for coffee. Both of them let the youngest stay up until nearly midnight. Discipline is non-existent, and each child knows how to push the parent's buttons just so. To wit, the 3 year-old was getting HARD CANDIES for BREAKFAST when he was less than 2. Stupid, AND dangerous.
So, a clarification: We need intelligent people who are well-educated about being parents. Frankly, intelligence and higher learning do not a good parent make.
Mr. Ska
How many kids do you honestly think were killed in any given year. It's not more than a thousand, so it's probably statistically insignificant. There are only what, 30,000 murders in the whole US every year.
Del
P.S. Oooh, a 1% decrease in crime! That's got to be meaningful!
I just wanted to congratulate you on your excellent piece:2 254&mode=thread
"Uncensored Media Considered Harmless"
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/12/141
You can see why republicans in particular work to perpetuate the
poor state of education in the US. If George W., can't understand
statistics and can dimiss it as "fuzzy math," why shouldn't
everyone?
Good job,
//pauly
Of course, after that we'd no doubt see a five day waiting period to buy a gallon of gasoline, and federally mandated gas cap locks.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Those of you who have seen 'Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels' (It's actually mentioned in the article) may have noticed the way guns are used in the movie. That is to say, nobody in that whole film knew what the hell they were doing with a gun because they are illegal in the UK and no one is trained to use them. So what you have is gangsters slaughtering each other caused by ignorance of gun safety. I had never shot a gun in my life until two years ago, but the first time I picked one up for target practice I was dead on, and I attribute that to playing FPSs for hours at a time. These violent games may not do good by teaching kids how to handle guns, (considering they teach you shoot everyone in sight with them) but they at least get you accustomed to them. Ignorance is worse than knowledge. Not knowing what a gun can do to you or someone else is a most dangerous thing to a 10 year old.
:)
Just an idea, I'm not a member of the NRA or anything.
God is real unless declared integer.
This is the point of the article, i think. Its saying that if you do take the statistics that the politicians are abndying around, and examine them, then you find that what they are saying does not show what they say...
== Perl generally does the right thing, unless you want it to do something else ==
hmmm .... this sounds interesting.
... a concerned adult, who has learned proper social interactions, guiding and teaching a younger member of society, who may not understand the implications of his or her actions, to come to a peaceful and harmonious relationship with the other members.
Let's see
Wow! This is quite an innovation. We should get some of our top people on this.
Seriously though, the lack of parental involvement has to be the largest problem in the US.
And I think the decrease in violence statistics has a lot to do with the economic climate. People tend to be more satisfied now. (of course, I would like someone to pull out some numbers for urban areas, which may have been left behind in our prosperity).
And although violence may not be the root cause of violence. It is definitely desensitizing us, or else we wouldn't be able to take this article in somewhat lightly.
The truth is that the Republicans decide, after the string of school shootings that the best way for them to defend their positions on guns was to ratchet up the Culture War. The Democratic presidential ticket is just as right wing on the Culture War as the Republicans are, there is no significant difference between the two tickets on the First Amendment.
I'm probably tilting at windmills with my Libertarian vote, but as far as I'm concerned a vote for the two party system is a wasted vote, and I don't feel like sitting home on election day feeling irrelevant as the Democratic and Republican sharks circle around the US Constitution deciding with part to chomp off next.
As a game developer recently wrote in Computer Gaming monthly, games are going to take the fall for Hollywood, because Hollywood has more clout with the old men than the Gaming Industry. The studies which supposedly "prove" that violent video-games lead to violence in real life are junk science (see my sig), but that won't matter to people who believe that creation science is not an oxymoron. (Or even to some others, who may scoff at people who believe in creation science but will choose to believe the nonsense behind these studies because it fits in with their world view, or gets them money and political power.)
America is not a free country, it is only free compared to worse places. When you go to a movie, you don't see the same one they can show unedited in Europe. When you play a game, you play a different version than they play in Japan. It's a new age of censorship, with the government putting legal muscle behind region based censorship.
We will continue to hear, from the fascists who now populate the Republican and Democratic parties that "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds." If you can put aside the reality of life in modern America and believe that, I envy you. Unfortunately, I am incapable of destroying my powers of reason to the point where I can agree with such a statement.
We are heading into a new dark age, and no one is putting on the brakes. Where is a public voice against censorship? Where is a cry for reason over emotion?
Not in American political life, that's for sure!
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
This is either a sick joke or blatant troll. Moderators please see to fixing this post.
Maybe you have texas confused with china when it comes to executing orphans. I'm all for executing criminals. They take away someones right to live, so as punishment theirs gets taken away. None of this humane lethal injection either lets give them a choice or hanging, firing squad, drowning, or the method used on their victim.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
The problem is not the growing number of school shootings, but the growing number of school shootings of white teenagers against other white teenagers.
I lived in Philly most of my life growing up, and there were always lots of shootings and incidents in the city schools. But they were predominately in the black schools, and so nobody put up much of a fuss about it. I think it just goes to show how the media is still an ethnocentric device of the majority race of this country.
--------- Beware the dragon, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
The American Public does not understand numbers. What they understand is media coverage, and the media is becoming more focused on juvenile crime. Although the incidence of juvenile crimes is decreasing, it seems that the severity -- the contrast between minor and major -- is increasing.
The media, and the government, are highlighting the most vicious crimes. Perhaps this is an attempt to leverage the American Public into believing that guns are bad and video games are bad? I find it interesting, though, that the media seems to label as "religious fanatic" anyone who claims that the drivel coming out of Hollywood might contribute to The Problem. (Oooops, I just made myself a target to be labeled a religious fanatic: "..drivel coming out of Hollywood...")
Again, looking at numbers (remember, the American Public doesn't understand numbers), it has been shown that states which allow concealed handgun carry permits have seen a drop in violent crime: simply, criminals do not know who has a gun (and can fight back) and who does not (and therefore is a helpless victim). With the right to carry and posess firearms, comes the responsibility to teach ourselves -- and our children -- proper and safe gun handling. Do not assume that because your child can't get your gun that it's safe... teach them to respect the awesome power it has, teach them how to handle it (don't point it at anything you don't want to kill), but above all, teach them the value and sanctity of human life and to respect it to the utmost. The former sheriff in my county once stated that it was his "personal mission to issue a concealed carry permit to every citizen of this county" (paraphrased). I only wish I had a URL to back up my claim of reduced interpersonal crime with concealed carry.
So then what is causing people to become (seemingly) so much more violent? Is it video games? Movies? the Internet? the 10 o'clock news? I really doubt it. Moreso, there is a general loss of respect and civility in our society. "Screw the other guy to get my way." "He screwed my, so I'll get even" seem to be our mantras. Some people take this too far (Columbine, Oklahoma City, the Unabomer). The loss of civility, I think, can be traced to the misinterpretation of the Supreme Court's decision effectively banning Christian religious education in schools. (I believe it was meant to remove it from the curriculum, not to ban it entirely.)
Certainly, religious education (do this, don't do that, believe all your sins forgiven in Jesus' holy name and precious shed blood, etc.) should not be a part of the curriculum. But at the same time, teachers, and students, should be free to discuss, in a manner which will have no bearing on grades, their religious and moral beliefs. Teachers have become afraid to teach what is right and what is wrong, for fear that someone will sue for imposing religious principles. Parents have become afraid to punish naughty children or set limits on their freedoms for fear of losing them to the state's child protective services division.
No one in this country has more "rights" today than our children. And they are abusing those rights.
"...Congress shall make no law... respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
Four legs good! Two legs Baaad!!!!! Four legs good! Two legs Baaad!!!!! Four legs good! Two legs Baaad!!!!! Four legs good! Two legs Baaad!!!!! See, I can endlessly repeat nonsense, too! (ain't we wunnerful?)
Don't try to KNOW everything, just know how to FIND it.
The accusation by media and politicians that violent video games and movies corrupt children is just another example of scare tactics.
News companies and politicians need to win the popular attention of the public in order to succeed. One way to do this is to turn an issue into a scare tactic, because as soon as you can get people panicked then you can make them believe anything you say while they hang on your every word.
If we (as intelligent people with clues) actually want to halt this absolute idiocy, the only way to do it is through education.
If you are a normal young person who loves movies and games that happen to include violence--better yet, if you are an honor student or a national merit scholar or an over-achieving grade schooler--then you need to demonstrate to the world that it is not the violence in media that screws kids up. Host Quake II competitions at your schools after hours; offer community education courses on video games and the Internet; make it obvious to the uninformed adults in your community that YOU'VE turned out just fine and dandy despite thriving on this stuff! And then point out (and specifically name) all the troublemaking jock kids in your school to parents and administrators, and explain how they have never even used the Internet in their spare time!
In other words, make it PAINFULLY OBVIOUS to people who are otherwise too stupid to use their own brains that it is BAD PARENTING and TOLERATED CIVIL RIGHTS ABUSE BY SCHOOL PEERS, not VIOLENT MEDIA, that causes kids to go bad.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
As others have pointed out that Jamie is the author of this one, not Katz.
Aside from that, despite its name, fuzzy math and its accompanying multi-valented logic (correctly used) is typically much more accurate than traditional math with its bi-valented logic.
I cracked up while watching the first presidential debate when George W. Bush tried to condemn Al Gore's numbers with allegations of fuzzy math. It became quite apparent that Mr. Bush has no comprehension of advance mathematics. The same can likely be said for Mr. Gore, but I don't have any firsthand evidence of that.
have a day,
-l
What's really funny about this is that you'll get a lot of people nodding their head in agreement, and then they'll go out and vote for the most socialistic candidate.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
While I agree with you on principle, I think that this article would be much better written without your "I hate that guy and I'm gonna trash him" shades on. Your facts are very skewed. Offering "Violent crimes commited by students" for one year and "Violent crimes not resulting in death by students" for the next. That may just have been a small typo, but it looks very sneaky and unreliable. If you wish to fight fro my cause, I wish for you to have a rock solid foundation and be able to withstand scrutiny. I encourage you to go to www.killology.com and read through some of the stuff there (without your fingers in your ears going "NaNaNaNaNa I'm not listening!"). I don't support everything that the man says, but there are several points on which he is just right. And you have to admit your opponents strengths before you can attack his weaknesses. Right is right no matter where it comes from.
First, I want to point out how cool the list of "featured links" is for this article. My favorite is the part where it goes "1 2 3 1 2 3".
Second, I've seen a couple of fluff pieces on the local media touching on this issue - they've all showed kids playing Doom64. I've got to say - that would turn ME into a murderer. The graphics are freaking awful. Sony must have paid them off.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
*snicker* .. sorry .. gata admit that's a heck of a "theory"
All in all, poorly presented--especially since this is a technical forum, you damned idiot, not a pulpit for you to expound your personal political views..
--
I'm voting for Nader because I'd rather be right than win.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
This is not a flaimbait or a troll but honestly how can anyone with a frontal lobe, let alone a techno geek, vote for Bush?
Because out of the only two with a real chance of winning, Bush is the one who is more like me on issues that I consider to be important. Bush may not be the brightest bulb on the string, but he feels the way I do about Second Amendment rights, he feels the same way I do about abortion. He feels the same way I do about taxes. Ditto for the death penalty. And he is in no way beholden to the eco-whackos.
There should be an IQ test for gun ownership in this country.
People who think like you are precisely the reason why I'm voting for Bush.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
You can always vote for me as a write-in vote. As president, I promise I will:
That was a very satirical piece (I think most of the onion is like that I do not read it) however, it does make a very good point :)
Jeremy
I'll remind you that it was the present administration, with Al Gore's vocal approval, that signed into law the Child Online Protection Act, later found unconstitutional. After it was overturned, the Clinton administration said it wanted to enact a new law that would pass muster with the Supreme Court. Plenty of Democrats in Congress voted in favor of that bill. Even more recently, Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman has threatened the movie industry with legislation if it doesn't do more to keep its more violent/sexy material away from young people. Blaming the net for social decay isn't an activity limited to Republicans, nor is the desire to censor what people see.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
And I've never dealt in matters of the occult as a general principle, but when I recently got the opportunity to cast "Psionic Storm", I found my many hours of playing Protoss on Starcraft really helped.
-- Anne Marie
Bad parents raise bad kids. Marilyn Manson said it, and it rings true, as far as I'm concerned. Ugh. How would Bush fare up against Gore if he went out and said "You're bad parents -- make sure you and your kids talk well and you do something to make sure they aren't committing violent acts. Jesus, you're all idiots". Probly wouldn't shine too bright. Maybe we should elect Bush over Gore, though -- Gore did create the evil Internet.
I'm on a road shaped like a figure eight; I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.
I'm moderately doubtful about the fact that first person shooters can prepare someone for using a real firearm. Let me explain further though.
.45 and .22 pistols.
There is no recoil, nor the really sharp report of that round going down range. Plus you have all sorts of other issues to worry about: natural point of aim, bone support, sight alignment, sight picture, breathing, guessing the wind, etc. In general the mantra of firing a weapon and knowing you will hit that target where you aimed and if you don't - you know exactly why.
I'll agree that perhaps the general familiarity with the situation could help make a newbie less nervous, but of much anything else I have to disagree. For my qualifications to say this, I am a Marine SSgt with expert qualification (not hard to do at all, just do the mantra) and have put over 10,000 rounds downrange through my competition
Andrew Borntreger
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
How can you be (satirically) funny without being insightful?
nal 11
There is absolutely no correlation between the two. In both games you aim (usually with a mouse) and click. All that teaches you is quick motor-reflexes and how to anticipate actions. And, of course, how to predict the blast radius of the ever changing rocket launcher.
When firing a rifle/pistol, there is actual body control involved. Using a scope or raw sights means your brother has very some level of control over his body. He is smooth, doesn't shake munch, and is a very precise shot.
It's not as if pointing a mouse and being able to rest a rifle in your shoulder are similar. Besides, in many cases, video games have lax physical rules about the exact spot to hit someone and produce damage.
It's just silly to say that learning how to gib someone in your favorite game means you're going to be able to go out and fire a pistol, or rifle, like the best marksmans out there.
piffy
www.piffy.org -- me.
It might be the oppression that comes with the peer system that's triggering the violence. But just straight up normal oppression? nah. that's crap.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
VMS the one true O/S !!
Isn't there a large distinction between being able to use a handgun and being desensitized to killing someone? The kid wasn't asked to shot someone.
Spencer Ogden
Good piece, thank you! You listen to NPR, and appreciate good logic. Did you catch that story a few days ago when the Milosevic government fell? An NPR story spun the story about how "good" the Serbian people are because they are to a man armed, and yet had a revolution with no bloodshed. See the logic? The US has too many murders, therefore too many guns. Serbia has little killing, therefore... good people.
But is desensitization really all that bad? Wouldn't being able to handle violent situations with ease be better for a person in the long run, particular in cases of mugging, automobile accidents, and the next world war? People have always spent large amounts of time and energy on trying to rationalize these events in order to accept their occurance, wouldn't it be much nicer if they could accept them for what they are and move on with their lives? Of course, no one wants the world to become apathetic to violence, but IMHO it seems to be counter-productive to dwell on these horrible acts, rather than spending that time to prevent them from occuring again.
You have to remember, we are animals, we are driven (somewhat) by our desires, and violence just seems an inevetible, albeit depressing, part of life.
What I would like to know is, why do we enjoy such destructive imagery? It's not like this is anything new, so what drives us to enjoy such destructive imagery? I have a feeling it's due to the adreneline rush... But I could be wrong.
-Medgur
Anybody care to notice that the drop in the crime rate seems to mirror the economic prosperity that started circa 1992? This, by co-incidence, happens to be "due to the Internet", if you believe Gore and Bush. Just asking...
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
The silly part of this political argument, particularly from a republican gun wielding person from Texas, is that such a person would contend that the best way to raise a child is to give them a shot gun as early as possible and let them kill as many animals as they like. Now I understand that when you kill an animal it real, and such a person believes that the reality will teach the sanctity of life, while the animate violence trivializes the value of life. I do not think it is necessary to reject the possible benefits of teaching a child to kill animals, or allowing the state to kill people that the state says are guilty of a crime. I do think it is ridiculous for Bush and Cheney to blame all of societies ills on violent video games and the Internet when parent and state sponsored violence is happening practically on thier front stoop.
nuff said.
Actually, I don't believe the second amendment actually says guns, but rather arms. Therefore, we have the right to own many other things that various state governments have tried to outlaw, such as switchblades.
The only difference will be that normal lawabiding citizens won't have guns, and the criminals still will. Do you really think some criminal cares if he has to get an illegal gun to rob a store? As far as Columbine, it was the parents of the killers fault. How do you not notice your son building bombs in your garage???? Its absurd. The parents never suspected anything b/c they were not involved with thier kids at all.
There are those among us (myself included) who would even disagree with most of that statement.
I'd personally vote for a PrimeMinister not a president and use BSD everywhere after Linux gave me more trouble than it was worth (long time ago, things may have improved).
Rod Taylor
What to do? Well, I'm voting for a candidate who supports my right to buy whatever games I want, play then whenever I want, send or receive any form of communication via the Internet or any other medium without being intercepted by government agents, rent or buy any film I want, and do all of this without paying any federal income or sales taxes. Sound good? If so, then check out Harry Browne. He's on the ballot in all 50 states and - I'm not 100% sure, but - hold your breath - I think he's actually read the Constitution at some point in time!
If you don't want your Net to be taxed (Gore) or censored (Bush), vote for the candidate who actually supports your views, not just the lesser evil of the two drones you may have watched last night. Blatant plug? Sure. Offtopic? No damn way. If you vote for Gore, you're saying that you support higher taxes (and censorship - Lieberman, anyone?). If you vote for Bush, you're saying that you support censorship (and higher taxes - come on, do you really see this guy resisting money coming his way?). Well...do you?
I think it premature (even if this was meant in jest) to link Doom and Quake with a *decrease* or an *increase* in violent crime. You might as well linked the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases with a decrease in violent crime. Both types of statement rely upon the fact that two factors are correlated with one another when examining certain time windows, but neither one demomnstrates an actual *effect* of one variable on another.
It would be more demonstrative of actual effect to show that those people who did kill others had increased or decreased video gameplay experience relative to the general population *on average*. And singling out one case (Columbine) does not prove the point. One needs to aggregate over many datapoints to draw valid conclusions.
$0.02
games are so good at training individuals to use real weapons that the Army now uses the same technology toward the same goal.
And yet the DoD, the Army, and the Marines say otherwise. The only individual saying they use any video game in this way is a highly paid 'consultant' who makes his money testifying in 'Oh my! Little Johnny has been corrupted by Doom!' cases.
This said, the Army does make use of battle simulators, but the emphasis is on teamwork and battlefield tactics and not on 'Gee, lets get these guys softened up to killing'.
.sig: Now legally binding!
One of the first things you should learn (in any social science class, anyway) is that correlation does not imply causality. Wait a minute. Apparently someone doesn't get that. I'll say it again.
Correlation does not imply causality.
Saying "what we really need is more violence in the media" is a lot like Herrstein and Murray's conclusion in the Bell Curve that non-white people really *are* less intelligent. They conveniently forgot, as apparently you have as well, to look at confounding factors, and so they assigned race as a causative factor of low intellligence.
Now, I'm not accusing you of being a racist. I understand that what you probably MEANT was that "hey, the increase in media violence has not caused a corresponding increase in actual violence." I just wish you'd SAID that. Because what you DID say is that media violence somehow decreases actual violence. Which is preposterous, and not supported by anything.
Just a quick point: according to the Cullen report, Thomas Hamilton held his firearms entirely legally --- they were registered.
nal 11
Gore's superior intelligence
And superior turnarounds.
Two years ago, he was against using the Stratigic Oil Reserve, but it an election year, he's all for it.
In his book, Earth in the Balance, he advocates raising the Federal Gas Tax to such a point where no one drives, yet because it's an election year, he changes his mind.
Gore also has advocated moving all chemical companies out of the US, to prevent their pollution.... Of the US. Of course, this won't help the rest of the world, because the US has some of the most strict environmental laws.
And now, in an attempt to keep this slightly on topic... Of course Al Gore's against violence on the internet. He invented it, after all....
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
News flash: recent studies reveal politicians are source of juvenile violence. In a test group, violence rates apparently surged due to presence of politicians, while the control group continued its steady decline in violence. Curiosly enough, violence immediately disappeared, AND returned to the predicted lower rate compensating for time, when the presence of politicians was removed.
Studies are currently underway to see if politicians have any affect on cancer rates.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
"'Course, we *do* still have an electoral college instead of real votes,and we *did* end up with bush/gore as our 2 best presidential cantidates, so maybe we are too simple-minded"
:-(
So true, so true
Does anyone else think it should have been Bradley vs. McCain instead of robot vs. simpleton?
...yellow number five, yellow number five, yellow number five...
(Interlude: Sigh... It appears that www.algore.com, and not www.algore.org, is the Gore campaign homepage. I guess that's appropriate, since politicians are basically commercial organizations these days...)
Here are some quotes from a 1998 Gore speech:This speech was given long before the Columbine incident, and (creepily) a few hours before the Jonesboro shooting. The fact that Gore came up with his position on his own, before all the hype started, is in some ways even more disturbing.
On balance, Gore-Lieberman would probably do slightly less damage to our freedom of speech than Bush-Cheney would, but the difference is insignificant. Blaming the movement on the Republicans only reduces your credibility as an activist.
As you might have guessed by now, I'll be voting for Harry Browne. At least he uses TLD's properly.
MSK
it's also interesting to note that the economy, as gore points out, is in the middle of the longest peacetime expansion for a long long time....
a *lot* of analysts place the credit for declining violent crime rates on the booming economy. give the economy 9 months: when it tanks, the crime figures will jump right back up.
jon
-- http://www.cerastes.org
Katz, your big and intelligent percentages and numbers are just fuzzy math. And we don't have to take it. I don't know where this guy gets his fuzzy math, but you're just spouting fuzzy math. FUZZY MATH!!!
-- Anne Marie
Comments like "catering to gun wielding idiots. There should be an IQ test for gun ownership in this country. I propose the test score has to be higher than 200." are pointless, especially when the author's spelling and punctuation clearly demonstrate an IQ somewhat lower... Actually, have you seen the reports on the median IQ of police officers?
The fact is, the vast majority of people who commit murder in this country, and a suprisingly large percentage of their victims, have a history of violence and criminal activity.
I am a "techno-geek". I am voting for Bush, for two reasons:
Blaming columbine on "guns" or "the internet" or "video games" are all cop outs. The problem is violent people.
Consider this: Nearly half of all murder victims have detectable amounts of cocaine in their bloodstream.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Sick of joyless fanatics who claim, "since this is a technical forum, you damned idiot, not a pulpit for you to expound your personal political views" when it is clearly not, as the point has often been made that it is "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters?"
Would you like to look up from your monitor once in a while, and talk about issues in the wide world that are destroying your Liberty, without having to focus in on computers all the time?
Well, try Libertyboard.
Of course, since it's an open board, I can't promise you'll never see a joyless, unhappy poster trying to silence political views that he disagrees with. However, he would have to come up with a better excuse for his desire to silence opposing views than "it's a technical forum."
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
If you think that government is too big, vote Browne 2000.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try."
Well I do think a politician could get away with blaming the parents. Afterall, this is the USA where nobody would believe the politician could possibly be refering to them. It's always that dumbass nextdoor that's the problem.
After watching the debat from last evening, I didn't find the comments to be attacks on the internet, but rather attacks on current values of society. The statement was something to the effect "...irresponsible parenting and alienation of the children lead to these horrible acts of violence". While the internet was mentioned in this context, I don't believe it was blamed. After all the internet is only a tool, and any good or evil in it comes from the method in which it is used.
The truth will set you free.
Hey all, we have power, we take down servers by our sheer numbers. We are many. Let's pick a candidate and /. the vote.
this space intentionally left blank
How is it regulating the right to own them?
Imposing criminal penalties based upon how you store your firearms is regulating that right.
I'm in favor of civil penalties under certain circumstances but not criminal.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I thought of a very similar idea once. It began with issuing each student a "minor" weapon, like a metal bar or something, in the early grades of school, and training them to use it. ;-) What kind of world would we live in if our children grew up like this? Any thoughts on that?
Martial arts and fighting skills would be integrated into the curriculum, but students would also be taught the strict discipline to only use these skills when absolutely necessary. Difficulty and skill level would increase with each grade, and students would be allowed better weapons in higher grades (such as a knife in the middle grades, and possibly a gun in high school).
Fighting would be allowed, but would be strictly moderated. For example, there would be a strict "code of honor" that forbade fighting someone of a lower grade/skill level. Of course, I'm not saying that any of this is a good idea...just something I had thought of.
It would be interesting to see a movie about this. (just don't steal my intellectual property!)
--Ariston
"I'm never wrong--sometimes reality just disagrees with me."
This is the same loser who acted out the throat slashing of his ex-wife, including sound affects? Now why would anyone take a turd-hole like that seriously? Sure, it's a cute lyric, but that doesn't mean the dung-funnel has a message....
In some cases, yes, we need better parents. In other cases, it doesn't matter how skilled the parents are, the kids are going to do what they do. In yet more cases, the kids maybe influenced by their prefered media. The danger is blanket views/opinions/legislation. (The later being the most dangerous). None of these ever solve the problem, and we're lucky if they don't create more problems.
Would those boys have done this had there never been a doom/quake/violent movies/Barney/etc? Maybe, but there was something, in their perspective, that made them think that the world sucked enough to end other people's lives while taking their own.
Bush (et al) is adding to the problem when he says that it was violent media that caused this, but then again, so are you by stating that it is the parents and not violent media.
Quit trying to find a scapegoat, and pay attention to the individuals, not the statistics or the campaign rhetoric.
The Other Nate
we need better parents!
now, I am not blaiming anyone here, but where are the parents at in all of these instances? violence prevention starts at home, with the morals and values that are instilled by our parents and peers.
people need to leave our internet, video games, literature, etc. alone and be responsible for the life they bring into this world.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
Ever seen the ads about how a child will die every few minutes? While this is true, it's not exactly correct. Something like 90% of the "children" are over 15, and are inner-city gang members. It's not that "children" are getting killed, it's teenagers that are doing it. Just something to keep in perspective.
Colin Winters
I was watching the debate with my girlfriend and when GWB said that we both turned our heads and looked at each other with our mouths wide open. This is not a flaimbait or a troll but honestly how can anyone with a frontal lobe, let alone a techno geek, vote for Bush? The man is an idiot and yet manages to be a demagogue (and not in the ancient greek sense). The columbine-intenet commetn was i think also a cheap shot at Gore. Because of Gore's comment on the internet. Bush was trying to use the connection that people have with Gore and the internet and indirectly make Gore "responsible" for the columbine masacre. Im tired of idiots like Bush blaming all of societies problems on a medium for the spreding of information information instead of on ignorance. Im tired of people blaming the internet and then catering to gun wielding idiots. There should be an IQ test for gun ownership in this country. I propose the test score has to be higher than 200. Blaming columbine on the internet is irresponsible because it stops us from looking at the real motives and at the real means that were used to carry on with the murders. It is an invitation for more and more murders. I hope this costs Bush and not just because it should cost him. Maybe some of the Dotcom money will go to Gore now and the campaign will be more balanced in terms of finances. I still cant believe Bush blamed columbine on the internet. I still cant believe that the only place ive seen anyone say anything about it is on slashdot.
"From my cold, dead hands!"
Heh. Won't be long now, Chuck, not long at all...
Actually, in Canada here (Alberta, I think it applies to other provinces though,) Everyone has to register all of their firearms with the government, effective... soon. (I think it's another 3 days before the cost of a posession licence goes from $10 to $60. That's right, possesion licence. You need it to keep guns you own, or buy ammo.)
Get this too, crossbows, certain pellet guns, and (AFAIK,) realistic looking replicas are counted as firearms.
Also, there are 3 licences (4, but 3 that count if you live in a city.)
One for possesion, one for acquisition of most rifles, and one for restricted weapons. (Handguns, and certain rifles, that is. It's pretty near impossible to legally own an automatic weapon.)
Funny technicality in the arms laws here:
It's illegal to own knives that open by spring, gravity, or centifugal force, or that you otherwise just press a button to open. It's also illegal to have a FOLDING knife with a blade over 4". The funny thing is that there's no blade length limit on non-folding blades, and the police here even agree that it's legal to walk around downtown wearing a sword, as long as it's not concealed, or brandished.
For once there's a worthy "Related Links" section on the right.
This campaign speaks to a larger issue, and it's really a matter of culture. It's a culture that somewhere along the line, we have begun to disrespect the Constitution, where a "public servant" can walk in and have their heart turn dark as a result of being in Washington, and walk in and decide to take over everybody else's life.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Why is that such an unreasonable course of action, as compared trying to hide and hoping that the gunman kills someone else instead of you? Here is a report (original source here) on a student who did exactly that, and was aided by his experience with guns:
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I suspect that violence itself is not on the rise, it's our exposure to it that is.
"Mmmmmm, beer." Homer Simpson
Does any one believe we'd have the internet if Regan and his buddies were still running the show? I think not.
Then you're a fool. The internet existed before Reagan took the office of President.
Be afraid folks, Bush Jr. will take away all the fun we've enjoyed in the past 8 years. How long before we need a license to run a website?
How long before will we need a license to exersize a constitutionally protected right if Gore wins?
Bush has already stated "There should be limits to free speech" over a gag website of him. His intentions seem pretty clear to me.
ALGORE'S boss had a woman arrested for saying "You Suck" to him.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
"we need better parents!"
Yes, we do. But you can't just make that happen by saying it. Here's the REAL issue:
We need a more intelligent, better-educated populace!
Education is known to increase IQ plus it is a lot easier to control the quality of (unless you want to have a Genetic Screening Board) so that is the area we need to focus on. Intelligent, educated people will make smart choices, including raising intelligent children intelligently.
I'm all for defense and "military readiness"--but can't we take 3% of the defence budget in order to triple (or more?) our education spending? More teachers, higher standards (for both teachers AND students), public involvement, PR work to counter anti-intellectualism, etc. Get smart, the rest will follow.
--
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore.
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
What a silly partisan news story. Some Republicans are for censorship etc etc. Well take a freaking look at the Democrats. Al Gore and Lieberman are the ones sounding the clarion call for toning down violent entertainment. I don't really think BUsh gives a damn.
Who watches the watchmen? -Juvenal
While I do agree that to draw a link between the presence of violent movies, games, music etc, and real violence is absurd. It is just as absurd to say that the presence of violence in games and movies caused the drop in real world violence.
With 2 million convicts in our prisons, an increase of 1 million from a decade ago, and the proliferation of firearms in the hands of honest citizens, I can't see how violent crime can do anything but go down. Those most likely to commit violent crimes are either in prison or smart enough to refrain so they don't get shot. Those who are neither are dead.
Youth have always been a great convenience for those who want to manipulate the public. Talk about how much something or another is going to hurt someone's kids and how you plan to stop it and you've got their attention if not their outright support. Whether or not that something is harmful to anyone at all is irrelevant if you can paint a dark enough picture of it. The internet is merely another "new threat" in a long list of other supposed threats that have been used over the years to dupe the stupid among our nations voters.
As someone who knows his ass from a hole in the ground, I'm really quite angered by Bush's comment about someone having "their heart turn dark as a result of being on the Internet." What planet is he on? Or a better question might be what planet are the people on who he is obviously pandering to? Politicians repeat back what they think the public believes, not what they themselves believe. He's pandering to people who vote and who are not online. As a group, the elderly vote more than anyone else. They are also least likely to be online and most distrustful of new technologies and social change. So whats that add up to? Attacking the internet makes grandpa more likely to vote for you instead of Gore.
A new technology which has social impact will always demonized by those who don't understand it. The more quickly a new technology is adopted, the more vigorously it will be attacked.
The internet is simply the latest victim of this mentality. These attacks remind me very much of what happened when television became popular, or rock music. In both cases there was a "moral outcry" from people who didn't have a clue about either one. Television was figuratively demonized, and rock music was literally demonized. Television expanded our horizons, even if most people did watch the Gong show instead of Nova. Today very few people believe that television is inherently harmful to anyone, yet at one time many people believed just that.
The simple truth is that those guys in Colorado didn't kill anyone because of the internet. One was crazy, the other easily led. Psychologists have been working and trying for a very long time to understand the nature and causes of psychosis and other dangerous mental disorders. Last time I checked use of the internet wasn't among their leading theories.
Things like this just go to show you that quite a few people in this world are truly not very bright. I never used to believe that. I liked to think that most people were intelligent. I'd still like to believe that, but I can't. If the average IQ is 100, then close to 50% of the population has a double digit IQ. I don't think the IQ tests have been recalibrated anytime recently, so the average may be 110 for all I know. I do know that for every intelligent person out there, there is another person who is not too bright. It seems to me that our only real hope in the long run is genetic engineering. Imagine if the average IQ were 150 and pretty much no one had an IQ below 125. How much better the world would be without cretins dragging the rest of us down. I think it would be a very good world indeed.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
the near future:
let's say i get pissed off with everyone at school/work/whatever today.
i can do one of two things:
1. play an intense game of QuakeIII and name the bots after the people who pissed me off.
2. acquire any number of firearms (easier to do than to pick up a driver's license), and show everybody what's what tomorrow.
oh, but wait: violent videogames were subject to industry "self-regulation" (censorship) and i can't play a deathmatch anymore. guess i'll pick door number 2...
maybe the best thing for a frustrated kid to do is have it out with the bots for an hour or two...
rgb #FF0000 != actual blood
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
So in other words, you're warning against drawing a possibly false correlation between increased fantasy violence, and decreased real street-crime violence. I agree that pointing to one factor (animated violence) is way too simplistic. But, it does demonstrate that there is no statistically significant correlation between fantasy violence and real violence/crimes.
The real point is: If actual crime and violence are going down, then why are the media and polititions ignoring reality? I believe it is a cynical attempt to increase circulation and garner votes. And what long-term damage to individual rights and liberties will result from these short-term gains by the media and polititions?
Thats just pure ignorant. I am sorry man, but I grew up on videogames and films, so shouldnt that make my generation THAT much more violent? Good lord man, these old rich men got it ALL wrong. I am not saying that the entertainment industry ISNT to blame, but I am saying that they dont deserve ALL the blame. Why is it that I feel far more intelliegent than those NOT in my generation? Probably because my mother and father pointed me in the right direction and showed me the difference between right and wrong. Lets start with the PARENTS again why dont we?! If mommy and daddy dont show their kids that there are certain evils, than mommy and daddy release a mindless kid into the world, and it becomes EVERYONE's problem.
Television was rife with cowboy and police show violence: Paladin, The Rory Calhoun Show, Wagon Train, Rawhide, Sky King, and The Rough Riders, Naked City...
Actually, I find the presentation of "clean" violence (bad guy neatly falls down dead without making a mess) more worrisome than Quake-style gore, because it presents violence as unrealistically attractive.
EC comic books were burned by in-bred bible thumpers to save "our youth from corruption."
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
That's how the Senator - who voted against secure handgun storage, and twice against child safety locks - positioned himself as our noble defender of children.
You argue vehemently in favor of violent games and movies, and then have the audacity to suggest that the government has the right to interfere with our Second Amendment rights?
I don't possibly see how you can be for Quake and violent movies and against hunting and self defense. The hypocrisy is unbelievable.
If the hoplophobe lobby hadn't handcuffed them, the school's security guards could have been adequately armed to quell the violence.
Al Gore controls one half million dollars worth of Oil Stock. Who's soul has been sold?
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
There isn't a ban on pools because pools aren't designed for killing. Guns, on the other hand, are designed for two things: killing and keeping the king of England out of your face.
Also, I'm sure your statistic would falter if kids were allowed to play with guns as often as they are allowed to play in a pool.
What if we lived in a world where violence was a good thing because it increased survival rates and was seen as the most Darwinian approach? How would we encourage more violence? How would we refine violence?
I suspect that we would have children practice violent acts with video games. We would also probably have them watch violent movies too.
If we think of violence as a transfer of energy, physical and psychological, then things get very interesting. Then it starts to seem that the more we expose people to violence, in meat space or in a virtual space, the better off they would be in this world.
Who would be the violent role models? I'm not talking about mass murder, instead I am talking about strict beat-you-up violence. This is all hypothetical, of course, but I hope it gets you thinking.
- John
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com
How to Download YouTube Videos
Secure handgun storage and trigger locks are not the answers either. A kid who really wants to shoot up his school will always find a way to get his hands on firearms. The real answer, as has been posted on Slashdot many times, is to make our schools a place no kid would dream of shooting up.
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
The constitutional right to guns is there for ONE purpose.
The allow the citizens to retain arms to RISE UP AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT.
Why do you think the british were marching against concord-lexington? They were marching against an arms depot.
Now, I'm not saying that its necessary to rise up now, its just that I would like to preserve the ability to if it is ever necessary.
FunOne
FunOne
Adcritic has a GREAT spoof ad for the Sony Playstation and Tekken. (unfortunately requires quicktime...)
-Bugs Bunny - 1956
Dubya grew up in an era of comic carnage as bad, if not worse (since it was mostly the "die for god and country," sort), than what is available today.
Television was rife with cowboy and police show violence: Paladin, The Rory Calhoun Show, Wagon Train, Rawhide, Sky King, and The Rough Riders, Naked City...
There has always been violence available. Even old Radio Serials had more than enough to sate even the most jaded.
Let's not forget the theater! Hollywood was more than willing give viloent movies top billing. Remember all of the old adventure serials? John Wayne appeared in many of them. So did Roy Rogers, Gene Autrey, and Audie Murphy.
And all of the great monster and Sci-fi movies....
And the countless war movies.
Strings of B grade movies showed us thousands killed by numerous and sundry monsters. EC comic books were burned by in-bred bible thumpers to save "our youth from corruption."
Clown-boy Bush grew up with a much more violent media than exists today.
Wake up everyone. None of the idiots that want to be the new president are worth the price of a new rope. And I do mean _all_ of them. It's time to start writing in "None of the Above."
NOTA for President!!!
Would this be an example of what Shrub calls "fuzzy numbers", i.e. any statistic that counters the Republican world-view? Like the fact that Texas executes more orphans than any other state in the nation?
--
--
E_NOSIG
I think Canada is an even better comparison. They get virtually the same movies/TV/video games/web sites and their juvenile crime rate is considerably lower.
-B
We need more of these statistics and real numbers published!
How about getting civic orgs. and education bodies to look at this when they talk about "Zero-Tolerance" stuff? and see how games/etc. have actually helped and not hurt!
Thnx,
#BBS-Files on DALNet IRC, Come and Chat about the good old days of BBSing!
Therefore, Gore invented the cause of violence. Is this really someone we want in charge of our nation? :)
So, lets break this down: In '95 it went unspecified as to weather or not the "violent crimes" included fatal ones. If it does not, then it would be the same as the '96 guidlines. But if it does, then the '96 numbers would be higher than '95, and that is not an accurate statistic. Further, in '94, the number of fatal murders under 18 isn't specified, so is that included in the "student violent crime" figure?
It is kind of hard to explain, but what I'm trying to say is that if it is starting with the same source of numbers, than by constantly subdividing it into catagories that in part equal less than the previous year, although the sum of the parts is higher than the baseline, it does not make for an acurate statistic.
OTOH, I support what the author is trying to say, I do not think violent games or movies really make a difference in violent crime. But without rock-solid numbers to stand on, the only person you will convince is someone who already supports your beliefs.
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
Okay, three words and I'll hush:
"Roman Gladitorial Combat"
(I lied) Domestication of violence allowed a bunch of Etrusican Greeks to rise to dominance and become extremely powerful and decadant. Of couse, you can't let the plebs vote themselves bread and circuses, or that's all you'll have.
The Vaulted Road... it's coming, and you don't know where, when, or why...
"I am so cool, you could keep a side of meat in me for a month
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
sounds like Are you a Red Dupe? from the fifties. (Although I should point out that the communist quotes in the AD are self-contradictory... you have to read all of them.)
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
So what you're saying here is that the US has too many "bad people"?
I don't know about you, but I figure that "bad people" are a hell of a lot more dangerous when they're packing heat...
If my enemy's enemy is my friend, what happens if my enemy is his own worst enemy?
Note that Japan, which has an extremely low rate of violent crime is one of the richest in cultural violence. Gore and sex filled movies, anime, manga (comic books), and tv series are quite prevalent in Japan. Of course, there is significant social conditioning to repress your feelings as well, but it is an interesting correlation. On a slightly different note my brother recently got the opportunity to shoot a real rifle for the first time. Considering that none of my friends or his friends have shot anything more than an bb gun he did pretty well. Bullseye's with a scope and inner diamond using raw sights. He attributes it largely to playing hundreds of hours of Action Quake and Counterstrike. So there are two correlations that would be interesting to see. If the more violent outlets you have the less likely society as a whole is to have occurences of violent crime. And if practicing 'murder simulators' translates to improvments in real world firearms/tactical situations.
What we had was GWB saying that teen violence and disregard for human life was rising. Jamie showed us 5 years of statistics from one source and 24 years of statistics from another showing how that wasn't true.
So I'm confused. How exactly did he fail to make his point?
He wasn't trying to imply that there was a correlation. Just the opposite. GWB implied there was.
No mention of first person shooter games in relation to millitary readiness? Games like Quake and Doom are making our soldiers (and Canadians too) More prepared to actually fire a gun at somebody. Sure these games teach violence, but thats what the millitary needs. It is fun to watch the 2 media sanitized contestants bitch and moan about needing to improve the millitary, and then whine about the violence in video games. Violent video games = better prepared millitary And the US really needs a better millitary cuz its gonna take more than a "Dream Team" to defend the Men's Olympic Gold medal in Basketball in 2004
On a practical level, when firearms ownership is understood as a defense against an oppressive government, gun licencing runs into the same problems as literacy tests for voting (another defense against an oppressive government). They provide a convenient means for the state to deprive of basic right those it would oppress.
It would be very, very easy to rig tests so that members of racial, political, or religious minorities would not be permitted to pass, just as blacks were set up to fail literacy exams required for voting under Jim Crow laws.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
That was such a throw away line uttered by Bush. I don't really think that was the central defining point of his agenda. I wouldn't worry about it to much. Bush blames the media and the parents and their values and oh yeah the internet. Gore thinks it's 100% guns. Bush is at least 1/3 right.
Take a peek at the graph of homicide rates across the world in this month's Scientific American. To everyone on this planet outside of the US it's completely and totally obvious that the constitutional right to weaponry is the biggest cause. Are parents in the US *that* much worse than parents elsewhere? Of course not. Is there more violence on US TV? The rest of the world watches US TV. The cause is gun law. Why do Americans find this so difficult to see? By the way - I'm not making any value judgement about gun laws. If you Americans like guns that's all well and good. Just don't be surprised that this pleasure comes with a price. On the other hand it's interesting to compare with a country that doesn't seem to have laws any more. The homicide rate in Russia is incredible.
--
-- SIGFPE
Clinton/Gore has done more legislative harm to the internet, his "creation", in the last 8 years of work.
Heck, even before that, remeber the PMRC? You boys need a refresher go listen to Jello Biafras records about Tipper, Al, and why you are an indiot for supporting this crap.
Bush Gore, if those are your choices youve lost alreday.
Unlesso f course your some sort of "GO team" poltical washup who plays politics like it was coledge hoops. With a nation od lossers like this its no wonder we get Gush and Bore as choices.
Heres to all the idiots who treat politcal partys like frat partys....you get what you deserve.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
But here's one thing I've never seen mentioned. Maybe someone can point me to an article, but let's say you're a deranged or depressed or alienated kid. You hate everyone at school. Maybe people make fun of you all the time. Maybe you don't exactly fit in. There's some jerks in some of your classes that you could easily live life without. Maybe you've even relished the thought of killing them. Maybe you've planned it out ... in a fantasy scenario or something.
Next, you start hearing about some kid at another high school shooting up a bunch of his classmates and getting famous for it. Maybe it shocks you at first, but then you may be excited. Someone else actually had enough and went for it.
Now, I'm asking you guys to imagine this: if you had these hateful thoughts and you see someone killing at school ... isn't it possible that watching these actions on the news or whatever would motivate you to do the same? Sure, violent video games, movies, blah blah blah. But student types are very impressionable, and if you saw that other people were doing it and gaining total notoriety and successfully killing assholes at school ... well ... isn't that a more immediate, likely cause?
That killing at school became a sick trend? A horrifying "fad"?
(:christian:)
our written thoughts are gifts to our future selves
Nice way to be impartial jamie. I like how you slanted your view against Bush instead of just reporting the facts. Keep up the good work.
_______
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
I'm 25. In fact I wasn't of voting age until after William Jefferson Clinton was elected to his first term. What difference does that make?
Reagan is also the father of high technology export laws. Those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it.
I feel the same way about the democrats who are trying like hell to give socialism a chance here.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
As a Brit, we have had similar tragedies, but not to the extent that the US has. True, we have had Dunblane, but that was due to a lunatic with several unregistered firearms.
I _is_ interesting that the two people that the US is planning on letting run the country have chosen to tie the internet to teenage violence. Ok, so there is a possiblity that people who can't distinguish reality from games like Quake might get carried away, but there is a substantial chunk of evidence that shows that games of that nature actually aid reaction times and concentration. Who amongst us has sat down for a quick five minute game of AvP and stood up four hours later? I certainly have.
After a couple of hours playing Gran Turismo on the PSX my driving is pretty ropey, but if I sit down for an hour and talk with my friends before I drive, it isn't a problem. When I get in my car, It actually feels more responsive and I certainly notice more of what is happening around me. In some ways, I concentrate more on what I am doing simply because I _know_ it is not a game.
I totally disagree that the internet is to blame for violence and subversion. The internet simply _is_, it is the people that choose to use the information or can't handle that volume of information that are to blame. In some case, it may be the people that let them use it, but as it's free, who can say where to draw the line? I'm not going to.
Teamwork is essential. It gives the enemy someone else to shoot at
Not too keen on following your own advice, hm?
immediately followed by your sig:
I'm voting for Nader because I'd rather be right than win.,
and topped with your introduction,
I do not support Bush. I think he is an idiot. I don't particularly like Gore, either.
The only official claims to Slashdot's topic that anyone within the organization has made are,
Adding the word 'idiot' to the beginning and end of your post took away all the teeth to your argument. You turned it from a reasoned rebuttal into a flame. Flames are juvenile, and don't lend credence to your point of view.
'Flames' are not synonymous with 'Devil's Advocate'. The Devil's Advocate strategy of debate is to bring up a socratic hypothetical, usually using the other party's own stated reasoning, to show how the opposite conclusion may be reached.
[
Of course he is. However, despite all of Gore's superior intelligence, he still thinks that higher taxes and huge government bureaucracies are the answer to everything. Screw that, my taxes are too high as it is. I'm voting for the idiot.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Not to endorse Gore or anything, but do you honestly expect GW to have any grasp of any sort of subtleties on issues? His discussion of using hte military as solely a body that goes to war struck me as completely naive at best, pathetically underestimating the implications of having the largest stick on the block. The way he stumbled over Texas' record on insurance and education, never directly refuting anything but responding that he was the only Texas governer reelected-- sad, sad.
So, unh, when did news for nerds start including politics beyond Linux? oh wait. I was just pointing out the general fallacies beyond GW's stance on the internet.
Besides, it's not like Gore and Lieberman are any better. After all, Tripper Gore frontlined the whole effort to censor music back in the day, and Lieberman continues to argue for the restricting of expression in the media. What's to prevent them from doing the same on the internet?
Intel's "Can't do it in life?" slogan holds true on this end: there are many things that you can do on the Internet that you wouldn't want to do in the real world. Unfortunately, some people can't calm down enough to tell the difference between the two.
I actually do play Counter-Strike, and to make it all the more realistic, I have a .330 bullet without a casing on my desk beside my mouse. It serves other purposes, too: it's heavy enough to hold down the Enter key.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
These stats practically prove that there's less and less violent crimes for the media to report on. So what does the media do in response? Hype and blow what is left out of proportion.
I must admit that it's ironic that TV media is blaming the internet for many things; all the while people are watching less TV, and replacing it hours in front of a computer.
-Kazir (c:
My understanding is you have the military training causality backwards. Some developers started on the military training games and then went commericial. It may have now have gone back from commerical to military though. I do not know about that. The basic observation to be made are that kids are infantile and suggestible. This is the nature of being a kid. If and when they mature, infantile rage for instance is either not experienced or bounded by other considerations. Suggestibility perhaps is not so extremely powerful. This is not to say that the world is such that nothing in it justifies rage in the mature person, but the issues tend to be other than damage to one's own personal ego. Here is a URL that talks about this: StarWars amd Littleton
This is a great piece, it's good to see some hard figures on violence rates once in a while rather than always listening to speculation. However, I'd really like to see some number outside of the US. Does anyone have these kind of statistics gathered for Canada or for some of the countries in Europe? It'd be a little easier to tie these numbers to internet use and mass media if we sampled all the countries that have widespread internet access.
-- sudo.ca
Why are there some stats missing from the yearly breakdown? The only stats shown are ones that have a decrease. Were the other stats not shown because they increased or because they were not available?
Jordan
One thing that can be said about this is that the stats do not support the thought that fictional violence leads to real violence. This is a useful thing to point out to the Fearless Leaders and other anti-violent-media advocates. But be careful not to get carried away and make the same mistake they're making -- drawing conclusions where none exist.
-Erf C.
-Erf C.
Cthulu always calls collect...
If you have a child that can not tell the difference between a pixel and real life then you need to get your kid into some special schooling and take a serious look on how your raising your kid. Parents these day rely too much on TV to raise their kids instead of doing it themselves. A person psych is influenced the most by their real world environment. If you tell your kids the differnce between "make believe" and the real world and that you shouldn't act your violence out on other people and you re-enforce this on them then there is a high probability that they will not go out and shoot-up their school, the small percentage that would should be in a mental instituion getting some serious help because their mind would be seriously fucked up.
look at the statistics reported. They change as the timeline progresses. IANAS (I am not a statistitian) but this doesn't seem like a good way to prove a point. If you don't report the same data over time, can any real correlation be suggested from the data?
I don't think that that is what he was trying to say. The point that he was making, (in my humble view) was that even though it appears that violence in the media, eg. movies, music, games, has increased, actual, physical violence appears to have decreased. He is not stating that because there is more media violence there is less physical violence, but that more media violence has not caused an increase in physical violence. That is what GWB was making a comment about, that the more violence we are subjected to the more violent we become.
;)
In fact, if you look back at history as a whole, it seems to me that we are living in a very non violent world as a whole. Can you imagine life during the Roman Empire when they went on their killing spree, or perhaps dealing with Atilla the Hun, who apparently just killed for fun. It seems to me that our wars are getting smaller and more isolated. But that is my opinion. You can ask my ex girlfriends how many times they think that I am right.
You have no right to keep and bear garbage.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
How about a voter who doesn't fall for political propaganda from EITHER major party.
Political parties pander to those who they want to vote for them. I'm sorry but %1 of the population isn't going to get anyone elected to anything.
Its nothing but propaganda.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
seriously, Nader (Nader being the alternative candidate any sane person would favor, though im sure Harry Browne is a nice guy...erm...) has a lot of the right ideas, but he will never win in this country. It sucks, but theres too much at stake right now, with DMCA, several supreme court positions coming up, we cant afford to ahve a psycho like Bush in there. Of course this kind of statement would be made in every election and the "democrats" keep moving farther and farther right, thereby reframing national debate...I dont see any solution to this except to wait it out, wait for the national state-of-mind to swing back again, its all just a pendulum kind of motion anyway.
if someone like Nader were president, he also would have very decreased power due to his unwillingness to bend to pressure from Congress. The country would then get fed up and elect an arch-conservative in retailiation at the next elections. This is my take on why Carter lost to Reagan, and the US citizenry then severly punished Mondale and Dukakis as well for them daring to be limp wristed tree huggers, leading us into 12 years of dark ages, including creating a dangerously conservative supreme court. Another situation like this would be disastrous, which is why i think the sour taste of the Clinton-esque "triangulation" is unfortunately necessary.
the Bush statment is an example of a post hoc argument. There is more an issue of cause and effect than anything, or rather a lost cause and effect. It could either be because so many people are on the internet and these crimes are purported to go up because of the openness of information flow, or it could be because it actually is a true statement. This seems to be a common thread in politics: it is a scapegoat for the real facts. But since everyone is so dedicated to distorting facts in the realm of politics and public opinion, it is not an open and shut case of statistics. Rather, accusations fly back in forth ad infinitum and nobody solves the problems, if they are indeed solvable. Perhaps it would be bettyr to try fixing things, instead of getting into arguments as to which way is best.
Lowmag.net
That really is the director's name.
I got the film's name wrong though. It's Nekromantik.
While Bush's comments are groundless, naive, and a smear on technophiles, I really must raise my objections to the idea that participating in virtual violence is some sort of safety valve. It's not. Just like artificial neural nets, our brains pathways become reinforced with activity. Could it be that playing violent video games reinforces pathways that equate violent responses to tense situations? Afterall, the military uses video games desensitize infantrymen to pulling the trigger (without such training, some significant percentage of soldiers in combat will not pull the trigger or will shoot over the heads of the enemy).
Correlation is not causation. Crying censorship is not a convincing argument.
To address some other points made. Good parenting is important. As a parent, I know (or think I know) that the great majority of parents will do just about anything for their children. Parents routinely go to great lengths to secure income while at the same time providing a safe environment, nourishment, and education for their children.
IMHO, it is our society's reward system that is doing great harm to many children's value systems. As a society, we often reward the dishonest and deceitful with great wealth. Specifically, I am speaking of CEO's who use unfair business practices but command incredible compensation, the politicians who abuse the campaign financing laws, and the athelete who justifies his narcistic behaviour with his talent. Don't underestimate a child's ability to cut through crap. It is difficult for a parent to teach honesty and civility when as a nation we (seem to) value treachery and bad behaviour.
So, let's gives parents some credit. Afterall, it's our children that will be financing our retirement. We don't want to save in IRAs only to find the dollar to have no purchasing power by the time we go liquid.
That all said, Bush is absolutely wrong. His comments are very unresponsible. Unfortunately, they will have currency with too large a segment of our population.
Perhaps the best response is to point out the great of achievements of computer science history. Allan Turing cracking Enigma. Medical modelling. Etc.
The reason is not that I'm leaving out numbers to make my argument stronger. That'd be a pretty lousy thing to do! The missing numbers are just not available.
The one crime figure that did increase, 1993-4, as you can see, I left in.
There are many, many sources to pick from but I was mainly looking for figures specifically about teenagers and violent crime. The categories I included are the ones I thought were most appropriate, but unfortunately they aren't all available over the entire Doom/Quake time period.
If you have questions about the numbers, please just click on them; they'll take you to the source (though you might have to search in those PDF files a bit).
And if you find additional numbers of interest, please post them. From what I saw, all violent crime in our country has been decreasing pretty consistently since Clinton took office. The news is all good; picking which figures to use is just a matter of finding your favorite dishes at the buffet.
P.S. Satire. It's a word. Look it up.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
Okay. If I see a violent movie, I'm probably not going to go out and kill somebody. However, those who have a strong tendency towards violence will be moved further in that direction.
Don't believe me? Talk to an advertising agency. They seem to know something that we super-intelligent people here on Slashdot don't. Why in the hell would they spend so much money just to buy a 30-second clip if it didn't have any effect on people?
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
... to leave your guns lying around on the kitchen table, for your kids to shoot themselves with.
Very important right, that.
Does my bum look big in this?
---------------------------------
I'm curious if this kind of internet-blaming is a curiosity limited to the U.S., or if it exists elsewhere. I'm sure everyone either read about or at least glanced at the headline earlier about the banning of arcades in Malaysia, so I think this kind of attitude exists elsewhere. Anyone have any examples?
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
http://spot.colorado.edu/~mcguire/hively.html
:)
The electoral college actually enhances your voting power, both by reducing the tyranny of a bare majority and increasing the importance of your individual vote.
Therefore you are better off with it. Sorry.
It is interesting how on one hand television advertising pulls in huge revenues and is obviously thought to alter people's behavior, but violent movies apparently don't. I wonder why?
Great Windows SFTP Server!
You cannot effectively defend your own rights by attacking someone else's.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Many (most?) people don't understand the difference between correlation and causation, this person for example. Even for those people, the facts do not support the argument and that is Jamie's point.
The truth is, this crusade was created by the big media for two reasons:
1. Encouraging public hysteria always brings ratings.
2. Anything which might cause a person to go to the movies less or watch TV less, which is not also a profit generator for big media, is the enemy.
Think about it.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
He doesn't need to prove causation. It's enough he shows that the violence hasn't RISED during this time. Especially since it such a notable drop, you can be quite sure, that at least the games causes no bigger effect on violence, becuase then the drop wouldn't have existed as is thus.
a.) better medical technology
b.)better economic climate
And we all know that we've been in the middle of great economic times for quite a while now. Kevin
I believe the cases of kids shooting classmates at school may be situations where the shooters simply don't see the people they are killing as people. You're quite right about the difference between simulated and real fighting, however, desensitization to live violence may not be the issue here. Using a gun (as opposed to some kind of melee weapon which involves real physical contact) allows someone to divorce himself from the feeling of actually injuring another person. Rather than getting kicks out of really hurting people, it's more a matter of not seeing other people as living beings with thoughts and feelings just like yours.
I don't believe this is the fault videogames. Their availablilty neither improves nor worsens the situation. But it is definitely influenced by the mocking, hazing and worse that some of these kids receive at the hands of their peers. Under that kind of influence it's not hard to see such people as objects.
I knew that my father's rifle was right behind the front door and I often was in fights with the bullies at school. Never did the thought cross my mind to pick up that weapon and shoot my tormentors. See a fox after the chickens or something like that and it was a very dead fox, but you settled your problems with other boys through a manly exchange of fists.
Perhaps we are restricting the kids too much these days? I mean, get in a fight and you are looking at a week's suspension - not the detention (or in the case of very violent scuffles - one day of suspension) of my high school days.
So could a kid get the idea of running through school with a firearm and shooting people from a video game? Sure, but I think someone brought up to cherish certain values (and friends can be just as important as family) can make all the difference.
Just my thoughts, I haven't the slightest bit of higher learning in human behavior. This is coming from someone who started playing first person shooters with Wolfenstein, though mom and dad taught me this: Try to avoid fights, but if you can not - knock their block off.
Andrew Borntreger
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
If you think Handgun Control Inc. has anything to do with gun safety, you have been smoking too much weed. Anyone who opposes their gun ban agenda is branded as being "against the children". The one program that has been proven to work, the NRA's "Eddie Eagle" program, has faced bitter opposition from the so-called gun safety advocates.
I appreciate the tongue-in-cheek commentary on political hype, but correllating an increase in violent games and movies to a decrease in violent statistics is just as bad as what the politicians are claiming. I just fundamentally dislike using bad statistics to back up any argument.
I listen to NPR just about every morning and evening, and violent gaming seems to have a surprisingly objective review there. Just yesterday was an interview with one family on why Diablo II is so popular, with audio quotes from two young boys maintaining that "It's just a game!", and that they can distinguish cartoon/videogame violence from the real thing.
But then, a couple of months ago, they had another discussion about a pre-teen kid esperienced with first-person shooters, and his first experience with shooting a real handgun. The adult observer commented on how steady his hand was, how careful his eyes, how his hesitation at shooting a target was nonexistent -- and then pointed out that these games are so good at training individuals to use real weapons that the Army now uses the same technology toward the same goal.
Do realistically violent games and movies desensitize kids to the real thing? No doubt. Does it do so to the point where actual violence is much, much easier to commit? Unprovable. There are plenty of things that can cause a decrease in crime statistics, from better policing to bad reporting. But claming that there's no correlation at all between virtual and actual violence, even in sarcasm, is just dodging the issue and irresponsible in the extreme.
Though there are probably a ton more factors involved in the drop in crime rates (metal detectors in schools, etc.), this raises several interesting points. Even though it might be scary that kids know how to evicerate their foes with a nailgun, it doesn't seem to be happening in reality, only virtually.
I wonder how many school fights have been redirected to virtual deathmatches in the last few years?
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
...if I should ever have kids, then it's MY decision what games they can/cannot play, and what movies/tv shows they can/cannot view, not the government! It's not their job to play parent to the nation's kids!
True, I do feel bad for those kids whose parents take no interest in their lives and don't set any limits, but that is their right also, though it is sad that some parents just don't *care* to be involved with their kids.
It's just not the government's job to censor what children should see, it's the parents!
The logic behind people blaming the internet is the same old political logic. In order to sound like they can do something about it, politicians will blame the easiest target. And people believe them because most people are closed-minded idiots. And since we all know Gore invented the internet, of course Bush is going to blame the internet for death.
I would not be surprised if we would find more violent offenders in the former group, given this research. The key question for the future will be which side wins. And it's not like the progressive side always wins. Remember the Dark Ages.
--
Best article in weeks. If we had article moderation this would get a 10. Amazing, really: real facts to counter the crap coming out of the politicians...
sulli
RTFJ.
I am voting Browne, despite all the loud-mouthed socialist bastard Nader fans both on /. and at my school.
And remember, everyone: you are under no obligation to buy Big Macs and wear Nikes on your feet. If you do, I can have no sympathy for your whining.
Rob
Although I should give him a credit for not being a racist.
;-)
The reason for that conclusion of mine is in the following paragraph from his website:
<I>Bring the troops home from overseas where they breed anti-American resentment -- and quit relying on our overwhelming national offense, create a secure national defense, withdraw from all international organizations and mutual-defense treaties, and allow other countries to manage their own affairs. </I>
You just can't do that. Sure, US needs to change its heavy-handed approach to the world and not try running it as a CEO, but you can't just close your borders and pretend that everything beyound is a white space.
People live not in the US anymore, they live on the Earth, and it's year 2000 now! It means that everything is linked together, and, for example, lack of the defence pact with Taiwan will mean that all of your motherboards will be produced in People Republic of China
Also, Americans will suffer from the ozone hole above Antarctica in the same degree as the Europeans. So, protecting the environment should be extended from this country to the entire world.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
"It has been psychologically disproven, you cannot compartmentalize violence in this way. Embracing violent behavior in one location tends to create violent behavior everywhere else as well."
Perhaps we ought to ban debates then- W's language about executions seemed not just to endorse violence- he seemed downright proud of the fact that he was responsible for killing these guys. Excited even. I have a feeling W's ability to compartmentalize is inferior to that of the average dark-hearted 9 year-old.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Intelligence != common sense. I love my grandmother, but she talks to god instead of getting an idea. She is actually quite intelligent and well read, but she has no common sense. You may know and read every child care book, but you may wean your child at 1 mo. or 5 years because of book a or be. The logical thing would be to let the child wean his/her self. Common sense doesn't always prevail..
Lowmag.net
And business should be favored above all? Business which, by its very definition, places profit above people? Business has an extremely important role in this society, but the pendulum of power has swung too far in its favor.
It's people like Nader who have made the world as safe for people as it is, Firestone Tires notwithstanding, by keeping business and government honest with the harsh light of publicity. Whether this qualifies him to be President is debatable--I think I'm voting this way, if more to encourage real progressive politics than anything else--but to suggest that his primary motive is not the public interest flies in the face of the evidence. (Note that I say primary; I have no doubt he *wants* the power, on a personal level, but so do many people....)
Stevis
We've got two lives, one we're given, and the other one we make. --Mary Chapin Carpenter
It works so well. If you took 3% of the defence budget and tripled the education spending, do you know what you'd get? More administrators. More education foundations like the NEA. More stuff....
BUT LESS LEARNING!
Money isn't the problem. Oh, sure there are some schools with money problems, mostly inner-city, predominately black/hispanic schools. Do you know why they aren't getting money? I don't know -- maybe because the money is regulated from Washington?
Many public schools are flush with cash -- and they don't know how to spend it, so they spend it badly.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
when talking on their feet.
As soon as the word internet came out of Governor Bush's mouth, I could almost feel his aides and advisors cringing with me. I instantly knew we'd hear about it on slashdot today too. If you listened to the rest of the debate though, you'd realize that he talked about parenting and youth activities as ways to curb this violence, and didn't talk of censoring the internet.
If one slip of the toungue is all it takes to crush a candidate, we'd have no one left.
Addlepated - punk & metal
A crime is down because people have built jails to cage criminals and the drug of choice (due to higher profit margins for the loosers who sell poison) has shifted from cocaine to heroine. It's just that simple. More animals in jail means less crime outside. Those same people will be sedated by their favorite recreation and motivation for their other crimes. Result, less crime.
The decline in crime is no reason to keep quiet about other repulsive behavior. Music which routinely refers to women as bitches, recomends shooting people, and generally represents the paranoid worldview of complete loosers deserves it's loathing. Video games that take a similar disrespect of human life also deserve criticism. It is wrong to promote murder! It is wrong to glamorize killing and make it look like fun!
Bad attitudes lead to bad behavior. It's not just murder, it's all around selfishness and inconsiderate behavior that is being pushed. Compare TV adverts today to those of just 20 years ago. They have all become "edgier", angrier, and more indignant. "Please me, Please me, Please me!" Barf. Do you have "Battitude" asks Dodge? Just look at how people drive these days. A whole new phrase was invented for being angry while driving. Less consideration for the person next to you is the basis of crime. Expect it to get worse or for incarceration rates to continue to rise.
Can you get warped looking at the web? Well sure you can, just as easily as you could if you checked out a bunch of twisted books and molded in a dark corner by yourself for your entire adolescence. The difference is that there is far more twisted stuff available on the net than I've ever seen in a library or in the real world. No not even friend's drug enhanced voodoo (yes, real religious experiences) adventures in New Orleans were as screwed up as stuff that gets posted to the web. The orignial Dirty Hary was condemed as being too violent. Pulp fiction put it to shame, but the web will take you up close to all that shocked you. As close as you get, it's still glamorized until you can smell it. What is this? The foulest of cruelty glamorized, canned, sold to you and used to sell you other shit. Momma, watch your eight year old. Anti-social habbits can form anti-social behavior. SAVE YOURSELF, GET OUT and LIVE!
Is censorship the answer? NO. Free and open speech can do the job of making evil things repulsive to most people and thereby reduce demand for such garbage. Strong enforcement of state and local obscenity laws can keep these things out of your hair. Parenting your kids can keep them from getting into trouble in the first place.
We should not be slamming George Bush for speaking his mind. He NEVER mentioned censorship, and I've never heard anyone in his party say anything like that. Mostly, they recomend parenting your children, tax cuts over credits for daycare end of the marriage penalty, MOTHERHOOD, wow. Other people have recomended censorship of one form or another and should be beaten accordingly.
Article is a real knee-jerk and writing this has been unpleasent. I have not seen much better from Jamie, who seems to be going for the John Katz award. No, I just have to take him off my reading list. Poster exercises proper censorship of his world, Bye!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
He has called Bush a "corporation, disguised as a man" ;-) It is funny and to some extent true, but Nader himself is a lawyer, disguised as a human.
All of his proposals favor not people, but lawyers at the expense of businesses.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Social programs and social progress ain't the same thing. Many social programs impede social progress. Name any major social program -- welfare, social security... all these operate on the presumption that the government can manage my money better than I can.
That's offensive.
Even if the government CAN manage individuals' money better than many individuals manage theirs today, people generally respond to pressure by living up to heightened expectations. Take away the safety net and -- given a generation or two -- we'll have a society of more individually responsible folks. So some people will be hurt in the meantime... call me calloused, but I'm willing to pay that price.
I'd love to believe that it is true, that's for sure!
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Bush was using the "Dark heart" coment as a scare tactic, to make a point, But he never actualy balmed the internet for the increase in violence in our culture. Instead he imidiately turned around and stressed that we need parents to be (rightly so..) more responsible in the upbringing of their kids. Some parents are, some are not. Gore didn't adress the issue, but just agreed in some vauge fasion. Taking his stance on the enviorment (cars are the greatest threat humanity and the enviorment have seen ect ect...)and the wishy washy government-should-fix-everything-for-you attitude, I can guess where he realy stands.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
a well researched topic? on slashdot? i'm not sure i can deal with this madness. and you know what that means...
Politicians will be politicians. They present us with FUD and then tell us how they'll fix it. Such is the state of campaigning within the US these days. "What have you done for me lately and what will you do for me in the near future." Unfortunately I don't foresee an end to that anytime in the near future.
The answer to your question is that they can't justify it. They bank on the assumption that no one will check the figures like you did. Candidates want to take the moral high ground whenever they can. And they will. Publicly at least.
Like I've always said since this sort of debate started, the real influence on teaching kids right from wrong isn't the entertainment media that they're provided with. It's their parents. My 11 yo son kicks ASCII at TFC but wouldn't hurt a fly IRL. He knows the difference.
Why? Because that's what I taught him.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
first off, the only reason violence is such a huge issue is because rich kids got killed. It has very little to do with race and more with class. second, the use of statistics to prove FPS decrease violence is paper thin. Historically, the level of violence is related to economic and political stability. When a society is more stable, people are able to focus more on emotional, spiritual and intellectual pursuits. The advent of the Internet and the rapid adoption empowered people to meet others with similar interests. all of these factors contribute to reduce the level of violence. On the flip side, the reduction of physical violence encourages more leasure activities, like playing games.
While Jamie's numbers are correct, he makes the same logical fallacy that Bush did by suggesting that violence in the media and violence in society can be directly correlated.
More likely, other contributing factors (such as unprecendented economic prosperity) had a lot more to do with the reduction in youth violence. Jamie's numbers do not distinguish between violent acts committed by middle-class suburban students (such as Columbine) and those committed by students in impoverished urban areas.
The rest of the games I've played (Total Anhilation, Command and Conquer, etc.) were of lesser help to me, but all served as great way to relieve stress and blow off excess steam. Given that, like most /. readers, I am a software developer/sysadmin, I can accumulate quite a bit of stress at times.
I wish that politicians, religious folks, etc. would lighten up about violence in video games, as I think they are the best thing to happen to geeks like me, in that they give us a harmless way to relieve stress.
I'll shut up now.
What????
Violent crime among teens is not primarily due to lone crazies. Geeks as a group are not dangerous, they never have been.
Which person is more likely to be violent, a socially inept person who may or may not be into computers, or a member of a street gang involved in criminal activity?
It seems to me like you've bought into the post-columbine mob mentality that says anyone who doesn't fit in is a potential threat. Sorry charlie, but the real world just doesn't work that way.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
bm :)-~
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
You should run for office. Oh wait.. Damn! It looks like you failed the IQ test by scoring too high. You're too intelligent to set public policy I'm afraid.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Online violence gives me a warm feeling. All the friends I kill online are the best people in my real life. I can get out a ton of aggression.
If I were trying to make you laugh, I would have said: "A priest, a minister and a rabi walk into a bar..."
I am not saying that playing Quake is criminal in any way shape or form. I spent many a day playing Doom in high school and am none the worse. As a matter of fact, I believe that a person's agency (the right a ability for a person chose for themselves) is God's greatest gift. (Yes, as a matter of fact, I am a member of the "religious right.")
What a person considers sin is based on their own cultural biases. It is my belief that such things are punished (or not) by whatever gods they believe in and not by me or a government which I participate in. However, the minute you do something that interferes with my unalienable rights (life, liberty and the persuit of happiness, you know Declaration of Independence stuff) I will do what ever is in my power to punish you for it. This means that I could care less if you jack off to the replays of your last deathmatch but will do my best to have you executed for premeditated murder in the real world.
PerlStalker
Federal judge dismisses lawsuit against movie, video game makers
But the times, they are a changin' Judge Upholds Video Game Ban
To quote the judge:
Superstition has won the day, and the arcade business in Indianapolis will suffer for it. Let's say you are one of those people who believe in this fascist law. Can you argue, with a straight face, that this is a fair way to handle arcades, when movie theaters and Blockbuster (which does rent R-Rated tapes, after all) aren't subject to the same Draconian laws?No what's really happening here is the arcade industry is being deliberately targetted for destruction by the forces of ignorance.
America, a Free Country? Not anymore.
Vote Libertarian!
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Bush's idea that you need to enforce the laws better ("We've added more beds to our juvenile prison system") doesn't help in a case like Columbine.
Besides which Bush isn't enforcing the current laws with any kind of enthusiasm.
There was an incident recently in Texas where some toddler got hold of his parent's gun (which had been stored "safely" on top of a wardrobe) and shot himself. No charges were brought against the parents. I'm not saying they should go to jail, but they quite obviously aren't responsible gun owners.
So we have a clear case where Bush's administration could have prevented the parents from owning a gun again, but they did nothing.
Maybe the solution to Bush, violence and the Internet is to smack the governor in the head with a big thick laptop. My G3 would probably cold-cock him in one go.
----- Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas. --Army of Darkness
Don't make me laugh.
Sin is JUST A BRAIN-DAMAGED CONCEPT brought up by some ancient people to explain why people would break perfectly easy to follow anti-murder and anti-adultry laws. There is no such thing in this reality.
It's a CRIMINAL thought that causes criminal behavior. Now you may be all in favor of destroying sinful or criminal thought, but I'd rather live in a world of free-will. Besides, it's not criminal to play Quake, but it would be considerred a sin by the religious right. I think such control over us is and should remain CRIMINAL.
-Ben
I say that if Bush is right and it's the internet's fault, we blame it all on Gore, since he created this monster in the first place.
This is a manual virus. Copy it to your sig and help me spread!
Nader is a fag.
You posters who think Gore is a friend of the Internet and freedom are going to be in for a big surprise if he wins...
Gore wants government control of all things: health care, education, Internet, etc. He thinks he invented the Internet because he voted to spend some money on it. He thinks letting people keep more of their own money (tax cuts) is "spending".
This is a scary guy, and no friend of freedom, Internet or otherwise.
I've read that the actual reason for the decrease in violence is a decrease in the number of people in the most violent demographics - that is, there are fewer teenagers than before due to the "baby bust" following the "baby boom". I know we now have a "mini-boom" again, but it will be a while before our adolescent population catches up again and starts breeding more crime.
I've never been comfortable with first-person shooters myself, but I think banning them would simply make them more attractive to kids. I see a heck of a lot of smoking around me despite the fact that smoking has proven to be a highly dangerous habit for as long as I can remember.
(I don't smoke or play first-person shooter games, simply because they don't appeal to me).
D
----
No sir, the facts do not speak for themselves, not when twisted. GW's statement was taken way out of context. Read some of the same papers you got your information from , and you will realize that younger people are feeling more and more separated from society in general. There is a growing sense of anger in this country, and it doesnt seem to get better. He stated the facts. He wasnt blaming the internet for all violence. Lets look at the facts that speak for themselves. These children that did this attrocity in comlumbine spent most of their free time, playing games and surfing the net. They obviously had a lack of human interaction, and because of this, developed twisted views of life. You remember being 16 im sure. Imagine adding the isolation of the internet and dark subject matter to your already confused mind. Bad juju. Anyway, internet or no internet, just because violence may be down, doesnt necessarily mean that the motives behind those violent acts arent different. The 80's it was Ozzy, the 00's its the net. Life moves on, but I do see trouble on the horizon
"sex on tv is bad, you might fall off..."
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
You're absolutely right. This country is fuct. We're getting dumber by the day. When I'm elected president, I will support parenting licenses and mandatory birth control for those without them. A license is granted to those with: 1 or 0 children. Married/United/Together for 1 year. Enough steady income to easily support a child.
"Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." -Robert A. Heinlen
Who do you think sponsers your elections? All the campaign money is from corporations and candidates have an obligation to keep their underhanded promises when they get in office.
I may be able to avoid buying Nike, but everyone on the ballot who has a chance of winning has already been bought by the Nikes and others. Publicly funded campaigns are needed to avoid monied interests. Browne isn't against accepting gobs of soft-money just like everyone else on the hill.
Do you seriously think corporations don't have any control over you? You must live in on a planet free of monopolies and corporate abuse. Think Microsoft is bad now? Give them a dose of Browne-style "liberty" and we'll really have something to complain about.
I used to believe that. Then I reconsidered. The problem is not that religion (an outside influence) causes one to become less intelligent. The problem is that less intelligent people are drawn to religion.
It's probably a survival instinct that's evolved. Think about it. If you instinctively know that you can't be trusted to make your own decisions, your natural impulse is going to be to find the closest person willing to make decisions for you, and thrust control over your life into their hands.
In earlier times, this was a good thing because it ensured one's survival (and thus, a greater species population). The downside being that it frees the less intelligent to breed and spread their genes. Thus, you have a self-perpetuating cycle.
Not much can be done about this. If people who don't trust themselves don't find religion, they find politics. Or friends. Any person willing to tell them what to do, they follow because it ensures their survival (according to their instincts).
In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
The notion that the Libertarians are the party of unfettered corporatism is an old, tired lie. ONLY the Libertarians stand for an immediate end to all corporate welfare. The Libertarians oppose a cap on damages for lawsuits against corporations. Ralph Nader would have you believe he stands alone against Big Business - so why do trial lawyers love him so much? At the risk of sounding trollish, I say there is no more corrupt and inherently criminal group than the ATLA - excepting only the Federal Government, which is rife with lawyers. I've nothing against Nader personally, apart from his Quixotic and pointless crusade against the Corvair; but anyone beloved by lawyers is automatically suspect in my book.
Ph'nglui mgwlanafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgahnagl fhtagn. Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
True, but the isolated school shootings which are so prominent lately are not the works of gangs. They are the work of isolated individuals or small groups of individuals. The key word there is "isolated". No only from each other but also from other people close to them.
I would agree that net communities have effected gang violence very little. However I would also so that Quake effects them very little as well.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
Correlation is not Causation; even They Might Be Giants can tell you that. Jamie's argument, obvious satire aside, is that Not-Correlation DOES imply Not-Causation; It's not very likely to be the case that an increase in A causes an increase in B if A has increased and B has in fact decreased.
Ha.. thats`'s just fuzzy grammer and syntax.. It's all lies.. ALL OF IT.. Bwahahah!
Believe me, guns are WAY more regulated than cars (which ironically kill many times more people daily). I also believe accountibility is important, but some things frightend me about Gore's plan.
Specifically, a national database and registration of all gun owners is resisted by many on the "gun community". Sheer wacko, conspiricy theory types with no grasp on reality? Perhaps, but understand that NEVER before in history has manditory firearm registration NOT led to confiscation. I encourage you to look it up for yourself.
Finkployd
So I don't expect anyone to read this but has it occured to anyone that inner city schools solved this problem long ago - by putting metal detectors in all the doors. Yes? Can't get into the building with a gun. Doesn't that sort of solve the problem? Oh yeah you could go Charles Whitman on everyone, hole up in the clock tower and fire away but I'm not sure if anything can prevent or predict the proverbial American Lone Crazed Gunman Syndrome.
I must be out of step with the rest of the country. I naively think that if a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun and puncturing someone else's head is the problem then perhaps at least part of the solution is to either keep guns away from people or make it harder to bring guns to where other people are, other unarmed people that is.
Yah know I hear all this "guns make us safe" rhetoric whenever somebody talks about making it harder to own one or at least requiring an owner to demonstrate that they are at least minimally responsible. But I have to wonder how victims of crime are made safer when their assailants have a gun.
Ok enough of that it isn't going to change anyone's mind....
Now on to the other issue the Net. Ok let's say for the sake of argument that all the do-gooders are right, there is a predictable correlation between the Net and violence. Ok let's say that's true. Now, how many people are on the net? About a hundred zillion? Now how many people go Lee Harvey on their class mates? 2 dozen? 3? Sounds like pretty good product reliability to me. Actually sounds like the same kind of argument that Chuck "Moses" Heston uses about guns. No? I mean its got to approach commercial airline kind of stats and I don't see anyone suddenly deciding that air travel is so unacceptably dangerous that minors should not be allowed to ride on planes.
And oh yeah - I forgot. Apparently the thousands of hate groups springing up on the net preaching REAL violence and REAL hatred and REAL action against people and against the government is something to be glossed over. Not real important and even if it was the 1st ammendment should protect them. Well not really because the 1st ammendment is NOT unlimited. If anyone doubts this go all the way back to US v. Debs and read the decision. But what the hey pick an imaginary threat and apply it to a generally voiceless group. Lemme see who used that most effectively... oh yeah it was Hitler and then Milosevic, slap on head, silly me I keep forgetting about those wacky guys.....
Amazing. Three months ago Slashdot was making fun of Al Gore because he was a pathological liar. Now slashdot supports him. Slashdot wants a pathological liar for president?
:)
I wonder how much Al Gore is paying Slashdot for the endorsement
Hmm.. The "I created the Internet" incident was kinda goofy... but the Union Label song lie... now THAT is freakin' scary...
Since man first made his own spears, the main outlet for anger and violence has been through the art of warfare. You got a kid who likes to destroy and cause violence? Send him to the army! That way he can persue his violent tendencies and promote the interests of the nation at the same time, everyone wins!
Now, with the advent of violent media/games, most of these aspiring killing machines have been pacified by the realistic killing environments that have been created for them in movies/games/comic books/etc, and have no interest in becoming professional 'real-life' killers, they just want to become another Quake World Champion!
The United States, being a military superpower, realizes that it's next generation of soldiers are quickly dwindling due to lost interest in serving in the armed forces. So in the end, the new political agenda isn't about children causing violence, it's about the upcoming lack of violent children enrolling in the armed forces!
UBU
"Consider yourself a member of a virtual corporation with Mr. Torvalds as your Chief Executive Officer." - Linux Advocac
Now I am not a psychiatrist but I do play a lot of violent games, watch a lot of violent media and play on the internet a little too mutch but I have yet to have a "dark heart" or "decide to take somebody else's life."
I have been playing games and have been associating with people who play games for a long time and none of us are violent, psychotic, or in any way mentaly desturbed. We will one day become the leaders of the nation and if people don't realize that media violence poses no danger today then they will have to when we become the rule makers and decensy judges.
Sory for the rant, but I hate it when closed minded individuals think this sort of thing.
-- Any comments seen here are not mine, but a mixture of alchohol and lack of sleep.
The idea that 3D shooters are some form of katharsis for America's youth is ludicrous. It has been psychologically disproven, you cannot compartmentalize violence in this way. Embracing violent behavior in one location tends to create violent behavior everywhere else as well.
Why is adolescent violence going down then? Because most adolescent violence is caused by people who don't have a sense of "belonging". This is not to say that being a loner means you are a killer, but a common thread in a lot of these teen shootings is that the shooter didn't have many/any close friends. Interviews with the other students go like this "I didn't know him very well but he was always very nice." Getting the picture. The internet changed all that because now, while a young geek can't find people like him at school, he can find them on the net. He "belongs" somewhere in cyberspace. Hence the drop in violence.
Note I am not advocating geek profiling or anything like that. I am saying most school shootings involve loners. It is an observable trend. Thanks to the internet non-social loners in meatspace are much more likely to have a social life in cyberspace.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
Well, of course some of us feel that all the blame being laid upon the internet is unjustly founded. I myself agree with this. I am a 17 year old male, who has been on the internet since the days of Winsock Trumpet was still the basic connection for us Win 3.1ers, and Archie and Gopher skills were still taught in school. I've been using computers since I was 7 or so with the Apple IIGS (a great computer... I still can't program C++ as well as I could with AppleBasic, but that's me). But, enough about me.
I remember the early days of Doom, which was given to me by a friend. I would best describe the violence contained therein as "cartoon violence." As if I could ever believe that the Doom Marine could possibly exist. Realisim in violent video games wasn't really even an issue until the release of Half-Life, which used realisitic models, not only for Gordon, but for various scientists and troops and the like. But still, I could tell the difference between what I saw on the screen, and what I saw in real life.
Back in the days of Quake II, I was heavily involved in playing LMCTF (Loki's Minion Capture the Flag, for the uninitiated), a CTF mod for the Quake II engine. I was in a clan, and the like. Even with the added social interaction as well as the added competition (as now your skills were seen by other people) still existed in the computer only, if at all. Even when Action Quake 2, which tried to be a semi-realistic simulation of actual combat, came out, I still knew that what I saw on my computer was not real.
Unlike those two involved in the Columine Massacre (I will call it a massacre, because that was what it was, regardless of the motives of said killers), I am not a loner though, either in real life, or on the internet. I more often than not am out with friends (albeit doing things that Bush and Gore would probably disapprove of as well, but I'm an average teenager, no matter how much they would like to deny it) instead of at home in front of my computer. I also have talked about video game violence with my parents, well before the Columbine Massacre. (Actually, it was around the time I was trying to write mods for the Quake 1 engine. Those were easy. Ahh... the good old days.) My parents, unlike about 50% of my peers' parents, actually give a damn.
I think that Gore and Bush would be surprised to see how little parental interaction goes on in the modern American household, whether it be about drinking, drugs, sex, or appropriate behavior on the internet. The internet (sites such as Stile Project) and violent games (whether online or off) should be the least of a good parents' worries, as there are more immediate and real threats to the "wholesome lifestyle."
And just remember: Who pays for the phone bills and the ISP bills? Unless they have credit cards, they wouldn't be able to pay for the ISP themselves. And unless their parents gave it to them, they wouldn't be able to have the credit card at all. (Yes, I do have a credit card; I need to pay for gas to get from home to school, to get groceries for my family, and I used to need it for my old job as a webmaster, but I have to pay my parents back immediately when the statement arrives, or they'll take it away from me. That's why I work.)
---------------------------
Garden of Eden Creation Kit
http://www.livejournal.com/users/whiskeyjuvenile/
Actually the decline in violent crimes (and most other crimes as well) over the past decade has widely been attributed to the booming economy. Statistics show that during times of economic boom crime rates decline and during recessions and depressions crime rates increase. However, even though crime rates are as low as they have been in over a decade, they are still much higher than they were 50 to 100 years ago. The biggest increase in crime rates actually began in the 1960's and for the most part kept going up until the economy got fired up with the technology revolution of the 1990's. Here's where my opinion kicks in: I doubt very highly there is one single cause for the large increase in violent crimes since the 1960's. It is probably a combination of increased violence in films and video games (and yes most likely the internet too), pushing Judeo-Christian values out of the public schools and replacing them with relativism, not disciplining our children to teach them right from wrong because we don't want to hurt their self-esteem and not really caring enough about our kids to find out what their problems really are because we're so busy with our careers that we don't have time for them anyway. I've been a Bush supporter up to this point and I really wish he'd of said something like the above instead. The internet, guns and bombs wouldn't have been a problem with Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris if their parents would have involved enough in their lives to know that they had guns and bombs in plain view site in their bedrooms. Being a parent is not easy - I know I have two of my own - but it is a big responsibility and the reason so many kids these days are so messed up is because so many parents are taking this responsibility way too lightly.
So by 1993, our culture was already corrupted.
Nader's mother was a hamster, and his father smelt of elderberry!
What's not what monopoly means? I didn't offer a definition...
I will say this - anyone who thinks Microsoft has a monopoly because he/she can't get a Linux box at Circuit City has no concept of the term "competition". There's this wild new invention called the Internet - I hear you can buy things through it. There are other items, known to some as catalogs - a rumor I heard says you can buy things through them, too. You could even - dare I say it - install your own OS! Gasp!
Ph'nglui mgwlanafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgahnagl fhtagn. Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
Well, quite frankly, we have failed to prove them wrong. If they spew hogwash, and we vote for them anyway, aren't we idiots?
When will an engineer / computer science guy get elected president, rather than these marketing / legal / pointy-haired types?
When we vote for them, and not a moment sooner.
If you want common sense, I suggest you check out Harry Browne and the Libertarian Party. And, of course, vote your conscience, not your fears.
I think your interpretation of what Bush said is way off the mark. While I was watching the debate, it was pretty clear to me that Bush believes that parenting/society is to blame, not the internet, media, etc. I think he used the word internet with a little bit of sarcasm.
I'm voting for the idiot.
Which one?
Remember, it doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always wins.
You don't seriously think we'd lose a war with China do you? As long as the war stayed conventional, they wouldn't have a chance. I don't care how many mig-28s they have, their army is technologically inferior. Of course, if the war went nuclear, everyone would lose.
"Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." -Robert A. Heinlen
Well, it may be all that. Of course it could be related to something else entirely...
1) Fewer children. The baby boomlet is over, they're packed in less tightly, less competition, less violence
2) Abortion means fewer unwanted children with fewer problems.
And there are probably lots of others you could come up with. I'm not saying these *are* the reasons necessarily, just that determining causality in large human populations is trickly, there is nothing that really can be called a fact, and really what ideologies (pick one) want is PR, something to wrap themselves in to sell to the masses.
No, money isn't the problem, administration and politics, those are the problems. Schools are rife with political bullshit, morons on the school board who don't like education and don't like teachers, highly paid superintendents lowly paid teachers, a culture that repeats bullshit ad nauseum like "those who can't do, teach." Principals who lock supply closets and force teachers to be humiliated everytime they need a piece of colored paper, administrations that don't want teachers to have any union or stand up for themselves, overly large class sizes, a bunch of idiots that think education is memorizing multiplication tables and drawings thousands of cursive "As" on a piece of paper. Education is in a sad state is the way of it.
Both candidates are just gonna take the already fucked system and bend it over for corporations, so our schools can produce good little workers. (Or place it in the hands of religious freaks).
You've compiled an interesting set of figures there, but nowhere can you or have you proven a correlation between the two sets of facts. Yes, the internet has become increasingly, if not exponentially more popular in recent years. And, yes, the figures indicate that violent/deadly crime percentages have decreased during the same time period. But there is no connection there. It could just as well be coincidence.
Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic videri?
Correlation doesn't prove causality, but it certainly suggests it.
-------------------
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I've noticed that my violent video games are actually a good diversion for my violent impulses. When I was in elementry school, I got into countless fights. Now that I have Unreal Tourney, I don't even think about hurting people IRL. I think we shouls make violent video games a public school requirement. :)
"If I were to ask you a hypothetical question, what would you like it to be about?"
If violent video games lead children to commit violent acts, then where are all the giant walls we should see from children who play tetris?
Wheeeee
I can't believe this tilted troll made it past the editors of Slashdot. I'd appreciate less politicing, and left of center diatribes on the part of Slashdot. Give me news for nerds, not pundits!
If people were that concerned about government infringement, they'd vote for Browne.
The same logic applies to guns. They are designed to "kill, maim, incapacitate or otherwise cause damage" to someone who is attempting to "kill, maim, incapacitate or otherwise cause damage" to you. It is impossible to design a gun that could accomplish this goal but could NOT kill an innocent person if (in)appropriately misused.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Hmm let's see Cletus let's just point that big shiny gun at our heads and pull the trigger.
Good grief if you are stupid enough to shoot yourself with a gun even if it is lying around you are a real fool.
Respond to s
No, the fire starts IN THE HOME. It's no secret that the familial environment has shamelessly decayed over recent decades, with divorce rates and domestic abuse seemingly forever on the increase. A stable family environment is the best starting point possible, and the best protection against being so easily influenced simply because it allows you to be more objective/rational and less subjective/emotional/acting on impulse, which is exactly how violence breeds.
The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all, is the person who argues with him.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
I agree, parents need to be more responsible for the lives they start.
I'm a bit suspicious of Bush's intent. Was this comment made to slander the internet as a whole or directed at Gore, who's spent time on bills supporting the internet (and if I was an extremist, I'd bring up inventing the internet but that's not what I'm getting at). Al Gore likes the internet. Bush wants to use it against him. This is politics as usual Bush vs Gore, not "we must make sure that no one under the age of 300 is allowed to access the internet".
/. camp checks articles before posting them :-)
Quick note for Jamie: nice work on the numbers. I don't know if they were relevant or not but it's nice to see someone in the
"You'll die up there son, just like I did!" - Abe Simpson
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Don't forget that this is the generation of young adult whose mothers were legally allowed to abort unwanted children.
Supposing that unwanted children are more likely to grow up in abusive/neglective settings, and that these children are more likely to become adults who have violent tendencies, then we have yet another possible cause for the trend of falling violence in our society.
While I certainly think that the Second Amendment is important and should not be violated, I also think that the First Amendment is important and that, at least in the short term, it is significantly more important than the Second Amendment.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
The only good thing that came out of all this is that (some)schools have started a ZERO tolerence to bullying. Where before teachers would allow kids to pick/tease/humiliate other students and not lift a finger to stop it. Now they are required to stop it and send the offender(s) directly to the principle for dentention. Although they are doing this for the wrong reasons(afraid the student(s) will come back later with a shotgun and blow their asses away) instead of any moral obligations. It may not be much but you have to take what you can get.
I'd just like to point out that all of those statistics mean zippo (and they'd mean zippo if they were going up and the economy was turning sour too).
I certainly support sex and violence as much as the next guy, but the decline in crime has more to do with a good economy than a lot of bloody video games.
On another note - while the average person probably sees more fake violence now, they don't see as much real violence as they might have a hundred+ years ago. We don't even have to kill our own food (usually) - and so many people don't have the ability to think about death.
The politicians are just trying to find something to latch onto that will attract the "concerned mother" group. All of this group pandering makes me sick, and it doesn't do anything to solve the real issues we have in this country (like the outrageously high population percentage we have incarcerated, for mostly non-violent crimes).
Now I know I am going to probably be moderated down for this....
I am sick of hearing this violent video games and violence in movies blah blah blah cause kids to become violent. You know what would solve the problem nicely? If parents would do a better job of raising their kids, and people would stop !@#$% judging all kids as bad.
I'm 19, some people still consider me a kid. Alot of people look at me and think instantly that because I am a 'kid' that I am instant trouble. Well guess what? I'm a productive member of the community that has spent 90% of his earnings in the last year trying to help others and make a difference in the community.
I've also been playing 'violent' video games and computer games all my life, and I dont go around shooting people all day long. Why? because my parents took the time to ensure I was raised correctly, to know the difference between what is right and wrong, what is real what is fake. Should other parents actually do the same thing rather then moaning and groaning, maybe more kids would be better off!
But god forbid we blame the parents for raising their kids bad! Lets blame it on the kids! Lets lock them all up and not let any kid have any kind of rights or anything until they are 30!
Now, enough with my rant... Thats my view on this.
Brielle
Actually, the reason violence has been dropping over the last 7 years is that the economy has been imporving for the last 7 years. Crime is always up when the economy sucks, and it is always down when life is good. -Brian
"Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." -Robert A. Heinlen
Politicians must think we are idiots. There is no other reason to explain why they keep pushing ideas like "Media violence causes real-life violence". And yes, I think both candidates are to blame.
Let us assume that media violence does cause real life violence. There are then three logical solutions: self-censorship, targeted censorship, and broad censorship.
For self-censorship, the media providers would self-regulate, and not release products with a certain level of violence. The ratings system is a good example, but it primarily works for sex (in the US). If a filmmaker puts in a scene that it too "sexual", the ratings board threatens an NC-17 rating, and the film-makers self-censor for the R rating (with perhaps an unrated DVD for later release). In the UK, they have a similar scheme for violent films. Hollywood could promise to link ratings more closely to violence levels, but it seems doubtful they will do this, since violent flicks are fairly profitable.
In targeted censorship, the film industry would have to actively enforce ratings. This means you would have to show an ID at the movie theater and at Blockbuster to prove you are able to see a rated R or NC-17 movie. But it also means an ID system for kids, to prove the PG-13 level. To really enforce the ratings, they would have to be made law, which brings up all sorts of censorship problems (ACLU, anyone?). It wouldn't change much, since parents who care about rating wouldn't let their children see the movie anyway. For the parents that don't care, they would simply be annoyed when security calls them and says their kid was trying to sneak into the latest teen flick. Not to mention the strain on the juvenile justice system, if it has to handle cases of kids trying to get into rated R movies.
In broad censorship, the government would ban movies deemed too violent. If a federal ratings system is enacted, and violent movies were expanded to "X" ratings, so they could only be shown at "adult" theaters, then this would be effective censorship. Again, I doubt it will come to this, and I'd hate to see what kind of movies get made with this kind of system. I doubt it would survive a Supreme Court review.
Now, let's assume for a moment, that our president wants to pursue one of these options. He can't pass laws without Congress's approval, and, with the Democratic party getting a lot of money from the entertainment industry, I doubt a bill would even pass his desk. They wouldn't come out and say that they are doing it for money, but instead that they are doing it for Free Speech, and because of the weak statistical correlations. They might be right, but not for honest reasons.
He can't really pressure the industry into self-censorship or targeted censorship either, without the threat of law as an alternative.
So, it is A COMPLETELY SAFE ISSUE TO CAMPAIGN ON!!! It gets the voter riled up, makes people think you are the moral candidate, gets you points with the anti-media types, but with ZERO risk of having to fight for the issue! You can "fight" all day, taking the moral high road, knowing that you will never really have to put your ass on the line, or live with the consequences.
The other thing that really pisses me off is gun control. The one thing the executive office can do is enforce the laws on the books, and most gun control laws don't get enforced. This is the one thing Clinton could have done, but instead he attempts to pass new ones. Why? You pass a new law, you can claim credit for any larger society trends. You simply enforce laws, and, while there may be results, your opponents can claim you are taking credit for societal trends. So instead, choose visible signs, such as X thousand more cops, sign laws to close loopholes and enforce them for only 4 or 8 years, yada yada. End result - gun control issue of the day, but never real gun control.
As I said, I'm pretty sure that politicians assume we're idiots, and campaign on issues that they don't have to take risk on (Medicare / Social Security Good, Guns/Media Bad, Moral Values, Character, Rhetoric style), instead of coming up with the best solutions for the problem.
When will an engineer / computer science guy get elected president, rather than these marketing / legal / pointy-haired types?
(Sorry, had to rant)
Violent computer games do cause violence. But, only in children who have problems already. If a child cannot separate reality from virtual reality, then that child already has a problem, and that person needs help. If someone is of sound mind, they can obviosly discern real from virtual. What needs to be done, is that children and parents and teachers, and the general public all need to be informed of the warning signs that a person believes that violence is the answer to their problems. Someone needs to help these poor, misguided people before they do something that they will definitly regret later. The people who need to do this is enveryone. Everyone, weather they have children or not, has a responisibility to watch out for troubled youth, and to help them yourself, or to take them to someone who can help them. The responsibility is ours. If we do not accept the responisibility, it could mean the differance between someone's life and death. That person could be you.
Interesting that you should mention monopolies. Please name one monopoly NOT supported - or even enforced - by the government.
/. can attest. They soon will be considerably worse, though, as they learned one lesson from the antitrust lawsuit: hire as many corporate lobbyists as you can afford.
Personally I don't think Microsoft is that bad. Granted, their software is bug-ridden garbage - so don't use it. They are not a monopoly, as any number of *NIX users here at
Ph'nglui mgwlanafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgahnagl fhtagn. Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
There are /. readers are from every political persuasion. Most of the /. readers (excluding trolls) are intelligent, free-thinking individuals that will decide who to vote for based on their own values and philosophy. They aren't going to blindly vote for whoever CmdrTaco endorses.
I still don't understand why everyone is harping about violence on TV and video games. They seem to think that these are the root of all evil, and that kids will suddenly play these games and become a violent murderer. If this were the case, then anyone who played Civilization would immediatly become a meglomaniac with goals of ruling the world (well, don't we all?). A correlation of violent media and violent culture does not prove that the cause of the violent culture is the media, it just proves that both of them exist at the same time.
Literature, both through film and through video games are not causes of this violence, but rather they are indications of the violent nature of our culture. You will not solve any problems by curbing violence on TV and stuff like that, you will solve it by attacking the root of the problem (which Bush actually touched on, but was too much of a dumbass to realize where he should have gone with it).
The big problem that how children are brought up and what values are given to them. If you are worried that your children have values that are rather skewed, then you have yourself to blame. Either your values are so screwed up that your children could not help but run away from them, or you did not do a proper job of bringing your children up with the values you wished them to have. I realize that I'm treading on thin ice here, but I'm going forward anyway. If you want your children to behave in a certain way, and hold certain things valuable and push others away, you have to instill these thoughts in them (that is a bad word, but I can't think of another one at this point).
If a culture would instill the values that it wants in a child, then it doesn't matter how many violent movies or video games they play, they really won't change all that much. While you can make the argument that everytime you see something violent on TV your character will be affected in some way, I can tell you that most likely that amount is so insignificant that it really doesn't matter.
Hypothetical stuff follows:
During the summer, 200% more people buy ice cream than during the winter.
During the summer, 200% more people drown in public pools than during the winter.
Therefore, ice cream consumption increases the likelihood of drowning in a public pool.
See? Statistics can be played with, and for every smart person that gets the point of this correlation, there are 9 other voters which haven't a clue about the math behind those figures.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
That's what Harry Browne stands for, eliminating social programs and social progress. Remember one of the individuals who will be suddenly empowered will be corporations. Think big-business is out of control now, wait till Browne gets his turn in office. Make no mistake about it, Libertarianism is the new Republicanism, just less Jesus. Just look at his views on abortion. He should just become Buchanan's VP.
Back to the real issue, the problem is in a debate when one person says something especially stupid (anti-net propaganda) its the other person's job to jump right on it. But Gore just smiled showing agreement. If this isn't the best reason to open up the debates to third party candidates I don't know what is. Toss the Lib, Green, and the Socialist and we'll have a real debate.
Info on 3rd party candidates can be found here:
Nader
Browne
McReynolds
Buchanan
Read up before you vote, please. show is hardly a place to find facts.
---
Make no mistake - Internet fear does work on an uninformed populus, and Bush's aides were NOT cringing. Bush did choose his words carefully, and he meant what he said.
Every time a major public figure uses their bully pulpit to defame an institution with as much potential and possibility as the Internet, we should take the time to point it out.
When it is misrepresented as an evil corruptor of children, it is our responsibility as those who do know better to inform those who are still new to the Internet.
No matter the rest of his message - Bush used the example as a scare tactic, which is NOT a good thing for public support of electronic freedom.
Besides, I can just see the scene now: Kid is sitting at parents' desk in a darkened room. Furtively, he double-clicks the icon to open a PPP connection. Suddenly, over the haunting sounds of the modem handshake:
"gaaaackkkkkh thpphpht rrrrnnnnggg"
Thunk!
The kid's parents discover him in a faint, sprawled over the keyboard, his heart turned to black.
---- I'm going to lead you kicking and screaming, giggling and laughing into the future.
first off, great article, this is why slashdot rocks. if only more ppl would read these postings(ie the canidates, all the stupid ppl that are going to vot for bush) it seems no one ever looks to see if wahat the canidates are saying is resonable. they jsut go " oh well he must be right " i alwyays believe in proofs by the numbers, they dont lie, but what we have to do is make this article and others like it as widley available and equllay intrigueing(sp?) as the media papers(i know that they are not intrgueing but millions of ppl blindly follow everything and anything they say) some one here said that bush wasnt talking about the net in that comment, but if some one like jamie interpretted it that way others (possibly with lower intelligences) could have also interpretted it taht way, and they will vote bush and then we have to fight to keep the internet free and libraries open. and then we will all wear the same clothes, as teachers we will have to teach by some stupid book in stead of being creative, schools will go down hill, big brother will rise... ok i think that is enough sorry about the ramble cinchel
I'd just like to take a moment to quote from a true cultural savant, Eminem:
"[D]on't blame me
When little Eric jump off of the terrace
You should have been watching him
APPARENTLY YOU AIN'T PARENTS.
I think that pretty much sums up everything I could possibly say about media and violence.
--
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
Everytime I go out to an R rated movie late at night, I'm shocked at the number of young kids (1-8 years old) I see with thier parents. Violent, evil movies, games, and web sites are FINE if you are mature enough to handle it! Parents are supposed to protect kids from these things until they are mature enough to decide if it's OK for themselves (i.e. say NO!). I'm so pissed that GWBush spoke ill of the net last night, while ignoring the issue of crappy parents in America. I'll still vote for him though, as a lesser of two evils.
However, when I followed bughunter's suggestion to look up the definition of "facism" at Merriam Webster, I did not find the definition that he led me to believe I would find.
Instead I find at www.m-w.com:
According to this definition a fascist state must be lead by a dictatorial leader. I don't think any mainstream politicians are espousing this view. His point remains somewhat valid since there does seem to be a tendency toward subjugation of individual freedom in favor of safety / well being of the "group." His use of the word "fascism" really just distracted from the central point.
Remember, you are not voting to 'guess' the winner, you are voting to have your say. A vote for the losing candidate is not a wasted vote, because it tells the population at large, and the politicians in particular, that the candidate, and the issues the candidate stands for, has a certain level of support in the community, and should not be ignored.
There is no prize for choosing the winner with your ballot paper.
Just out of interest, not being a citizen of the USA, what is the story if none of the candidates peceive a majority of the electoral college votes?
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
So here's the slogan for my campaign: our kids deserve the best in first-person shooters. In my America, every family will have free movie tickets, 300 megatexels, and low-ping broadband. Let's put an end to frame rates under 30 Hz. For our country - for our safety - we can leave no child behind.
jamie for president.
I must disagree with your synopsis. Here is my argument in a nutshell:
1. As a parent, I *will* give my son video games as I deem appropriate, and set limits on their use.
2. Claiming that Libertarianism is more logical than than our current government has no basis in fact, and no proof. However, I am voting libertarian for congress sometimes, as I believe it could be increased.
3. Sometimes I believed anarchism is better than government, because government does bad things. Or that atheism was better than religion. But are people in anarchies or atheistic governments better off? No.
What matters is freedoms. Such as the freedom of parents to raise their kids in a manner they choose. That freedom (which I believe as a corolary to this argument to be more important than the kids freedom to do whatever the want) is what is upheld by laws such as this.
Freedom to BE ABLE to censor the internet and to BE ABLE to use the internet for an affordable price are what I'm interested in. Freedom to turn down censorship is equally important.
-Ben
As I see it, there's a pretty extreme difference seperating violent games and handguns. If a kid finds a loaded violent game in his father's sock drawer, he or she isn't going to blow out a sibling's brains with it.
FilthPig
First we eat the PiG, then we BURN!
We eat the pig and then together we BURN!!!
I'm voting for Ralph Nader, even though he won't "win" the election. However, your vote will win an important smaller victory! If Ralph Nader receives >= 5% of the popular vote, the Green Party will qualify for federal campaign money for the 2004 election. The Reform Party received $12 million in federal campaign money this year because Ross Perot won enough popular votes in the previous elections. Even if the Green Party isn't perfect, having a louder alternative voice (especially in the televised debates!) is crucial for breaking our "Republicrat" deadlock.
VoteNader.org
cpeterso
It is interesting to see the numbers being thrown around. Clearly there is circumstantial evidence showing, well, just about whatever you want it to show. However.
Science has tested, re-tested, and re-re-tested this problem. It has been named, categorized, and diagnosed repeatedly. Initially, it was called the Werther's effect. About 200 years ago, a book about a character named Werther who commits suicide triggered a wave of copycat suicides. So many, in fact, that the book was banned in a number of countries. Researches came in, investigated, and concluded that a thing called the "Werther's effect" would cause like-minded people to emulate those they relate to, fictional or otherwise.
Within the last 100 years, science has called this "social proof" -- which basically means this: we look at similar people and take similar action. A pale white tech guy in the IT department might read slashdot 3 times a day, and eventually other pale white tech guys in the IT department start following his example. Whereas, the black woman who is the VP of Marketing may have so little in common with those IT guys that she never reads slashdot, because that's not "her kind of thing."
Similarly, a cartoony poorly rendered robot-battle game from the 80s is so hard to relate to that it would be difficult for "similar people" to do "similar things." However, put a game in front of a teenage introvert that shows a teenage introvert killing others, and social proof will become a powerful swaying device. Does that always mean such a game creates a killer? Of course not, but I do mean to imply that science has, well, got this down to a science. There are a number of books that outline the steps and the environment needed to get people to copycat media. So I find it odd to see such rampant speculation on slashdot, when the scientific community put this to bed long ago.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Lieberman and Gore have gone out of their way to attack the media as well. I'm sick of /. being turned into a pro-democrat peachbasket. And no, for the record I am NOT a republican (I'm a conservative-leaning libertarian). I despise the republicans, but let's be fair, rip both wings of the republicratic dictatorship apart when they have virtually the same stand on issues. Stop ignoring the facts people, your civil liberties are screwed whichever way the cointoss turns up (like there's any real difference between bush and gore!)
Premise 1: Internet and violent video game usage has increased in The United States in the past 7 years.
Premise 2: Violence (among minors) has decreased in the past 7 years.
Conclusion: The Internet and violent video games lower violence (among minors). QED.
But wait! Barney and Teletubbies viewing has gone up during the past seven years too! Not only that but NON-VIOLENT video game usage ALSO has increased! THOSE must be the cause!
In fact, thousands of things have changed, both in parenting methods and schooling methods. Saying that violent video games caused the decline in violence among minors is completely arbitrary without any evidence to back it up.
(n/t)
--
"No se rinde el gallo rojo, sólo cuando ya está muerto."
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p