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Columbine Video-Games Suit Dismissed
Dr_LHA writes: "This story on Yahoo! reports that the federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit that claimed the influence of video games and movies where what caused the Columbine High School massacre. Obvious to those of us who play GTA3 regularly but still manage to overcome the urge to plough over pedestrains on the way to work in the morning, but good to see someone high up showing some sense."
Naw, I think its more a product of our society.
Video games may actually help vent some anger and frustration out, I know a good game of T2 or UT helps me get rid of anger.
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
Then again, maybe it was the combination of a bad environment and GTA :) (*attention Columbine parents)
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
oh god. DUH.
----rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
There's always the fact that murders have always plagued humans. We simply tend to lock into the 'new' angles of sensational stories. In this case, a connection with videogames was very obvious, and it suited the already growing anti-violent-videogames sentiment at the time.
I tend to look at these things, and shrug. Nuthing new. Humans will always have a few who fall through the cracks and are forced to scream out for attention and revenge for perceived wrongs; its just too bad we strive so hard to 'categorize' the influences instead of trying to understand the less material catalysts behind their physcological state at the time of the tragedy.
I was teased, ridiculed, and ostricized from school, and I thoguht about suicide more than a few times. To me, it doesn't seem like that far of a leap from what these kids to from the psycological states that thousands upon thousands of outcasts suffer from school. Their reaction was out of line, their actions uncondonable, but I cannot simply dismiss the fact that popular school goers get away with psycological torture that is far more of an influence on what these kids did than video games.
And if you don't understand, thats half my point. Humans look for the bright red flags that say, "Look at me, I caused people to do this," and usually dismiss what outcasts are consistantly saying: "It fucking hurts to be hated by so many people." You have to take the extent of the pain caused by seemingly flippant adolescent peer to peer behaviour on faith.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I guess its sort of a sad thing that the judge should probably be applauded for this.
It seems all too popular these days to blame the symptom rather than the disease. When are we going to wake up and realize that guns don't kill people and video games don't corrupt youth. The problem with Columbine isn't the guns. Its the fact that two teenage boys thought that it was OK to kill all of their buddies.
The root of the problem lies in the continual de-moralization of our society. I think it would help to remember our priorities: when we say - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, life comes before liberty. And in order to preserve life morals are essential. It becomes a delicate balance between an individual's freedom to believe and carry on as they choose and if some of these activities and beliefs are downright bad for society as a whole.
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I could be way off base here, but after playing GTA3 for numerous hours and then getting in my car, I tend to believe that some with less willpower might find it hard to control themselves.
The game is just too damn fun.
(2,3-Benzopyrrole)
Wow, that sure sounds like a response coming from someone who believes that video games are all-powerfull. America was founded by people who stood on their own two feet and took care of themselves. Somehow, this country is devolving into a society where people are no longer expected to shoulder the blame for the mistakes they made, and this is an example of that belief. (Also throw in a whole heaping serving of there's-a-big-corparation-we-can-get-money-from.)
That teacher's family thinks that when bad things happen, it must not be the just fault of the individuals holding the weaponry.
We live in a society, people, where there are outside influences produced by others (individuals, companies, governments) all the time! Positive and negative. As a responsible member of that society, you make decisions for yourself. Any pointing the blame at others is a huge sign of pitiable, unforgiveable weakness.
Its basically the same as the chicken and the egg anology. Did violent video games create these psychos or do these psychos just like these violent games. The real question, is which was the chicken and which was the egg?
If it won't boot, Fsck it!
"Yeah, they played video games that made them go and kill people. Lets sue them. Lets just forget about the fact the guns that they used to kill everyone are easily attainable and loosely regulated. Obviously pretending to kill people is much worse then manufacturing the tools to actually do so."
So let me get this straight... You've been presented with a problem. Kids have somehow been raised with the inclination and ability to kill their companions in cold blood. Some aspect of social engineering has failed, and they've been dramatically warped.
Your solution? Don't give them guns.
How wonderfully shortsighted of you. So what happens when they build slingshots? Do you take away all their wood?
Now here is a classic example of treating the symptom, and not the problem.
There was an episode of Picket Fences that I saw a few years ago that had a court case involving television's role in violence with children. The basic plot of the story was a kid fired a potato gun at a teenager's car because the teenager was picking on the potato-gunman's little brother. The potato broke the car's windshield and caused the teen to swerve, rolling the car. The teen suffered a back injury and temporary paralysis. The little brother of the injured teen brought a gun to school the next day and shot the kid who fired the potato gun in revenge.
The city that this show takes place in is a small town and many of the people there suffer from knee-jerk over-reactiveness to events like these. They immediately blamed television for the shooting and pulled it off the air. The defense of the child that fired the gun (not the potato gun) was that television taught him that shooting guns is ok, therefore it's TV's fault.
The way the episode ended (if memory serves...) is that the prosecuting lawyer asked the kid a very interesting question. "When you watch TV, do you see people get shot?" "Yes." "Do they die?" "... Yes." "So television taught you that when you shoot somebody with a gun, they die."
I thought that was an interesting response to this whole TV/Video Games/Music causes violence debate. Movies like Robocop taught me that guns are not something you really want to play with at all. Some would say Robocop glorified violence, but it sure didn't for me. The idea of getting my arm blown off and surviving to feel it didn't settle too well with me at all.
It bothers me that this aspect of television is never explored. Personally, I think TV teaches that guns are dangerous, and that you're really playing games with your life expectancy vs. solving problems with them.
"Derp de derp."
So tell me - what are you GTA fans thinking when you watch blood pool around a dead bystander's head in GTA3? Is it really necessary for the game to be THAT violent? How does it make the experience more enjoyable?
:) :-) and I think this exaggerates the feeling that it's violent.
Like your post, this isn't a troll, but might sound like one. The violence doesn't make the game more fun, in fact, the game simply isn't violent in ways you describe - it's consistant. If you choose to beat up an old lady, why should the game intervene, stop you, and say "hey - that's not nice, you can't do that"? In other words, it's just like counterstrike, Halo etc - an artifact of creating a consistant world.
I haven't played all that far into GTA3, but from all that I have seen, you are NEVER required to beat up an old lady to progress or finish a mission. In fact, if you are so violently inclined as to use your weapons on an old lady, you're much more likely to have a run-in with the police, ending your game.
That's the interesting thing about GTA3 - unlike most games, there are serious consequences if the player commits random acts of violence. When you first get the game, it might be fun to try and rack up as many stars as you can get, but when you're actually playing it, you try pretty hard to avoid hurting people, else the police response makes it almost impossible to progress.
So in a sense, I see GTA3 as less violent than the shoot-everything-in-sight games, even though both might be very graphic.
That said, there are some pretty dodgy missions (though you still get to decide whether or not you want to do them). (I really didn't like the idea of being muscle for a protection racket for example. I was glad when it turned out to be a trap
GTA is also needlessly gratutious. The prostitute thing for example. (Not to mention - the idea that sex with a prostitute makes you healthier is somewhat counter to reality
I agree that it goes over the top, I just wanted to make the point that the game discourages violence - it seems more violent because whenever someone starts playing it, they discover that they are in a consistant world in which they be as violent as they want. And thus the PLAYER rips loose, NOT the game. When they start playing properly, it's completely different.
I think it would be a tragedy if game tech was retarded on the premise that offering a consistant world is too violent.