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CSI Takes On Grand Theft Auto
Tycoon Guy was one of many to write "Looks like another 20 million viewers will be fed the 'video games promote violence' story tonight. Today's CSI: Miami episode will feature a group of kids who are inspired to go on a city-wide crime spree by a game that looks suspiciously like Grand Theft Auto. From the description: 'Delko witnesses a bank robbery and the CSIs soon discover that the culprits are playing out the action from the videogame 'Urban Hellraisers' on the streets of Miami. As they score points for each crime committed, the CSIs must discover what consists of getting to the next level in the game in order to stop the culprits before they strike again.'"
I don't think that the debate isn't so much about whether video games inspire people to go on crime sprees (which is only the aspect that the CSI episode seems to address). Most of us agree that they can. Just like a violent movie, booze, extremely stressful situtation, etc. can push a person already with a few screws loose over the edge. The question is: Do video games make killers? And if so (and that's a big if) where does the line between social conditioning and personal responsiblity lay?
Anyhow, I wouldn't be in such a hurry to throw up your arms over this show. Knowing CSI, I doubt that they're going to devote much airtime into exploring the social and moral issues surrounding the debate. The focus of the show isn't the same as Law & Order, which is a bit more far reaching.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Will it include a Jack Thompson kind of lawer?
C-SPAN2 today will air an episode of Head of the Class 2005 where the students form a representative government that really is more interested in padding their pockets than in protecting their constituents.
We have to accept that the media has nothing to report on. They HAVE to report on games that may entice teenagers to murder, and the fiction media has to make it fact.
It isn't like Sharon quit the Likud or gold hit a 18 year high or GM is cutting 30,000 union jobs that it should have cut 20 years ago or even that Intel and Micron are colluding on flash memory. I know there's no real news out there for fiction-media to mimic.
The lady watches a lot of Law & Order (SVU primarily) and whenever I'm on the couch watching the show, all I can think of is "criminals are stupid" and "these cops are walkin all over people's rights." Then I realize it isn't reality -- but I do believe that a majority of viewers THINK this is real life. It isn't anywhere near what happens in the situations presented.
Wasn't it the Miami ADA who complains about how they have problems with getting guilty verdicts because juries expect DNA and other CSI-style evidence? Is this CSI pandering to the local legal authorities in pushing what may be a big issue for them?
I, for one, welcome our new "this is reality and you better accept it" overlords. The positive thing about shows like this is that it only helps in destroying the media regimes that exist today.
BTW, the advertisement to the right of this article is a GTA:LS for the PSP ad. Funny.
Every time I read something like this, it makes me want to carjack someone's Infernus, back up over them with it, then go on a huge hooker shooting spree.
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Somebody needs to go start killing people, and say that he was inspired by gruesome scenes in CSI. Right back at them.
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Couldn't the CSIs just check the walkthrough?
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
As long as they portray it as bad parenting and idiotic kids acting out bits from a video game. Or a book. Or a movie.
It's not that video games don't inspire mentally unstable people to do stupid things. That's a given. Mentally unstable people could find inspirations for their actions from a box of rice crispies.
It's how you portray it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
That sounds like a great episode.
In fact, I'm going to create a video game where you are a forensic pathologist, and you have to travel around a city trying to track down a gang of teenagers who are acting out scenes inspired by the latest episode of CSI... you must figure out what the crazy wrapup / plot twist will be in order to stop them. I bet the video game would be a hell of a lot more interesting than their show- and probably about equally gory.
What a strange bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can.
As they score points for each crime committed, the CSIs must discover what consists of getting to the next level in the game in order to stop the culprits before they strike again.
Simple...just put a big sign over a warehouse that says 'Pay-n-Spray', fill the warehouse with cops, and wait. ^_^
Seriously, though, I will be watching this episode tonight, even though I usually avoid CSI: Miami like the plague (I would rather perform an appendectomy on myself with a rusty grapefruit spoon than sit through David Caruso gibbering and capering onscreen for an hour). After all, we have to be familiar withh the propaganda if we're going to fight it effectively, no?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Will the episode be sponsored by a producer of hot coffee?
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
It's actually 'exonerates'. The word is derived not from the root "honor", but rather from "onus/onera", the Latin word for "burden". So to 'exonerate' is to 'remove the burden' from someone.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
After I played GTA (can't remember which one) at a friend's house for a couple of hours, I found myself thinking about ramming into other vehicles and stealing their cars. I'm really not joking. Of course, I also once pointed at a cop checking for speeders during my Quake years and yelling audibly, "Look at that camper!!!" Again, I'm really not joking.
While I neither rammed other people's cars nor pulled out a rocket launcher to teach the cop a lesson, I certainly KNOW that games can bleed into reality and if the person is just messed up enough in the head already, I don't doubt they could live out the game.
The entire episode is spent using forensic evidence to track down the killer criminals, and the episode ends in a carjacking followed by an almighty car chase involving 20 police cars and the criminals.
Unfortunately, just before the police are about the catch the crooks, they drive down an alley and pass through a floating police badge, costing $500, and the police promptly forget about them, causing a massive 20 car police pile up followed by period explosions for 5 minutes in which 500 police and innocent bystanders are killed.
However, the criminals later are found standing aimlessly outside a local hospital after a misguided attempt at a stunt jump landed their car in the river, which was unfortunate as they were unable to swim.
And life goes on in Vice Cit.... Miami.
"Absolutely! I'll use my 3D modeling software to virtually reconstruct the note based on the camera footage and flip it over."
"I think it's in an envelope, though."
"No problem, I'll just turn on the thermal imaging X-ray subroutine that comes with the camera footage. It will detect the ink and construct an image for us."
"Okay but can you hurry up a bit, we have about 60 seconds until some plot event happens that will render the suspect uncatchable."
They should make a CSI episode about a killer who commits crimes based on stuff that he's seen from watching CSI.
Consider a jury: 12 people too stupid(*) to get out of jury selection wonder why the scientific evidence is so bad. They compare it with what "scientists" say on CSI with all the flashy graphics that seem so convincing, and conclude that the real evidence is not compelling. Reasonable doubt surfaces and joe bad-guy walks.
One of my father's friends is a reasonably-high-ranking policeman back in the UK, and there is a genuine concern that people's expectations of phorensic evidence is being pushed too high by programs like this.
Here's a use for 'mythbusters' - get them to take a CSI show's flashy effects, and then compare to the real world... Some points:
CSI is a fantasy - an enjoyable fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless. Just once it would be nice if their technological approach failed (the database was wrong, the drivers licence pointed them in the wrong direction, etc.) but no, they're perfect. It would be nice if fingerprints were shown to be not 100% accurate as well (it might trigger some debate!)
Simon
(*) I don't really think jurors are all stupid, some of them are true servants of the state, but some of them... sheesh.
Physicists get Hadrons!
that's because shows like this are made as much for law enforcement propaganda as they are for entertainment.
and as a gamer, I'm happy to say "Welcome to the club." We're another group of generally law abiding people who get demonized for the stuff the batshit crazy minority does in our name all the time. And our paths are pretty well connected. I was told repeatedly by the media that it was guns and Doom that caused the shooters in Columbine to go on a killing spree. As Chris Rock says, "What ever happened to crazy?" If all 80,000,000 gun owners in the US were crazy (that's 1 in every three people), the streets would truly be running red with blood like I've been told they would by every anti-gun group. But they don't. How many gamers are there in the US? If the violent content of video games was truly a problem, wouldn't we have more of these violent episodes, not less? Of course, the true issue with Harris and Klebold is that Harris was a pure psychopath. He didn't want to shoot up his school for revenge. He wanted to kill them because he felt nothing but contempt for them. He wanted to be known as one of the greatest mass murderers in US History. So says the psychological profilers who examined his writings. So, it wasn't the game that caused him to be murderous, it was his disgust and contempt for people he saw as beneath him.
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
The only one I've seen this season is the first episode of CSI:NY.
Within 2 minutes they pulled out a fucking tricorder and I turned it off.
I complained about the image enhancements for years.
I complained about pseudo-science for years.
Star Trek tech is just too much.
All CSI's are off my (short) list of watchable TV now.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
I find it hilarious that parent post is modded 'Insightful'.
I can just picture some mod sitting and reading over that post, stroking his beard, saying to himself... 'by jove, that guy's right, Barney DOES make me feel that way!' (*clicks Insightful*) 'Hmm, I'd better go see if my diplomatic immunity papers cover that...'
~ Aero
I saw an episode of, I think, CSI, where a cop who'd been kicked off the force had fabricated evidence to get someone sent to jail who he was real sure was guilty. The guy turned out to be innocent--the real killer had gone free, and murdered again, partly because this guy had planted the evidence.
So, you'd think we'd be watching a tale about this guy's hubris, and his fall from grace, and how he learns the importance of due process. You'd be wrong.
The episode centered around our other leads buttering this guy up, telling him how much the force needed him, and how he couldn't let himself succumb to his guilt, because there were bad guys out there that needed catchin'.
I shit thee not. This is the kind of story they tell, which is why I refused to watch another damned episode. I don't care how cleft the leads' chins are, or how clever the zoom effects.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca