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New York Times profiles John Romero & John Carmack
whiteprints writes "The New York Times has a great article about John Romero and John Carmack. Talks about the school shooting connection
" It's getting on my nerves that so many people want
to connect Doom and Quake to the shootings, and aren't willing to
connect that simple fact that for millions of years, humans
were hunters. And this is the NYT so you need to login to
read the article.
Time to go back to anthropology class--I agree with the sentiment though.
nah. win9x runs far more shooters as well as
simulations such as novalogics delta force which is probably more violent than quake or doom.
Each year the adverstising industry spends billions of dollars on the belief that images and words can change people's behavior.
Is Id liable for player's actions? Probably not. Did Id's software contribute to worsening the behavior of the Colorado shooters? My gut says probably yes.
i actually _read_ the article but there was no mention of linux anywhere in there that i saw. maybe you should learn to read articles before you post too, it would probably help in keeping you from looking so stupid.
I agree that it seems pretty strange that a game like Quake could distort someone's mind to such extent that they would go to their school and start shooting people. Especially since Quake is played in just about every country on this globe and yet most accidents of this kind (except for a few tragic exceptions) take place in the US. In most European countries it's a quite difficult task to get hold of a gun and hence things like this don't happen. It's as simple as that: Without a gun you can't shot anyone and most you Americans don't seem to realize that you can live in a FREE country without having the right to own and use a gun!
>Without a gun you can't shot anyone
And without crime no one would die.
This only proves that more laws will not solve anything. Enforce the current laws before enacting new ones.
Why doesn't the NY Times send a reporter to the Pentagon and ask why they aren't communicating with the freedom fighters in Kosovo? Perhaps the US military could make an effort to ensure they are not bombing the only people on this planet who have the nerve to stand up (as opposed to bombing from 10,000 feet) the purveyors of genocide.
No, the Media is too busy swallowing whatever crap that government feeds them. Instead, of real question about real problems we get pathetic baseless pseudo-psycho babble about computer games causing people to be evil.
The NY Times is a dog a chain.
This is just common sense. Banks have iron bars, armed guards, huge steel vaults, and red buttons that summon armed cops. Why? Because fear of retribution discourages crime. Certainly not all would-be criminals, but take away the fear and watch what happens. Dismantle your local police force and local crime will go up. Disarm the citizens, and crime will go up. Tell the criminals they they have one less thing to worry about and crime will go up. Instead of trying to remove the guns, why not try to remove the criminals. It's more difficult to be sure, but the benefits will far outweigh removal of the other.
not 8 weeks.
There are a few very disturbed individuals that
manage to get themselves enlisted into the USMC.
They would surely find themselves avoided in any
line unit I was ever in. The reigning attitude in
the grunts is precisely the opposite: people that
are too gung ho are definitely regarded with
suspicion. This is in part why the US military
is the most effective on the planet. The US grunt
cannot conceive of and has absolutely no intention
of dying in the line of duty. And they will fight
like hell to ensure the other guy gets this
opportunity.
USMC Kuwait vet.
Occam's Razor. Look it up.
Replace "video game" with "movies" and/or "television" and see if the NY Times would give the article the same amount of attention. Also check to see if your arguments still make sense.
Well in my eyes the common denominater in the examples you give is a fanatic dictator and the best protection against dictators is stable democracies not a gun in everyone's pocket.
You also state that the problem is the laws regarding the availabilty of guns but if I understand you correctly you want most "normal" people to be allowed to posses a gun and then it's virtually inevitable that some crazy kid gets hold of his father's gun and start shooting all around.
You have of course a point in that the social system and recognition and treatment for mental illness is a problem but that are problems that exists in every country (but don't lead to mass killings in most others) and are once again virtually impossible to get rid of completely.
Since your best argument in favor for legal ownership of guns is that you can avoid ethnic cleansing which in reality can be avoided in much better ways you haven't really produced one single argument in support for your view but instead once again demonstrated the american ignorance concerning the central question: Why shall we sacrifice all these lives just for the right to own a gun?
I am American (not that it matters). It didn't occur to me to equate game animals with classmates and coworkers.
Littleton Simulator Pro. (Coming soon!)
And nearly all of it before the gun was even invented.
Individuals wishing to purchase violent video games must go through a 5 day waiting period, undergo a background check, and sumbit a recent psychological profile (which must show lack of violent bahaviour patterns) from a gov't approved facility before the game may be purchased.
My point is that tough gun laws don't forbid you to work to reduce crime.
I'm the original poster. OK, great, there are games where you can kill defenseless creatures. My point was that Quake is not one of them and seems to be unduly villified. My point is also that the Columbine shooters were evil and cruel to begin with, Quake didn't do this to them. Since they probably died many deaths in Quake, they probably found that Quake made them feel as small and ineffective as their real lives did.
This makes about as much sense as banning Quake and its ilk.
1. Any RIAA lawyer
2. Bill Gates
3. Any Nintendo lawyerr
4. Any RIAA lawyer
5. Anyone who thinks DOOM makes you go nuts
Using this incident as an exaple leads to this argument:
Speaking of Japan, has anyone else noticed how they have a far more violent media than the US and yet the murder rate is a scant 1 in 100,000 (that figure is 8 per 100,000 in the US, the highest in the world)?
Now, I'll not point the finger at just guns (which are almost non-existant in Japan), but I will point the finger at societal differences. Japanese society puts family, community and country above the individual. This is in stark contrast to the American sense of putting personal gain above everything else, _especially_ family, community and country.
If you look at it that way, then the problem isn't guns, it's the fact that America is a socially immature place (which it is).
Well, you could SUE the district, then specificaly donate the money to parts of the school system that needs it (Rebuilding the computer network with linux?). The only problem is the lawyers would get a fair chunck of the money...
How do you overthrow an oppersive goverment w/o weapons?
Just because its "FREE" now doesn't mean it will be later.
I can't think off the top of my head one country that's gotten more free since it began w/o a radical (read violent) change in goverment.
Of course most people who have guns don't rob liquor stores. It's because they have a sense of right and wrong. Kids also know what's right and what's wrong but often they don't give a shit about what happens afterwards.
If you have a society flooded with millions of guns then for sure there are going to be a small amount of kids who use these guns in a harmful manner. The risk of this happening is directly related to the amount of guns available.
Compare the US to other countries. In Europe there are far fewer "school-incidents". You Americans cannot continue to bluntly deny this fact.
i believe he was referring not to Doom/Quake but the first person shooters available at the arcades using pistols or other guns which you aim at the screen to shoot targets ...
...
those certainly encourage you to kill with the first shot.
Quake is different. generally you take many shots to kill that irritating deathmatch opponent who won't keep still for the extra few seconds you took to line him up
: is he consciously self-absorbed
: in an ironically postmodern ultra-materialist
: sort of way, or just a total dick?
i vote for the latter.
one thing many people in the gaming biz seem
unable to grasp is that acting like a chest-
thumping adolescent moron impresses just
about nobody (save, perhaps, other chest-
thumping adolescent morons).
people who are razor sharp, but maintain a
of humility, are far more impressive than
somebody who proclaims that we're all going
to be his "bitch".
Did you ever stop to think that perhaps blaming
guns for two people being disturbed is simply
another example of somebody attacking an easy
target?
What kind of an argument is that? Do you mean that soccer balls are potential weapons?
Maybe you could tell me how many people would have gotten killed if the Littleton shooters had used soccer balls instead...
So what is your suggestion? Force all parents through a ruthlessly efficient educational program that teaches THEM do stop their kids from doing these kinds of things?? Or maybe to introduce a "Child-licence"???
Complaining about parents not doing what they should will get you nowhere. There will always be a percentage of bad parents. And there will always be kids who care absolutely nothing about what the consequnces of their actions will be.
The problem is simply guns, guns, guns!!!!
the real problem isnt guns or quake you dumb $hit. its the psycopathic teenagers who are mostly depressed and lonely and full of crap.
"i did not have sexual relations with monica lewinsky"
i'll second that. yay for the ex-wrestlers!
I'd love to see such a game. This would be a major annoyance for all the PC-people out there.
Exactly! People are at fault. But how do you intend to change that? It is absolutely impossible and if it were tried would probably be critisized for violating personal rights and freedom.
The point is that mass SHOOTINGS would occur a lot less frequently if there were fewer guns around.
"Raised their kids to be killers?" Excuse me, but I don't recall reading anything about the parents teaching their kids to blow away their classmates if they pissed them off, or that Hitler was cool and should be emulated. And has it ever occurred to you that the little rats might have hidden their murderous plans from their parents? But I suppose that wouldn't matter to you.
"They (the parents) should pay the price," huh? Great. So we should throw them in jail, too, right? Add to the 2 million people already in prison here in "The Land Of The Free(tm)." Or maybe execute them? After all, they're responsible, right?
Y'know, one day all those people in jail and all the relatives of those people in jail are gonna hit critical mass (probably when we reach 5 or 10 million), and then there's gonna be an explosion that'll make Attica/Watts/L.A./1861-65 look like The Summer Of Love. But hey, don't listen to me, I'm probably just some soft-on-crime liberal dork who doesn't know what he's talking about; no way nothing like that's ever gonna happen here. Just go back to watching Judge Judy or listening to Rush. Whatever.
You are right of course. There has been a big change in society since the 1950s and minimizing access to guns wouldn't change that.
But the risk of school shootings, like the one in Littleton, would be much smaller if it was harder for kids to lay their hands on guns. If you (hypothetically speaking) took those boys who committed the murders in Littleton and placed them in Sweden where I live, this tragedy would not have occured. The will might still have been there but the means to carry them out would not.
There was an idiot on talk radio who wanted to legislate against "dis-functional" families. He wanted to set up laws so that if anyone thought that your family was outside the norm, you'd have to take "classes" to correct it. Gawd, if you follow that train of thought, you'll have people taking classes to: bring them back to Christianity, convert them to one of the two major political parties, or give up reading Kierkegarde (sp?).
Homemade bombs are not the big issue here. Would the perpetrators in Littleton have been able to place all those bombs the way they did without the use of their guns?
I don't thinks so.
Did you know that hundreds of thousands of people get stabbed to death each year? Were those knives used for their correct purpose? I think we should license/ban all steak knife sales just because a small percentage of people use them wrongly. People get beaten to death with baseball bats, should all baseball bats get banned?
>
And in Playboy, Hustler, Oui, and the dozens of other magazines there is no smell, no touch, no delicious words whispered in your ear----and it still brings forth in the human the desire for sex.
Face it----a representation CAN teach. A person who never learns violence will not turn to it as an outlet for frustration. I agree---these games are not the sole reason why people (kids) go off with guns the way they do. But they---with music, movies and television are a powerful medium for influencing kids. And the thought of blowing someone away is a thought NO kid should ever have.
>
sad and pathetic.
I hope your parents get you the help you need
So: ban guns?
And violate personal rights and freedom?
Everyone simply has to push for more responsibility and care in society. Removing the means leaves the cause festering.
A disarmed populace is mute.
--MolochHorridus
On one hand, it is the parent's fault, because the parent was the one who had the original perverted obsession with owning a gun. On another hand, it is the society's fault, because it allows a regular citizen to get a gun in the first place.
What he's trying to say is: if you're stuck in a chaotic situation where thousands of people are panicking, like at the Hillsborough football ground (or a Who concert in Cincinnati), it would be much better if you were armed. That way you wouldn't have to wait to be crushed or trampled, you could just start shooting your way out.
"I don't doubt that games have some sort of effect. However, we cannot yet show what this effect is, ..."
From my experience Wolfenstein and Quake with their level of reality were highly desensitizing to the repulsive idea of blowing away a person upon sight. It seems to me that the two kids at Columbine were already desensitized before the massacre as they were able to do it in a ruthless manner. What desensitized them? Quake and the likes.
Sorry Sir. (spelled C-U-R)
Those kids didn't need GUNS to do what they did. They would have found other ways to attack their school. (PIPEBOMBS - hint hint!)
Here's a little anology to sum up the whole situation-->
Greedy Politicians pass gun control laws
Nice people follow gun control laws and suffer the consequences
Bad people break gun control laws and kill people
Greedy politicians pass more gun control laws
Nice people can't own guns anymore
Bad people buy guns off the BlackMarket and kill more people
Greedy politicians blame it on GUNS (includes vid games, movies, tv, internet, and the MORAL CRISIS of OUR COUNTRY)
**INSIGHT**
Don't pass more gun laws. Enforce the ones already existing. Elect politicians that actually give a damn. Period. Full Stop. End of Story!!
Of course, firearms are a responsibility. The US thinks its citizens are up to this responsibility. Other nations don't. I prefer to have the option rather than not.
Fascination for violence is something innate and biological. People buy these games for the adrenalin and the fantasy. They like it. It has to do with hunting and war and adolescent males.
Glorifies? Capitalism has a tendency to repetitively exploit whatever works. Maybe this is bad. Maybe we should wake up to this a little. And then tell the kids.
The answer to Littleton is simple. Support and care for those in society who need it, by everyone else.
You can legislate the problem away, but then you aren't dealing with it.
--MolochHorridus
oh lord.. somebody from .au using 'root' in a sentence..
somebody has a dirty mind.
Go and read about the Warsaw Ghetto during World War 2. European history.
We are talking ease, not possibility. For sure they would have been beaten, the cost to the Germans would have been higher. Thats better than nothing.
The twentieth century has been full of conflicts against poorly armed rabble citizens. These groups often won. Chechnya, Afghanistan, Vietnam, China. People do best when they think they are fighting for their lives.
Your post was abusive.
--MolochHorridus
Well the US is *NOT* a democracy. You'd be surprised how many American's have a problem with this.
Democracies are as short in their lives as they are violent in they're deaths.
The only problem with a democracy is 51% of the people can tell 49% of the people what they can and cannot do. If the 51% decide something against the 49% thats too bad they have to capitulate.
I think that alcohol related accidents are/were the number 1 killer of teens in America. Perhaps we should ban alcohol. Doooh, we tried that earlier this century. Damn
Id cater for the +17 market, thats what rating systems are for.. I would think the shooters were well below 17 when they first bought the game making id not liable for under 17's market as shown on their packaging...
>
Easliy the dumbest argument I've heard all evening. We're supposed to expose the kid to violence so we can determine he has a adverse reaction to it? Bah.........
>
And those millions are slowly being desensitized to the effects of it.... And what of those 1 or 2 who ARE affected by it? It would be better to abolish it for all to protect us from the one or two. There are other forms of entertainment. You the human are no different from your great grandparents and they didn't have violent movies and videogames as recreation and you and we don't need to either.
Although we all love Quake and Doom. just who doesn't.. It is true wheather this get on your nerves or not that:
+ psychologists have shown kids DO get more agressive behavior after playing quake and doom. So get all the mad you want..There are ALOT of those studies, more so than those that are saying it is not the case.. You might not like it, but YOU and I have not clue or a degree for that matter to say who is right from a technical standpoint that has any merit. your just a geek like the rest of us who is pressing your views without any background on the subject..
+ more interesting: ID software has software to train REAL marines at tactical warefare and they got plenty of "I like to smell blood".. "used to be an ex-rapist" stuff on their site for their pesonal comments. So much so that when people got hold of those (jokes obviously) they took it off their site as bad PR.. This is weel known.
If I were them I'd lay low on that and keep selling the games. otherwise the gov. could put a restriction on the merchadise..
I am just stating facts (besides my fruitless comments)..
Hitler was elected. Milosevic was elected. Franco was elected. Stalin was elected (admittedly, this one is a strech). You seem to have forgotten that all of these bad people were put in power by a democracy, and they proceded to commit crimes against humanity, just as their electors wanted them to.
If a people -- a minority of any fashion that has hate levied against it -- wants to protect themselves, they can't rely on a bunch of stuffed shirts elected by other people. They must rely on themselves and their guns.
Its a question of degree. Or choose your weapon.
Freedom of speech is more important in modern society. Poster campaigns and the internet versus media indoctrination by the powers that be.
But lets not be too modernist. Guns are important too. Massacre of civilians only seems to be increasing in less democratic countries.
Democracy in America has an edge. Americans have increased means to protect themselves. They don't have to rely on the police, or the government. They have more responsibility, which cuts both ways.
Problems afflicting America? You have been swallowing media hype. America, overall, is doing fine. It is trying to deal with problems and modalities lesser countries reject in entirety.
--MolochHorridus
The answer to these tragedies is simple, high school athletic programs MUST be banned.
I really hope you're joking.
Though I do agree w/ you about the culture surrounding athletics in high school and the fact that kids don't feel "in," banning high school athletics is a very bad idea. I wasn't a real popular guy in high school, I've never had a date, I didn't go to my high school prom, and many times I feel outcast, but I was part of a high school athletic team, and I enjoyed it dammit! And I was not what one would call a jock. Athletics can teach people good things like fair play, sportmanship, fitness, time management, teamwork skills, social skills, blah blah blah. Each experience in life teaches its lessons, high school athletics is part of this. Banning high school athletics will not solve this problem either: their will still be cliques and those who are "cool" who will still antagonize those who aren't. The high school culture at a particular high school could just as easily center on something else like say, drama or music. Then all the ones who weren't in drama or music would feel outcast. Should we then ban all drama and music programs? Why don't we ban all clubs? Seems like a very repressive idea to me.
My last thought: what was the relationship between the shooters at columbine high school and their parents? Everything starts at the home.
yeah, I agree.
Everyday in every metropolitan area, there is a school in the ghetto, where a lot of kids are carrying guns. This is the environment that poor minorities live in EVERYDAY. But when guns and school shootings happen in an environment predominantly white, it gets national attention. Please, I ask everyone to study why you believe what you do, and question your beliefs, analyze them, especially concerning issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and social class. The fact that there is a disproportionate amount of minorities living in poor areas is no coincidence, it is a result of oppression. Before anybody flames me, read arguments from the other side. Read up on sociology, and be sure to read two sides of an argument. Most people haven't read an argument that comes from the view of the minorities of the United States, they cling to their ideas of "individualism," "advancement based on merit (meritocracy)," and "intelligence." Meritocracy and individualism aren't all they're cracked up to be and neither is intelligence (SAT's and GPA as they are now shouldn't be so important for college admissions, and IQ tests are just a bunch of crap. IQ means next to nothing. I'm not saying this because I have low SAT's or GPA or IQ, I do fairly well in those areas, but I know they really don't mean that much).
I have a problem with background checks.
Its called incrementalism.
The hoops you propose are difficult for people to jump through. The organisations who administer them are likely to reject a lot of people.
The safety course idea is good. If it is free ( sponsored by the government?) natch. Otherwise it is another hoop.
If this happens, there will be many less gun owners. Those that exist will be more likely to have some formal responsibility (police officer, security guard). Names will be taken.
The next step, removing guns from ordinary citizens hands, will be easier. There will be less opposition.
I say the US has to deal with this up-front. If the government takes responsibility it will naturally take the responsibility away.
Fixing the problem is about society locating and dealing with misfits and criminals. Misfits - in a caring and concerned way. Criminals - directly and firmly. Everyone has to do this, even though it is hard.
--MolochHorridus
Thank you so much for that comment from the committee to blame human behaviour on inanimate objects.
You know, there are a hell of a lot of guns in Switzerland, and they don't kill each other very often.
Come to think of it, in various places in the Amazon, there are hardly any guns to be found, and yet the tribesmen there happily chop each other up with machetes.
Maybe there's a bit more to consider here, no?
Or they would be mainstream.
God forbid.
That's what an independant judiciary is for.
Checking the behaviour of its leaders.
Kosovo's a tragedy, but then again they probably had a much lower crime rate than the US.
Ditto for Germany back then. Yet one thing to be remembered is that they didn't have the independant judiciary to check their leaders. And that's where they fell.
NATO bombed its own allies today, the rebels who
have joined with NATO.
Hmm, wonder what Billie and the rest of NATO were
like in high school.
I fail to see the analogy. Cars, alcohol and TV's can, of course, be misused, but they all still have some very obvious bright and positive sides and uses. Firearms, however, exist just for killing and causing wounds and injuries - nothing more, nothing less.
But let's say (just for the argument's sake) that you want to practice sports - such as target shooting. Well that's your right, but you can still do it with airguns and similar non-lethal weapons.
> and moved to Dallas to form a partnership with
> Apogee Software, a company pioneering the use of
> the Internet for distribution
BS. Apogee pioneered shareware method of distribution, which has nothing with what kind of media (disks or the Net) used. Apogee used BBS a lot, but not the Net (until the explosion of WWW).
> Their first game, Wolfenstein 3-D, is
> considered the original first-person shooter
BS. Id Software became known from their Commander Keen series, which is still very playable (episodes 4-6). Wolf3D was their first somewhat-3D shooter.
> By intentionally leaving cracks in his source
> code, Carmack encouraged Doomers to hack the
> game and create their own elaborate levels -- new
> battlegrounds upon which the carnage took place.
Since when the word crack is used to define ability of the game to load customly designed levels? What the heck source code has with it? If the author of the article meant release of the original (half useful as it run on Lunix only) code of the Doom engine, then it has little to do with playability - release came well after the Quake was released.
> In fact, one of the things that held up the
> game, now scheduled to reach stores this winter,
> was the wait for Carmack to release his latest
> engine.
Hahaha, now that the most funniest part related to Ion Storm. Surely, they waited for a new release of engine, perhaps hoping that won't have to do anything and it sell itself marked: Quake III super-duper technology (c) Ion Storm {long list of 88 developers follow here}
And so on.
Play DOOM instead of Quake. DOOM doesn't need fancy graphics cards or Pentium II's.
Besides, it's more fun anyway.
And please don't try and tell me that I could lose my freedom any moment because I have no gun, and most of my country's population has no guns. Because _my_ country doesn't need guns in order to stay free, and has never needed guns to stay free. My country didn't need guns to achieve freedom - we merely had to ask for it. My country is founded on trust, not paranoia.
Except when it needed Yank guns in WW2.
Consider: self-reliance?
If you read my comment carefully I say that the best protection against dictators are stable democracies like those in the US or the Western European countries not the like those in Germany prior to Hitler, in Yugoslavia or in Spain after the civil war. It takes more than elections to call a country a stable democracy!
Do as I say, not as I do, eh? I cannot stand it when people tell me not to do something that they do, espically willingly.
-ZuG, too lazy to login
I'm sorry. Maybe its because I'm over 50, maybe not. But, from the first time I wittness "Doom" on a computer I had to wonder why anyone would want to waste a perfectly good machine for such nonsense. The next thoughts were that I, personally, find it hard to imagine why any rational person would want to play such a blatently "violent" game. It is NOT cool to see blood, gore and brains torn from their original owner, whether in cyber-reality or real-reality. If you believe it is, I believe you have a seriously warped sense of value regarding life, let alone humanity.
Let the flames begin!
Who elected Stalin? I wouldn't consider soviet a democracy. Lenin seized his power by civil war i.e. he wasnt elected.
Maybe nerds don't watch football. In the politics of gun control, shooting sports can be considered a dummy run by the anti-gun lobby.
.22 or single action rifles and double barrelled shotguns, under heavy restriction. No guns for self defence at all.
Sporting shooters are drawn to a position of sport-only shooting because they don't lose personally. This divides the gun lobby reducing its effectiveness.
Most countries allow weapons for sport (under regulation). The key element in gun ownership is ownership purely for self-defence.
Of course you can use your hunting rifle for self-defence. Problems start when you can't get your hands on one without a license to hunt, somewhere to hunt, etc.
Australia moved down this road. Our major gun group is the Sporting Shooters Association Australia. In spite of its protests we are now allowed omly
Its a red herring. This is the edge of a legislative wedge.
Guns are for killing? Yes. The question is who wields them, you or the other guy. Defenceless people can see the positive side of firearm ownership. Only people blessed with power and security seem to have forgotten it.
cannot continue to bluntly deny this fact.
In Europe there are fewer _non-gun_ "incidents"
too.
I'm not a gamer, but we're all being hopelessly naieve thinking we're going to get rid of violence if we get rid of guns. What we need is more violence. Bear with me. Please read the rest of this before you get all mad.
Modern society has been around for only about 200 years, likely less. In all of that time, America had an enemy. There has always been a major rival, a bad guy for us to focus our hatred on. It has been shown time and again that Americans rally together when faced with a war, an enemy. Lacking an enemy, what would logically happen?
For the first time we are finding out. Lacking an outlet for our hatred and anger, we turn to each other.
I can hear you now, protesting that we have Milosovich. Do you feel threatened by Yugoslavia? Really? Think of the cold war. Has Milosovich reached that level of threat to the United States? I don't think there are many people who would answer yes. I don't think there are many people who consider Milosovich at all except when perusing the morning paper.
I believe it is no coincidence that the kids who commit these violent crimes are drawn to violent games. They are seeking an outlet for their feelings of frustration. It should be there in the form of athletics, but athletics have ceased to be a healthy outlet and become just another divider in schools today. It should be there in the form of Nationalism, but we have succeeded so well in obliterating our enemies, that we have made one of ourselves. The last possible resort is to find an outlet in games. Many kids find that outlet. Some need more. It is not a fact we like to admit about ourselves, but we must.
Consdier why the problem is an American symptom, not one of humanity in general. Ask yourself how many people you know who are not interested in either sports, games, or international politics. I am ready to hear lots of arguments and outraged protests against this statement, but aren't they really all the same in the end?
Hi again (kabloie as AC)
Well, I'd never heard that Homerism. That's excellent!
And as far as hunting goes, I've never viewed hunting as a sport. Hunting=food for me. I lived in Alaska where it is illegal to leave more than 16 ounces of edible meat on any animal you've hunted.
Anyway, animals are strong, humans are weak. We can sprint at what , 12 miles an hour? Nice teeth we have. Claws. We need better than a pocket knife such that the deer and moose don't laugh us out of the woods. But now, I digress.
-kabloie
So how do you know what athletics teach you? And what about the arguments I made about drama and music programs? It's repressive to end all athletic programs, because they DO teach you valuable life lessons. I sport I was in got no respect at the school I went to (I was wrestler, and my school was full of homophobics). We would actually make conversation w/ our opponents. The people I met were really nice people. I'd lose a well fought match, my coach would say "Good job! That was a tough match!" My opponent would say the same. Good coaches teach their players such values, because sports isn't all about winning.
I understand your points, but the idea of banning an activity is what I am against. Back to the school band you mention. Imagine a situation where everybody who's anybody is in the school band (could already exist somewhere). And the band gets a bunch of funding, while the athletic teams, maybe only two existing at the school, get very litle funding. Teachers are hired because they teach the band. Students concentrate more on band than academics. Uh, I can't really refute point 2 w/ this example, but that's okay, it's just a hypothetical. Should we then ban the band at this particular school because of the culture creates?
How about the drama group? What if the central activity at a school was the drama group? Ban them? Or how about this: Academic League. What if academic league was the big deal, but the academic league guys focused too much on the competition than their school work and teachers who did academic league were good at academic league, but weren't good teachers in the classroom. Ban them? Or the "de-tox" you suggest? Banning stuff won't solve the problem at all. There will still be those who are "in" and those who aren't.
Also, the Big Deal sport varies w/ the school. At my school it was basketball. At another school within the same county it was wrestling.
If you take out sports, by similar reasoning you have to take out all extra-curriculur activities, have them just be "community leagues" or sorts. Then you just have a really boring high school.
"Violence, and no one to stop it, control it, or prevent it, desensitizes kids to violence."
Exactly, but don't assume that violent games are not part of that violence. You have to agree with me that the poplularity and the ubiquity of these games lures in even those innocent kids who knows nothing. For some people, violent games play the biggest part in violence. Games like drugs can be addictive. Someone should stop it, control it, or prevent it. The government can ban it from the kids under 18.
Thanks. I wholeheartedly agree. When I was in high school (about 2 years ago) all the "asshole" and "problem" kids had horrible parents. ie. Parents both were at work 12 hours a day, kid never came home to a house with either of them in, made their own supper, lunch, and breakfast every day. Parents that were drunkards, abusive, allowed their kids to smoke drugs. A note on the last one: In my high school (in Canada, the land of "no guns"), a kid blew his head of with a shotgun. His parents used to give this kid drugs for recreation. They should have gone to jail for murdering that child for such pathetic negligence, but are still roaming free after serving a fine for having drugs.
What has this world come to when no one is held accountable for the actions of it's youth. Only a lawyer could appreciate such a guilt-free place.
Sorry for my cynicism but I believe that most people are brutes who have no self control. Otherwise we wouldn't need any laws to control us. Contrary to your belief, a good regulation and control by the government breeds freedom.
Games these days are becoming incredibly powerful, you should know I think. Quake for one is visually stunning, violent, and addictive. What's in the future? Will these type of games grow in power and popularity? Yes. Do they have destructive potential to youg minds? Yes. Should the government intervene in the near future? I believe they will.
The media seems to blame games such as Doom for creating Psycho killers. Surely it's the other way around, psycho killers are attracted to this stuff (and would do this shit anyway)?
It is a sad fact that most people (especially the mass media and politicians) easily forget the difference between a 'cause' relationship and a 'correlation' relationship.
>
Then why be attracted to a game where that plays a primary part...?
Thats nuts.
Violence in society breeds violence in society.
Even subtracting out all crimes where guns were involved, the violent crime rate in the U.S. is higher than the total rate in Europe (including crimes where guns were used to commit the crime).
Crime is a social problem.
In Switzerland, every family has an assault rifle (which would be classified as a machine gun under U.S. law). Yet the crime rate is extremely low.
Europeans have decided they cannot handle the responsibility of private firearm ownership
Don't lump all Europeans together. In Switzerland, every family has an assault rifle (which would be classified as a machine gun under U.S. law).
There's no way Id could be found liable by any competent, reasonable jury
Tell that to the Jenny Jones Show.
The problem is that jurors are relatively average Americans, and (speaking as an American) the average American is pretty ignorant and generally incapable of rational thought.
Think of all the people that you went to public high school with. All those people are roaming around somewhere. It's a scary thought.
I don't know if it's just me, but it seems that lately (last 20 or so years) the general public has looked for the easy scapegoat to explain deviant behavior. It's games or movies or it's guns, or it is kids picking up a stick and pretending they are shooting someone. I remember when I was in High School, it was heavy metal music and Dungeons and Dragons type role playing games that sent seemingly normal youths over the edge into murder, crime, etc. I can remember my mother coming into my room one day and taking all my role playing gear (approximately $500-1000 worth) and dumping all of it in the garbage under the pretext that it was destroying my mind. I was also prohibited from seeing concerts featuring such bands as Ratt, Ozzy Ozbourne, Motley Crue, and Dokken.
Keep in mind that I had demostrated no deviant behavior (in fact, the games were keeping me OFF the streets and OUT of trouble on friday and saturday nights), but this was based on some media report that some kids that happened to also play D&D had gone and done some crime somewhere. While I applaud her for trying to keep tabs on what I was doing, and for trying to limit what I was exposed to, I am angered that she never stopped to think about the rationality behind her actions.
I think perhaps one of the problems is that the people that are in power today (my parent's generation) grew up thinking they were going to change the world. Things that had stymed mankind for so long (lunar landing, polio, smallpox, etc) were being rapidly solved. Many things had a quick and easy solution. Today we see a problem and we think that we can do something quick and instantly solve it.
To accelerate this problem, we have also created a blameless society, where all your failures can be passed on to someone or something else. So, people look for something to blame when things go wrong, and then they say "Ah! This *insert whatever* is what has caused all our problems. It must be eliminated." We are going to have to look much deeper and harder to solve this problem. It is a problem borne of 20 or 30 years of not accepting blame and passing the buck. It is not a problem borne from games, or guns, or violent behavior. Didn't these same people play "Cowboys and Indians?"
I don't know if it's just me, but it seems that lately (last 20 or so years) the general public has looked for the easy scapegoat to explain deviant behavior. It's games or movies or it's guns, or it is kids picking up a stick and pretending they are shooting someone. I remember when I was in High School, it was heavy metal music and Dungeons and Dragons type role playing games that sent seemingly normal youths over the edge into murder, crime, etc. I can remember my mother coming into my room one day and taking all my role playing gear (approximately $500-1000 worth) and dumping all of it in the garbage under the pretext that it was destroying my mind.
Keep in mind that I had demostrated no deviant behavior (in fact, the games were keeping me OFF the streets and OUT of trouble on friday and saturday nights), but this was based on some media report that some kids that happened to also play D&D had gone and done some crime somewhere. While I applaud her for trying to keep tabs on what I was doing, and for trying to limit what I was exposed to, I am angered that she never stopped to think about the rationality behind her actions.
I think perhaps one of the problems is that the people that are in power today (my parent's generation) grew up thinking they were going to change the world. Things that had stymed mankind for so long (lunar landing, polio, smallpox, etc) were being rapidly solved. Many things had a quick and easy solution. Today we see a problem and we think that we can do something quick and instantly solve it.
To accelerate this problem, we have also created a blameless society, where all your failures can be passed on to someone or something else. So, people look for something to blame when things go wrong, and then they say "Ah! This *insert whatever* is what has caused all our problems. It must be eliminated." We are going to have to look much deeper and harder to solve this problem. It is a problem borne of 20 or 30 years of not accepting blame and passing the buck. It is not a problem borne from games, or guns, or violent behavior. Didn't these same people play "Cowboys and Indians?"
See---it's happened to you.
You're rationalizing. justifying. Desensitized. Yes...100X yes. You have the right to do what ever you want to do. But the act of killing another human is ENTERTAINMENT to you.
People who engage in paintball or wargames are no different. The adrenaline, the heart pumping aggressiveness----all to make a "Kill".
Maybe you and the vast majority of people can seperate fantasy from reality. Perfectly fine. But the last 20 years has seen our society become considerably more violent and brutal than before--both in the acts that we commit upon each other and in what we call entertainment. Somewhere therein they are linked togather...
Hey, I know all about the lack of funding, but banning isn't the answer. I'm against the very idea of banning an extracurricular activity, because it seems oppressive to those who like the sports and like to compete. I was on the wrestling team, and we hardly got funding or any attention at all, is was the very last activity on my school's list of priorities. But banning the Big Deal sports isn't the answer to this. People can compete in sports w/o it interfering w/ any other activities. Sports should just be less emphasized. And academic league can interfere w/ school work btw. True, school is for academics, but not in the manner presented in academic league. And if athletics overshadowed the band at your school, how can it really be the big thing?
Do you really think banning the sports is a good thing? It's a very bad idea in my opinion. Banning almost any extra-curricular activity is a bad idea.
>
History will never record our generation as peaceful.
As for this conversation---it's at an end. You refuse to open your mind and see. The killing of innocent children by children in some cases----is not and has never been a normal part of history. Do what you will. I just encourage you to pay attention to the Bible and its prophecies...
So essentially it comes down to the question whether we want to live in a democratic welfare state or in an anarchy. The latter needs all the guns you can get for self-protection, the former does not.
So you want be your own police and law enforcement? Why to live inside a society at all if you fear your government and your police and are only interested in your rights but not in developing that society of fear?
Your "consitution" [sic!] (nor its sad implications) is no concern of me. And where should I leave? :) I'm perfectly happy here in the goold ol' Northern Europe where we do not need to carry guns to feel safe.
No contact info, of course. At least it wasn't some dingus named DaRtH PeTtIfOg complaining about anonymity this time. Getting better!
AC by the grace of God -- if I want to see my name on something I'll dig out a trade journal.
Because we're BAD.
We don't trust our (corrupt) government, but we don't care to change it. We'd rather let it fester, and then engage in armed combat when the police state gets too far out of hand.
The same goes for crime; rather than improving our lame educational system, promoting the idea of humans as intrinsically valuable, and moving from punitive towards rehabilitative justice, we prefer to buy firearms and take care of ourselves.
It's just our way. Who are you to judge? Freakin' Socialist.
Alan Korwin, author of Gun Laws of America, prepared this list of types
of crimes committed during the high school attack in Colorado.
Premeditated murder
Murder
Attempted murder
Aggravated assault
Assault with a deadly weapon
Assault and battery
Assault
Threatening and intimidating
Conspiracy to commit felony
Conspiracy to commit misdemeanor
Aiding and abetting
Providing firearm to minor
Providing handgun to minor
Possession of firearm by minor
Possession of handgun by minor
Possession of firearm by minor without federally
required permission slip from parent or guardian
Possession of NFA weapon (sawed off shotgun)
Possession of explosives
Possession of explosives by minor
Possession of explosives with malicious intent
Making of explosives
Placing of explosives
Use of explosives
Concealed carry without permit
Gun on school grounds
Another gun on school grounds
Yet another gun on school grounds
Possession of ammunition on school grounds
Obtaining guns and ammo through bogus means
Discharging firearm in city limits
Disturbing the peace
Committing a hate crime
Multiple counts of all of the above
Multiple torts (harm suffered that is subject to civil lawsuits;
Colorado prohibits lawyers from soliciting clients within 30 days
of an injury, out-of-state lawyers are reportedly already calling
relatives for potential clients.)
And of course, aggravating circumstances and anything a reasonable
Colorado prosecutor could no doubt add to this list. For instance,
Colorado law includes two to six years for the parents if they allowed
the boys to possess a firearm, knowing of substantial felony risk.
In the rush to enact more laws, we perhaps overlook the fact that
everything criminal about this heinous attack is already totally
illegal. If you want to fix the laws, it helps to know what they are.
We keep such information posted at our newly beefed-up website,
gunlaws.com.
It is also critical to realize that 6,000 kids brought weapons to school
in 1997 (according to the Dept. of Education), in complete violation of
the federal Gun-Free School Zones law -- calling for at least five years
in prison -- but the kids were just sent home. One of these was Kip
Kinkle, who came back the next day to commit most of the crimes listed
above.
Representatives in government are well aware that we barely enforce the
perfectly good laws we have. So what, you must wonder, is their motive
for instantly seeking more laws? What other agenda could they possibly
have, using this tragedy to stir up support?
Alan Korwin, Author
Bloomfield Press
12629 N. Tatum #440
Phoenix, AZ 85032
Fax 602-494-0679
http://www.gunlaws.com
1-800-707-4020
We had a hell of a lot more 16 year olds killing each other in this country in the 1860's than we've seen at *any* time in this century. Anyone ever heard of the american Civil War?
As for killings at school, the worst incident was in the 1950's, when a school in Michigan was blown up, killing 130. The bomber was a MEMBER OF THE SCHOOL BOARD! Of course, there weren't any video games back then, so that doesn't count.
Hell, did anyone even consider blaming the little NAZI pukes themselves, instead of anyone and everyone who ever wrote a game they played, a song they listened to, or a comic book they read?
Hell, Charlie Manson went off the deep end (he said) because he listened to the Beatles. Funny, John, Paul, George, and Ringo never made me want to kill anyone.
Back when I was still in the Army, I used to do a fair amount of competition pistol shooting. I was the captain of my Regiment's pistol and rifle teams.
/is/ good for teaching things like fire and movement and tactics as a group, but all my military training goes for squat in Deathmatches - I find I compensate for things like fatigue, backblast, burst radius etc. when the Quake weapons don't work that way. If I double-tap you in the chest with an assault rifle, I expect you to drop, dammit - not keep bounding down the hallway spewing rockets at me. :)
;)
/none/ of them hit where the sights are pointed. You learn very quickly to adapt sight picture to the weapon you're using at the time, so I find I adapt to the game weapons, not try and compensate for effects that aren't there. (unlike Quake)
Quake et al. are flat-out useless for teaching marksmenship - the mechanism is completely different. It
But the handgun-based arcade games are a different story. Military pistol competitions involve a lot of rapid-fire and snapshooting with very short exposure times. Put me on one of these games, and I rawk. I'll typically clear the screen of baddies before my civvy friends have even registered a target. It freaks 'em out.
There is an exception. If the game requires a lot of shoot/no shoot decisions, I don't do as well. I'm not a cop, I'm (was) a soldier. If you're on a battlefield in front of me - and in pistol range - you're probably actively trying to kill me, so any target that moves suddenly into view (in the game) is likely to get plugged. Soldiers don't train the way cops do - the job is different - and most of the pistol shooter games have a law-enforcement theme to them and provide pretty stiff in-game penalties for plugging Aunt Maude.
The point about the gun feeling/sounding different between the game and RL I find doesn't apply. Military service pistols have the accuracy of a baseball, and
As for playing these games making you a better shot... I dunno. I think it's probably a lot easier to adapt to a light, quiet gun than to a heavy, noisy one. The only things I think the game teaches are to pick up targets quickly, engage them as fast as possible, and make fast shoot/no shoot evaluations (for some games)
None of these "lessons" seems to apply at Littleton
The media seems to blame games such as Doom for creating Psycho killers. Surely it's the other way around, psycho killers are attracted to this stuff (and would do this shit anyway)?
Remember all the bruhuhah about "Video Nasties" back in the day?
The media are always looking for a scapegoat to take the flak they deserve. Blame it on society not the gamesmakers...
I agree with not allowing children to play games such as QuakeIII. The children who play these games are still forming their concepts of right and wrong, how to treat people and how not to treat people. Computers seem to be taking the place of parents for a lot of children, and this is a problem becaus the computer is an unbiased teacher. People thought television was the devil once upon a time, but the television is a passive device, dependant on the children absorbing the ideas put in front of them. The computer, computer games, and the internet, are active, the children can go seek out whatever it is they want to know, but without moral direction. They don't necessarily learn right from wrong, but they learn limitations and "what works" I can see the logical step between playing a game like Quake online where you spend hours chasing after other people to kill them with all sorts of nasty weapons and a school shooting. Kids assumably get bored with the fake reality of a computer and they go back into real life, but they have not developed adequate social skills and they just don't know what to do. The shootings help vent their anger and frustration, and get them the attention they need.
Nick
jrussell@scudc.scu.edu
If my son hits a baseball through a neighbor's window, I get the repair bill (and courts will support this). Why? Because parents are responsible for the actions of their children. However, if a kid murders his fellow classmates, the parents magically seem to lose their responsibility in the matter. Well, bull fscking shit. They raised their kids to be killers (there's zero evidence of mental illness in the Colorado/Georgia shootings) so they should pay the price. Parents should be required by law to know what their kids are up to. If you "don't have time" to raise your kids properly, or you leave that task to the television or leave it to the kids and their friends to raise themselves and they grow up to be killers, that's your fault anf your responsibility as sure as you had pulled the trigger yourself.
Its about responsibility. Europeans have decided they cannot handle the responsibility of private firearm ownership, Americans that they can.
A national and cultural decision. A tradeoff.
Trading what for what? Personal empowerment and civil liberty for the blood of children, effectively.
Is it worth it?
Who can say? Governments respect armed people. The US has a very accountable government, its citizens don't stand for authoritarianism at all. The blood price, however small, is terrible.
And what about the US stance on drugs- Is that confusing or what? Cross-purposes.
--MolochHorridus
One point about Quake and the genre I can't believe gets so blindingly overlooked is that you get shot back at. I don't know of a game (though they probably exist) where you walk around and kill defenseless entities. You are fighting entities that want to kill you just as badly as you want to kill them. Given this, I just don't get the association of these games to what is happening in our schools. Kids who want to act out these games in meat-space would be trying to take on SWAT teams, not empty handed children hiding under desks.
He refers to "the natural instinct for neophyte hunters and soldiers to shoot repeatedly until a target drops". Has anyone else found, either in games or RL, that exactly the _opposite_ is true? Certainly _my_ problem has never been shooting repeatedly until the target drops...in fact, just the opposite! I usually have to fight the temptation to fire once, then peer and go "Hmm, what did that shot do?" (Especially with rockets/grenades.) I've heard that that's a common problem, although I can't cite a source.
Furthermore..."Though he'd never fired a gun before, the teen-ager hit eight people with eight bullets, five to the head and three to the upper torso." Bull. I'd like to know where it's been shown that Carneal had never fired a gun before. As someone who's fired perhaps 500 rounds through _real_ pistols, rifles, and shotguns in the past year, I can tell you it's not that easy. Especially not when you're full of adrenaline and your targets are moving. Either he was some sort of freakish shooting prodigy, or he'd had real practice - because I can also tell you that shooting in Doom/Quake is very little like shooting in RL. For one thing, your arms and hands don't get tired and start to shake in Doom...
"and through our own actions, demonstrate to children that problems should be resolved by talking it out, and that violence, no matter what the reason, is never a viable solution"
[clicks channel tuner]
"In other news today, President Bill Clinton announced that the bombing in Yugoslovia will intensify as we enter day 60 of NATO action in that troubled region of the world."
Is it any wonder that kids are confused?
(rant on)
Mainstream America is also ignoring the fact that their children are amongst the most vicious, self-center little animals on the face of the planet. Their "little darlings" will terrorize anyone whom they consider to be outside the norm.
If you any of the following applies(or applied) to you in high school, you have points against you:
Living well: the only just revenge. Take it from the poor, short, fat, late-blooming German immigrant farmer's math whiz son in an Irish/English area who graduated in the top 10% of class with two diplomas from a school where his mother drove bus and his aunt taught Chemistry. My grandmother taught me that if I didn't like my position in life, the only way to improve it is by getting more education. (And keep on soaking it up for the rest of your life!)
I went to my 20-year reunion and was surprised to see how things hadn't really changed back there except for those of us (we geeks) who'd left town for greener pastures (call it about a 40k/yr difference). Most of 'em were still drinking in the corner bar, watching sports, and wondering why they'd grown up to be just like their parents.
Oh yeah! Marry a geek too! Life is much more "interesting", profitable, varied, and entertaining.
(rant off)
Amen.
I think blaming Doom and Quake for the shootings in Littleton is stretching it. I don't think that there is a nice neat cause and effect here.
That said, I don't think that glorifying violence helps matters either, whether in movies, TV, games, or whatnot. I think we're probably more desensitized to the violence we see than we realize. I think the reason that the effects aren't so obvious is that most of us, though, even the nerds and geeks, have real lives of some manner or another that ground us at least half-decently in reality. We can see the fantasy violence for what it is--fantasy--and for the most part we can filter out its impact. It's sort of like getting used to polluted air. We adapt to the unhealthy atmosphere and get desensitized to it, and for the most part feel no ill effects. For those who are already vulnerable, who are mentally disturbed to begin with or have other problems, the impact of the media violence may be a lot harsher, and it may exacerbate the uglier stirrings in them much more strongly than one who is healthier to start with.
I'm not saying that media violence causes real life violence. I'm just saying that it may make it worse for those already badly disturbed to begin with.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
My oldest kid was kind of violent and almost got into several shootings. So, when I had a second son I castrated him at birth. Although he was ridiculed by his classmates, and because he was so small and weak and girlish, was often sodomized in the locker rooms with mop handles by playful classmates, he has never gotten into any fights! Whenever tension arises, he doesn't get the primal urges to violance that one of us might get, and instead curls into a fetal position and weeps hysterically, usually wetting himself.
*sigh* If only all parents were as smart as me the world would be such a wonderful place.
Posted by Crotalus Altrox:
The real problem isn't guns or games, it's the fact that these kids don't feel "in". This is because the American school social experience is centered around athletics. Jocks get the headlines, jocks get the chicks. If you're not a jock, it's easy to see why you feel excluded. And if you're athletically challenged, there is simply no way around this. The answer to these tragedies is simple, high school athletic programs MUST be banned. The continuance of these programs is a gauntlet thrown for all angst-ridden adolescents.
Posted by gi-francios:
By this definition the USA is the only democracy on earth. Other countries manage vocal and dynamic democratic processes without lax gun laws. Equating a democratic system of government with gun ownership is just asking for the problems afflicting America and no where else.
ciao
gi-francios
Posted by Buffy the Overflow Slayer:
The attacks on video games and violent movies by the media is sadly ironic. These things are fantasies, and are seen as such. The far more damaging thing is the violence that the "news" media pumps into your homes and cars. Murders, rapes, and other atrocities right where you live, in "living color". Even worse, these things are hyped up as much as possible to get the maximum viewership possible. Real Blood. Real Death. Real close to home.
As an aside, considering that the chance of a kid dying in a car accident is a couple of orders greater than being killed in school, shouldn't we consider any parent who puts their child in a car to be committing murder?
-buffy
Posted by patg:
You're at home late one night. Someone breaks into your house, someone who's much stronger than you, he has a nife, which he is certainly able to kill you with, and your family. What do you do?
You don't have a gun:
You try to dial 911 as he stabs you to death, or you try to run (that's if you have the time to do so), but to no avail.
You do have a gun:
You fire a shot, either a warning shot, or shoot the intruder. He flees, or is shot, you're safe.
Oh, did I mention, he may just have a gun? He's a criminal. Criminals break laws, including gun laws. If you have a gun, then maybe you at least are equally armed.
Hmmm.. How do people who don't believe in the ability to own a gun answer this?
In Canada, you can't even have pepper spray. Jeez, I suppose that a woman wouldn't want to protect herself from a would-be rapist... Might hurt the poor fellow's eyes.
Shortly after Littleton, a military expert appeared on "60 Minutes" calling shooter games "a how-to manual for killing without a conscience," politicians howled, and then came the lawyers: last month Id Software was among 24 entertainment companies named in a $130 million lawsuit by the families of three victims killed in last year's school shooting in West Paducah, Ky. It turns out that the 14-year-old gunman in that case, Michael Carneal, also loved Doom.
It seems we have a new source of FUD. Don't buy Linux because your kids'll play Quake or Doom!!! I sure hope that type of argument doesn't take hold in the media.
-Ben
On the other side of the coin, we don't have too many problems in the U.S. with people getting trampled to death during soccer (a.k.a. "football") games. If soccer balls were illegal, these things wouldn't happen...
TedC
It seems that every time a school shooting makes it to national news (and the usual overhype), there are two or three followup shootings. Based on that, I would say that violent national news coverage/hype is a MUCH stronger contributor to school shootings than games. Of course, they won't be covering that in the news.
Where do criminals get their guns? They are legally bough before they become criminals, or they are stolen from people who have bought them legally. There has been a lot of talk about the declining murder rate in New York? What is the reason behind that? The police searched people for lesser crimes and arrested them if they had illegal guns on them. The guns were removed, the crime rate dropped.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Next week on 60 minutes. They're your neighbors. They're your colleagues. You walk past them on the street everyday. And they're thinking up new and horrible imagery that they plan to show to your kids each and every day they're on the job. What is the government doing about? The answer may surprise you. Tune in next week for this and much more on 60 minutes, "Marketing death and violence to the youth of America".
Actually, you CAN argue that it does not lead to violence. It's simple. If you were doing an experiment, and you found that everytime you added acid to base, you got salt, you could realistically conclude that acid+base = salt. On the other hand, if you did it say, 50 million times (roughly the players of Doom), and you got a total of 5 'salts', you'd hardly be able to conclude that acid+base = salt.
There has to be a significant correlation before you can make an argument, one way or another, otherwise, you haven't got much to stand on.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
I wasn't trolling for gun nuts, but I think it's funny that you'd say that. I personally think hunting is the poorest excuse for a sport. Maybe if you did it with a pocket knife. Maybe that would even the odds considering how much smarter we are, but I digress.
:)
The root of my argument though, was that it's easy to try to create a cause->effect relationship where there isn't one. Guns do not always lead to kids murdering, neither do video games, it's a lot of factors, which this lawsuit couldn't possibly address. Let's not forget that the foundation of American society is revolution. To quote Homer Simpson
"If I didn't have a gun, the King of England could just show up and start pushing you around, do you want that?"
If you live like that, constantly thinking about 'dying and killing' for freedom, it's not surprising that you'll do that same to improve your social standing
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
Try reading my message in it's entirety. I didn't say guns caused violence. I said, LOTS of things did. When you learn to read, and post your name, we'll talk.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
Try proving it. It's one thing to make an argument, it's another thing to find EVIDENCE to do so. We live in a world where statistics are what matter, because without them, we can't possibly extrapolate into a real-world situation.
The foundation of science is that an experiment can be reproduced, independantly. Otherwise, it's fair to say that the hypothesis is false. I worked with drug testing in a psychiatric hospital, and it was the same approach. A number of DIFFERENT people have to have consistent results, before a drug can be discredited or credited.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
Who is he? Probably one of the smartest, and coolest programmers in commercial software today. He's a geek who made it. Let him enjoy it.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
Whoops. I'm thinking of Carmack. Romero is a dork.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
The problem is that people are assuming that only
one factor can be responsible for an action. This is a falacy, logically speaking. They assume that
these kids are messed up BECAUSE of doom, when it would be scientifically impossible to show doom leads to killing, simply because a lot of people play doom, (some of us are even vegetarians) and don't like, or condone killing. This is a blatent attempt by politicans and lawyers to make some money, while ignoring the real problems. Guns.
Give a boy a fish, and you feed him for a day, Give him a gun, and he'll shoot up his high school.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
Well there is two ways of looking at this.. your view is that society should get rid of the "guns" thus there is no more need for responsibility. (Specifiaclly the responsibility of the person owning the gun). However that does NOT solve the problem.. only hides it. Are we to simply remove any object that someone may be irresponsible with?
Ok then let's get rid of cars.. and alcohol.. cause all of those irresponsible people that drive drunk. How about getting rid of TV's too.. 'cause some parents irresponsibly use them as babysitters.. oh wait knives too.. oh and fire..'cause some people are arsenists. Where do we draw the line?
I know I propably went a bit to far with these anologies, but I believe I made my point. You need laws that teach RESPONISBILITY and but not remove CHOICE.
You know it's easy to say, get rid of guns and the problem goes away.. but then something else will pop up.. and someone will convince us to get rid of video games.. and then somethuing else.. and then.. well I best leave you with a quote I saw somewhere:
When they took the fourth amendment,
I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment,
I was quiet because I was innocent.
When they took the second amendment,
I was quiet because I didn't own a gun.
Now they've taken the first amendment,
and I can say nothing about it.
-Ex-Nt-User
Don't take away our choice! But DO teach us and our children responsibility. The problem is that everyone from lawyers to politicians to those grieving for their loss all want to blame something, blame anything.. except ourselves. Our society is geting to the point that no one is willing to take personal responsibility for their own actions. And is it really a wonder?
A couple of years ago there was a story on the news about a cab driver (In NY?) that stoped a armed robber by using his car to pin him against a wall as he was tring to flee, in the process breaking the guys leg. The robber sued and WON! And that wasn't the only such case. If those are the reprecusions of being a good samaritan.. why would any one try to do something to prevent a crime?
Here's my question.. those kids got guns somewhere illegaly! It was ALREADY illegal for them to have those guns.. they got them anyways! How come? Because the current laws are NOT enforced. I was watching fox a couple of nights ago and they were discussing FBI crime statistics. Acording to those something like 2000+ kids were caught with guns. 6 were prosecuted. Anyone see a problem?.. what about the people that sold these kids the guns? 0 prosecuted. hmm?
I know someone is going to mention that some of these kids propably got the guns from their parents. My opinion: prosecute the parents. If you have kids and you leave your guns lieing around that just shows me you are to irresponsible to own it and your license should be revoked and a in the least a BIG fine slapped on your behind.
Mabey.. just mabey we should force people to take responsibility for their own actions. It's easy to say it's because of how our society is.. but don't forget that each one of us is part of that society.
Personaly, I don't own a gun but I have thought about purchasing one.. I'm still undecided.. but this is a liberty that I enjoy, the choice is mine. I do however know one thing.. if I owned a gun and I brought a child into this world the 1st thing I'd do is get rid of the gun. I think a lot of people forget about it.. you can get rid of a gun much easier then you can purchase one. I know that police stations in my area buy back guns.. and even if they didn't BUY them back they'd certainly happily take it back from you for free.
The key is: PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Ex-Nt-User
I'm sure this is gona get some flak (but please read the whole thing before flaming):
Q: Are violent games played by violent people?
A: Yes
Q: Do criminals use guns to kill people?
A: yes
This is how the media sees the whole situation.. they ask these two questions and then they try to convince everyone that "violent games + guns" breed murdurers. The only problem is that these same games are played by millions of other people who are NOT violent. And millions of guns are bought and used by people that DON'T commit crimes. But no one looks at those statistics not because they're NOT true.. but because they don't help them push their political agendas.
I'm sorry but I doubt that a 14-16 year old could afford a $2000 computer. An internet connection.. and ALL these violent games. Some where along the lines here the parents payed for some of that. So why are we blaming the games? Most likely the PARENTS bought those games. That's like blaming a gun because a parent bought a hand gun for their kid and the kid went out and killed someone. I'm not saing that games DO cause people to kill.. but even if they DID the parents are still at fault here.
In the case of the Colorado shootings (And I live about 30 min from Littleton) the kids were building and setting off pipe bombs in their BACK YARD.. hello? anyone? For crying out loud those two were practically asking to get stoped.
So now we have a bunch of "politicians" trying to make their names known by banning games, tv shows.. hell anything that they can point the finger at as the cause. The only "politician" that seems to have ANY common sense these days seems to be an ex-pro wrestler from minesota.
Ex-Nt-User
It seems the press keeps asking, "Why did this happen?"
I think the correct question is, "Why did this happen at school?"
Why not a shopping mall? Why not a department store? If FPS games are really turning kids into violent, mindless killers, why are they particularly targeting their fellow students and not Joe Six-Pack on the street?
How does that saying go? "For every complex problem, there's a solution that's simple, neat, and wrong."
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
Correlation is not causation.
The mere fact that some of these kids played Quake-like games does not lead, even logically, to a conclusion that Quake-like games lead them to kill.
Of the millions of kids who play these games, how many have killed? Falling back on simple statistics, and not even bothering with common sense, it should be clear that your position doesn't hold water.
Details here - and protest rallies this Friday! (May 28th)
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
it's kind of sad really..this is a loose loose situation. there's body bags on the ground, greiving families, looking for reasons and easy target computer software companies. dont see to many calls for suiing many gun companies....oh that's right guns dont kill anyone
bullshit!
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
i like the term , 'my rights'. i always try to turn this around and remind people of their responsibilities. too often responsibilities are forgotten in the cry for rights.
as for the 'festering - cause' (trying not to be too simplistic) i think of walking past local video shops 10,000Km from the US where u know that the majority of video cut-out posters with pistols, rifles and automatic weapons in the window are probably advertising a film from the united states.
i'm afraid yr popular culture (or those wanting to portray it) is one that glorifies violence and weapons.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
A connection between primitive man hunting and the Littleton shootings. Get a hold of yerselves.
If anything, there's a Christian Revival in Denver, expore that. You don't have to have wacko libertarian views to work with computers. Just accept that the politicians have it right, some of the time anyway.
Maybe he meant lamer?
... what a lamer.
Bah
A lot of these shootings are by kids from "good" families. Middle class suburban types. Professionals. One of the characteristics of these families is that both parents generally work, and work doesn't stop at 5:00 for a lot of professionals. I wish politicians would simply get the nerve to tell people that you can't expect to work constantly and never spend time with your kids and then hope they turn out ok. People should not have children if they can't spend time with them.
Why shall we sacrifice all these lives just for the right to own a gun?
Just who exactly is sacrificing lives? Dirtbag criminal murderers, in my book.
It's not like we have chosen to sacrifice virgins by cutting their hearts out. It's criminals who are responible for murders, period.
Your question might be better phrased as, Why Oh Lord Why do people kill one another when it is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN right here in this book and that law and that statute, etc.
There is no right greater than that of self defense. From that stems the right to own a gun. What is the problem with that?
-kabloie
In my area, they have coverage of the hearings in Congress regarding the shootings in Littleton and such.
:-(
It seems like Congress almost "gets it" as far as this. They're talking mainly about after-school programs for the kids to have a place to go to after school. And, other such things.
It seems like the role of culture and games and such isn't seen as something that should be controlled, at least in these hearings. There was some talk of gun control and other such issues, however.
Hopefully, things won't progress to the point where they start trying to control popular culture due to the misdeeds of a few. Then again, laws like that go along the same lines as drug laws, and we have drug laws in this country which have contributed to the United States having more prisoners per capita than any other country except South Africa, yet our crime rate is sky-high. I think that a figure I saw shows that there are more heroin users per capita in Baltimore than in Amsterdam.
I think the biggest problem is that people are not willing to take responsibility for their actions. We need to do things that attack the problem at hand. Parents need to take more responsibility for their children. Parents need to talk to their children.
Feel-good approaches like trying to regulate popular culture, picking kids out that wear trenchcoats, etc., whatever it is, will only backfire.
The difference between drug users and gun users is that drug users shoot themselves and therefore learn how to deal with it, and of course gun users shoot at others.
Shooters have passed the point of responsibility, they even passed the moment of self-reflection and self control. The problem is in the selves.
This year's shootings are the result of tens of years of mis-everything. Don't expect laws and repression to solve this.
He's a total dick. Consider the number of games he's designed since Wolfenstein. Consider the non-technical differences between these games.
Overrated hype-bandit.
We've been at the top of the food chain for a couple of dozen tens of thousands of years because we pretty much beat the shit out of everything else. This whole video argument is bogus and sounds like what the last older generation said about "those hippies and their rock and roll music" and before that, Elvis, and before that..well in ancient Greece the big deal for youth was music w/o words - thought to promote all sorts of evil and inappropriate behavior
If man was a hunter for millions of years, then the logical extension of that would be that he would go out and kill his fellow man, to prove his superiority... right?
I dont know... I play quake3, and enjoy it... but I still have this feeling that younger kids that play games like this constantly will have thier minds skewed somewhat....
I wouldnt let my kids play these (if I had kids)
They just announced the annual FBI stats, and I believe that crime rates have dropped for the 6th year in a row, or something like that. Of course, they will attribute that to the climbing prison population.
--
Infuriate left and right
the way technology has gone, while guns were pretty much similar things 200 years ago when the US fought for independence (i.e. not a really big demonstrable difference between what the army soldier used and what the farmer owned) ... the situation today is that the disparity is getting worse. weapon technology is moving ahead. how many individuals can afford stealth planes, precision guided bombs ... all of which might well be regarded as "arms" ... hmm ... the "right to bear arms" ... wonder if the constitution had this in mind though ... hmm ...
Uh, I used it in its monochrome sense.
It makes another point: even in a rigorously regimented group, there will be "misfits" and "nonconformists" a thing which the purveyors of fine homogenised lives seem unable to fathom. This causes eternal war between individuality which by definition cannot be stamped out (yes, dual meaning), and "uniformitarianism" which by definition has the goal of eliminating individuality.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The problems that caused the Littleton and other shootings are the same as they've been for ages -- intolerance, parental incompetence, lack of emphasis on the importance of education.
Intolerance, yes, but why is it there? Some marks for working out, but not the correct answer.
Incompetence, yes, but why is it there? More marks for working out, but again not the correct answer.
Lack of education - oh, sure! Literacy went down and crime went up as compulsory education was phased in. This has been well documented in the USA, where pre-compulsion literacy ran to 98% in many northern states, and has never exceeded 92% since (ie 4x more illiterates). No marks at all for this one.
Now, riddle me this: if your child is whisked away to day-care, then pre-school, then school, and in each institution is regimented to some degree and dealt with always at a shallow level by a bunch of relative strangers, where and how are they to learn any principles of life?
In Oz, this soaks up 33 of their 98 waking hours each week. Bear in mind that many of the other 65 hours are spent before the idiot box or solely with others of their age, also desperate for emotional and social input.
As another poster here points out, the most impressive US school bombing was done by a member of the school board. Obviously, emphasis on the importance of education wasn't a crying need there!
[...] being a parent is a full-time responsibility, more important than your hobbies, your friends, even your career.
I can't agree more. Abdicating this responsibility to a school should be named as it is: criminal negligence.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
OTOH, by actually counting the Carbon 12/14 atoms instead of dealing with them en-masse, nothing is lost (well, three nothings, to be more exact). 5kyo or 5Myo? Your call. (-:
My own view is that it's got zippo to do with hunting instincts and lots to do with the erosion of family bonds. Put people in a mechanical system (daycare to school to factory/cubefarm to prison to cemetary, always lined up, always regimented, always forced "by circumstances", (until last one) always watch clock), where they've go nobody to turn to except others who also don't know and need help, and explosions like these are inevitable. Keep mums and dads always at work, children always separate at school, dilute the remaining time with television and sports, and what time is left for nurture? For building of character, stability, confidence, courage, reasoning, personality?
If you want instinct, subcultures like Goths etc might be an instinctive reaction against attempts to force each person to be one cabbage in a field of millions of identical cabbages - as Larsen's penguin cartoon put it, "I've just gotta be meeee!" Long live freedom, particularly of association and expression! It's what the USA was built on, and it's what is being stolen from you in the biggest chunks right now.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Suing school borads?
A jury might give you money. Let's say you do and get $10^6. Most school boards are on a hair-line budget. That much money will seriosly affect education for everyone in the entire school board(maybe others as well).
So now you've got a cool million and every other student, who aside from being traumatized, will be screwed because their school can't even afford heat(maybe a bit overexagerrated)
This is truly pathetic. In the US the gov spends shit loads of cash on a military(I know you need one, but you don't need one that kill every person on the planet). In Canada(BC actually), they're thinking of closing schools from lack of funds($1mill-$3mill CDN), but they gave the natives hundreds of millions just because they have darker skin.
You don't exist. Go away. --SysVinit Halt
Video games have gone mainstream. $8 billion in revenue last year. That's more than the movie industry. We aren't some fringe segment anymore; we're just as much a part of the national psyche as Titanic. What we're seeing in Congress is the generation gap between our 'distinguished' representatives and the real world.
You sure?
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
When you go to a civil court, the goal is to ultimately make as much money as possible. This considered, going after the parents seems a relatively fruitless exercies compared to going after several companies that have millions of dollars there for the taking ...
Almost all pistols sold these days are semi-automatics. The only exceptions are revolvers and a few high-priced target pistols.
Semi-automatic simply means that after firing, the next cartridge is loaded into the chamber for you. You then have to release the trigger and pull back on it to fire again. Fully-automatic means that as long as you hold the trigger back, it will continue to fire. Pump spray bottles are semi-automatic; a garden hose is fully automatic.
It's not a big deal, except that the media loves to say "semi-automatic weapons" to get everyone's panties in a bunch, when really, it's no big deal. Full-auto is notable; semi-auto isn't.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Not necessarily. We might have some upper middle classers become lower middle class folks for one generation, but better raised, better educated kids will do better in the long run. Think how far some of these kids would have gotten if they had encouragement and support from their parents!
It may not be solely the parent's job, but it is certainly the parent's responsibility. The parents chose to have the child; they must accept the responsibility that goes with it, even if that means not working 12 hour days to get a partnership, not going golfing on weekends, and not getting together with your buddies for beer.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
With a lot of too-young parents, this happens -- the grandparents end up raising the grandkids because the parents are too immature and financially unprepared for the job. In this case, I don't doubt it shortens the grandparents' lifespans. At the very least, it robs them of their well-deserved "golden years" wherein they should be able to at least work for their own interests, and at best retire in luxury.
The other scenario, however, is when you have responsible parents, but the grandparents are involved, assisting the parents and adding to the education and experiences of the grandchildren. In this situation, not only is it extremely beneficial for the grandkids, it's good for the grandparents as well. The get the revitalization that comes with interacting with youth, without having to give up their own lives.
I have seen both situations personally, and the former is definitely cause for sadness. The latter, however, is cause for great joy.
My niece spends a lot of time with my father and has learned to be tolerant of and helpful to people with disabilities, has come to appreciate classical music, and has found a friend who is always willing to play a game or read a story.
My father, on the other hand, has found a friend who plays games he can understand, doesn't mind that he doesn't walk so fast, can always make him laugh. He enjoys sharing what he knows and enjoys with a new generation.
So yes, getting grandparents (and others) involved in the raising of children is an excellent idea and benefits everyone, but it does not and should not in any way reduce the responsibility of the parents from raising their children.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Okay, compare the US to, say, Yugoslavia and the rest of that area. Or Northern Ireland. Or Rwanda. Or Israel/Palestine/Etc. Or...
Sure, there are countries where there are less murders than the US. (I hear Singapore is very clean, too.) And there are countries where there are a lot more.
I think in the US, we like our killing on a retail level; elsewhere wholesale deaths seem more popular.
The school shootings and such here in the US may indeed be a strictly American phenomenon, but that doesn't make the US an inherently Bad Place. In fact, it doesn't really say anything about the US except that we have a problem with our kids and parents and schools.
Every country has its problems. In some places they kill you in huge groups because of your ethnicity. In others, they control what you can watch on TV. In the US, we don't take care of our kids well enough.
We've got a problem, but it's solvable, if only we can get people to focus on what the problem is. And, to bring this back on topic, gory video games are not the problem.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Just as there are a lot of gun owners who don't rob liquor stores, similarly most game players don't kill people in real life.
The problems that caused the Littleton and other shootings are the same as they've been for ages -- intolerance, parental incompetence, lack of emphasis on the importance of education.
Our society needs to realize that our children's education is like your rent payment -- it's not something you get around to if you have some extra money after buying fancy clothes; it's your number one priority -- and that being a parent is a full-time responsibility, more important than your hobbies, your friends, even your career. If you're not willing to give up all that, don't have kids. Besides, condoms are a heck of a lot cheaper.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Gaming is as mentally rewarding as any physical sport, I'd wager, and costs a lot less for equipment - especially since the computers can be reused for other purposes during the day.
I say let the geeks be given a "sport" all their own.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
You obviously have never heard of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Jews with guns killed over 5,000 Aryan supermen.
I'm a Jew and a gun-owner. Uncle Sam taught me how to kill people and break things. I don't turn the other cheek.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Do you like a good steak? Why?
Do you like playing poker? Why?
Do you like going to the beach? Why?
Each and every one of us has our own desires and needs for entertainment. I personally get a kick out of wheeling around a corner and railing my best friends and gloating just long enough for them to do it to me... It's what makes us tick. What makes you tick may be something different entirely, it may be the thrill of bluffing that flush with your pair of twos... it may be shuffleboard (I'm not even sure how that's played)... but it's what trips your trigger.
Don't blame todays world on games, don't blame violence in schools on games. Lets place the blame where it belongs, the parents that dont feel they need to raise their children but can plant them in front of a box full of chips and bits and let it raise them.
If I had ever been caught with a gun as a child I'd pray for a life sentence because my mother and step father would beat my ass so bad... it wouldn't really be all that but in my mind it was. I knew that if I did wrong I'd be punished. I watch every day as parents ignore the blatent signs their children are having trouble and do nothing about it.
So keep in mind that it's what makes some of us tick, and remember when RPG's came out, people blamed them for deaths... there have been more shootings over games of monopoly than there have been suicides over RPG's.
Zanthor
I personally think this is a horrible suggestion. Yes, it would be nice if grandparents and the like could spend time with their grandchildren, but it often does not work out that way.
I have "firsthand" experience that those families which would benefit the most from this additional help take advantage of it. What ends up happening is that the grandparents end up raising the children, and the parents go out to party or "socialize." I've seen several older people who's lifespan I am certain has been shortened because of this.
I'm not saying that we should keep kids away from the grandparents. Quite to the contrary, I believe interaction with grandparents is useful to growing children. However, it would be absolute failure to transfer even a minimal amount of responsibility to the grandparents from the parents.
Traditionally, the kids (parents) are the ones who took care of the grandparents. Now, you see a reversal in a way in which the kids are living at their parents house, have kids of thier own, are not married, don't have jobs, and go out and party all the time. I guess you could say it's the grandparents fault in those situations, because they obviously didn't raise their children to be responsible adults.
Parents who are responsible adults generally don't need the kind of assistance from their parents (the grandparents) as you are alluding to.
I agree that we were talking about the different ends of the spectrum.
Interesting. So if people shouldn't have kids unless they can spend lots of time with them and/or hire other people to spend time with them, we'll have two segments of the population having kids: The very rich and the very poor.
I fail to see how the "very poor" could have children if that was one of the "requirements." Why would poor people have "lots of time" to spend with them? They should be working and improving their financial situation so that one parent could stay home before they decide to have kids.
If people are that irresponsible to have kids before they can take care of them responsibly, we can't really count on them to raise them appropriately, can we?
That'd Balkanize society even more than it already is... I thought the goal was to get the middle class to expand, not shrink!
That's a common mis-conception. America society and American culture does not have as one of it's key concepts that everyone has a "right" to be middle class. As far as the "rights" that are due every citizen, it is the fundamental right to pursue their own fortune and not be kept back by government or other forces. If someone is a bum and does not want to work, makes "wrong" life decisions constantly, and is irresponsible, they can rot in a gutter for all I care. If someone wants to work, learns from their bad decisions, and tries to be responsible, then I'd be glad to help them out.
With that said, I think we should do everything we can to ensure that everyone has an equal chance to excel. What I get ticked off at is that people take our money in the form of taxes and spend it on useless people. If people want to perform private charity, that's fine, but the government shouldn't be in the business of redistributing wealth.
Western culture as practiced in the USA is also flawed in that we think that raising kids is the parents' (and only the parents') job.
It is the parents sole responsibility for raising their kids. I believe a lot of the problems we see now is because baby boomer parents, who's kids are in high school now, tried to place some of the responsibility on others.
Raising a kid demands lots of adults participating, and before state-sponsored education, that meant aunts/uncles/grandparents.
Well, that's true, but it doesn't change the fact that it's the parents responsibility to make sure their kids get the proper attention. Both from themselves and other adults who are involved in their education.
Now, it means teachers. (Does that scare you? It scares me.)
Absolutely, that's why my wife and I decided to home-school our son. I attended private (Catholic) school, but I'm begining to wonder if even that is safe enough. And I'm not referring to just physical safety. When I was leaving school, I noticed that a lot of the brothers and sisters at my school were being replaced by "normal" teachers. I believe this has the potential to make the Catholic schools no better than public as far as the level of education.
Part of the major reason for the situation we are in, IMHO, is the removal of authority by teachers and school administration. Now-a-days, teachers and admins are scared that they will get sued and/or fired if they even try to correct a kid doing wrong in their class. How can you expect teachers to teach if they can not correct?
As dangermouse wrote earlier, correlation does not equal causation. I'll quote it completely because I think it directly addresses you lack of understanding of statistics:
Correlation is not causation.
The mere fact that some of these kids played Quake-like games does not lead, even logically, to a conclusion that Quake-like
games lead them to kill.
Of the millions of kids who play these games, how many have killed? Falling back on simple statistics, and not even bothering
with common sense, it should be clear that your position doesn't hold water.
Unfortunately, few people know that you can twist statistics to show any desireable result. Let's not concentrate on a far-fetched, illogical, opinion and focus on the facts. Doom and games like it may have an effect on mentally disturbed children. But, it was not a "root cause" of the incident.
Ask some questions we know the answer to:
1) Did the parents know their kids were mentally disturbed? It appears so, as it has been reported that one of the kids was on a psychological mood-altering drug.
2) Did the parents know their kids were making bombs in the garage? Don't know if they did, but shouldn't they have? If they knew they could have prevented this.
3) Did the parents know their kids were in posession of the semi-auto pistol? Why not? Where did the kids keep it? Where did they get the money to buy it (I assume it wasn't cheap)? If they knew, they could have prevented it. If they didn't, why not? The knew their kid was having mental problems. Why weren't they keeping closer check on them?
I don't think anyone is closing their mind to see whether or not a thing is possible. I think we all did consider it. I personally believe that Doom like games can have an effect on mentally disturbed kids, and I would think that others would agree. However, the "solution" is not to ban these types of games to anyone under 18. Parents should know whether their kids are mentally disturbed or not. If they are, they should take greater control of the situation.
No law is needed to allow parents to "ban" these types of games from their kids if they are mentally disturbed - or for any other reason. They can also decide that the kids don't get a car, can't go out, don't watch TV, don't have access to the computer, etc. Yes, these measures may seem draconian to some (especially those mis-guided parents who want to be their kids best friend instead of a guiding authority figure), and I don't advocate them in general, but for a mentally disturbed kid it may be appropriate.
It's demonstrably untrue. In this century alone, tens of millions of Europeans that could not own guns have been rounded up and slaughtered. It's going on right now in a place called Kosovo.
If Jews and Romany in Europe had owned guns, do you really think the Nazis could have had such an easy time wiping them out?
Legal ownership of guns is not the problem. Lousy laws about the availability of guns is a problem. Poor recognition and treatment for mental illness and emotional problems is a problem. Really lousy secondary educational systems that warehouse people for way too many years, and create a highly artificial and abusive social system is a problem.
Ranting about gun ownership is not going to do anything about the problem. In it's own way, it's as much of a straw man as blaming games fo rwhat hapened.
The really wonderfull thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.
Yeah, and the military expert on 60 minutes. Sure, the USMC uses DOOM for training. And they also pound slogans into recruits such as
"What makes the grass grow?" "Blood!"
"What our job?" "Kill! Kill! Kill!"
"God loves the Corps, becuase we keep the gates of heaven packed with new people."
Hell, I'd prolly get a bit whacky if people keep yelling "One shot: one kill!" at me for eight weeks.
He wrote an article in August 1998. You can see it at http://www2.christianity.net/ct/8T9 /8T9030.html.
Does anyone honestly believe that the US government is more accountable than the Canadian, British, or Australian governments? America has always struck me as more authoritarian than a lot of other countries (which coincidentally don't have constitutional rights to guns).
The Chinese culture uses their older segments of the population to help raise the younger population...
By involving them I believe their health and lifespan improves, as well as the attention and parenting the kids need, they get. Imagine all that exercise the older folks would get, and all the rich cultural exposure the kids get.
I'm sure other cultures do similar things, Latino, Black, other Asian cultures.
I wonder if there are any statistics for psychopathic rampages across race/culture...
I'm currently biased because of the news to think only white people commit these kinds of sociopathic crimes, but I'm sure your fair share of Chinese, Black, and Latino criminals exist. I wonder if adjusted for income, however, if the white yuppie culture still has the most problems?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Bull.
Outlyer is right; to show a correlation between two events like high school shootings and people who play DooM requires one to go the other way. Not only should one examine if people who go on rampages play DooM, do people who play DooM go on shooting rampages?
Overwhelmingly, the answer is no. For the same reason one could correlate drinking Coca Cola with people who go on shooting sprees. Or something equivalent, like milk or orange juice.
"Everyone one of these kids drank milk and had their cereal with milk. We think, therefore, that milk is responsible for these tragic shootings, and are seeking to bar advertisments, commercials, and access to milk."
Likewise, these teen shooters played DooM. So what? Millions of other kids play DooM and don't go shooting people either. I'm not arguing games don't influence people, but I'm saying there must be something of higher correlation because of the fact that these millions of kids can play Quake or DooM and not kill people, while these handful of teen gunmen did. Was it their bread? Their sodas? Their games? Why is the video game more culpable than the additives in their water, or genetic imbalances, or social problems, or family issues? Because games are loud, easily targetted, and easy to control, compared to families or high schools or even diet.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I think we're speaking from two wildly different bases here.
The grandparents are actively involved with the parents and the grandchildren. In your situation, if the grandparents raise the grandchildren, it just offsets the responsibilities by one generation such that the parents will have to deal with their grandchildren instead of their own children. This fails to work because at that age the grandparents, and later the parents, won't have the energy or youth to do so properly...
The situation I speak of is one in which the parents don't just kick out the children at the age of 18 and let them fend for themselves; rather, a strong bond remains despite leaving for college and leaving for work, and grandparents help with the grandchildren without replacing the parents. The social return is that the parents help care for both the grandparents and their own children simultaneously.
It's not an issue about needing assistence from grandparents, its about overlapping the parental cycles of two generations, instead of one; as a parent, I'll raise my kids, and then help when they have their own kids/my grandkids. They in turn provide for me because I will want to retire and pursue other livelihoods, like gardening or sculpture or photography, even as I help watch over their kids. When I am gone, my children will help watch over their own grandkids while pursuing their own second childhoods, as their children enter into the workforce etc.
It works, but it requires parents being able to live/deal with their own kids past the college/working age. Most of my friends have such dysfunctional relationships that I wouldn't be surprised if they only ever saw their parents on Christmas, once a year, if at all.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
It is the parents sole responsibility for raising their kids. I believe a lot of the problems we see now is because baby boomer parents, who's kids are in high school now, tried to place some of the responsibility on others.
This is very much a cultural issue. It is not the case in Chinese, and I think Latino and Black families, that it is *only* the parent's sole responsibility for raising kids. It is the *family's* responsibility, including elder siblings, grand parents, aunts and uncles, etc, though with decreasing responsibility and attention according to separation from the children.
With that said, I think we should do everything we can to ensure that everyone has an equal chance to excel. What I get ticked off at is that people take our money in the form of taxes and spend it on useless people. If people want to perform private charity, that's fine, but the government shouldn't be in the business of redistributing wealth.
There is some discussion on this point in economic circles, because the government is positioned exactly right to redistribute wealth. Public schools, insurance, health care systems, libraries, hospitals, emergency services, etc. are all examples of redistribution of wealth, though admittedly via provision of services to the citizen and not through welfare checks or monies.
It is a delicate issue, what the government is/should be responsible for, what an individual should be responsible for, and where the overlap/division occurs.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I'll stand in a crowd of millions and stand up and say : ANYONE who plays a game where killing, graphic killing, is the motive and primary purpose---is OFF. Thats not basic human nature.
I wish I knew what you're talking about. Your speech/grammar is very unclear, so I don't know what it is you agree/disagree on. For example...
It's not basic human nature to indulge in killing?
I agree on that. What I disagree on is that thus far the games Doom and Quake, as oft mentioned, are not examples of graphic killing. They are pixelated, blurry, symbolic, and iconic representations of death. There is no pain, no screams, no suffering, no smell, no blood. Perhaps those who commit violent acts cannot tell the difference, in which case then there is a very big problem. For the rest of humanity who play and watch these things, it is just a game, and in no way representative of reality. It is more realistic than arcade games of yesteryear, but it still is very shallow and unrealistic as well.
We *can* make it more realistic, but again, I don't think psychoes would respond to realistic games becuase then they'd also have to deal with such realisms as fatigue, management of health and strength, caution, and survival issues.
These kids have problems if they cannot distinguish reality from games. Even if we take away their games, their guns, their bombs, they would still have problems. A big issue is, without games, how else would they manifest their problems? Games are indeed simulations of reality, to some extent, but much cleaned up and sanitized, and as such can be useful to tell parents and involved adults that these kids have problems. If little Johnny fixates too much in a game in running every pedastrian over, rather than winning the race, Father should be able to see this when he plays with Johnny. If he isn't playing with Johnny, then there is half the problem, isn't it?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Sure, the representation of violence can teach, but it is limited by what the medium itself conveys...
the thought of blowing someone away is a thought NO kid should ever have.
The problem still isn't video games; take away the video games, the media, the television, the sensationalism, and the kid is still psychologically messed up, still having problems. The fact that they draw from these sources isn't the problem, and taking it away just hides some obvious clues that the kid has problems. A stable person can play all these games and watch all these movies and not be driven to murder, and proof exists that millions do partake without actually commiting violence. If there are no violent video games as positive and negative examples, then the kid just draws examples from somewhere else: books, fairy tales, playground bully's, nightmares, horror stories, etc.
I agree that kids should not be thinking about blowing people away. I don't think government intervention with regards to video games solves anything. Parents and adults involved with the children still need to observe and care for them, still need to guide them for any effect to take place.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Your argument matches just as strongly for idiocy =)
Stop entertainment, progress, and media? US culture thrives on entertainment and technology. The point isn't to expose them to violence; I would argue very strongly that games like Quake and Doom are not violent, as compared to something like football or hockey. Most video games are very clean and sanitized, and even FPS games are still so abstract that I would argue they are still better indicators than inducers of violent tendencies.
Do you really believe that for the protection of 1 or 2 all people should be protected/restricted from video games? That is exactly the whole point of individual responsibility, that parents and families decide and control, and not powerful entities like government and lawmaking institutions. You'd remove cars from society for the threat they pose, due to accidents? You'd remove alcohol as a recreational drink because of the few who abuse it? You'd take away personal choice and control and responsibility, to force them to comply and be safe?
That is so not American. That is so not right. When do people grow up, if everything is always chosen and controlled for them?
I'd argue every generation, every human, has outlets and sources of violence. I really don't believe that video games are any more violent than said football games or hockey games. I believe if you think 'violent' movies and video games should be removed, so too should football, hockey, soccer, water polo, baseball, or many other activites we have taken into US culture.
I want to play games as entertainment. I don't believe in violence or in hurting others. I don't believe video games are 'violent'; you'll have to convince me of that, I think.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I'm not sure about you, but I don't play Quake for the 'violence', I play for the thrill of being hunted and the thrill of hunting. Is that violence? It doesn't matter to me how the score occurs, but accuracy, speed, stealth, teamwork, and skill all speak to me in these games.
Teamwork, too!
What is the violence? It is no more violent than a game of paintball or laser tag. Do you count those as violent games? Quake is just a whole bunch cheaper and a whole bunch less stressful on my body than running around through bushes and buildings and leaping over ravines(though in its own way, those are fun too)
I strongly do not believe Quake's primary component is violence.
If it were, I would be disgusted by it, just as I would be disturbed by real life violence.
Instead, I see it as a game; it's fake, it's symbolic, it's representative, but not of violence.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
You're rationalizing. justifying. Desensitized. Yes...100X yes. You have the right to do what ever you want to do. But the act of killing another human is ENTERTAINMENT to you.
Well duh; anything I say that disagrees with your own point or belief is rationalization. I am trying to justify it, then it is rationalization; I am not trying to justify anything, this is how the game plays.
You mention heart pumping aggressivness; what aggression. I would play *very* poorly if I were aggressive and angry. If I wanted to kill someone, getting emotional about it would only cloud my abilities and reactions, from experience with violent circumstances.
You make some very broad and general accusations, that paintball and wargames are no different, that adrenaline is somehow violent.
Study some history, okay? Our society is so much less violent now than it ever has, like say a hundred years ago, or in other cultures across oceans, like Chinese cultures, or Western European cultures.
Death and killing is not an aspect of daily life; in those worlds, life was cheap and death was everywhere, disease, bandits, thieves, child birth, etc. I almost believe that we are so peaceful and non-violent because we have channled much of our natural aggressive tendencies into sports, video games, movies, and television, instead of acting it out. This is only my opinion and hypothesis, but recall the wild west, it's lawlessness, or even current day Kosovo, the Balkan states, ethic cleansing within the Czech republics, the government brutalities of the Chinese governments and such.
We are so lucky to live in such a sanitary and clean country!
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
If you wish to speak further, email me then...
I obviously can't email you =)
Our country, our generation, has a lower crime, murder, and violent crime record now than it has in the last 6 years... It has been dropping according to FBI and government statistics.
I ignore your Bible and its prophecies. I believe in brotherhood, love, and nonviolence, but not in God. At least not yet.
Well, good luck with your life then.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Hope the title was controversial enough to catch your attention =)
Teen violence is very difficult to pin down and solve. I'm sure that video games may have played some part, but I'm also convinced that even without video games these kids had problems. Couple this with easy access to guns and lack of adult intervention in their life, and tragedies are just ready to happen.
Why do I say games CAN'T cause violence? It's a two way analysis. If these teen shooters played DooM and Quake, reverse the situation. How many people play DooM and Quake, and still don't go out to shoot people?
Id's website brags of 2 million copies of DooM, so at least 2 million people relish digital violence, but only a handful of people actually go out and shoot their teen aged peers because of this.
A stronger example could be said that these teen killers drank Coca Cola, or ate Wonderbread, or drank Minute Maid orange juice, or used Kleenex brand tissues, or partook of Pizza Hut pizzas, or something else as inane as video games, and blame the violence on these objects. For the same reason, it washes out, millions more partake and don't go on shooting sprees.
If (a very big if) games do contribute to violent tendencies, then we have a very big problem as over 2 million people play these games. One might as well ban movies, for all the violent scenes they express, or television, for all the violence on the boob tube, and comic books, and all other entertainment media that uses visceral reactions to grab the attention of consumers.
If these troubled souls didn't have Quake or DooM, would they still go out and shoot people?
Why not?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
It seems rather weird to me this effort of trying to ascribe responsibility to Romero. After all, how can he be responsible when he hasn't put out a decent game worth waiting five hours to download from a warez site, let alone a game one wants to part with money over?
I mean, sure, deep down, we all WANT him to be responsible, in that remote hope some trailer trash family suing for damages will ride off in his ugly yellow ferrari. But, alas, he can't be, and we must be content with chortling when Daikatana is crushed by Quake 3 Arena.
The article mentions that John Carmack came from Kansas City (where I taught high school once upon a time). His picture bore a distinct resemblance to a David Carmack that I once taught; David was pretty brilliant. I wonder if they are related. Anybody know anything about John Carmack's family and roots?
Right?
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Speaking of which, where the hell does the IRA get all those guns and bombs and stuff. Isn't that all illegal in the UK? And what about the shooter at that Scotland schoolyard a couple years ago? My god, he used a gun. Now where the hell did he get a gun? How could that be? They're illegal!!!.
People in glass houses...
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Examine or so-called war on drugs. These are some of the strictest laws around, but somehow they just aren't making people stop taking or selling drugs. Hmm. And why do you suppose that is? Is it because the laws of supply and demand have precedence over the laws of crime and punishment, at least in the minds of the general populace?
Here's my point: you can make any law you like, but unless the vast, overwhellming majority supports that law, it will be unsuccessful, largely unenforcable, and eventually it will be ignored. The people will have what the people want, regardless of any efforts, benign or otherwise, to stop it.
I'm not saying we should just roll over and give up. But use your head. If the shooters at Columbine would have not used guns and instead spent their time making sure all their bombs went off, the loss of life would have been much greater. Would we then be talking more about making the Internet illegal, or making propane illegal, or having to be 21 to purchase roofing nails? No, probably we wouldn't, because those ideas sound ridiculous. We'd be focusing on the reasons behind the violence, rather than the violence itself. Violence is not a cause, it is an effect.
Am I being to subtle, or are you understanding my argument? If you don't agree with everything I'm saying it must be because of the incredible complexity of my argument and your difficulty in comprehending my vastly superior intellect.
Getting back to the point, there are something like 50 million copies of the Doom and Quake games out there, and two shooters.
What the media and parents seem to ignore is that out of the 50,000,000 who play these violent, bloody games two of them went crazy. That's what, .00000004%?
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
It is not the games or the internet that did this. I think these are just manifestations of the kids behavior. They want to make a bomb so they seek out the internet. They want to kill people so they go get doom. These things were not forced on these people, they sought them out. There was something different with them, it's the reason everyone doesn't go out and kill people. It had nothing to do with the clothes, or their hair or anything else. These were all manifestations of who they were and what they were trying to be. If you want to blame some doctrine, blame Hitler's.
Why do people think we are more violent today. The violent behavior just receives a lot more attention as the newsmen try to sell newspapers and tv time.
clancey
Explain how Occam's Razor leads you to conclude that video games are to blame, and not, for instance, masturbation. Do you mean the variant of Occam's Razor that allows you to conclude whatever suits your rhetorical position, without regard to the facts? If so, I suggest you get a different one.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
This is ludicrous. Our many times removed great grandparents have indulged in blood sports throughout recorded history. I'd MUCH rather we explore our dark side in Quake than in a gladiatorial arena, or in a Crusade against unbelievers, or a football match where the crowd tramples itself to death.
(that last one just sorta snuck in there...)
Ladies and gentlemen, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE between something that happens in a computer rendered environment and something that happens in real life. It's not a question of realism, it's a question of CONSEQUENCES. If I have an arbitrarily realistic combat simulation (think Star Trek holodeck sorts of things) and one person shoots the other, the loser can still buy dinner. The consequences are NIL (well, except the loser is out the cost of dinner...). NOTHING REALLY HAPPENED. If, on the other hand, one shoots the other in real life, one person is DEAD. THAT is the only important distinction. If a person is sufficiently mentally disturbed that they cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality, that person is not competent to be out in public unsupervised.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Freedom isn't having the power to overthrow some bad government if you don't like what they are doing to you. Freedom is mostly a stat of mind, where you know that you can live without having to give up your humanity. And no, guns are not part of your humanity.
If you have to fight to keep your freedom, then you aren't really free. To be free, you have to be free of the need to fight for it. I'm not saying that there might not be times when you do have to fight for your freedom (WW2, for example), but you shouldn't be fighting your government or other people in your country. If you want to be free you have to have a government that you can trust not to take your freedom away from you. Getting that kind of government is simply part of achieving a mature, democratic state. If Americans are so terrified of their government that they don't trust it not to try and become a tyrant, then I really don't think that they are free.
But then, most americans are probably fine about that sort of thing. They don't fear their government, they are simply wary of what it can do, and know that it is generally stupid and incompetent, and all that sort of thing. But they don't fear it. If they did, they wouldn't be free: they would be suffering from a form of tyranny, in their own minds, but tyranny none the less.
I'm rambling here, I know, but I do have a point: freedom is much more a state of mind (in the first world, at least) than an actual degree of liberty. It is about personal empowerment through the knowledge that you don't have to fear the world. If you don't have that, then any freedom that you claim to have is dubious at best. And feeling that you have to own a gun in order to empower yourself is a sign that you do fear the world, and that you aren't as free as you like to think.
I am as free as anyone on the planet, because I know that my governemnt, though they might fuck with me in many ways, won't take away my personal freedoms, and can't take them away. Because I know that I don't have to fear anything in the world. And because I believe that I am free.
Don't take your belief in freedom from the power that you might have over other people (and governments are made up of people). Take it from the fact that you don't have any more power over other people than they have over you. Take it from the fact that you have options other than the gun for redressing problems (like voting, say).
And please don't try and tell me that I could lose my freedom any moment because I have no gun, and most of my country's population has no guns. Because _my_ country doesn't need guns in order to stay free, and has never needed guns to stay free. My country didn't need guns to achieve freedom - we merely had to ask for it. My country is founded on trust, not paranoia.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
The great economy is more to blame for a falling crime rate, although incarcerating (sp) everyone also seems to lower it, but is pretty expensive.
+&x
Do violent games promote the school shootings? Sort of.
Does the current parenting and daycare situation promote the school shootings? Sort of.
Do other factors promote the school shootings? Sort of.
Wimpy answers, aren't they? But I think that they're more correct than what the media has been selling us. People are arguing over yes/no answers to all of these questions. Binary reasoning, it does or it doesn't. Binary reasoning doesn't apply here.
School shootings are a complex problem, and require a complex diagnosis. For most school shootings (or other violent sociopathic events), there are a host of factors that lead to it. Pardon the phrase, but most slashdotters know what I mean: there is no magic bullet. We have to identify the many factors and deal with them accordingly, to reduce the outbreaks.
Guns. The easier the access to guns is, the easier it is to kill people. Giving a sociopath access to a gun makes it easier for them to commit their crimes. Denying access will make it harder, but not impossible; the most desperate will always be able to get guns, and there are certainly ways to kill without guns.
OTOH, guns can be used to teach responsibility. It used to be that you weren't respectable if you didn't carry a gun. Like a car, a motorcycle, or even a pair of alpine skis, however, you must learn how to responsibly use it. This is something that should be taught in grade school, whether people own guns or not. Kids must understand that guns can kill, and that killed people don't come back. Little kids must be able to recognize guns, not to touch them, and to get a grownup to take an unattended gun.
How many of us had driving school and were forced to watch the associated splatter film? That sobers you up. It makes it a lot harder for you to take a car, or a life, lightly. It should be the same with guns.
Do guns cause school shootings? Sort of. There is a correlation, but not a high one.
Games and Media. I lump these together because a game is simply an interactive medium. Here, we show "fun" violence, and people associate violence with fun. Does this desensitize people to killing? My money says that it does. It doesn't do so very effectively. Military boot camp is built to desensitize civilians in the effort to make them soldiers. If Quake did that well enough to make most players killers, the military would just use Quake for its boot camp; it's cheaper.
Media violence desensitizes people a little bit, so those that were on the edge may go over the edge.
Another problem with media violence is that it glorifies unrealistic violence. On TV, someone get hit by a bullet and a little red spot shows up. In Quake or Doom, you can take multiple hits without going down, then recharge your health and armor. The fact is, if you think in terms of this, violence is fun.
Science fiction author and Vietnam combat veteran Joe Haldeman once railed about this. He contended that the media isn't violent enough. He figured that, when you show somebody hit with multiple rounds from a high-caliber weapon, you should show the full grotesque effects of that. IMHO, it is sad that the one bit of violence that television will not show is real, stomach-churning death. Yes, it's horrible. Killing is horrible, and only to be done in the most extreme or circumstances.
Do violent media and games cause school killings? Sort of. I think that there is a correlation, but not a high one.
Parenting. I'll admit, this is my personal "silver bullet". Minors are to be watched. Minors are not fully responsible people; that is why there are parents. Parents are responsible for the welfare of their children, and this implies their psychological well-being.
Some parents take this responsibility more seriously than others. Some parents are almost strangers to their children. Some parents think that "this sort of thing happens to other peoples' kids". Parents must be involved in their kids' lives, and must understand warning signs of impending insanity. I'll say it: All parents should learn how to be parents. Parenting in a natural setting is instinctive. Instincts will not prepare people for parenting in today's artificial settings; that's why we have books, schools, and web sites. If you're not willing to learn how to be a good parent, you should give your children to somebody who is. End of story.
Parents cannot do the job alone, either. That's why we have schools, friends, extracurricular kids' clubs. They all can help. They all are responsible to help, and to learn how to do it as above. But they cannot do the job themselves.
The same people who rail about not trusting the government (I certainly don't trust them) will ship them to government schools for thirteen years and expect the school to make a proper adult out of those children. This is patently stupid.
Parents are the first and last line of defense. They are the first line because they can be the primary influence on the values their children have. They are the last line of defense because they can see their kids slipping into insanity, and call upon resources (school guidance councilers, social workers, clergy, somebody) for help.
Sure, your best parenting efforts won't keep somebody else's kid from flipping their lid. But you can set an example, and demand similar responsibility from other parents.
Does parenting cause school shootings? Sort of. There is a correlation (IMHO bigger than the two above), but it is not the only factor.
Conclusion. These are the three factors that I see. I am sure that others can come up with a half a dozen more. For all I know, there might be a vitamin deficiency problem. I would love to hear more factors.
This is a many factored problem, and requires a many factored solution. We need to be honest. Saying that something is a factor is not saying that it turns all kids into psychopaths, and it isn't saying that the government should move in and control it. You don't need to separate into rabid attackers of an idea and rabid defenders of it; the answer often lies in the middle. I don't think that the government can control this problem. You can, and I can. Let's find the problems, scout out the solutions, and apply them across the board.
--The basis of all love is respect
And the bright and positive sides and uses for
alcohol are?
Jeff
I missed my chance to get rich by selling drugs, and now theres just too much competion. But if I can get the leftwingers to outlaw guns, I can get filthy rich by becomming a gun runner! Come on, outlaw guns! All the other criminals will still want guns. All the people who are afraid of criminals will still want guns. What a market! Best of all, I won't have to worry about legal gun dealers driving down the price. (OK I don't really want to be a gun runner, But you can bet there are a lot of criminals out there who will become gun runners.)
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
but "Starsiege: Tribes" is sooo much more fun. well, only if your team works with you. and Tribes helps with learning to work as a team and teachs how to take orders and give them.
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
hmm, werd...
why do these "Parents" HAVE to work so much that they dont have the time to spend with there children?
what "good" is all this technolgy if you never have time to use it?
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
Just like you can't say it DOES have an effect.
Theres not prove-able proof either way. But when you think about it-----games as violent and as graphic as these are relatively new. School shootings as we are experiencing them now are also a relatively new phenomena. MIGHT there be a connection? Again we can't prove it---but believe there might be.
If anything----the violence in games desensitizes one to the effects of violence. It removes the 'shock value' and goes some way toward making it simply a 'part' of life. This, in my opinion, makes it easier for a child to conceive of shooting, hurting, a lot of people and not 'natur ally' feeling wrong about thinking or even doing it the way many of us adults would.
Your example does not correlate well into the real world and is indicative of one who seeks to jusitfy what he is doing instead of opening his mind and seeing whether or not a thing is possibly so.
>
They do. We live in a culture of violence and the video games, music, and the actions of others are all off-shoots of it.
I'll stand in a crowd of millions and stand up and say : ANYONE who plays a game where killing, graphic killing, is the motive and primary purpose---is OFF. Thats not basic human nature.
everyone. Well maybe not everyone, but ...
If you take into account all the different FPS games out there - doom, quake, etc - then there can't be too many people out there who haven't played one of these games. I can't think of a single person I know with a computer who doesn't have an FSP installed on their box.
What the media fails to do is finish the facts. They're quick to point out the some gun wielding lunatic has quake installed on his computer at home and this must have been a major influence in the whole situation, but they never point out that almost everyone's got quake (or similar) installed on their computers and not everyone falls into the gun wielding lunatic category.
I saw the images of people that were blown up, shot up, and hacked up. These were hard-core and in your face images of violence from all over the world and nothing like image of a blown up imp from Doom. If you want to learn how to become a remorseless killer all you have to do is follow in the footsteps of your favourite news story.
Oh yeah, I think there was something about yet another punk shooting up yet another school. What does that make since the huge media hype of Littleton? Three, four? I don't really know for sure since I can't watch the news too often (too depressing). I would bet that most of them wouldn't have done it if they didn't figure they'd make the national news or CNN.
At times in this article the author seemed to be saying, "Look, these guys aren't monsters." Then at other times the author seemed to be saying, "They aren't monsters, but they make games that make people kill other people." Romero and Carmack and the games they make aren't the monsters here. The idea that an FPS can teach you how to kill a person is ridiculous. They DO teach you how to point at something, I'll give ya that (assuming you haven't already figured that part out after 14 years on the planet). The one kid said, "I don't even know how to load a gun." If you ask me, that says everything that should need to be said about the issue of games teaching kids how to kill.
"It seems we have a new source of FUD. Don't buy Linux because your kids'll play Quake or Doom!!! I sure hope that type of argument doesn't take hold in the media."
Linux isn't known as a gaming platform, and probably never will be unless the big companies start to give in.
"It's getting on my nerves that so many people want to connect Doom and Quake to the shootings, and aren't willing to connect that simple fact that for millions of years, humans were hunters."
Exactly. Why are they complaining about video games that have only been around since the 70s, while this is a problem that is human nature. It's like that "Boycott Violence" web page that I found. Yeah, let's boycott the human mind. Let's boycott testosterone. DOWN WITH PUBERTY! Let's get everyone castrated!
I have been playing games since I was 5 years old. I started programming when I was 8. I first played DOOM at 9. I am now 13, and I am getting great grades, I have never touched a gun, but I have gone on shooting rampages in the labs in Half-Life. I like seeing the poor scientists getting their brains blown out. But it still horrifies me when a school shooting occurs. Most of it is because of the loss of life, but some of it is the media having an influence on people, and turning the USA's gaming control from simple ratings to Germany-like outright bans.
I played Quake happily on a 486 133 (one of those AMD 5x86 processors) for about a year. Sure it was only 9 to 15 FPS, but at the time it was all I had :)
-- queef
Look elsewhere for the root cause people......
_______________________ I am the eggman, wooo! _______________________
I'm surpised at this too. The second I heard that they played paintball, I was expecting the "anti-paintball" backlash. It hasn't happened near as much as the "violent video game" backlash. Being both a fan of paintball and Quake, I've found it kind of odd.
Of course, while I'm at it, I can't let it go without a quick clarification. Paintball, like video games, do little to prepare you for "combat". Theres little "carnage" to be found. And as a "power" substitution, it also lacks - even the best players get shot out (I would argue that if you have played paintball for a day and haven't been hit once or twice, you're not playing hard enough).
But then, like shooting video games, there are "guns". There are opponents to shoot. It's not an activity that's sanctioned by popular culture. The only difference is paintball occurs in "real space". So yes, it IS amazing there's not more frantic stories about paintball in the media.
I have a gun to ensure that the greedy political machine that we americans use as a barrier between ourselves and our responibilities will never infringe upon my inalienable rights. I carry a gun to ensure that no one (criminal or cop) will ever beat me to death on the side of the road, or sodomize me with a night stick(watch CNN). You want clean streets, arm women so that rapists pay. You want lower crime then institue real and swift penalties, they may be barbaric but what is the crime rate of say Singapore.
If you don't like our Consitution then leave. Might I suggest some land in Kosovo, I know of a few million displaced people who left their homes free for you.
How many assault rifles would have been needed to stop a group of 15 from killing 200 men in one village???
Guns make it very difficult for the majority to silence the minority.
Freedom begins when you tell Mrs Grundy to go fly a kite. _R.A.Heinlein
The focus on Doom is because the meme has already been floating around in the media a lot, so reporters and the audience pick it up and understand it quickly. It's why there are news articles even suggesting that Doom gave these two the military training they needed while (usually) ignoring their target practice and involvment in paintball - both of which would be more useful in developing skills for tracking down and killing people.
Sounds great, but how much money does it costs to get a bunch of graphics cards that will work with the games? Unfortunately, the computer labs in my college campus are too crappy for this kind of thing. Too many ATI graphics cards give me the heebie-jeebies.
I would love to see that taken care of before a team in my college starts up.
Okay, okay. So I go for "Starsiege: Tribes", but it's still good for the fact that it runs on my 3dfx graphics card.
[dream sequence music:]
"Give me a target!"
"Got it!"
"Mortar inbound in 5,4,3,2--"
"--Bang!"
"What's the score?"
"Library Café staff: 4 flag captures, Atrium Computer Lab staff, 0."
"How much time left?"
"I thought you settled for 'no time limit!'"
"Excellent... Hey look! A wannabe sniper incoming! Who wants to take care of this?"
In a technical vein, don't forget the scripts. In my course of learning Tribes, I can use a few heads-up display scripts to do stuff (like telling me which team has the flag, etc.).
There was just as much gun access by minors in the 1950s as today, if not more so. And yet, such horrific shootings never occured; a change has taken place, but this change is unrelated to firearms. Rather, 'tis in the moral values inculcated in the young. There is no longer a cultural incentive for doing right other than "well, if you do wrong, you might get caught". For the shooters at Littleton, the "you might get caught" disincentive was negated, as they planned to kill themselves afterwards...hence, by their culturally formulated consciences, there was no real objection to their responding to ostracism with extreme violence. Taking away firearms would do naught...those who really want them could still obtain them by illegal means anyways...the root cause of the problem is spiritual in nature.
--When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!--
The problem isn't with the idea of sportsmanship.
The problem is that this idea has NIL to do with the Big Deal sports in high school. I'd be content with banning football and cheerleading, and possibly basketball, baseball and hockey (depending on the school). In other words, the Big Deal sports. Those seem to be the ones that really cause the problems.
Alternatively, I'd be content with taking sports programs out of the schools entirely, and having them be community leagues instead.
I'd even be somewhat happier if the eligibility rules for student athletes were STRICTLY enforced (in my school, if you were failing more than one class, you couldn't play
The problems with athletic teams are many:
1. Kids get out of all kinds of time at school to go play sports. Admittedly, they get out of school for other things on occasion as well, but sports tends to draw more time than most others. Worse, kids concentrate on athletics instead of academics, which is a bad thing unless you're one of the tiny minority who makes it to the big leagues.
2. The Big Deal team sports teach little if anything about personal fitness that is useful later in life. Individual and small group sports (track and field, tennis, fencing, swimming) are much more likely to stay with you later in life.
3. Foolish parents who will vote "yes" on athletic funding and "no" on funding for, say, the school band, or even badly needed building repairs.
4. Schools that hire teachers based on what sports they can coach, not how well they teach. I hope I don't have to explain what a bad idea this is.
And these are just the problems I can think of early on a Monday morning
School sports don't necessarily have to stay out forever. But some kind of "de-tox" seems to me to be a good idea.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
I went to a high school with a nationally-ranked marching band. We had one teacher and his wife who concentrated on the band. And band was a "big thing" in our school, but even then athletics overshadowed it. (Of course, many of the athletes were also in the band.)
There's also the small matter of how difficult it is to get funding for a non-Big Deal Sport. In most schools, football DOES get a huge amount of funding in comparison with, say, field hockey or the cross-country team.
As for the Academic League, well, isn't academics what school is supposed to be for????
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
See The Onion article...
"There is a diminishing return on caution."
Sorry, but not everyone had Quake or Doom or wants to. These games bore me. I'll take a good text adventure any day.
Western culture as practiced in the USA is also flawed in that we think that raising kids is the parents' (and only the parents') job. Raising a kid demands lots of adults participating, and before state-sponsored education, that meant aunts/uncles/grandparents. Now, it means teachers. (Does that scare you? It scares me.)
Thing is, there are lots of people aged 65+ with lots of time, so possibly give kids "surrogate grandparents"? I'm sure this has been tried somewhere... whether it'd do any good is another matter.
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.
Computer games are the least expensive way to get the feeling of blowing another person away--checked paintball/lasertag prices lately? As such, they're going to be the choice of plenty of kids. Some of those kids will be psychos. When/if one of these psychos snaps, we look for a semi-large corporation with lots of $ to take the blame.
What can I say? It seems to be the American way--justice by lawsuit. Computer games are a contributing factor here, just as the Mir space station is a contributing factor to the tides.
And another thought: Many folks on /. and elsewhere have been saying either explicitly or between the lines "Structures existing within the US school system killed the Columbine kids." Has anyone thought of suing the schools?
"Do these games show violence in a positive, approving way? Yes. Is the player rewarded for blowing his virtual opponents away? Of course. Do these games cause violence? Well, that's hard to prove..."
--Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes", paraphrased from "TV" to "games"
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.
It isn't it so strange that only in the last few months that your "normal" non geek americans are begining to get concerned about school/teen violence?
After the littleton thing eveyone's an expert on why teenagers shoot. Everyone knows that it is the violent movies, video games and so on that causes our teenages to shoot.
Umm... So much for your white american views..
What i want to point out is that for years now America has teen shooting in schools out of school at homes. But for so many years it has been a black African American problem or so the white polititcans think.
What's more it isn't it strange that many of these black teen shooters never touched Doom, quake or quake2 before they pick up a gun?
People will be people, forsight and hindsight are both colored by people's own belives and envioments. Never believe what people say about looking back being clearer and more objective. People still only see what they want to see.