Slashdot Mirror
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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*
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
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.
Look elsewhere for the root cause people......
_______________________ I am the eggman, wooo! _______________________
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.