I think you make a horrible argument. It's your perception or fear of the threat that makes it far worse than it actually is. It's that same line of thinking that causes the fear of Muslims in this post-9/11 world ("Well, if YOUR people are capable of this, how do we know YOU'RE not a threat?"). It's absolutely absurd. People who are depressive are typically self-destructive and by that, are not any more of a threat to others. On top of that, people who are AWARE of their own psychological disorders are far less threatening than those who do suffer from a disorder and are unaware of it (therefore believing themselves to be "normal" or without a problem).
Thompson has not seen the game, which he says has "personally broken my heart," but claims, "I don't have to meet Abraham Lincoln to know that he was the 16th president of the United States."
Wow, that is a rather illogical statement (and he's a lawyer in Real Life?). Let's dissect it for a moment.
"I don't have to meet a factual person to understand a fact about him" is quite different from "I don't have to personally experience something to have a personal opinion about it."
I would highly recommend CoD3. I'm natively a PC gamer and of course I'm big on FPS, so I had to see how well the genre translates to the Wii; prior to the Wii, I've always thought that FPS games on a console are unholy due to the requirement of a gamepad. It's a great game once you get used to the controls. At first you will have a hard time keeping the controller still, but once you get used to it, you won't look back. The Wiimote makes it possible to aim with speed and precision. Another treat are the special controls, such as driving a jeep (you hold both controllers up beside eachother like a steering wheel) and rowing a boat (hold the nunchuck above the Wiimote just as if you were holding a paddle). It adds more depth to the game, which is great.
I was a little upset yesterday that the Wii launch story didn't hit Slashdot. Ah well, I was too busy playin the Wii anyway. I've posted my Wii story to my blog. In short: I love it.
Now I am not saying that this will make you necessarily more violent, but this will for sure make a person having done this much more efficient in killing others if this person happens to lose it and go on a rampage.
That's a big "if". Yes, logically, gun training increases one's ability to operate a gun; that's a given. Practice makes perfect. But you're missing a key ingredient in the "video games cause violence" formula: motive. What is different between the average gamer and a murderer? One has a motive for commiting such acts. Pointing the finger at video games, movies, music, TV, and art in general is only scraping the surface.
What is the true root problem? If you take the video games away, does that solve the problem? What about movies? What about music? No no no no. None of that changes the problem. We would like these things are the true problem, because it makes solving it a lot easier. You can find out who's playing video games; you won't necessarily always find out who is thinking about committing an act of violence. It all lies within the person's mind, and unfortunately, it's not something that can be easily discerned until--in most cases--it's too late.
We want things to be so much simpler. We want to be able to box everything up to make it so much more obvious. In terms of safety and security, we want to be able to identify who is a threat and who is not. We want to believe that every person with dark skin is a threat, because that would be so much easier to be on guard. We like to believe every kid who listens to death metal and plays violent video games is a threat, because we can keep our eye on them. Hell, even writers writing stories filled with violence and death...I mean, they're thinking about this stuff all of the time, shouldn't they be a threat?
The "video games cause violence" argument is pure rubbish. Ban video games and it'll be something else. We've seen the argument over and over throughout history...sex, music, whatever. Violence spawns out of a very primative formula, which is hate + motive. There's no easy way to curb or fix this problem which has existed as long as humans have.
I'm watching the semi-live blog at Joystiq.com, and it seems that what has been announced in Japan negates what this article states. They are saying a launch date of December 2nd, price of 25,000 yen (includes tax), and no Wii Sports pack-in. Is this the same Nintendo event that 1UP.com was talking about a few weeks ago?
I have been a Nintendo fan ever since I first ran through World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros. way back when. My last console was the SNES, and after that I pretty much dedicated myself to PC gaming. I purchased a DS Lite the day it came out, and I am definitely going to buy a Wii. I can't help but wonder how many other people are in the same situation, returning to consoles after so many years to pick up the Wii.
I'm actually at work right now, but I am about to go home and work from home for the next few hours, because they are moving our data center, which means the main network will be down. I will have no way to support our clients from here, since we typically use WebEx. No internet connection = no support. We do have some clients who still use modem, but I would say we typically only use that route about 5-10% of the time, which means that 90% of my job relies on the internet.
Wait for the motherboards based on the NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI chipset. According to this article, their release is only about a week or so away. As far as price goes, I would expect them to be somewhere between $200 and $250, like their AM2 counterparts. As soon as these boards hit the street, I'm gonna pick me up one and a E6600 and build my first Intel-based system since my Celeron 300 (overclocked to 450, remember those?).
Sometimes I wish there were a single word to express all the rage, disgust, shock, and horror in a single instance..."fuck" doesn't do that anymore. Is the industry that delusional to believe that copyright is the incentive for creating new material? Last time I checked, love for the art form was the main motivation for creating music, but I guess I could be wrong. Yes, obviously professional musicians need money to continue along, but where the hell does posting guitar tabs/lyrics to the internet come into play in taking that away from the artist? Instead of buying the CD, I'm going to record all the songs myself and distribute it to friends...yeah.
So I suppose I should stop listening to songs and figuring out how to play them on my guitar. I should stop putting music quotes in my away messages. I should stop singing along in my car. I don't want Big Brother detaining me for violating DMCA. Music has become a commodity, far from an art form. Minus a few diamonds in the rough over the years, for the most part, it is rubbish. It's a fucking shame that it has come to this.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you make a horrible argument. It's your perception or fear of the threat that makes it far worse than it actually is. It's that same line of thinking that causes the fear of Muslims in this post-9/11 world ("Well, if YOUR people are capable of this, how do we know YOU'RE not a threat?"). It's absolutely absurd. People who are depressive are typically self-destructive and by that, are not any more of a threat to others. On top of that, people who are AWARE of their own psychological disorders are far less threatening than those who do suffer from a disorder and are unaware of it (therefore believing themselves to be "normal" or without a problem).
Thompson has not seen the game, which he says has "personally broken my heart," but claims, "I don't have to meet Abraham Lincoln to know that he was the 16th president of the United States."
Wow, that is a rather illogical statement (and he's a lawyer in Real Life?). Let's dissect it for a moment.
"I don't have to meet a factual person to understand a fact about him" is quite different from "I don't have to personally experience something to have a personal opinion about it."
Where's BadAnalogyGuy when you need him?
I would highly recommend CoD3. I'm natively a PC gamer and of course I'm big on FPS, so I had to see how well the genre translates to the Wii; prior to the Wii, I've always thought that FPS games on a console are unholy due to the requirement of a gamepad. It's a great game once you get used to the controls. At first you will have a hard time keeping the controller still, but once you get used to it, you won't look back. The Wiimote makes it possible to aim with speed and precision. Another treat are the special controls, such as driving a jeep (you hold both controllers up beside eachother like a steering wheel) and rowing a boat (hold the nunchuck above the Wiimote just as if you were holding a paddle). It adds more depth to the game, which is great.
I was a little upset yesterday that the Wii launch story didn't hit Slashdot. Ah well, I was too busy playin the Wii anyway. I've posted my Wii story to my blog. In short: I love it.
That's a big "if". Yes, logically, gun training increases one's ability to operate a gun; that's a given. Practice makes perfect. But you're missing a key ingredient in the "video games cause violence" formula: motive. What is different between the average gamer and a murderer? One has a motive for commiting such acts. Pointing the finger at video games, movies, music, TV, and art in general is only scraping the surface.
What is the true root problem? If you take the video games away, does that solve the problem? What about movies? What about music? No no no no. None of that changes the problem. We would like these things are the true problem, because it makes solving it a lot easier. You can find out who's playing video games; you won't necessarily always find out who is thinking about committing an act of violence. It all lies within the person's mind, and unfortunately, it's not something that can be easily discerned until--in most cases--it's too late.
We want things to be so much simpler. We want to be able to box everything up to make it so much more obvious. In terms of safety and security, we want to be able to identify who is a threat and who is not. We want to believe that every person with dark skin is a threat, because that would be so much easier to be on guard. We like to believe every kid who listens to death metal and plays violent video games is a threat, because we can keep our eye on them. Hell, even writers writing stories filled with violence and death...I mean, they're thinking about this stuff all of the time, shouldn't they be a threat?
The "video games cause violence" argument is pure rubbish. Ban video games and it'll be something else. We've seen the argument over and over throughout history...sex, music, whatever. Violence spawns out of a very primative formula, which is hate + motive. There's no easy way to curb or fix this problem which has existed as long as humans have.
I'm watching the semi-live blog at Joystiq.com, and it seems that what has been announced in Japan negates what this article states. They are saying a launch date of December 2nd, price of 25,000 yen (includes tax), and no Wii Sports pack-in. Is this the same Nintendo event that 1UP.com was talking about a few weeks ago?
I have been a Nintendo fan ever since I first ran through World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros. way back when. My last console was the SNES, and after that I pretty much dedicated myself to PC gaming. I purchased a DS Lite the day it came out, and I am definitely going to buy a Wii. I can't help but wonder how many other people are in the same situation, returning to consoles after so many years to pick up the Wii.
I'm actually at work right now, but I am about to go home and work from home for the next few hours, because they are moving our data center, which means the main network will be down. I will have no way to support our clients from here, since we typically use WebEx. No internet connection = no support. We do have some clients who still use modem, but I would say we typically only use that route about 5-10% of the time, which means that 90% of my job relies on the internet.
Wait for the motherboards based on the NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI chipset. According to this article, their release is only about a week or so away. As far as price goes, I would expect them to be somewhere between $200 and $250, like their AM2 counterparts. As soon as these boards hit the street, I'm gonna pick me up one and a E6600 and build my first Intel-based system since my Celeron 300 (overclocked to 450, remember those?).
Sometimes I wish there were a single word to express all the rage, disgust, shock, and horror in a single instance..."fuck" doesn't do that anymore. Is the industry that delusional to believe that copyright is the incentive for creating new material? Last time I checked, love for the art form was the main motivation for creating music, but I guess I could be wrong. Yes, obviously professional musicians need money to continue along, but where the hell does posting guitar tabs/lyrics to the internet come into play in taking that away from the artist? Instead of buying the CD, I'm going to record all the songs myself and distribute it to friends...yeah.
So I suppose I should stop listening to songs and figuring out how to play them on my guitar. I should stop putting music quotes in my away messages. I should stop singing along in my car. I don't want Big Brother detaining me for violating DMCA. Music has become a commodity, far from an art form. Minus a few diamonds in the rough over the years, for the most part, it is rubbish. It's a fucking shame that it has come to this.