Games causing violence?

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Originally Posted by j_factor

Mental health is pretty much a red herring as well IMO. Most of our public officials who cry "mental health" every time there's a mass shooting have not actually advocated for anything to expand/improve mental health care in this country, and they have also opposed any effort to restrict the mentally ill from acquiring guns. In any event, the available evidence on violent crime and mental illness is far from solid.

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Yeah, well... I'm no politician, but I think that it's kind of a slippery slope when people start suggesting that the mentally ill should not be allowed to acquire or keep firearms. What are the standards for "mental illness" and who is going to be the one determining this for each person? Obviously a bipolar schizophrenic with ADD might be worth a closer look, but what about retired soldiers or police officers with depression or PTSD? Should they have their guns taken away?

This also still doesn't address the fact that people who are determined to commit violent crimes are more than capable of getting guns outside of the system.

Full disclosure, I don't care about guns at all ... I'm just suggesting reasons why people are stalling for solutions. I think it's time that both sides agree that there is no solution. Too much effort is being put into trying to stop violent crimes before they happen, which is as much a losing battle as wars on terrorism or drugs.

Yeah, my disorders are nonviolent but if I wanted to get a gun I would not be allowed to. Not looking to get one but it's funny. People use the term mentally ill as a blanket statement as they all have the same symptons. It's bullshit.

Unfortunately, that’s the only way they’ll think to handle it: one size fits all. That rarely works out, IMHO.

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Originally Posted by MrMatthews

Yeah, well... I'm no politician, but I think that it's kind of a slippery slope when people start suggesting that the mentally ill should not be allowed to acquire or keep firearms. What are the standards for "mental illness" and who is going to be the one determining this for each person? Obviously a bipolar schizophrenic with ADD might be worth a closer look, but what about retired soldiers or police officers with depression or PTSD? Should they have their guns taken away?

This also still doesn't address the fact that people who are determined to commit violent crimes are more than capable of getting guns outside of the system.

Full disclosure, I don't care about guns at all ... I'm just suggesting reasons why people are stalling for solutions. I think it's time that both sides agree that there is no solution. Too much effort is being put into trying to stop violent crimes before they happen, which is as much a losing battle as wars on terrorism or drugs.

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In this country your mental health is considered very closely if you apply for a gun license, which most people see as a sensible precaution. Those suffering from schizophrenia or who have a history of depression or violent behaviour can forget about getting a gun. Of course it must be remembered that, here in the UK, gun laws are very, very strict and have been since high profile incidents like Dunblane back in the 90's. Now with the constant hysteria over terrorism, gun laws here are even tighter.

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Originally Posted by Thunderblaze16

This has been talked for so long, I'm surprise there's still interest for a debate on it.

How about 'Does getting into speedrunning turn you to a drag queen?'

https://kiwifarms.net/attachments/15...68-jpg.354696/

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I'm not aware of what end is up in that picture except Red Robin does have a delightful chicken on a waffle sandwich and that obese pie looks good too.

Just to make sure it’s clear, I didn’t make the thread to debate anything; I was just curious people’s thoughts on an idea that has been repeated since the Genesis’ lifetime, including right now as the orange guy wants to discuss video games causing violence, and I doubt such talks will even happen lol. Who would he even have talks with, the publishers of GTA and CoD? (“Can you please stop making games like that, thanks.” Lol)

It’s also interesting in the sense that old men seem to believe it lol, as if they can understand such games in the first place (no offense to old men, but I expect most people wouldn’t think that their grandparents can understand modern games like first-person shooters).

I looked up the game Hatred and I found it surprisingly unconcerning. The character is obviously sick, and it looks like more of a sandbox than anything, with ridiculous content like stealing cop cars and driving through walls to make houses blow up. Graphics also seem somewhat artistic, at least for the colors all looking dark but with a few rare sources of bright light and color. Doesn’t quite seem realistic except maybe the specific actions, but overall it seems ridiculous lol.

Actually one interesting aspect of this thread is that it has challenged me to wonder what games, if any, I would really have a problem against. I suppose a recreation of historical war crimes would bother me, but I don’t think that people really want games like that.

Welcome to the "you can't fail and even though you suck you still deserve a trophy" society. When adversity hits them, they act like an animal without a skeletal structure. Teach kids about failure being a big part of life and then show them how to respond appropriately.

https://youtu.be/xC03hmS1Brk

"You've got to kill people to have respect for people. I mean, you can't kill everybody, because there'd be nobody left to respect if you did." Fur Q

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Originally Posted by Mega Drive Bowlsey

"You've got to kill people to have respect for people. I mean, you can't kill everybody, because there'd be nobody left to respect if you did." Fur Q

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Where did that bullshit come from!?

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Originally Posted by SegataS

Where did that bullshit come from!?

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LOL! It's a quote from a spoof character in a British comedy called The Day Today. The show was the precursor to the infamous (over here) mockumentary series Brasseye. It was taking the piss out of the kind of crap that gangster rap artists came out with in the 90's.

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Originally Posted by MrMatthews

Yeah, well... I'm no politician, but I think that it's kind of a slippery slope when people start suggesting that the mentally ill should not be allowed to acquire or keep firearms. What are the standards for "mental illness" and who is going to be the one determining this for each person? Obviously a bipolar schizophrenic with ADD might be worth a closer look, but what about retired soldiers or police officers with depression or PTSD? Should they have their guns taken away?

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That's fine and a perfectly valid viewpoint to have. But also not really my point. That was just an example. The point I was trying to get across is, if you're going to say "the REAL issue is mental health", but then at all other times you don't treat mental health as a real issue, you're being dishonest. Debate the merits of specific proposals all you want, but don't just flatly oppose anything and everything while offering no ideas of your own. Even if your honest appraisal is "I don't like any of the proposals I've seen and I don't know what the answer is" -- and in most cases it's not, because most of them haven't given enough consideration to make that kind of assessment -- then you need to first admit it, and then you should be proposing further study. Either create a special commission or order an existing agency to do the work that would give us better evidence of what would and would not be effective. They don't do this, or anything else, or even talk about mental health at any other time. Because they don't actually care about mental health, or put much thought into it, they only bring it up as a diversionary tactic. "They" being the people in politics and media who act this way, treating mental health as a rebuttal line in the gun debate and not taking it seriously. I know that's not the intent of every individual person who speaks of it, and many people (myself included) are legitimately concerned about the state of mental health in this country.

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This also still doesn't address the fact that people who are determined to commit violent crimes are more than capable of getting guns outside of the system.

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I don't believe the majority of violent crimes are committed by people who are determined to do it. A lot of it is impulse and opportunity. But I dunno, I don't claim to be an expert on the subject. Criminology is a thing though. It's complicated. I'm not inclined to just assume that there's no way to reduce people's capability of getting guns outside of the system, either.

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Full disclosure, I don't care about guns at all ... I'm just suggesting reasons why people are stalling for solutions. I think it's time that both sides agree that there is no solution. Too much effort is being put into trying to stop violent crimes before they happen, which is as much a losing battle as wars on terrorism or drugs.

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I don't agree with that at all. Different countries and different places within the country have very different crime rates. And the crime rate has changed a lot over time. So clearly the amount of crime is not innate and is subject to external influence. And I think it's very worthwhile to try to reduce crime. Same thing with drugs btw. The war on drugs is bad because it hasn't been very effective and has had bad consequences. The basic premise that "we should try to do things to combat society's problem with drug abuse" is still right IMO. If crime were extremely low, I would say it's probably not worth whatever cost to pursue pushing it down further. One might argue that violent crime is a lot lower now compared to 25-30 years ago, so hey, we're doing pretty good. Personally I think it's still very far from being low enough to not be a problem. YMMV.

I actually don't like violent games very much, well, I guess I should say games with realistic violence. That stuff doesn't add anything to the game. I take no pleasure in cinematic slaughter or torture porn, it's senseless, and yeah it fucks with my head. Generally, I don't like games that are grim and depressing. Life already has enough of that, I don't want to see that stuff. I just want to stomp a goomba flat into the ground so that he turns into a coin, and that's good enough.

I think violent people will like violent games sure, but the reason they're violent is, well... a lot of things other than people showing them violence. People always ask the wrong questions, and look at problems backwards. Life is brutal, being is not fair, it's not just, and there's nothing more real than it's suffering. Destruction is like the antidote to everything that is wrong, period. At least, in the minds of bitterly resentful people. It doesn't help that violence and aggression is also built right into our genetics, it's how we've survived. It's a incredibly difficult problem we all have on our hands, but we like to simplify it so that we can pretend to remain completely ignorant of the seemingly impossible.

Like it or not, little by little everything is influencing us. Including videogame violence.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/80-perc...searcher-says/

80 percent of mass shooters showed no interest in video games, researcher says