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we are training our kids to be killers
We Are Training Our Kids to be Killers
Zips @
8:42 am pdt on 5/2/08 - general
Update: Apparently, the video in the original news post was just part one of two! Part two is after the break and features an interview between Beck and Jack Thompson. How could I have possibly missed this comedy gold mine? Counter-Strike also receives a special mention in the second segment.Original with new video after the break: Won't somebody please think of the children? Well, thanks to Glenn Beck, conservative radio and tv show host, you don't have to! On one of his more recent TV shows, he goes on a bit of a rant on how videogames, Grand Theft Auto in particular, are training our children to kill and our sons to treat women as whores.
The government, he claims, is responsible for a horrific outbreak of violence that is apparently caused by videogames. Let's just try to ignore the fact that he apparently hints that there were no murders before World War I and the creation of the training program set up by the government. In the end, young children should not be playing this game in the first place. A person with proper upbringing, that is of legal age to play the game, and isn't already unbalanced to begin with should be the only ones allowed to play the game, not someone who has a predisposition to commit horrific crimes.
To be fair, he does claim that it's all of pop culture that caused an increase in violence, but his main target is still Grand Theft Auto. I suppose even conservative TV hosts need to jump on the bandwagon once in a blue moon to increase their ratings, right? It's amazing the sort of garbage some people will lap up.
I believe the most important part of all his rant is the fact he says there's a chainsaw in Grand Theft Auto IV! Dude, way to not share the secret on how you managed to find one in the game!
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comment #1 Threeboy 8:57 am pdt - 5/2/08 |
To be fair I treated women like whores before GTA existed. |
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comment #2 Ryosuke T 9:39 am pdt - 5/2/08 |
To be fair I always treated women like dirt because their stupidity roams around them majority of the time. I was waiting for something like this to pop up. Haha. GTA will forever carry this stigma for rest of it's future lineups. So now husbands can't play this game now? Jesus give me a break. M rating happened started years ago, why did they just brought this up? As for Jack Thompson, Beck ask what is considered "Adult Only" and he said "we are filing lawsuit against Two-Take, Wal-Mart, Sony, Gamestop etc..." The fool didn't answer the question. Who thought obtaining a lawyer certificate would be so easy down in Flordia. |
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comment #3 magicalpoop 9:53 am pdt - 5/2/08 |
I'd have to say I agree with the videos. Zip, banter all you want and berate them on how they're jumping on the GTA bandwagon but you miss the point. The game 1) Trains you to be a killer in the game. You will have 0 rebuttal against this, you must become a more efficient killer in any GTA if you want to succeed in your missions. Hey you may be fine playing GTA4 for hours and then go outside and volunteer at the homeless shelter and not beat them for a bat for some quick cash..but do you think you can represent the entire GTA4 fanbase mentality? No. Are the majority of GTA players poorly raised kids with "problems" , no. Are there some? Yeah. That's the damn problem, the game is way too easy to obtain and bad parenting is the ROOT of the problems they talk about. I was working so I gave my 16 year old brother (he honestly looks younger than that) MY CREDIT CARD to go into a Best Buy (Here in Canada) and buy GTA4 Collectors edition. So he just walks out and gets away using MY credit card, I mean come on - if that can happen once , why not twice? Why can't my brother be the troubled Mr.Cho at V-Tech? My bottom line is that there has to be much more stronger control on games with such subject matter. It says mature for a reason. Half the people on Gears of War and Halo3 on Live are high pitched minors. You know it. 2)Objectifying women. Come on, if you had a daughter - would you want some punk ass kid in high school dating her , and thinking she's just another whore he can gang in his car in an alley and then push her out? No. |
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comment #4 elhef 9:53 am pdt - 5/2/08 |
Yeah jack the ripper went sick becuase he played GTA for 2 weeks straight, I'm thinking violence existed before electricity let alone Violent games. Whats a bigger problem, violent games, or a country with more guns than people? Not to mention that pressing L2 X X X O O L2 L2 X X isn't insactly training to kill is it. |
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comment #5 rizzuh  10:36 am pdt - 5/2/08 |
Glenn Beck is one of the stupidest people in media. Read an op-ed of his on CNN.com some time — it reads like a 15-year-old on a "use the word 'ought' a lot"-bender. |
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comment #6 jollesonn 10:53 am pdt - 5/2/08 |
Glenn Beck isn't the sharpest tool on the rack, and he has a tendency to believe he's aligned with common sense. The issue with GTA isn't about training people to become murderers, increasing aggression or some other pop psychology non sequitur. The larger problem is no doubt the culture of today, the internet, tv, the constant devaluing of everything for entertainment and business purposes-- incidentally the things that lead to people talking gibberish internet language on discussion boards like this. But GTA is one of the problems that lends to this culture-- and they try to put it under the guise of "satire", thinking they're the intellectuals. Someone's got to draw the line, where will that line be? Are ethics actually not to be a part of entertainment? More imminent, and something all should agree with and be concerned, is children and teenagers playing it. This site and people like Mr. Thompson might be able to put away some animosity if you can agree to strengthening restrictions and awareness. I for one can't believe the game only received a "Mature" rating. |
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comment #7 ALT+F4 11:41 am pdt - 5/2/08 |
Anyone remember the video game the little kid was playing in the movie "Inside Man?" Beat to death and a grenade in the mouth for good measure; Spike Lee's prescient commentary on this whole thing. |
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comment #8 SlApNuTs 12:00 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
Damn, oral and anal sex? Where I must be playing the wrong game, or Jack got the AO super secret edition. Hook a brother up |
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comment #9 Admz 1:12 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
It's people like this that make me want to kill... people like this. GTA is fun and relaxes me. no killing. shut up before i kill you old man. |
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comment #10 Zips  Tin God - #csnation  1:14 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
magicalpoop wrote..No, it doesn't. The issue Beck and others in the media are trying to get is that the game teaches you, personally, how to become a killer. That is not the case. If you want to take it from the standpoint in the game, it also doesn't teach your character how to be a killer. He came from a wartorn land, fought in a war, and this was made quite clear if you follow any of the story. Hey you may be fine playing GTA4 for hours and then go outside and volunteer at the homeless shelter and not beat them for a bat for some quick cash..but do you think you can represent the entire GTA4 fanbase mentality? No. Are the majority of GTA players poorly raised kids with "problems" , no. Are there some? Yeah.Yeah, and there are some mentally unstable people who also watch movies, or listen to music. Before games came along, music was apparently the devil that caused kids to do everything wrong (drinking, smoking, drugs, sex, etc.). There will always be mentally unstable people doing every single thing in the world regardless of whether or not they should be doing it or not. You cannot stop them unless you're a parent of a child with such a tendency, and it's typically that a kid that has any sort of problem with telling right from wrong had a rather crap upbringing to begin with so you already know the parenting skills are also crap. I made that clear in my news that if they're unfit to play the game to begin with, they shouldn't be playing it period. So he just walks out and gets away using MY credit card, I mean come on - if that can happen once , why not twice? Why can't my brother be the troubled Mr.Cho at V-Tech?First off, that's the fault of the store there. They broke the law on more than one account, but then again so did your brother by impersonating you. Secondly, what does being able to buy a game have to do with someone being a mentally unstable killer? Nothing. 2)Objectifying women.What does this have to do with GTA or any other game? Again, read up on what I said multiple times about having a predisposition to doing wrong, or being mentally unable to determine right from wrong. rizzuh wrote..I don't even want to try and read his tripe. I hear enough of him and Limbaugh any time I'm near my father. He has them on the radio constantly, and what's worse is the fact that he buys into a lot of their propaganda. |
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comment #11 Linux 1:26 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
Edited by Linux @ 1:33 pm pdt on 5/2/08 Well this was my highlight of my day watching those. I think I'll go play GTA4 now and run some people over and what not... Seriously this stuff gets dumber and dumber every year, its kinda like MTV ;). I'm waiting for Lewis Black's Root of all Evil to have Jack Thomas vs. CS\GTA4 lol. EDIT: Anyone want to bet that Jack probably does the samethings in game as many of the other users and us do? |
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comment #12 Diamond Dust 1:58 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
It just gets more and more clear that the people who come out against games like GTA in the media really just have no clue on what they are talking about, I find it offensive on how you can put up this whole offended argument when it's clear that you really haven't done any research on the subject matter. I love getting into this debates in person with people because I actually know facts. Like one lady I worked with commented "I don't like that game because you have to kill and rape women" Like wtf when could you ever rape somebody in the video game (besides custers revenge for the atari)? It's amazing how much people don't know about video games, especially older people. Although we just have to wait because as the years pass the avg gamer age goes up because people who grow up playing video games don't just stop, in fact they play more because they now have more income and can afford to buy more. That is why the avg age of a gamer is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years, and that is a fact you can read for yourself at http://theesa.com/ |
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comment #13 PENGUIN511 2:12 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
GTA gives allows you to go into a stripclub, kill hookers, kill cops, run people down. but your the one that chooses to do it in game. gta is out there but your the one who decides what you do with it. |
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comment #14 ALT+F4 2:16 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
Zips, as a former Games Apologist myself I understand your defensive stance but the fact is that this game IS vile, antisocial, perverse and offensive. But that's exactly what it's SUPPOSED to be. In a perfect world with nothing but sane, rational and healthy people that's fine but with the ever increasing number of nutballs on the loose, not to mention their ever increasing levels of nuttiness, it does border on the irresponsible to even MAKE this kind of content, regardless of how it's marketed. But, hey -- with the liars, cheats and thieves in political office and positions of public health, safety and faith, there really IS no safe zone here so, like, WTF. |
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comment #15 mifdeath 2:26 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
Edited by mifdeath @ 2:56 pm pdt on 5/2/08 So just a quick history lesson. Pop-guns taught children to be ruthless aboriginal murderers due to cowboy and indians play time. During every modern war and outside of wartimes children played with mock-ups of common weapons. Ages ago children played with mock swords and shields. Teaching our children to play war or killing is as much a part of our history and method of child-rearing as potty training. For that matter if you went to any school yard within the last 100 years, you would have and will see young boys running around with their hands in gun poses shooting and being shot. Feigning death and gory injury as they happily play death games. Now should my 7 year old be playing an ultra-violence oriented video game? No, he does not have the cognitive capability or a firm enough grasp on reality to comprehend the difference between the game and real life. Should my 14 or 17 year old be playing it? If my 14 or 17 year old is incapable of telling the difference between real life and a game he/she has; 1. A severe learning or mental disability. 2. Parents who didnt do their job by teaching him/her morals and simple life guidelines. 3. Violent tendencies and may need counselling. We are a warlike violent species, the fact that our games reflect that is nothing surprising. It is up to the parent not the government how children are raised. |
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comment #16 ukHazard  Let's Go Drink Some BEEEEEER 2:57 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
Official DOJ figures show that violent crime has declined per capita hugely since the early 90s. Doom was released at that point. |
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comment #17 ph03nix(k) 4:12 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
is there a checkbox to block news items under the category "Zips annoying biased rants"? |
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comment #18 azz0r 4:19 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
I actually agree with him. Anyone under 18 shouldn't play GTA4 really, thats a fair thing for the news to broadcast. Essentially the game and the culture we're in (rap music, violent movies) is breeding a generation of possibly violent, disrespectful youths. The answer to this is put in place good age barriers for such things and stick to them. |
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comment #19 Zom-B 5:07 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
ukHazard wrote..And in Doom, you need to become a more efficient killer to proceed through the game! Ahh, it's all useless banter. The game still came out, and adults are playing it. |
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comment #20 pwnedbyIbanez 9:46 pm pdt - 5/2/08 |
While I believe that GTA4 or any video game would never actually train someone not impaired in thinking/judgment to kill others, I would rather not have anyone under 17 playing the game. Seriously, the only thing I've seen in GTA4 is a development team creating an amazing amount of detail and graphics style found in the game. |
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comment #21 chiselite 6:10 pm pdt - 5/3/08 |
"Zips, as a former Games Apologist myself I understand your defensive stance but the fact is that this game IS vile, antisocial, perverse and offensive. But that's exactly what it's SUPPOSED to be." Oh come on. Just because you can buy a game which gives YOU the choice to kill people doesn't mean the game is vile, antisocial and perverse. You can't judge the tones of a game just from the things it lets YOU do. The most accurate way to judge GTA IV is through it's missions because you get to learn about Niko from those missions. You don't learn about Niko from goofing about and dying a million times doing car stunts. Furthermore, by playing through missions you also learn the story and like all stories, you can look for the themes in them. It is these themes which proves that GTA IV is not perverted, antisocial, vile and offensive as some hateful people may think. Go read all the dialogue in The Witcher game. Themes include the conflict and morality of good and evil and how it isn't black and white anymore but different shades of grey. This is true, especially since themes are based on real life views given government corruption and loopholes in laws etc. What may be vile is the reflection of people today, depicted by NPCs regardless of whether they are part of the main story. There are hookers in GTA IV and you say the game is vile, perverse, antisocial and offensive? I guess the world (particularly Hamsterdam) must be all of those things because there are hookers in it? And I guess the world must be vile and perverse because if you can brutally kill many people and get away with it in GTA IV, you can do it in the real world (My Lai anyone?). The game isn't vile. It has some things in it that will make people cringe but face it, it is mainly vile because of the player or what you've seen other players do. People who are usually offended about this kind of thing are people who either don't have the bullocks to look the world in a objective point of view or aren't pessimistic. The world isn't always a nice place where there is not violence in cities and where womens farts smell like flowers. GTA IV depicts (or attempts to) a part of the world (cities, particularly New York) the way they are or can be. I'm not saying that GTA IV shows people the real world but it can certainly snap people out of their one-way view of the world, something which some people don't like or can't handle. "In a perfect world with nothing but sane, rational and healthy people that's fine but with the ever increasing number of nutballs on the loose, not to mention their ever increasing levels of nuttiness, it does border on the irresponsible to even MAKE this kind of content, regardless of how it's marketed." Personally, what I believe is irresponsible is how GTA is distributed to kids. However, it isn't the stores or Take Two who are at fault, it is the children's guardians. If an underage kids buys GTA IV from a store, sure the store is breaking the law and is at fault to that law only. If a kid plays GTA IV and starts shooting up a school a few days later, don't you think that the parents are irresponsible for not checking on their kid every once in a while, especially if s/he is mentally unstable? How can you be a decent parent if you aren't involved in their life? Plus, it is all about context. I loved GTA because I could climb stuff and do stunts in motorbikes, plus I love stories. ==== As for the video, GTA IV doesn't train kids how to kill. It can teach them how to be one but seriously, GTA IV isn't the only offender. Look at movies. Action movies have guns. If a kids watches an action movie, they can piece things together and realise if you point a gun at someone and pull something, they will get hurt or die. If a kid goes to high school and studies human biology, that kid learn how to kill someone since the syllabus will go through learning about the digestive system or cardiovascular system. Hell, adults who enjoy watching boxing or UFC or Pride will learn how to kill someone. What makes these people not kill? Mediation and filtering of information which highlights the significance of better parenting. I'd let my kid play GTA 6. I would even buy the game for myself and let him play it if s/he is good enough even if s/he is underage. I wouldn't supervise her/him all the time but I will force her/him to not screw around and do some missions and have a talk about games and real life. |
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comment #22 magicalpoop 10:07 pm pdt - 5/3/08 |
Here , I'll keep my post simple. Does GTA really "Train you" the player , to be a killer? No, but it's a giant sandbox game and when in the hands of minors and even people who are not mature enough (dispite coming of age), you start to "explore" like any natural human being. "Hey I can..pick up whores..and then kill them so I don't have to pay them?" for example, or get a 5 star rating and then go on top of a rooftop and fire off a few rocket rounds at the police officers below,etc, go into a crowd and unload your AK. Video games appeal to men for one reason alone, that our brains thrive on the work/reward system. We become addicted to it. When "troubled" people play this and feel such a sense of "relief" and "addictive joy" killing/etc, and their real lives suck. Why not transpose what you do on your 360 to that jerk in your gym class? Look GTA4 isn't the culprit here, it's the bad parenting (that's the root). But at the sametime, is Rockstar completely innocent? Putting billboard and advertisements that span the entire sides of buildings? IMO they subjected an almost adult product to the masses (This includes minors). Come on, bus stops and other mass public displays? They're basically shoving it down on the youth. GTA 4, lollipop licking whores and guns. Fuck yeah. Anyways my bottom line to sum my ultimate thoughts- They need to reform the ESRB ratings and change Mature to 18+ and make it a law to ID anyone who appears under 25 when purchasing the games. And yes , market the game as an adult product. Or keep it 17 but put ID in check. I don't see a problem with an enforced 17 age check on M+ games. |
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comment #23 Kotae 1:14 pm pdt - 5/4/08 |
A lot of stores don't check ID ~ I know walmart used to, but I pretty much walked in there when I was 16/17 and they didn't question my age when I bought Silent Hill 3. Since then, I've had one person ask me my age when purchasing something - it was a movie, and not a game. The rules that are in place need to be enforced, really. All I have to say about the "Training kids to be killers" is this: Games don't make killers, movies don't make killers. But they sure can influence - just like your parents or friends influence. |
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comment #24 -:Nighthawk:- 1:15 pm pdt - 5/4/08 |
Edited by -:Nighthawk:- @ 1:21 pm pdt on 5/4/08 I've got really mixed feelings on this one. I've read a lot of the studies quoted in these clips. A lot of info was taken from Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book On Killing, where he researched firing rates and training soldiers to overcome their aversion to killing other humans. All of us who've taken even the most basic of psychology classes are familiar with classical and operant conditioning, and humans on a subconscious level will react in set ways when conditioned to do so. Can repeating an act of violence over and over train you to respond to a stimulus with that response? Absolutely. There's no arguing that point, it's long been established by psychological studies. What does this really mean though? Unfortunately there are people who confuse the act of pressing a button on a controller with the act of grabbing a baseball bat and beating another human being down with it. Depending on the quality of the audiovisual experience you've been training on, you can be more or less desensitized to the human reaction to your actions, which helps enable you for the real-life act. However, very few people who show no compunction against pressing X button will similarly be okay with swinging a bat at someone's head. Every violent or otherwise anti-social act we imagine, watch, participate in or vicariously perform through a video game does fundamentally affect us. The more developed your sense of conscience and ethics is when taking in these experiences, the more you can properly filter them into the creative realm that you do not carry into your real life. Honestly, most of us are reaching the same conclusion here: because psychological studies have proven that younger, developing minds are dramatically influenced by all of the ideas they're exposed to and participate in, their thoughts and actions will be affected. Most kids still won't become killers, but the general devaluing of human life is something we all see in society. One last point. A decline in violent crime since the 90's was quoted, but this is a common misconception based on political surveys put out by agencies in charge of enforcement. Statistics for assault and attempted murder have continued to increase according to hospital records, but advances in medical technology and training have been compensating for the continual trend towards more violence that indeed has been increasing since the post WWII era. In the end, I enjoy some violent media and don't believe in censorship of titles such as GTA IV, but the results that come from younger and/or unstable individuals consuming violent or otherwise anti-social media (of any kind) will always be negative. |
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comment #25 Thortok2000 1:53 am pdt - 5/5/08 |
I watched the clips and you missed some of the major points. 1 - As far as 'training to kill'. The correct phrasing would be 'training to be willing to kill should it prove necessary'. I, personally, can say that I have definitely thought about major violence...against someone who earned it. I would shoot someone that tried to shoot me. I could agree that it's possible that video games have trained me into a state where I'm ready to commit such acts, but because of my maturity and mental health, I know when to do them and when not to do them. However, regardless of the fact that I don't actually do them, I am more ready to, because of violence in media, then I was without. That's the point they're making. Before World War I, people hesitated when they go to kill. There's not any more or less killings, directly, just less hesitation. Now, in children in particular, less hesitation means the act is actually committed instead of just attempted. I've always laughed at Jack Thompson, but I respect Glen Beck, and I see where he's going on it. I see his point as far as 'training to kill' goes. 2: Mature rating instead of Adults-Only rating. This is definitely something I agree with. The game needs an adults-only rating if it's going to have that kind of content. That it is simply Mature is stupid. 3: The point of the show was to educate parents. "What you need to know." What you need to know is not to let your kid play this game. If a parent was watching that, they should have gotten that from the show. That's the most important thing. Especially in light of it being Mature and sold in places like Walmart and Best Buy without a real amount of security to prevent minors from buying it... Stores should be held accountable to the full extent of the law, and parents need to know. Glen Beck was informing parents about this game. To that extent, I think it was a good clip, even if he had to call on Jack Thompson, ugh. |
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comment #26 mifdeath 2:32 am pdt - 5/5/08 |
Our governments do not exist to write policy on how we are not spending enough time with our children to notice aberrant behavior. Or extended policy on our personal behavior because we as parents are so personally uneducated, and in this information age cannot inform ourselves on correct choices for our children. At some point however our children have to leave the house and do things on their own. At that stage we should have the logical reasoning to understand, that whatever we instilled in those children up until that point will protect them from danger or harm. At that point you see, we no longer can control everything that they may come into contact with. We all know that this sort of media and political attention on such a (in reality) trivial matter is "busy work" for the masses. Or to put it another way, misdirection. Look over here! At this! Think of the children! Oh won’t somebody please think of the children! |
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comment #27 Zips Tin God - #csnation 10:56 am pdt - 5/5/08 |
Damn Thortok, you missed the point of these videos entirely. They're using lowbrow scare tactics to misinform everyone about this game. How do you, or he, know that there was "hesitation" pre-WWI but absolutely none now? Exactly. And no, games did not train you to defend yourself if someone was about to shoot you. This is normal human instinct. Do you think the Neanderthals just sat back and took a beating from their fellow 'man'? Say you ignore that too, and I can see you doing it. But then, Neanderthals just attacked others without much provocation. I guess they trained on videogames. FYI: The difference between an AO rating and a M rating is one year. If someone isn't ready to play the game at 17, I seriously doubt a single year will make any difference to those who have pre-existing mental instability issues. The points you made were just as bad and full of holes as Beck's and Thompson's. |
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comment #28 ALT+F4 2:07 pm pdt - 5/5/08 |
Thortok2000 wrote..Just curious. Are you a gun owner? Have you ever held a loaded firearm in your hand and felt its awesome and irrevocable destructive potential? It's easy to blather about being willing to shoot someone when you're just talking out of your ass; a little more thought goes into a statement like that when you truly understand the moral, legal and psychological implications. If that's the case, then my apologies. If not, then STFU. And Zips, your arguments are immature and embarrassing. This game is indefensible. It exists precisely to be -- as one man put it -- vile, antisocial and offensive. That's its purpose. That's its selling point. Rockstar is depending on the predictable badmouthing to increase interest and sales. Defending it as though it weren't is delusional and disingenuous. Which is not to say that it can't be entertaining and fun. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking it's art. |
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comment #29 Zips Tin God - #csnation 4:39 pm pdt - 5/5/08 |
ALT+F4 wrote..The game is indefensible? Are you kidding? You surely must be. For if something can come under attack, there is surely a way to defend it from such outlandish badmouthing for the sake of garnishing a few more viewers to your bandwagon jumping show. Furthermore, that was never the point I was making. Period. I've always said from the start that if you are not mentally capable of playing a game and differentiating between reality and virtual reality, you shouldn't be playing this game. I've also constantly said that this game, and other violent titles will not turn a perfectly normal kid into a sociopathic, uncaring, unfeeling killer. If the kid is already gone to begin with, then a game, or ANY form of media would be enough to push them further. Like I said, look back to music, movies, etc. I never said there weren't any offensive pieces in this series, far from it. So do not try and put words into my mouth on that matter. I also highly doubt Rockstar was depending on anything in the realm of badmouthing to generate sales, when sales forecasts by outside parties had this title breaking all sorts of records in the entertainment field, even coming close to matching the leader in films. With forecasts of sales being near 9 million just for this title, and with maybe a few crimes (ever) being placed on the shoulders of any game as the reason why someone did something, no matter how BS that reason is, I'd say the side of arguing that games do not result in violent behavior far outweigh the side that says this game teaches persons to become killers. |
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comment #30 -:Nighthawk:- 12:25 am pdt - 5/6/08 |
Zips wrote..By and large I agree with your arguments Zips, but I'll take exception to this one point: that it's natural and normal to react to violence by using anything up to lethal force to protect ourselves. Let me tie in the next quote before proceeding: ALT+F4 wrote..I am a gun owner, I have held on a number of occasions various types of loaded weapons, and while I don't get this same feeling holding my hunting rifle, a pair of Colt .45s definitely gives me exactly the feeling you described. And honestly, it's frightening, enough so that I can't even point them at another human being when they're unloaded with the slide racked open. One of the primary points that the book On Killing makes is how absolutely unnatural it is for people to kill others, even in self defense. Without any sort of conditioning, most people will respond to violence with either posturing, submitting or running away -- attacking in return is a fairly uncommon response for someone who is not routinely exposed to violence. The author did a lot of research into firing rates among combatants in wars starting with WWI and continuing through Vietnam. There are a lot of reports from commanders about their men merely shooting over their enemies' heads in an attempt to "posture," basically trying to intimidate your foe without actually harming them. In the course of the research done, a few factors were found that contribute to someone's willingness to kill another person. Factors included things such as:
Between Korea and Vietnam, the US military looked at classical and operant training scenarios in psychology and applied them to their conditioning for US soldiers. Circle targets were replaced with human silhouettes, and in the sniper program they even put melons behind targets' heads so our snipers would be accustomed to seeing spray from their bullet's impact. Instant, reflexive shooting was the goal. Target pops up, shoot the target, target drops and you get praise for success, reinforcing that shooting was the right thing to do even to a subconscious level. I could go on about this, but the end result of our troops spending a lot of time immersed in the idea of violence in a training environment where no one had any real intent to kill was that the deadly firing rate went up astronomically -- something like a jump from 20% in WWII to 85% in Vietnam. Will games make a normal, healthy kid run outside and start shooting for no reason? No. Will being immersed in violence erode a person's natural resistance to harming other human beings? Absolutely. You don't even have to be a kid for that to be true -- it's just that the effect is hugely, disproportionately magnified in children. I definitely recommend the book I mentioned to anyone interested in educating themselves on the issue from a psychology standpoint. I don't agree with all of the author's conclusions, but the data and studies alone carry a lot of weight that you can easily draw your own (and likely similar) conclusions from. One question if anyone is still reading this... is there any real difference between M and NC-17 ratings in video games? I know in a movie theatre parents can still get their kids into an R-rated movie but not an NC-17 one... but since video games are more for the at-home realm, doesn't enforcement once again fall on the shoulders of parents? |
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comment #31 Thortok2000 2:12 am pdt - 5/6/08 |
Zips wrote..He didn't talk about pre-WWI, he talked about WWI and since, a study that proves that training someone to kill before they ever have to kill causes less hesitation the first time they get ready to kill. In a way, that's only common sense, to be trained for something makes you better at it. However, just because you're trained to do something doesn't mean you'll do it. It just means you'll be better at it should you actually do it. The phrase "training our kids to kill" is not the same as "mindwashing our kids into becoming killers". I didn't see the difference before, but now I do. Kids and people that play these games become better killers, even if they never kill, they're better at it than they would've been if they hadn't played the game. The same is true for racing games helping to improve my driving skills. I learned to drive a lot faster than most of the people in my driver's ed class because I had played video games. And no, games did not train you to defend yourself if someone was about to shoot you. This is normal human instinct. Do you think the Neanderthals just sat back and took a beating from their fellow 'man'? Say you ignore that too, and I can see you doing it. But then, Neanderthals just attacked others without much provocation. I guess they trained on videogames.To say that the only possible way to train to kill is via videogames is a logical fallacy. To say that it is impossible to kill without training first is also a logical fallacy. Glen Beck did not make either of those logical fallacies. He specifically gave the example of painting a human outline on the target at the shooting range; training to kill without using video games. And he never said anything about pre-WWI, the study didn't go back farther than that. You're attributing your own logical fallacies to your opponent, you need to stop that. FYI: The difference between an AO rating and a M rating is one year. If someone isn't ready to play the game at 17, I seriously doubt a single year will make any difference to those who have pre-existing mental instability issues.FYI: The difference between an AO rating and a M rating is whether the product gets sold in stores like Walmart and Best Buy. Apparently they consider that "one year" to be massively more important than you do. Otherwise, if that one year didn't make any difference, why would they have that policy? The points you made were just as bad and full of holes as Beck's and Thompson's.Not really. I'm not saying the entire article was perfect so to speak, attributing specific incidents to specific games is kind of stupid, which is the tangent that Jack Thompson goes off on, ugh. But the main points Glen Beck was trying to make with this news piece, you totally overlooked. I'm an open minded person. I've been against this 'nonsense', but looking at it from a new angle, thanks to Glen Beck's mention of that study, I can see where they're coming from. ALT+F4 wrote..I don't own a gun, but I was the most accurate marksman of our group when at shooting ranges. (Various field trips for boy scouts and school to teach firearm safety and such.) I can't say I've ever pointed a gun at a person with intent to pull the trigger, and I'm glad I can't say that. But yeah, I've fired a few guns, rifles, pistols, etc. Even a crossbow, which was awesome. And yes, I understand the ramifications, which is why I don't go out and become some random shooter you see on the news for a week and then you forget about. I know when and where would be the right time, and when isn't. But it's certainly something I'm more prepared for, because of video games, than I would've been without them. I could still have prepared myself of course, if I wanted to, without video games, but video games helped. Zips wrote..I agree with you. But that's not what the phrase "training to kill" means. See above. And see what Nighthawk says. It's amazing how similar Nighthawk's opinions are to mine, all the time. =P |
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