Comments on: I fought the International Humanitarian Law (and the International Human Rights Law won)

By: Tesh

Tesh — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:49:37 +0000

Garbage in, garbage out. We are inevitably a product of our environment, including games, whether “fantasy” or not. It’s all input. The trick is in how it’s processed, aptly alluded to there in the RPS quote.

By: Zoso

Zoso — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:35:30 +0000

@Pardoz That’s a good point, that would be a much more interesting, and probably illuminating, study.

@Bronte It really is worth reading the report itself, it’s not not saying games make people violent, it’s suggesting games shape players perceptions of subjects they cover, which I tend to disagree with, but it’s not such a crazy premise.

By: Bronte

Bronte — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:37:12 +0000

Arguments such as these are so fucking stupid. Video games don’t make people violent. People who claim video games make people violent, make people violent.

A movie like Hostel shows human beings quite literally chopping and lobbing off live humans, humans eating live humans, humans using drills to poke holes through live humans. None of that comes under much fire, and simply gets laughed at for being “horror-porn”, or “vile, but curiously entertaining”. A show like 24, which shows a rogue U.S. agent killing, torturing and curbstomping his enemies without mercy receives a plethora of Emmy awards for being a “revolutionary” series. Meanwhile in Arkansas, a man is found to have impregnated his wife with his daughter 40 years ago, his daughter with his granddaughter 20 years ago, and abusing his granddaughter now, and he gets a mental insanity plea bargain.

WAKE UP! If ‘horror-porn’ and simulated violence in TV shows and movies is ‘art’, and actual crimes against humanity runs circles around the law, it is fucking stupid to criticize and delve on virtual violence and virtual war crimes.

In fact, why am I even writing this, stupidity of this nature does not merit a repsonse.

By: Pardoz

Pardoz — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:45:33 +0000

And once again analysis of the media manages to miss the point. Yes, to a degree our media consumption can shape our attitudes, but much more often, and to a much greater degree, the media *reflect* popular attitudes.

Is playing Call of Duty likely to turn little Johnny or Janey into the next generation’s Klaus Barbie, Pol Pot, or Dick Cheney? No. But an examination of how subjects like torture or killing of civilians is handled in the entertainment media can tell us quite a bit about our culture’s attitudes at a given time.

By: Zoso

Zoso — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:55:45 +0000

No worries, it’s a subject that people rightly feel strongly about. Still, to lighten the mood up I’m working on the next piece: “God, eh? What’s that all about.”

By: Stabs

Stabs — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:14:44 +0000

Oh Melmoth, you’re such a fun guy!

Today’s antispam word is rude. I may also have been so apologies for getting all political.

By: Melmoth

Melmoth — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:14:36 +0000

Speculating that fantasy might make one violent while we are openly shooting civilians is absurd.

If nothing else, we first need to address the debate as to whether the current generation’s tendency to vigorously jump up and down on any mushrooms that they happen across has a root cause in computer games.

This country’s supermarket grocery aisles are a mess, and I want to know what the government is going to do about it.

By: Stabs

Stabs — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:50:11 +0000

Oh and another thing.

As I mentioned earlier we are openly killing children and breaking international law in Iraq and Afghanistan as a matter of our nation’s policy.

This is real, this is happening.

Speculating that fantasy might make one violent while we are openly shooting civilians is absurd. I really don’t think we supported the USA’s illegal attack on these countries because our politicians had been fragging too much in video games.

By: Stabs

Stabs — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:44:24 +0000

What I was getting at is the BBC article doesn’t say players kill sprites representing children or simulate child-killing.

It says players killed children. Not even “allegedly” killed children like real murderers get.

His point about violent video games being psychologically different from violent films and violent books is also bollocks but I really object to the wording of the BBC coverage.

But yes guilty as charged really, the headline alone set me off. Guess my buttons are easily pressed, must be all that gaming.

By: Zoso

Zoso — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:01:50 +0000

Err, yes, that’s what I meant about it being so easy to just take a shot at the headline, which the BBC have tucked away as a curiosity in the “Technology” section while the main news sections are dominated by, amongst other things, the Iraq War Inquiry and the latest in a series of investigations into British military conduct.

The central tenet of the report is that the fantasy affects the reality, hence being considered worthy of investigation.