tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post3503796657925558217..comments2024-03-29T05:14:33.223-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Do violent video games encourage violence?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger105125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-32649586912039512602013-03-08T19:21:41.999-08:002013-03-08T19:21:41.999-08:00Our kids used to be hooked on videogames. We fixe...Our kids used to be hooked on videogames. We fixed that by swapping them out for audiobooks. Audiobooks are far more engaging. There are lots of sites where you can download them, but we use this one a lot because the stories are original and free. Here's the link if anyone is interested. It really helps. http://www.twirlygirlshop.com/moral-stories-for-kidsAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00490234232841806409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12542527389536281852013-02-24T14:18:38.506-08:002013-02-24T14:18:38.506-08:00I have played video games of every type since I wa...I have played video games of every type since I was little. Now I'm 32 and I've never even been in a fight. Can't blame the video games instead of taking responsibility for ones actions. Kludwighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13162996239738793522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-31327711655843201472013-02-14T16:44:39.794-08:002013-02-14T16:44:39.794-08:00Encourage violence?
You decide.
https://www.yout...Encourage violence?<br /><br />You decide.<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZSyl4x9hP4Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-75688322699453219612013-02-13T17:20:42.738-08:002013-02-13T17:20:42.738-08:00Joe Sobran was pretty good at making distinctions....Joe Sobran was pretty good at making distinctions. He had said that the difference between film violence and porn is that the violence, specifically murder, is simulated, unless you're watching a snuff film, while in porn the actual sin is happening before your eyes. Ann Coulter refers to his comment about the courts' inability to define porn and I quote from memory "it's like child porn, except with adults."<br /><br />We are here wondering about the cathartic effects of viewing porn, but does all this consumption encourage more and more amateurs, in a moment of youthful indiscretion, to post videos on YouPorn. I bet many people would rather have been the victim of a (not horrendously violent) rape, than to live in constant fear of their sex video, where they might be acting as cheerleaders in their own degradation, being exposed. Maybe some readers have made sex tapes that they are proud of, if so, please post the link and describe the experience.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-64512262047348147852013-02-13T15:57:42.210-08:002013-02-13T15:57:42.210-08:00"Hence, the only "political" debate..."Hence, the only "political" debate in America is whether the government should let those who can't support themselves starve(conservatives) or not(liberals)."<br /><br />Really? Maybe we are simple, but I would say the debate is whether the government should encourage those who can't support themselves to have children that they can't support (liberals) or not(conservatives).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17558632545312173752013-02-13T08:24:34.245-08:002013-02-13T08:24:34.245-08:00It's probably not a very useful exercise to tr...It's probably not a very useful exercise to try to map extreme points like the Nazis and Commies into modern US political divisions. I don't think there is any insight to be gained by comparing the Republicans to Nazis or the Democrats to Commies--it's mainly done as a way to try to smear the other side with someone else's crimes. Worse, it usually seems to be done with the idea of basking in the reflected glory of the brave people who really did face those evil empires down. As is always the case, a great many more people are bravely willing to take a stand against the Commies or Nazis now that they're beaten and discredited than were willing to do so in times and places where they had either overt power, or widespread support and admiration from the powerful. <br /><br />FWIW, I agree with some of the other commenters that Marx doesn't belong in the same category as Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Mao. etc. Marx was a thinker who never actually had much power over anyone, but whose ideas were adopted by some people who did some godawful stuff. (And if you accept Hayek's argument, that was more or less inevitable in a country run on socialist principles, but presumably Marx didn't recognize that.)NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-34455730439764720662013-02-13T08:13:45.440-08:002013-02-13T08:13:45.440-08:00Many of the comments about time wasting video game...Many of the comments about time wasting video games are more or less the same concerns you can have with TV. There are plenty of people who seem to have little to talk about except what was on the idiot box last night, and whose answer to "what did you do over the weekend" is "watched TV" in some form or another. <br /><br />Entertainment influences peoples' moral and factual beliefs, models behavior (good and bad), etc. My guess is that much of the success of tough on crime rhetoric in politics has to do with cop shows, that the gay rights movement's big success lately is due to positive portrayal of gays in movies. Some kinds of ideas and stories are much harder to tell on TV than others, and that affects what stories are told, and ultimately, peoples' ideas about the world. (For example, superhero movies are a big deal now because the technology makes it workable to do them well.) <br /><br />I imagine the same must be true of video games--each technology allows you to do different things, tell certain kinds of stories well and not tell other kinds well. (For example, early video games were two dimensional, because the processing power to render 3D objects in realtime for a game would have been unbelievably expensive.). And this must shape the consumers of those games in all kinds of subtle ways. My suspicion is that the overt morals of the games are probably not anything like the most important effect there. NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88718821191098047582013-02-13T05:54:44.056-08:002013-02-13T05:54:44.056-08:00A lot of commenters are clearly too old for the su...A lot of commenters are clearly too old for the subject. World of Warcraft is essentially a boy scout simulator and it definitely should not inspire any discussion about violence in games any more than Star Wars should inspire discussions about movie violence. <br /><br />World of Warcraft is not a strategy game either, it is a hero simulator where you run around helping game characters. You'll run into someone saying "my cattle are being attacked by wolves, please go and kill them" and then you get called a hero and thanked; if you do this enough times the game hands you "medals" and titles that you can gaze in your online list of "achievements". World of Warcraft deals with the problem of violence the same way children's cartoons or Star Wars does: the graphics style is deliberately cartoony and childlish so that when you swing that silly looking sword on the silly looking enemy it does not feel violent the same way Wile E Coyote being hit by a massive hammer doesn't feel violent in a gory way.<br /><br />It's easy to guess that someone like Eric Harris would have probably been disgusted by the boy scoutiness of World of Warcraft. He was the kind of a guy who was clearly obsessed with the "see enemy, bam, good hit in the head and his brains are all over the floor" instant power rush moments of FPS games. Those moments never happen in WoW, by design.<br /><br />The personality of video game obsessive spree murderers is pretty predictably reflected in the kind of games they obsessed over. Breivik wasn't into the "let's become feared ubermensch with guns and get revenge for being laughed at" thing, he had a hero fantasy and he played video games that let him repeat fantasies of becoming an important person with a long list of achievements while collecting shiny medals and titles for his simulated heroism.jaakkelihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07479648936016425724noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-21153082650448624762013-02-13T02:19:12.879-08:002013-02-13T02:19:12.879-08:00Nazis were not conservatives, they were uber-liber...<i>Nazis were not conservatives, they were uber-liberals.</i><br /><br />That's ridiculous. In the context of 1920s Germany they were a right-wing populist party and were viewed that way by all of their contemporaries. See if you can find one example of an American or British conservative from the 1920s or 30s declaring the Nazis to be a "left wing" party. You could make a similarly ridiculous case that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union under Brezhnev was "conservative" because it favored military values; condemned homosexuality, drug use and libertine life styles in general; promoted patriotism and traditional Western culture as clearly superior to the primitive superstitions of oriental or African cultures; denied workers the right to organize freely (ironically); and in practice was very hostile to Western feminism (even if they still paid some lip service to "equality"). No matter, it was still a left-wing party at heart.<br /><br />Part of the reasons Americans get so confused is because American conservatism has a very strong libertarian/neoliberal streak, and you will find very few libertarians outside the Anglosphere. European politics is more clearly "who-whom" and people can be flexible on what Americans consider life or death ideological issues as long as they are creating a benefit for their own group.Peter the Sharknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-87241799784193548182013-02-12T23:40:24.223-08:002013-02-12T23:40:24.223-08:00Holy hell, after a couple of Ambien last night I a...Holy hell, after a couple of Ambien last night I apparently posted a couple of comments here via my phone. I just made an attempt to read them and while I can guess what I was going for, the typos alone make the thing illegible. Hot damn!<br /><br />Then again, one thing I recall thinking at the time was that people who are more flippant about things tend to do better in life (you miss more shots but you make more too) so that, state of mind aside, let's go and hit publish.<br /><br />Shockingly I don't see any purchases of my series having come from my suggestion in that direction. I wonder what it was.<br /><br />Oh wait... I see now that I continued to comment just more anonymously. Did circumspection arrive late to the battlefield? Who knows the mind of man?<br /><br />Moshe<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-16574165297763439192013-02-12T23:11:27.050-08:002013-02-12T23:11:27.050-08:00Nick Diaz, have you ever been to the US?Nick Diaz, have you ever been to the US?Bob Loblawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11081916786770290968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-68122504953984023222013-02-12T20:32:17.242-08:002013-02-12T20:32:17.242-08:00Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be a lot ...<i>Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be a lot of rape in video games. There appears to be a lot of self-censorship. Is that a bad thing?</i><br /><br />Is that a true thing? If you put out a game with rape in it you'd have the Tipper Gores of the world boycotting your studio. You'd have the FTC talking about mandatory age restrictions.<br /><br />It's not <i>really</i> self censorship if you're doing it because you know the hammer will come down if you put rape in your game. These guys are in business to make money, after all.Bob Loblawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11081916786770290968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-85072367048152813812013-02-12T20:31:57.639-08:002013-02-12T20:31:57.639-08:00I've often thought that if the Internet had ex...I've often thought that if the Internet had existed back then, Hitler would have spent most of his time posting rants online and trolling message boards, rather than doing anything actually dangerous.JDGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12982550247103364432013-02-12T19:05:43.286-08:002013-02-12T19:05:43.286-08:00I don't think it encourages it, but at a mini...I don't think it encourages it, but at a minimum, it has a desensitizing effect. Not as much as continually reading about the real thing, but each builds on the other and after a while, nothing is shocking or unthinkable.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-89062098073090835152013-02-12T18:40:01.048-08:002013-02-12T18:40:01.048-08:00Anonymous
"Why is it people think there a...Anonymous <br /><br /> "Why is it people think there are no political identities besides liberal and conservative?"<br /><br /> Because this is an AMERICAN blog and, as such, is full of Anericans posting in it. The intellectual discourse is extremely poor in America as there is no "ideological" issues to Americans. All the idiological issues have been resolved in America at the founding of the country, where it was decided that the U.S would represent the epitome of the bourgeoise "values". Like I said before many times, the U.S is the apotheosis of the ideals of the European Merchant classes of the 17th century. Or like Calvin Coolidge once said:<br /><br /> "The business of the country is business."<br /><br /> While in Europe the values and proposition of the bourgeoise about how to organize society has always been questioned and debated, in America they are SACRED and not open to debate. Things such as the right to private property, the atributes of government and the role and importance of the individual in Society are SETTLED in the U.S by the Constitution and simply not open to debate. Hence, the only "political" debate in America is whether the government should let those who can't support themselves starve(conservatives) or not(liberals). You could say that America is a simple country, intellectualy and politically, at least compared to Europe. <br /><br /> As for Hitler, though, he was a lot closer to what Americans would regard as conservatives than to liberals. He wanted to "conserve" the Germanic nature of Germany, as well as the bourgeoise values such as private property and religion. Definitely not a "liberal" as Americans would use the term.Nick Diaznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88634497530683722242013-02-12T18:16:07.403-08:002013-02-12T18:16:07.403-08:00"My impression is that Asians and Whites are ..."My impression is that Asians and Whites are more likely to play video games in obsessive/life-wrecking ways. Blacks and Hispanics also love video games, but it seems like a more casual habit for them."<br /><br />Video games = white (and asian) flight from an increasingly dystopian reality where you really can't do much outside the house without spending money or getting into trouble.<br /><br />Blacks and Hispanics are still willing and able to do stuff and have fun outside on the streets, so they don't need to play video games full time.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-14007521118301404262013-02-12T18:02:49.830-08:002013-02-12T18:02:49.830-08:00I've hard of statistics where violent crime ha...I've hard of statistics where violent crime has been on the decline for years now, even in this current Great Recession.<br /><br />Sure, the Internet and video games have turned many people into mindless zombies, but I'd rather that inner city youths waste their time vicariously committing crimes on Grand Theft Auto on the PS3 than going outdoors to form gangs and cause mischief.<br /><br />Once the Holodeck becomes reality, many social I desirables will be able to do all kinds of fun bad stuff to their heart's content in a fake virtual reality world than hurting people in real life.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-91122696315555948532013-02-12T17:47:08.414-08:002013-02-12T17:47:08.414-08:00""Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Hitler, ...""Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot, to deflect their ambitions to foresee and control history into a cyber fantasy world?" <br /><br />They were evil but serious men."<br /><br />Was Marx really evil? He actually cared about people. You can say his theories were bad, but I don't think he was a cruel, power hungry person.<br /><br />The working class was living in terrible conditions and he wanted to do something about it.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17739977749319212512013-02-12T17:25:45.598-08:002013-02-12T17:25:45.598-08:00"Videogames, more than works in almost any ot..."Videogames, more than works in almost any other medium, tend to be escapist, good versus evil morality tales."<br /><br />But surely you know the difference between watching a WWII film and playing a WWII videogame. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-62672664167465776672013-02-12T17:23:58.949-08:002013-02-12T17:23:58.949-08:00Facebook is more likely to neutralize the future s...Facebook is more likely to neutralize the future stalins and hitlers of the world. They'll be too busy blogging and sharing stuff on facebook to actualize go out there and do something specific. Letting off steam on social networking sites will relieve their ideological fervor.<br /><br />So, paradoxically, while the internet has spread 'dangerous' ideas far and wide, it has also absorbed much of the passion by making everyone feel that he or she has a voice. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-64210226634920374492013-02-12T17:03:18.311-08:002013-02-12T17:03:18.311-08:00smart people are not influenced by violent video g...smart people are not influenced by violent video games! they can play all the video games they want & they will NOT become more violent! only DUMB people become (slightly) more violent from seeing violence -- SMART people do NOT! jeez, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out... panjoombyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17565140561201851932013-02-12T16:53:59.710-08:002013-02-12T16:53:59.710-08:00heartiste said...
Maybe you don't see much rap...<i>heartiste said...<br />Maybe you don't see much rape in video games because the types of men who create them and who play them are already low T betas and omegas for whom the thought of saying hi to a girl gives them the hives. The premise here is that killing other men doesn't require as much basal level testosterone as getting it up to rape women.</i><br /><br />I don't see how T levels would affect virtual depictions of it. Japan produces a notable amount games involving rape (<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/30/japan.video.game.rape/index.html" rel="nofollow">for example</a>) yet East Asians have lower levels of testosterone on average. <br /><br /><i>Steve Sailer said...<br />Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be a lot of rape in video games. There appears to be a lot of self-censorship. Is that a bad thing?</i><br /><br />Unlike depictions of violence the societal consensus about rape is that it has artistic merit but negative entertainment value. If one assumes video games must be dopamine-inducing entertainment for juveniles then the inclusion rape would be a bad thing. <br /><br />However there is no innate reason an interactive medium can't be thought-provoking and contribute an advanced understanding of human nature like say an Oscar-winning film. Such a non-game be focused on creating a particular experience using interactivity rather than fun. <br />Funnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67071423724445886472013-02-12T16:22:34.981-08:002013-02-12T16:22:34.981-08:00http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-13/israel-censo...http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-13/israel-censors-reports-on-australian-prisoner-x-case/4515664Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-75200126544299870452013-02-12T16:16:12.931-08:002013-02-12T16:16:12.931-08:00"but I suspect women wouldn't have found ..."but I suspect women wouldn't have found me nearly as interesting without all the stuff I learned by spending my free time in autodidactic self-improvement."<br /><br />How could anyone find you interesting if you haven't seen a movie, read a fiction book, or listened to popular music since your epiphanic turning away from Crusader Kings?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-58286737545312796722013-02-12T16:09:37.844-08:002013-02-12T16:09:37.844-08:00I dunno, I work in an IT shop and suspect I am sur...I dunno, I work in an IT shop and suspect I am surrounded by gamers. I don't think these guys are going to hurt anyone. Semi-anecdotal, I know.<br /><br />It seems to me though that the violent games, violent lyrics in either rap or metalcore (take your pick), and psychotropic drugs is a potent and scary combination. Carolnoreply@blogger.com