|
|
|
Champion
 
Group: System Moderators
Last Login: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 9:26 PM
Posts: 312,
Visits: 2,002
|
|
| Ahh, the happy fucking screams. One guys joke is anothers debate. Lets pile some more deadwood on here. I remember playing Quake and exhorting to the Heavens that I was a gun god of death and all should bear witness to my doom cock. Heck I remember playing Doom II on Lsd and screaming maniacally while my chainsaw dismembered many *bad* and *wrong* things. ...I've also run around like a nut job at larps and whacked many people with a complete bloodlust. Now, I've known a number of times when playing a computer game has put me into what might be called a "lary" mood... Half obnoxious/half antagonistic... Nothing bad has ever resulted from it apart from a slight propensity to get shouted at for being a bit of a git. These days it doesnt happen, due to the fact that I m a *much* more well balanced individual. But it did. Though not to the extent that I lost control of my behaviour. Similarly I know a few people who consciously restrict their larping choices/behaviours to avoid being wound up by the experience into something approaching a violent state. This seems to me that individuals can and do exercise self control over their bestial natures or by acknowledgment of them can exercise them in non destructive manners - take your pick on that one. What does that mean? That the banning of a naughty video game doesnt matter. That its another sensationalist issue, and a fairly lame one at that. We're putting the blame on the killing spree of a pyschopath on the extremely strong cafe late he had before hand - not the serial child abuse he suffered at the boy scouts. Censorship is not the answer. Ban 11 year olds wearing woggles.
But if you really *want* to bug Me and are still trying because I didnt put the damm contact field in properly.... Thegamefinisher@yahoo.co.uk
|
|
|
|
|
I do talk a good fight
Group: System Moderators
Last Login: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 9:41 PM
Posts: 1,870,
Visits: 5,835
|
|
Andy Rimmer (6/22/2007)
Sometimes it's not about causal links-it's about offence, those parents believe that their son was killed by a nutter who was trying to recreate a game, they found it offensive when a sequel was released and used their rights to do something about it.
Should they have done, though? I take your point that they were devastated by their son's death -- any parent would be -- but according to the police, the game had nothing to do with it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3538066.stm
http://www.hyboriantales.com
PD: Ghostdance ("The most irritating curse I've ever encountered" -- NPC played by H.)
Riftworld: Rossar Kuug ("Clearly mad, because he thinks he's a Com-Trow Skirmisher" - Aela)
Hyborian Tales: Crew, cook, dogsbody, general labourer, toilet cleaner ("Dangerously overoptimistic ref" -- Tom Nowell)
Otherwise usually crew ("Quite spry & fit, & willing to wear a big costume & run around a lot" -- various event organisers)
"My other oversized foam weapon is THE LORD" -- Questionable Content
|
|
|
|
|
Devil's Advocate
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Thursday, August 07, 2008 8:35 PM
Posts: 1,142,
Visits: 1,400
|
|
| Honestly the idea that computer games infulence behaviour is a joke. If that were the case then people who grew up in the eighties would've spent their 20's running about in the dark, eating pills and listening to repetative beats... OH. Anyway: Nice article here from inside the industry: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=26012 All fine apart from this bit: ""In making such a game Rockstar has been juvenile, shameful and irresponsible. The right of creators to push the boundaries of media and society must be balanced out against a simple sense of social responsibility - something with Rockstar seems to entirely lack." Juvenile? Really? So shooting people who are "the bad guys" ala every shoot-em-up in the world is a mature pursuit is it? And even if it is juvenile, so are all sorts of things - not a reason to ban nor condemn them. Shameful? To who? Where is the shame here? Who's shame are they talking about? Irresponsible? To whom are Rockstar responsible? The idea there is some kind of moral creed out there to which games should adhere is frankly laughable, and fundamentally flawed. And even IF there IS a creed... how does this break it? What is the problem here? Will it lead to real violence? Almost certainly not, so that's the "Harm" principle out the window. So what else is wrong? Is it "beyond the pale"? in which case all we are arguing about now is aesthetics. That game X is ok, but game Z is wrong and bad. Who's to judge that? It's basic prudish censorship, end of story. The "This is not Art" line is one drolled out continuously by people trying to censor things they don't like. A) who is to say what "ART" is? And B) even if it isn't "ART" who cares? Since when did "Being art" mean you can get away with whatever you like? Surely freedom of expression applies to everything, not just "ART"? They say "socially responsible" but they mean "socially conforming" if you ask me.
If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing.
|
|
|
|
|
Wag
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 5:25 PM
Posts: 1,482,
Visits: 2,105
|
|
wychboy (6/22/2007)
Actually, though this is somewhat true, it isnt the full story. The reasons for humans success as a species is because of our ability to work in a community - much like hive creatures. Yes, violence is part of it, but it is specifically violence against other species, and other 'hives' or groups. (I know this isnt exactly the right way of putting it, since humans are not hive beings, but its a good enough analogy without going into the genetic background to the whole thing - which I'd be happy to do, but don't want to bore everyone)
I'm afraid that's flatly and categorically denied by the books I've read and it doesn't remotely fit with my experience of humanity. If you read something like the Dark Side of Man or any books by Dawkins like The Selfish Gene or the Extended Phenotype they make their statements very clear. Human beings are coded for violence against other human beings. The idea that it is for use against other species almost never comes into it as far as I can see. Another good book and a very simple short read is this one, Why sex is fun by Jared Diamond
According to the books I've read (I'm no biologist) human beings are devised as social animals, but since we categorically aren't hives, our mutual interests sometimes converge and sometimes they diverge. In a hive your genetic interests are identical so there is no conflict, not so for us poor humans (and all other social animals). The critical point is that when our mututal genetic interests diverge then violence *should* happen. This analysis of violence is really nothing to do with inter-species conflict and everything to do with intra-species conflict. You can use basic assumptions about evolution to work out when men *should* murder, rape, go to war, etc if they were a well-designed perfectly functional machine designed to act in their own best genetic interests and lo and behold it seems to fit with the data about when these things do happen. (this isn't proof, it only makes the theory credible).
Ghiglieri's book on violence is particularly fascinating. Reading his accounts of chimpanzees going to war against other chimpanzee groups, of primates raping other primates (and raping humans), of infanticide and murder is incredibly interesting. He goes mentally off the rails at the end as he disappears up his own right-wing gun agenda, but the comparison he draws between the behaviour of primates (who last time I checked have limited access to pornography, violent films and computer games) and humans is very challenging.
Of course, the reason people view violence as a terrible thing these days, is that they see the whole of humanity as a group, while the people commiting violence often see themselves as one group, and the people they commit violence against as another.
That's not what I get from reading the texts at all... I think we're always appalled by violence because we're designed to be appalled by violence, otherwise we'd be constantly fighting. There has to be a social cost to being violent and aggressive otherwise we'd do it all the time and we wouldn't have developed as social beings. So we're designed to apply horror and outrage and moral indignation to anyone who breaks the social contract by acting violently, because it's in our own best interests to do exactly that.
It's not a case of wrongly assuming that we're all one community, we're correct in assuming that we're all one community, the problem is that acting in the best interests of your group is not what most evolutionary psychology predicts (unless you're a group evolutionist), rather we would expect people to act in the interests of the community only in so far as it was also in their own interests, the moment it isn't then we should anticipate that "well-designed - natural" human beings will act selfishly, often displaying violent, murderous, rapist tendencies that have hitherto been completely invisible.
Humans are a successful species because they can work in a group, allowing specialisation of tasks, benefitting the community as a whole. Therefore most violence cuts against the grain, and is not now a completely natural thing. Those who are violent are percieved as in some way flawed, and, to some degree, are.
*Shrug* I think all you've really done here is restate the case that violent people are flawed and wrong and something done made them wrong. Fair enough, that's your view, but I want to state clearly that I think you're dead wrong and certainly if you feel we're quoting the same source of ideas (evolutionary biology) then I think you've categorically and profoundly misunderstood what they're saying. If I understand you correctly, I'd say your ideas flatly contradict the theories that come out of the gene-centric view of biology.
If you read the stuff in Dawkins about Evolutionary Stable Strategies, about cheating and catching cheats a lot of things about human beings suddenly start to make a whole lot more sense. As I see it, the ideas they are expressing are that we're programmed by our genes with a set of strategies, in situation X do Y, in situation Y do X. The simple example is cheating.
If you live in a community where no-one cheats then no-one will have any method of catching cheats. You don't develop a response to a threat that doesn't exist. Great - Nirvana. Except that basic mathematics and genetics then predict that anyone who does cheat will have an enormous advantage, unlimited gains with no repercussions leading to explosive reproductive potential for that person. The moment a single cheat appears/evolves, their evolutionary advantage living in a community will be enormous and will be reaped at everyone else's expense. The cheats will prosper and it won't be the meek who inherit the earth.
At which point we'll begin to develop mechanisms to spot cheats and to try to prevent them cheating. We develop the ability to read emotions and states of mind to deduce when people are lying (and it's suggested we develop a susceptibility to our own lies to make our lies harder to detect to make us better cheats). The cost of cheating rises higher and higher as we get better at detecting cheats and more driven to punish them. At which point cheats will start to develop ways of trying to avoid being caught cheating of which the most obvious one is to pick and choose when to cheat and when not to cheat.
The theory suggests we'll fall into an evolutionary stable strategy in which we'll cheat when we think we can get away with it, but we'll punish cheats hard to try to make sure that the opportunity cost of cheating is bad and thereby dissuade others from cheating us. Yes we're social animals, but we're not "perfect people who came out flawed" we're designed by nature to be low down, bad-ass, mother-fucking, gun-toting, cheating, murdering, raping, bastards. We're also designed not to act like that when it's not in our best interests and we're designed to want to make everyone else feel it would not be in their best interests to act like that.
The net result is actually a very carefully balanced evolutionary equation. Most of the time we'll avoid the anger of the group because it's in our interests to keep the group on side and they're designed to detect our cheating. Humans are not perfectly civilised creatures pulled down by terrible society, we're dreadful bloody animals whose only redeeming feature is that we're smart enough not to cheat when the punishment outweighs the benefit. But in the wrong situations, anytime the equations balance "badly", we should expect explosively violent anti-social behaviour.
Like for instance the way rape is endemic in war zones.
Like for instance the way murder and violence are always more socially acceptable against the out-group than the in-group.
Like for instance how a break down in law and order always leads to widespread outbreaks of looting.
The people who do these things are not "bad" in the sense of being broken or malformed, their behaviour is perfectly "natural" (in the sense of being what nature would design given a free hand). We're built by nature to cheat our fellow man (cheat means murder, theft and rape and pretty much anything else anti-social) whenever the opportunity arises precisely because we are a social species. Solitary animals presumably do not have many of these instincts because they don't socialise with each other, they have no-one to cheat and no cheats to look out for. We have to live with each other so we're designed to fuck each other up the moment life gives us a chance to do it and get away with it.
Sociologists, psychologists and politicians talking about computer games serves very effectively to make sure that absolutely nothing ever really gets done about the actual problem (whether anything could be done is a different issue). As long as we have Keith Vaz campaigning to ban computer games, young children will carry on getting murdered. Get rid of Keith Vaz and we have a chance to tackle the actual issues and save human lives.
Join me and lets try and get Keith Vaz banned today. We need to stop this populist politician being available in surgeries, parliamentary sessions and radio/tv shows. You know it makes sense.
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
|
|
|
|
|
Champion
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Friday, November 28, 2008 9:03 PM
Posts: 320,
Visits: 1,375
|
|
| If it offers any consolation, the Italians have banned it too. Both Sony and Nintendo refuse to bring out the game on consoles as long as the current ESRB rating stands, which would make it PC-only. Distributor Take-Two has postponed release. I don`t really believe in the 'triggering violence' side of the debate, nor of the 'quenching violence' side, although I do give some credit to the 'developing a mental toolset' argument that has been missing in this thread sofar, but I guess that`s mostly a matter of responsible parenting. IOW give your children some games to play that offer nonlethal solutions to conflicts, besides the brain stimulating manslaying titles. Erm... Are there any? In most games, although killing is offered as a (preferred?) solution, the killing itself is rather repetitive and somewhat removed from daily reality. I can see how a game that apparently offers a wide range of possible kill-styles using daily implements would upset raters, although I really shouldn`t comment on any one game in particular before having played said game in full. As for the stage & movie actors/LRPers vs gamers analogy: acting and LRPing, if not necessarily socially acceptable, are at least social activities. You play with, or at least in the presence of other people. Not only can they serve as an early warning system, but their very presence makes one relate to the world at large, while gamers are more likely to get lost in their own virtual reality, rather than in a shared one. Apart from that, having played a mindless braineating zombie on film, I can attest that many people exaggerate the adrenalin content of spending 10-20 minutes in a make up chair, than waiting 4-5 hours for the other 499 extras to be schminked, than 2 more hours for it to get really dark (at least filming on an abandoned army site meant there were no stadion lights in the immediate vicinity, although you could make out the presence of nearby cities that had supposedly blacked out in the story) and then doing the same 'slowly massing toward the overturned vehicle' scene umpteen times because out of 500 extras, at least 5 are making funny faces at the cameras in every shot, (surely that`s not a bad thing in a zombie movie?) but at that time it was already too cold and too past bedtime to get wound up about it.
________________________________________________________ - IRL: Edwin Hofstra
- - mostly crewing at the moment
|
|
|
|
|
Wag
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 5:09 PM
Posts: 2,006,
Visits: 8,542
|
|
I'm in general agreement with the above - just one or two little niggles.
Matt Pennington (6/22/2007)
You can use basic assumptions about evolution to work out when men *should* murder, rape, go to war, etc if they were a well-designed perfectly functional machine designed to act in their own best genetic interests and lo and behold it seems to fit with the data about when these things do happen. (this isn't proof, it only makes the theory credible).
Above and below is all a pretty good summary of current opinions in evolutionary psychology - however I think the above statement is a bit inaccurate (so far as I've seen it, models are either broadly applicable, but vague and not generally respected or applicable in very narrow situations (Rwanda), specific and - if not generally resected then not held in obvious contempt).
Matt Pennington (6/22/2007)
That's not what I get from reading the texts at all... I think we're always appalled by violence because we're designed to be appalled by violence, otherwise we'd be constantly fighting.
We're by no means always appalled by violence ('') - that's definitely something known to vary quite widely between human cultures. I think it's more reasonable to say that humans generally seem to get upset if people they care about get hurt (arguably 'hurt' is then defined as that thing which causes people who care about the subject to get upset ...).
Matt Pennington (6/22/2007)
It's not a case of wrongly assuming that we're all one community, we're correct in assuming that we're all one community
That would be a faith position. You may think that and be happy to define community in that way - others wouldn't.
Marios
|
|
|
|
|
Wag
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 5:25 PM
Posts: 1,482,
Visits: 2,105
|
|
Marios (6/22/2007)
I'm in general agreement with the above
Who are you and what have you done with the real Marios.
Matt Pennington (6/22/2007)
You can use basic assumptions about evolution to work out when men *should* murder, rape, go to war, etc if they were a well-designed perfectly functional machine designed to act in their own best genetic interests and lo and behold it seems to fit with the data about when these things do happen. (this isn't proof, it only makes the theory credible).
Above and below is all a pretty good summary of current opinions in evolutionary psychology - however I think the above statement is a bit inaccurate (so far as I've seen it, models are either broadly applicable, but vague and not generally respected or applicable in very narrow situations (Rwanda), specific and - if not generally resected then not held in obvious contempt).
The models that I've read off seem so simplistic as to be essentially meaningless. They're ideas as insight, they're not science as such. The ideas that spring out of the theoretical models and concepts seem to fit the data but this is no more proof than any other piece of evidence which "seems to fit the data". That's what I meant by the ideas were credible but unproven. They make sense, they're intellectually attractive (if emotionally appalling), they seem coherent and sensible. But none of that remotely constitutes proof, just "a credible idea".
I'm not really sure how you could prove the theories of evolutionary biology without a lot of planets on which you could control evolution... However I'm no biologist, I'm sure they're smarter than that...
Matt Pennington (6/22/2007)
That's not what I get from reading the texts at all... I think we're always appalled by violence because we're designed to be appalled by violence, otherwise we'd be constantly fighting.
We're by no means always appalled by violence ('') - that's definitely something known to vary quite widely between human cultures.
I think that the thing I was talking about is universal, but I was phrasing very "generically" without using generic enough words (to avoid unreadable blandness). I think we're designed genetically to feel irritated and annoyed when people cheat us and to want to punish people who cheat us. And I think we're designed to want to apply social pressure to avoid violence on others so as to try and develop a social agreement that it shouldn't happen except where it is in our personal interests, because that's what allows us to function as a group. I think that makes more sense, it's just bland as all hell to read... I think these universal urges get expressed differently in different cultures. Moral outrage is just the western zeitgeist.
I think it's more reasonable to say that humans generally seem to get upset if people they care about get hurt (arguably 'hurt' is then defined as that thing which causes people who care about the subject to get upset ...).
Not just hurt, but "put upon" in general. And who do we care about? Our children, our family, our close friends. People in a position to either directly or indirectly ensure our genetic reproduction. Violence in our favour is fine so long as it's carefully controlled (murder bad, execution of murderers good) and limited, violence against us is horrific and provokes something not far off a fight or flight response. Anger, aggression, violence or repulsion, rejection, ostracism.
If someone cheats you, you get even or you get away. You must do one or the other to ensure your genetic payload, turning the other cheek is deeply unnatural...
| | | |