Wow. Its like Columbine 2.0. Less than 24 hours before video games are being blamed. I realize you're not "directly" blaming video games, but you're sort of condemning them without really condemning them. You're saying they're not responsible for making people kill, but making the killers more efficient. That is still blaming them and condemning them, just not directly. Next thing I'll read is that this is the fault of Marilyn Manson or Metallica or some such shit. The only thing I know is this: For a few days, this country will be somewhat united behind the victims. It won't take long, however, before everyone turns on each other like a bunch of fucking vultures trying to score political points for both sides. I've seen gun nuts screaming that if Romney had won this wouldn't have happened and any bills that restrict their ability to get guns will result in a new Civil War, and I've seen anti-gun nuts screaming that every single gun needs to be taken away and melted down. Before long, our country will be just as divided as it was before, if not more so. Maybe I'm a pessimist, but today's media (one far right 24 hour news network, one far left 24 hour news network) along with people living in their own little fucking bubbles who can't wait to blame their political opponents for ANYTHING bad that happens ever, leads me to believe that discourse over this tragedy is only destined to get much, much worse.
I'm going to toss out two interesting things. It was earlier in the year that someone posted that Sweden stat about the fact everyone has guns and there are very few gun deaths. What I also have been reading (yes it is a fictional book but the system is not) The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series is how they take psychology/psychiatry VERY seriously in Sweden. There is less of a stigma on the field as it is here. If there is a violent crime that can't be explained through the rational, they are given a psychological evaluation and if they are determined to be a threat, they are committed to a ward or are assigned an advocate that acts like their parent. Controls finances, multiple weekly meetings and all of that. Kuhjager can let me know if this is completely off base or not. In America the stigma of psychology is huge as Dr. Rob has frequently discussed. People "Want to try to get off meds!" and get away from the "Shrinks" and someone talking to a psychologist is such a bad thing. Our system is flawed so it is possible for people to claim "crazy" to get off harsher punishments. Might be a cause and effect there and some solutions because its not the guns. On the other hand, Sweden has a huge problem with rape and other sex crimes.
No, I am not. Not at all. What the summation of my first post comes down to is "could playing a first person shooter video game make a nutjob more effective if they go out and decide to shoot a place up"? I will say it right here, there is no evidence this kid even had a Gameboy. I was just relaying a speculative conversation from long ago, and I though it could invoke discussion as to whether doing something repeatedly in simulation might somehow translate into, as horrible as it sounds "a real world situation" I see you post a lot in the video game thread, so I get it, you might think I am attacking something you like, even if I am not.
D26 is it really blaming to say that FPS cultivate skills that can have real world applications? That seems a far cry from blaming. Quick target acquisition, shots at center mass, and dehumanization of enemies are some of the biggest things the military trys to instill in its members. As far as techniques go the first two elements are kind of essential to being good at FPS. And immersion therapy would suggest that video games by their nature can allow a certain type of person to disconnect the act of shooting a target from the reality of it. Does stating a pretty obvious truth blame video games? I don't think so. After all, most people play video games for the rational reasons of relaxation, fun, socialization, and a HEALTHY outlet for some aggresion. The fact that there is a possibility some mentally fucked outliers might gain skills that they can use to more efficiently express their deep fundamental brokenness does not make it the fault of the game. Just as it would be silly to blame martial arts for the douche nozzles with green belts that are always looking to start bar fights it would be, it would be silly to ban or blame videogames for the statistically irrelevant actions of a few mentally unwell individuals. A discussion about video games does not necessarily equate an attack on video games.
Right, but I don't think you see that you ARE attacking it, even if not directly. Your speculative argument is that those kinds of games make a person "more efficient." You're not saying that playing CoD caused him to shoot up the place, but it made him more efficient when he did it. Essentially, games didn't directly cause all those deaths, but it helped the killer kill MORE people. So, maybe 30% of the deaths are because the guy trained himself via shooting games. Games are responsible for making a bad situation worse. That is blaming video games, even if indirectly or totally. Basically 'Games don't cause them to shoot up schools, they only make the situation much worse." That IS placing at least SOME blame on video games. You can't say "I'm not blaming video games, but its possible video games made him a better killer and made the situation worse," because it is blaming the games. I don't actually play shooters, personally. Regardless, I just hate the entire flawed line of reasoning, and it WILL be bought up, that video games either make people violent or make violent people MORE violent. Every single thing this guy has ever done at any point in his life is going to be scrutinized and blamed for the reason he did what he did. If he has ever so much as rented a video game, or owned a computer, that will be blamed. Within 48 hours, I suspect the conversation will divulge into finger pointing and deflecting of blame to score political points (It was guns! No, video games! No, mental health! No, poor school security! No, music and movies! No, he just hated Christmas and God! No, it was because we don't have prayer in school! No, it was because we let homosexuals get married! No, it was because we legalized weed in some states!).
It sounds like Kühjager and McSmallstuff are just saying that people often use a tool (e.g. a video game) for unintended purposes. You wouldn't blame Wüsthof if someone used one of their kitchen knives to stab a person. I really don't think they're assigning blame, only identifying that video games can, in fact, be misused in that way. And in no way are they saying that the video games make people violent, or more violent, only that they can make an already violent person more efficient.
Yes, there is a lot of truth, and there are quite a few guns, but handguns are not that common. A guy I know who owns a handgun was telling me that shooting (non fatally) a home invader in this country would still likely get you as much jail time as the guy breaking into your house would get just for doing that, but I don't know many people with handguns here. There are some people in the "home guard" who have a gun in their homes ala Switzerland, but I am not intimately familiar with the details. But getting down to shrinkdom, my sister in law is now a practicing therapist here, and admitting psychological issues doesn't seem to be as big a deal here. She was recently called into provide on demand counseling for the staff of a hotel in central Stockholm where a murdered body was found. Obviously she can't tell me any details because of privacy issues, but her job there was to counsel anyone who had an issue with the event. To myself, as an American this sounds weird. It was a guest who was killed, and not a member of staff. If someone had been found on my company's lawn in the us who I didn't know, I wouldn't be concerned by it. If it had been an employee, maybe I would have been disturbed, but not enough to seek counseling. But the company hired my sister in law to be there for anyone who needed to talk, and judging by the number of days she was there, a lot of people needed to talk, despite from my American perspective of not being something that should affect anyone outside of perhaps the maid that discovered the body. But it is not looked down on here to talk about your feelings. You aren't expected to just shrug things off like many seem to think they should do in America. (Myself included) But if I were to break down mentally, I would definitely want it to happen here. In America though, you can have people who are in the same situation as Salander in the book. My mom's brother was born blind and brain damaged, and a lawyer takes care of all his stuff. My father's brother is a ward of the state as he fried his brain on meth, so there is similar precedent. As to the rape laws, I don't really get it. My wife has attempted to explain it, and I think I get it (that is how confusing it can be, one second you get it, the next you don't). The rape report rate here is a lot higher because I guess women aren't slut shamed as much if they are raped, but in addition from my understanding, the definition is a lot broader here. For example, Julian Assange is wanted for "sex by surprise". Which I guess basically can entail consent withdrawn after the act because of misrepresentation. For example a woman says "use a condom when you fuck me" you say "okay" and then you fuck her without a condom. Because you did not hold to the terms laid out, she can file a complaint against you.
I'll break it down to this. I am not saying it makes them more violent. (Ok, I suppose dehumanization can be interpreted as violence). I am talking about ruthless efficiency, and being better at doing something via repetitive training. You don't say "that flight simulator made that pilot more piloty. The simulated experience likely gave him the technical experience to be more proficient at flying a plane" Asking if the 9-11 hijackers used flight simulators, and if it could have helped them fly the planes better to hit their planned targets more accurately is not an attack on flight simulators.
Maybe. At this point I'd have to see some data to be convinced of anything, otherwise it's just conjecture. I've received a fair amount of firearms training, and one thing I recall learning, from combat veterans, was that anybody can be very accurate with a firearm by simply pointing at the object they wish to hit. Make a pretend pistol with your fingers, point at an object in the room, and you're naturally aiming center mass. Out of all of this, at a national level, I want to see all major players involved come up with intelligent recommendations on how this country can keep crazy people as mentally healthy as possible, keep crazy people from weapons, and keep groups of people, esp children, safe from incidents like these. Then jointly implement these measures/efforts. Anything less then as a country, we'll continue to be accepting of these tragedies.
Does the fact that the military uses really fucking cool video games as part of training spec ops add any validity to the possibility of first person shooter games conveying shooting skills?. (At least I know for a fact that the AF does this can't talk for the other branches.) It does this for many of the reasons that have been attributed to video games already: quick and effective engagement of targets, to train you to shoot real life humans in combat situations, and efficiency in dispatching both hard and soft targets. There is a reason pilots must play in simulators before the take the yoke. There are certain situations where it is either unsafe or morally reprehensible to train people by real world immersion. Video games are a great analog in many situations like that. It would stand to reason that if they can have the intent to train people, they can also passively impart or hone skills the person might not have had.
I'm a teacher so this hits very close to home. The only thing I can say with certainty right now is that the recent events have only reaffirmed my passion for my job.
Okay, I admit that in my conversations with sneaky squirrel types we rarely (read: never) discuss their work. But I have a sneaking suspicion that those guys do a little bit more than sit around playing Call of Duty to train for their missions. And isn't there a massive gulf in terms of realism between pilot-quality flight simulator software and your normal FPS shooters? I've played FPS shooters (a little) and shot a few weapons (more than the FPS shooters) and in call of duty you push a button to auto-aim on a target and push another button to put a fake bullet right where the rifle aims. That kind of snap-shooting skill takes a lot of work to develop, which is something I learned the first time I tried it. Though I admit that I was just using a computer simulator for that snap-shooting exercise (though it had all the recoil and effects of actually shooting a live round).
Oh great I see were at the point already where absolutely every sentance a person posts must be qualified to high hell. Clearly Air Force Tac P does more than play video games. I apologize to any of my fellow Airmen who may have taken my comments to imply that their job only requires a steady hand on the joystick. (I also apologize if anyone took steady hand on the joystick as a euphemism for masturbatory activity.) Furthermore I must apologize because I was given bad information. I was operating under the assumption that more than one shooting franchise existed. Clearly this is not the case. Sorry for my ignorance. A quick question though, if I said college athletes trained doing pushups would you assume that all college athletes did nothing but do pushups at the expense of all other tools and techniques? How much explanation is needed for clarity in a sentence like this. Should I also say that these same college athletes drink, eat, and on a usually daily basis even find time to sleep?
Jesus Christ, calm down. Quite simply, if we're going to discuss "playing shooting games makes people more effective at killing in violent rampages", popping up with "well, sometimes real soldiers use video games as part of a training program" does not lend a lot of credence to that point, especially when those video games are not the ones that you pick up off the shelf at Future Shop.
You know what ghetto, I'm sorry man. Not to excuse my rudeness, but I'm a bit on edge today for a bunch of personal reasons that arent really germaine to the conversation. I probably read your post with far more snark and disrespect than you ever intended. I then responded to what you said with ire and venom that was disproportionate to what you typed. So again I'm apologizing to you and the other denizens of the board. I fully recognize that the sort of e-hate I just spouted off with kills threads and is completely out of line given the truly tragic topic we are discussing.
Krauthammer. "What we know about the current shooting is that people are divided in three camps, three elements. You have the psychology of the shooter, you have the weapon, and you've got the cultural environment. People will choose whichever cause they want to blame." http://nation.foxnews.com/ct-school...er-analyzes-newton-school-shooting?intcmp=fly We've seen this mirrored on this thread. Instead of choosing just one, why not say that all three are correct and choose the order of importance? (I think the video game tangent that happened earlier would fall under cultural environment.) EDIT: Also, this. "The first thing I think we have to say is in looking at this or analyzing this requires a huge amount of humility."
Not going to get into the gun control / mental health debate (having done this before) but I have to say that the "journalism" for this event has been atrocious even by contemporary standards. Reporters interviewing kids, quotes from "friends" who have virtually no connection to the family, and apparently the ex-husband found out about the whole thing from a reporter in his driveway. It's going to be interesting the day something else like this happens and we find out the perpetrator did the whole thing for Herostratic fame. Maybe that'll finally stop this madness.