Video games and violence

Like, yes, violent video games are probably an adverse factor when added to an already toxic stew, and so are any number of other inputs under those circumstances. The fact remains that the vast majority of people who play violent video games remain functioning members of society who don't spree kill other members of society, so isolating that particular input as problematic feels...problematic.

haven't read the thread to see if the actual answer has been mentioned yet, which is these games and mass shootings have no causal relationship to each other but are separate symptoms of a broader single phenomenon which is patriarchal violence.

Oui.

This argument for some reason feels to me like the insane people who thought racism was solved because we elected Obama. It's like...no, all that shit is still there and festering, no matter how much we pretend that this was in some way a solution. Does anyone legitimately think the problems with violence in this country are likely to be resolved one iota by a ban on violent video games?

xp applause applause applause

fwiw I did not take the question this thread is asking to be "are video games solely responsible for mass shootings?" but rather "do video games actively contribute to a violent/aggressive mindset?"

The twin nails I've been obsessively hitting forever but particularly since Trump came into office: empathy and critical thinking skills. Foster them, teach them, disseminate them. You can ban this and illegalize that and send thoughts + prayers about this and none of it is going to make any difference without restoring people's basic sense of respect for the sanctity of other people's well-being and their ability to at least occasionally think for themselves rather than modeling their thoughts + feelings on bad actors.

with video games you can recreate patriarchal violence and do it in a moral vacuum where you are rewarded for it even more than IRL

OL I'm not isolating video games, I think that point has been made a bunch.

And "the vast majority....don't spree kill other members of society" isn't exactly reassuring. This shouldn't be happening at all. The vast majority of people involved in yesteday's shootings were the victims.

Anyway I'm not arguing for censorship or anything (!) I just believe there should be more honest discourse about it...and that ppl should be looking at what happened again yesterday and asking wait, why is this carnage *also* something we also like to simulate in our fantasy lives?

I mean there’s also the slight confounding variable of the white nationalist manifesto the guy wrote

Like I don't think discussion of this topic is lacking in value generally, but when you frame it in terms of immediate response to an insane ongoing tragedy that shouldn't be happening, it (to me) takes a distant back seat to 'ban all guns now + forever'.

i really do not see what is particularly controversial about the point that for example crut is making here, like how many of us have relatives who immerse themselves in Fox News nonsense all day and have their minds warped? or people who watch videos about flat earth theories and come away asking tough questions to Buzz Aldrin? a ban on violent video games isn't going to do shit at this point, afaict. though it is worth having the discussion imo since the core reason people decide to massacre strangers is more complex than the availability of guns. it's a deep sickness w/many reasons. video games are perhaps a very slim piece of the pie chart, maybe barely visible. i guess idk why not talk about it, keeping in mind that guns should be banned immediately and first, whereas i do not believe video games should be banned.

but I also recognize that this kind of repeated, addictive identification with mass killers, in lieu of any narrative but with a directive only to kill more

See this is why I was asking, as I've played a lot of video games, including a lot of FPS, and this doesn't describe anything I recognise at all - to dial the argument back to it's antecedent, this would be like Tipper Gore asking "but why do you listen to this music that has hidden backwards satanic messages?", it's a begging of the question that should be resisted first and last.

I'm probably misremembering or half-remembering anecdotal evidence here, but more than a fair number of the individuals who have been attracted to the ideologies that have produce recent shooters are wash-outs when it comes to the actual military

I don't think it's an inherent anti-authoritarian streak, but an inability to actually work cooperatively with other people. To go out on a limb, I'd guess that these aren't people playing cooperative multi-player video games -- they're not into constructive interaction with others, and games where you work toward a common goal just don't hold their interests.

I think the message board dopamine hit of being upvoted/downvoted, catering posts to be edgier or provoke more of a reaction, is a lot closer to the mentality in play.

this would be like Tipper Gore asking "but why do you listen to this music that has hidden backwards satanic messages?", it's a begging of the question that should be resisted first and last.

do you support Antifa showing up to protest Death in June and Boyd Rice (a huge Might Is Right fan iirc) shows?

people who want to ban video games are more likely to want to legitimize more national/colonial violence imo.

i feel like one of the effects of violent video games *can be* that some of the libidinal fuel that feeds real violence is redirected towards its visual/narrative representation.

people have different opinions about the worth of violent video games, i personally find little of interest in them, but i'm pretty convinced at this point that on their own they don't drive people to be more violent irl, that they're a fantasy collection pool for what's already in the culture doing the driving towards violence, and by being a place where exploring those fantasies to their absurd ends is allowed, they *could be* but probably aren't usually a place where the libidinal appeal of violence can be parodized and deconstructed or at least made less serious.

Yeah I don't think I've ever experienced a dissociative moment where I'm 'shooting' a bunch of pixels on a screen and thought 'this must be what it's like to kill real people, how rad', in the same way that I can encounter hundreds of people in a given day and pay them cursory respect as real-life fellow human beings who value the sanctity of their lives and never get my wires crossed that they're soulless wraiths who must be destroyed. In that fashion if no other, my mental health is pretty sound. The fact that those lines get blurred for some people...that doesn't have anything to do with the games.

right now some dinkus located somewhere on the radicalization spectrum is privately, probably somberly, justifying the El Paso shooting in political terms, trying it on for size. He's a patriot after all, and his country is at stake, and he is most defintely imagining what it would feel like to do that himself. Is he doing that while playing Far Cry or whatever all night long? Yeah probably.

Does that mean the game is at fault? Obvoiusly not. But is it juicing him up right now? Maybe not, I have no idea. Is it helping, at all?

It just all makes me wanna puke, that whole culture. I don't understand the appeal.

^^^^ this is who we are talking about guys, not functional ILXors...why do you guys keep saying "I just don't get it, it certainly doesn't make ME want to kill abybody in real life..." Yeah of course it doesn't!

And "the vast majority....don't spree kill other members of society" isn't exactly reassuring.

― The Ravishing of ROFL Stein (Hadrian VIII)

The point wasn't "90% of the time nothing comes of it so it clearly only affects a small group of people" it's that we can perhaps conclude that video games don't actually contribute to the problem.

The one thing I think video games MAY do that is related to irl violence is to further the dehumanization of other ppl & the derealization of reality, which has been a constant of "modern" industrial/post-industrial societies. Other people aren't as human as you, if they are at all. They're side characters in your game, and you can treat them as m/l disposable.

^^^^ this is who we are talking about guys, not functional ILXors...why do you guys keep saying "I just don't get it, it certainly doesn't make ME want to kill abybody in real life..." Yeah of course it doesn't!

because this would seem to be illustrative of the fact that there’s something else going on besides the games

also “He's a patriot after all, and his country is at stake“ is... kind of glorifying these kids, unless you consider “Latinos are ruining America” patriotism

um...that was me imagining *his* thoughts, what *he's* being told

He definitely considers “Latinos are ruining America” patriotism

Again, to Granny's point, if you're modeling your real life behavior towards others on how interrelationships between characters and NPCs in video games function, you are suffering from some underlying issues that need to be addressed. The modeling in that case is just a symptom of something else.

that probably isn’t what his actual thoughts are! this shit doesn’t come from a place of righteousness but more often nihilism (the “blackpill” stuff)

(also a point against the “it’s just warped patriotism!” argument—rarely do these people only care about their own country, but find time to rage about Europe as well, South Africa lately, basically anywhere with white people)

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0yjSSCjqKJ/

(that's not an intended slight on ilx or most messageboards!)

I was within a couple months of graduating high school when the Columbine shootings occurred and the dialogue about how the shooters were influenced by playing Doom took an outsized role, and one of them actually had written, "I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy...so I will force myself to believe that everyone is just another monster from Doom."

That always read to me as if video games weren't a motivating factor, but a fictional comfort they were trying to hide behind. Perpetrators of violence always dehumanize their victims, but it's seldom that they admit it so plainly or write about consciously forcing that dehumanization.

we can perhaps conclude that video games don't actually contribute to the problem.

I can't. I really don't know. Nobody knows, all this stuff is nascent. We're talking about rapid, massive behavioral changes. The studies haven't proved causation. That's different than saying causation been disproved, much less that FPS addiction like umpteen other things may not be a small contributing factor.

whoops, big xps there

I feel that this imaginary person is also drinking Mountain Dew, can we not fight the real enemy?

also not helping

Who the fuck are you helping?

what? I was agreeing that the Dew is not helpful.

Not you!

jeez

honestly kinda back-footed by the intensity here, I guess it's to be expected given the nightmare we're living in

There are some other practical effects. When I was in my 20s, my anxiety wasn't medicated and i was often depressed or angry, so sometimes I would grab GTA Vice City, mute it, turn on Moroder's "Scarface theme" on repeat,and just run around shooting people and blowing up vehicles for an hour or two.

I do recall hearing the copter sounds in my head after I turned it off, but also when i got in my car, I noticed i was driving a wee bit faster than usual.

It'd wear off quickly, but those are some of the things i think about as effects

Xxxposts

Who the fuck are you helping?

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 5 August 2019 19:44 (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

af

where does this rage of yours come from

its bizarre

how bizarre?

I don't have intense feelings about this particular discussion, but I do think it's pernicious to keep singling out tertiary factors when trying to get to the dark heart of why the US has a disproportionately-high level of rampant gun violence.

if you want to know more about video game violence.....

buy the rights

Video games validating violent thoughts vs. inspiring them... thoughts? Same difference?

where does this rage of yours come from

its bizarre

what if it’s.......... video games

😮😮😮

They were avid fans of Doom especially. Harris said of the massacre, "It's going to be like fucking Doom." He also wrote "I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy...so I will force myself to believe that everyone is just another monster from Doom." In Harris's yearbook, Klebold wrote "I find a similarity between people and Doom zombies".

Harris named his shotgun Arlene after a character in the Doom novels. Harris said the shotgun was "straight out of Doom". The TEC-9 Klebold used resembled an AB-10, a weapon from the Doom novels that Harris referenced several times.

it's simply not *not* a thing. It might be thing #5 or thing #80, but it's a thing.

thread title to thread

thought this was the safe space for the topic at hand

I did read that wrong, I took it as finger-wagging that I wasn't helping, and my apologies for that - but I also have a lot of issues with Hadrian's tone throughout the thread. But also also I'm on holiday and should go out and enjoy Toronto.

s/tone/approach/

ok I apologize in turn for my tone

probably feeling a little cornered and like I just leveled up and have two dozen ILXors to mow down ; )