| jv103 said: Well, I'm gonna argue one thing another poster said. Violent crime is decreasing. It's been going up since 2004,(2007 figures aren't in yet), but property crimes have gone down. Anywho, whether you like it or not violence isn't caused solely by videogames. There's many more socioeconomic factors involved. In fact, the vast majority ( upwards of 80%) of death row inmates are illiterate. There's more of a correlation between education/ and economic status, than video games. I'll admit that I'm a violent video game fan, but the fact is video games are a scapegoat, for the real issues. Besides, I don't think it is possible to play a video game without any violence or sex. I use both terms very loosely, more in a freudian sense. Because even mario is violent, just much more subtle. Same thing with games where you create things. On a very primordial level, destruction and creation seem to be very basic human desires. I think would leads to many of the problems in this society is the supression of natural human things and the taboos that come from making people feel guilty. "Ooooh Johnny you have a playboy, you're going to burn in hell!" <-- these type of things are more detrimental to society than video games. Although, I think that current esrb things are good, I think people should actually read them. I don't think games like manhunt 2 should be censored, just make it 18+.
Oh and also, the reason women are seen more as an object. I'll take a wild guess at it but maybe from Judeo-Christian values? If violence in media is the real underlying cause, how come I haven't seen one significant study validating that claim. The only evidence that I've seen has been anecdotal non-sense, (post hoc ergo propter hoc shit) Because he played grand theft auto, he went and shot those people. You know why that's convenient? It's convenient because it doesn't adress the gap and the emergence of classes in our society. Here's some figures
That's from the cia world fact book. The economykeeps growing so I'm assuming that the wealth gap is increased as well. |
Fortunatly, our society is well regulated, so violent people either get caught or are afraid to commit crimes. My fear is that people paly vilent games becase:
1. They are violent evil eople and know they cannot get away with crimes so they vent thorugh games
2. there friends play these games and they want to be accepted
3. They simply find the games fun, and don't see any moral implications
I think 99.5% of gamers are in group 2 and 3... however I think that playing these games too much may cuase people to becmoe more vioent in genreal, even if they are still rleativly nice poeple and never reach the level of crime... thats why the fact that more and more big name games and sandbox or FPS/3rd person shooter scares me
