Just wondering what i would get for a $25 entertainment voucher.
Anyway, here's a follow-up: http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/4/3835660/video-game-burning-expert
Connecticut Town Holds Drive To Collect, Destroy Violent Games
My brother had written a thesis on violence and exposure to violent media - from what I know, the general conclusion is that sometimes, some violent media will affect some people. That's as vague as it gets, and this applies to all violent media, and the amount of violence needn't be Mortal Kombat, it can easily be PowerPuff Girls violence and some people will still sometimes get affected. You know what else might rouse violence in people, other than video games? Burning.
Guys guys, read the article. It actually seems reasonable enough. Not the burning but the reasoning behind it. Parents really should pay attention to what they're kids are playing.
"We're suggesting that for parents who have a child or children who play violent video games, to first of all view the games. We're asking parents to better understand what their child is doing. Have a conversation about next steps. If parents are comfortable (with their child's gaming habits), we're comfortable."
If parents aren't, he said, then they can head to the local drive-in movie theater on Jan. 12 to turn in those video games in exchange for a $25 gift voucher intended to be used for other forms of entertainment, like perhaps, a local water park"
The whole violent games cause violence argument is baseless and stupid but at least they're encouraging parents to ensure their kids entertainment is appropriate. I don't agree with the destruction though. Destroying any form of media no matter how horrible is just senseless.
Crazy. Meanwhile people are praising celebrities for "taking a stand" and making an anti-gun commercial all the while they continue to make millions off their extremely violent movies. Sick of seeing Hollywood always getting a free pass, while video games continue to take the blame. I guess developers need to donate large amounts of their money to politicians like celebrities do to keep them off their backs.
@dudy80 said:
People are dumb, they keep blaming games, guns, and basically everything but the person who did the crime.
"OH HOW DARE YOU BE SO INCONSIDERATE!!!!! It wasn't his fault its that new call of duty game you know the one my son got too. that inspired him to go kill kids."
-local Dumb ass who has never played a video game
@TruthTellah said:
@Inkerman said:
Also, I feel massively validated because I seemed to be the only one who said that we, as a gaming community, should not 'review' or 'assess' or 'talk about' or whatever bullshit phrase was being used that meant look at videogame violence right now. Is there a problem with violence in videogrames? Maybe. Is this the right time to 'review' that violence? FUCK NO. Because you have stupid, ignorant people like this town council (not to mention the NRA) out to target videogames.
That's silly, Inkerman. You know none of those people saw that people online were talking about this, and they certainly don't care about Giant Bomb or any group talking about it. Those who are ignorant do things like this, not those truly informed of what anyone else is doing. No matter what other people might say around them, some people will choose ridiculous action before anything sensible. If people want to burn things, they will burn things. The knee-jerk reactionaries of the world shouldn't stop reasonable people from discussing important topics regarding what they care about.
Whether you want to feel justified by the crazy action of some misguided people is your own prerogative, but I don't think any of us want to have our lives determined by crazy people. I certainly won't allow fear of a misguided response to keep me or anyone else I know from taking something I care about seriously and talking about whatever I damn well please. I hope that all of us whom consider videogames important to us would hold them in high enough regard to do the same and not let others influence what and when we talk about any topic surrounding videogames.
Sure we can talk about violence in video games, just not now. That first article mentioned in that stupid 'ceasefire' thing as a 'response' to the shooting the same as the NRA's bullshit and a Senator calling for a study into videogame violence. Yeah sure in this case nobody gave a shit what gamers were talking about, but a lot of people do. When two prominent politicians in the US link video game violence to the massacre, the response from the gaming community cannot be "let's review violence" because that is an admission of guilt to the average person. I mean, why the fuck do we even want to have this discussion now? What's the need? Video games don't cause violence, we know that, so really any discussion in this community is basically about how tasteful the level of violence is, not as if it's a real issue, because it isn't. So why do you want to push us to have this kind of discussion right now when we, as a community, should be circling the wagons and sending out an unequivocal and clear; Video games don't cause violence. We are not isolated to our own little bubble, this has already leaked out into the mainstream media.
@Inkerman said:
@TruthTellah said:
@Inkerman said:
Also, I feel massively validated because I seemed to be the only one who said that we, as a gaming community, should not 'review' or 'assess' or 'talk about' or whatever bullshit phrase was being used that meant look at videogame violence right now. Is there a problem with violence in videogrames? Maybe. Is this the right time to 'review' that violence? FUCK NO. Because you have stupid, ignorant people like this town council (not to mention the NRA) out to target videogames.
That's silly, Inkerman. You know none of those people saw that people online were talking about this, and they certainly don't care about Giant Bomb or any group talking about it. Those who are ignorant do things like this, not those truly informed of what anyone else is doing. No matter what other people might say around them, some people will choose ridiculous action before anything sensible. If people want to burn things, they will burn things. The knee-jerk reactionaries of the world shouldn't stop reasonable people from discussing important topics regarding what they care about.
Whether you want to feel justified by the crazy action of some misguided people is your own prerogative, but I don't think any of us want to have our lives determined by crazy people. I certainly won't allow fear of a misguided response to keep me or anyone else I know from taking something I care about seriously and talking about whatever I damn well please. I hope that all of us whom consider videogames important to us would hold them in high enough regard to do the same and not let others influence what and when we talk about any topic surrounding videogames.
Sure we can talk about violence in video games, just not now. That first article mentioned in that stupid 'ceasefire' thing as a 'response' to the shooting the same as the NRA's bullshit and a Senator calling for a study into videogame violence. Yeah sure in this case nobody gave a shit what gamers were talking about, but a lot of people do. When two prominent politicians in the US link video game violence to the massacre, the response from the gaming community cannot be "let's review violence" because that is an admission of guilt to the average person. I mean, why the fuck do we even want to have this discussion now? What's the need? Video games don't cause violence, we know that, so really any discussion in this community is basically about how tasteful the level of violence is, not as if it's a real issue, because it isn't. So why do you want to push us to have this kind of discussion right now when we, as a community, should be circling the wagons and sending out an unequivocal and clear; Video games don't cause violence. We are not isolated to our own little bubble, this has already leaked out into the mainstream media.
All I've ever suggested is that our ability to discuss anything should not be conditional on the whims of the crazies and reactionaries. If they can stop us from talking about things, then there really never is a good time to talk about anything. There will always be stupid people who take things the wrong way. We can't live our lives in fear of idiots. I'm not saying we -have- to have some big discussion of violence in videogames now, but if some people want to, more power to them. No time is a bad time for it. Or, if you want to be negative about it, no time is really a good time for it; so, might as well be whenever. I just don't support the notion that we should censor ourselves based on the whims of the masses. If you or anyone else feels like broaching a videogame topic of any kind, no one should discourage them from it simply out of fear of others.
You can live in fear if you like and always have the walls up, but if people want to talk about something, they should be able to talk about something. That's not conditional on whether a madman has recently killed people or if some people are up in arms over something. Any time someone wants to discuss some part of videogames(now included), they should feel free to do so.
I love the fact that everyone is getting extremely butthurt over this for no more reason than that it involves video games. If this helps them cope in some sort of way; fine by me. Stop trying to inject some sort of evil plan into everything because your too-sensitive pride feels infringed upon.
@Gamer_152 said:
Every person involved in this kind of mindless attacking of dummy targets shares responsibility for part of the larger societal problem in the U.S. of violence.
I amended your sentence by taking the word "gun" out. America is a culture of violence, not just gun violence.
Look, I understand this is going to sound WACKY AND CRAZY to some people, but I see it as common sense:
What's the point in banning guns? Any of them? Seriously, why ban them? So people won't get killed? People will still get killed. The UK has proven that taking guns away just leads to other epidemics (knives in their example). Therefore, you have to ban the knives, right? Then they start using rocks. Ban rocks. Then they just start hitting each other until they are dead. Ban hands, fists, arms, feet, legs, chests, and teeth (you might bite someone's artery out of their neck after all). In the end, the long and short of it is this: ban people. Wipe the planet clean, bring about extinction, and start over again...just to lead to the same exact place.
Banning guns will not stop killings or violence. This idea that America is the only place with a culture of gun violence...violence in general...is ridiculous. There are MULTIPLE other countries ACROSS THE WORLD that have far more guns. The problem with America is simple: we try to regulate them, and because we try to regulate, it means that we disarm the people that would actually use them for protection and defensive purposes rather than offensive purposes.
"Well, what do you need with an AR-15?"
To shoot the stupid motherfucker that wants to walk into my house and try to kill my family. What does it matter to you or anyone else what gun, knife, baseball bat, razor-wire noose, tire iron, ball-peen hammer, or whatever else I decide to use in order to protect my family?
The guns are not what causes the violence. I offer a challenge to everyone: sit a gun with a couple of high-capacity magazines in the middle of your living room, load your living room up with people, sit them all on a couch, and stay there for 24 hours. No one touch the guns or magazines. I guarantee you that the results will be staggering: the gun didn't kill anyone.
Guns kill when you put a finger around the trigger (or a string in the case of setting up a trap to kill would-be invaders).
What kills people is a lack of training, responsibility, respect, and clear purpose for owning the gun as a defensive measure to protect you and your loved ones from being harmed. We as America are a country that seems to pride itself on poor education though, so none of this stuff is surprising at all, right?
There will never be peace. Period. If you could all take a moment to let that sink into your heads for a second...........
Okay. Now that you realize that peace will never exist, which do you prefer:
- You are able to carry a gun (licensed if need be). This could be for many purposes: to kill others, to hunt, to protect, to instill fear, etc.
- You are not able to carry a gun. This could lead to many issues: inferior protection against an armed assailant that purchased a gun outside of legal means, for example...among many others.
Again, I understand both sides of the fence on this. Liberals and progressives want no one to have guns, and in turn, conservatives yell and scream about how it's the government taking control of our lives and we are losing freedom and we need to stock up and talk crazy about it all. Meanwhile, conservatives want to keep the guns to give people the right to arm themselves for whatever purposes, and liberals say that it just continues a cycle of violence and causes mass shootings and lots of death and guns are only for killing and we can't think with any logic because we believe that mankind has none of it either even though we are killing education.
I'm the guy on the outside of both of those that says this: I'd rather have a gun to protect my family against an assailant than not have a gun to protect my family against an assailant that does have a gun through illegal means.
That's simple logic. If people don't agree, by all means, don't agree. Both ideals are downward spirals, but at least one spiral allows the people who want to properly use a gun for defensive purposes to protect themselves.
@jakob187: I may regret getting into an internet debate on gun control, but I feel obliged to respond, as I disagree with a lot of what you say Jakob. To say "If people will still be killed even if we ban guns, then there's no point banning guns" is incredibly reductionist. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who really thinks there will be no violent crime in a country where guns are banned, the debate is more complicated than that, and the argument being made by the pro-gun control side isn't that more gun control will mean no violence whatsoever, it's that more gun control will mean less violence. What's more banning guns doesn't mean you'll have to ban every other thing that could possibly hurt people. Why should it? That's a slippery slope argument. If you really want to make a direct comparison between the U.S. and UK then the results would actually serve an argument against what you're saying. The UK is an example of a country that has banned guns without having to ban every other thing under the Sun, and where you can see much stricter gun control than the U.S. and a much lower homicide rate.
Comparatively America is not a country that has been regulating guns to a great degree, but even if it were, I fail to see how that would only take guns away from people who would use them for defensive purposes and leave the people who would use them for offensive purposes untouched. Whichever side of the argument you stand on, you have to see that regulation affects both people who would use guns for self-defence and people who would use them for crime. To different degrees, on different levels, but it affects them both. Yes, guns don't kill people, people do, but when a lack of regulations means that people who are going to use guns for violent activity can get guns fairly easily, it seems relevant to at least start asking "Is the way we are doing things here, the right way?". A lack of training, responsibility, etc. These may well be big factors in what causes gun violence, but if you're going to point to one thing, and say "This is the sole cause of gun violence" then you need to back yourself up with some very strong evidence.
Yes, a lack of guns could theoretically lead to greater problems with violence, but the question is less "Could it?" and more "Does it?". In debates like this a lot of stuff that looks logical on paper in an isolated context gets thrown around, but whether it mirrors reality can be another thing entirely. I'm afraid your point that you need a gun for self-defence, while entirely valid if you can properly back it up, is not one that sits outside of the liberal and conservative views on this topic, it's a extremely common argument made from the anti-gun control side of the argument, possibly the most common. Additionally, if you're going to make that argument, then you can't just state all the points from your side of the argument, and ignore the points made by the other side. You need to demonstrate as clearly as is possible that the trade-off of making guns more available for criminals but also more available to people who would use them for self-defence is not just a good choice, but the optimal choice.
Gaming website holds drive to destroy stupid Connecticut town.
@TruthTellah said:
@Inkerman said:
Sure we can talk about violence in video games, just not now. That first article mentioned in that stupid 'ceasefire' thing as a 'response' to the shooting the same as the NRA's bullshit and a Senator calling for a study into videogame violence. Yeah sure in this case nobody gave a shit what gamers were talking about, but a lot of people do. When two prominent politicians in the US link video game violence to the massacre, the response from the gaming community cannot be "let's review violence" because that is an admission of guilt to the average person. I mean, why the fuck do we even want to have this discussion now? What's the need? Video games don't cause violence, we know that, so really any discussion in this community is basically about how tasteful the level of violence is, not as if it's a real issue, because it isn't. So why do you want to push us to have this kind of discussion right now when we, as a community, should be circling the wagons and sending out an unequivocal and clear; Video games don't cause violence. We are not isolated to our own little bubble, this has already leaked out into the mainstream media.All I've ever suggested is that our ability to discuss anything should not be conditional on the whims of the crazies and reactionaries. If they can stop us from talking about things, then there really never is a good time to talk about anything. There will always be stupid people who take things the wrong way. We can't live our lives in fear of idiots. I'm not saying we -have- to have some big discussion of violence in videogames now, but if some people want to, more power to them. No time is a bad time for it. Or, if you want to be negative about it, no time is really a good time for it; so, might as well be whenever. I just don't support the notion that we should censor ourselves based on the whims of the masses. If you or anyone else feels like broaching a videogame topic of any kind, no one should discourage them from it simply out of fear of others.
You can live in fear if you like and always have the walls up, but if people want to talk about something, they should be able to talk about something. That's not conditional on whether a madman has recently killed people or if some people are up in arms over something. Any time someone wants to discuss some part of videogames(now included), they should feel free to do so.
I'm not saying it's conditional on the whims of crazies, I'm saying it should be conditional on events in the real world. The people pushing this 'review violence' agenda are not doing it because they woke up one morning and decided "oh today is a good day to review violence in video games", they did it in response to the shooting, and it's the wrong response. Yes, there absolutely is a bad time for it, and that time is now. We can waltz around in complete naivete about it. A good time might have been in the wake of MW2's civilian killing scene, or another game related story. We don't fucking admit responsibility to one of the most violent mass murders in the country's history and then throw up our hands and act as if we have a right to discuss this sort of thing when we want. As I said, when you have prominent politicians linking video games to the massacre and violence in general (erroneously or not), and then you have coverage which is saying video games are 'reviewing' or 'discussing' violence in the industry, the logical connection is that video games = violence, and it isn't "idiots" making that connection, it's normal, concerned parents.
So no, right now is not the time to discuss videogame violence, and so we fucking shouldn't.
someone should hold a drive to collect, destroy parents; to be placed in a dumpster and later incinerated.
turn in your parents, get 25 dollar gift certificate
BUT this action is not intended to be construed as statement declaring that parents were the cause of the shocking violence in Newtown on December 14th
rather it just to make a point
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