Well OB1 is just a plain smart ass fuck who refuses to believe that he is biased while he actually is, in fact who isn't, so I'll ignore his lame ass bread joke.
But on the same note, jesting over the bread thing is kind of stupid anyways, its quite obvious one has to find logical links rather than ridiculous correlations, and needless to say, bread, unless discovered otherwise to have a chemical that induces violent behaviors (highly doubtful), is just a correlation and of course not causitive. HOPEFULLY, I didn't have to actually say that because I THINK most of you are way smarter than that. But I still have my doubts sometimes...
But I fail to see why none of you can pass up your bias just enough to make some logical connections. Hell I play violent video games, how come I don't get stuck in your pattern of thinking and say media is somehow absolutely free of blame as if it were a NONEXISTENT factor, or as if it were not even a part of society ? Its quite obvious media is a part of society, and if its not responsible in what it portrays, it knows that it can very well lead some weak minded or perverse people astray.
Agreed that its still the responsibility of the individual who perpetrates the crime, but to say that media is absolutely unrelated to copycat crimes is just your personal bias of wanting to protect video games so you can continue to play whatever. To be fair to all sides, I strongly feel that media companies have to be morally considerate in their violence. If its violent, its got to be good violence... you know, you good guy protagonist killing the bad guys, or the bad guys being portrayed as definitely bad with their violence. That way, at least the media is morally infallible in that they did not promote in ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM, criminal activity, unlike some games I know are rather popular these days. I mean like if you were play GTA a hell of a lot and kill police or do crazy driving on the freeway and they do a complete investigation on your psychology to determine if you were sane or not, they might very well logically link you to being a copy cat of GTA and probably rightfully so, because you've played the game enough that it looks cool, fun and maybe even convinced that its the right thing to do. On the flip side, you play a game like say Splinter Cell... well there isn't alot to copy on the negative side because theres nothing for an ordinary citizen to copy, unless you're somehow inspired to go join up with the NSA and go fight the presumed enemies of the USA to "serve and protect." It might still be violent, but no one is going to blame Splinter Cell, except maybe Iraqis, for making you into a NSA agent. Ironically, there might still be a connection between the video game and your violence that serves a higher purpose.
So here we are looking at this case, I would say GTA is a terrible game. If people did copy cat crimes off GTA, I wouldn't be suprised. I wouldn't hesitate to support authorities to tell the developers to can it. But games like Halo, I don't see why it should take blame.
See at this point, the burden of couter proof still lays with you, the casual gamer who makes casual remarks that mean nothing in science, because theres plenty of scientific evidence already to show that violent games that promote sociopathic activities do promote negative emotions and tendencies the more people play them.
But on the same note, jesting over the bread thing is kind of stupid anyways, its quite obvious one has to find logical links rather than ridiculous correlations, and needless to say, bread, unless discovered otherwise to have a chemical that induces violent behaviors (highly doubtful), is just a correlation and of course not causitive. HOPEFULLY, I didn't have to actually say that because I THINK most of you are way smarter than that. But I still have my doubts sometimes...
But I fail to see why none of you can pass up your bias just enough to make some logical connections. Hell I play violent video games, how come I don't get stuck in your pattern of thinking and say media is somehow absolutely free of blame as if it were a NONEXISTENT factor, or as if it were not even a part of society ? Its quite obvious media is a part of society, and if its not responsible in what it portrays, it knows that it can very well lead some weak minded or perverse people astray.
Agreed that its still the responsibility of the individual who perpetrates the crime, but to say that media is absolutely unrelated to copycat crimes is just your personal bias of wanting to protect video games so you can continue to play whatever. To be fair to all sides, I strongly feel that media companies have to be morally considerate in their violence. If its violent, its got to be good violence... you know, you good guy protagonist killing the bad guys, or the bad guys being portrayed as definitely bad with their violence. That way, at least the media is morally infallible in that they did not promote in ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM, criminal activity, unlike some games I know are rather popular these days. I mean like if you were play GTA a hell of a lot and kill police or do crazy driving on the freeway and they do a complete investigation on your psychology to determine if you were sane or not, they might very well logically link you to being a copy cat of GTA and probably rightfully so, because you've played the game enough that it looks cool, fun and maybe even convinced that its the right thing to do. On the flip side, you play a game like say Splinter Cell... well there isn't alot to copy on the negative side because theres nothing for an ordinary citizen to copy, unless you're somehow inspired to go join up with the NSA and go fight the presumed enemies of the USA to "serve and protect." It might still be violent, but no one is going to blame Splinter Cell, except maybe Iraqis, for making you into a NSA agent. Ironically, there might still be a connection between the video game and your violence that serves a higher purpose.
So here we are looking at this case, I would say GTA is a terrible game. If people did copy cat crimes off GTA, I wouldn't be suprised. I wouldn't hesitate to support authorities to tell the developers to can it. But games like Halo, I don't see why it should take blame.
See at this point, the burden of couter proof still lays with you, the casual gamer who makes casual remarks that mean nothing in science, because theres plenty of scientific evidence already to show that violent games that promote sociopathic activities do promote negative emotions and tendencies the more people play them.