Conditioned To Kill?

[gumboot]

A large portion of unit tactics is to accomplish two goals:
1. Deny the enemy access to an area.
2. Deny the enemy the chance for return fire.

Covering fire is the rule in small unit operations, aimed fire the exception. I wonder how this was controleld for or taken into account (if it was)?

To be honest, I don't see that it's relevant. The consistent findings are that prior to conditioning soldiers did not fire their weapons at all.

-Gumboot

 

[Lonewulf]

I don`t believe playing computer games makes one more likely to kill.

But for those nutters out there who want to shoot and kill someone/many people, playing certain games would help hone those skills to shoot someone, especially with the one shot kill to the head, encouraged in most games.

Yeah, I mean, if you're badass with a mouse and keyboard, it makes you a god with a real gun.

Seriously, I'd like to see evidence that an FPS can make you a better shot or help train you. It might teach you tactics and maybe even geography (if you play in a 3d map modelled on reality), but as for learning how to shoot someone... I'm dubious.

 

[Katana]

Yeah, I mean, if you're badass with a mouse and keyboard, it makes you a god with a real gun.

Seriously, I'd like to see evidence that an FPS can make you a better shot or help train you. It might teach you tactics and maybe even geography (if you play in a 3d map modelled on reality), but as for learning how to shoot someone... I'm dubious.

Well, I don't know about that - although I would be happy to participate in the study.

However, there are studies suggesting that playing video games helps one's surgical skills.

Does that mean that I can write my XBox & XBox 360 off as work expenses?

 

[Cuddles]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I'll jump in anyway.

Firstly, as already mentioned, computers do not train you to shoot people. Using a mouse and keyboard is nothing like actually firing a gun, or using any other weapon. It will probably improve your hand-eye coordination to some extent, but so do many other activities. Playing driving games does not qualify you to drive because they are nothing like actually driving. Playing violent games does not teach you how to be violent because they are nothing like real violence.

The biggest reason I think claims about computers causing violence are wrong is because of the main reason people actually play them. Fantasy. Just like reading a book or watching a film, computer games allow you to do things that you can't or won't do in real life. Computers take it a step further by allowing you some control over events but the principle is exactly the same. Reading a sci-fi book doesn't make me go out and build interstellar spacecraft. Watching a spy thriller doesn't make me go out and hunt down Russians. Playing an FPS doesn't make me buy a gun and run around the centre of Oxford shooting people.

In fact, I think any effect, if there really is one, would be the exact opposite. Violent games are an outlet for violence without anyone actually being hurt. Sometimes you are just in the mood to lash out, and it is far better for everyone if you do it with a rocket launcher in the privacy of your own home rather than on the street corner with a broken bottle. It also allows you to try things you hear about but shouldn't do. What is it like to speed through the streets of LA gunning down drug dealers while being chased by the police? Now I know, and I never had to a hurt a single person to find out. How many teenagers don't go out joy riding because it's far easier, cheaper and safer to play GTA instead?

So far I have not really seen any decent evidence either way in the arguments about violence on TV and computers. However, pretty much every argument against computer games has sounded exactly backwards to me, from both a logical perspective and from my own opinion.

 

[Hellbound]

Just to jump in for gumboot a bit (forgive my presumption if I mis-state your case, Gum):

I haven't read the whole thread, but I'll jump in anyway.

Firstly, as already mentioned, computers do not train you to shoot people. Using a mouse and keyboard is nothing like actually firing a gun, or using any other weapon. It will probably improve your hand-eye coordination to some extent, but so do many other activities. Playing driving games does not qualify you to drive because they are nothing like actually driving. Playing violent games does not teach you how to be violent because they are nothing like real violence.

Two things here. Gumboot mentions that he's specifically talking about the video games where you use a light gun and actually aim and shoot at targets on the screen, not mouse and keyboard shooters. Second, he's not claiming they make a person more violent; he's claiming that they reduce a persons resistence to kill when that person does become violent.

The biggest reason I think claims about computers causing violence are wrong is because of the main reason people actually play them. Fantasy. Just like reading a book or watching a film, computer games allow you to do things that you can't or won't do in real life. Computers take it a step further by allowing you some control over events but the principle is exactly the same. Reading a sci-fi book doesn't make me go out and build interstellar spacecraft. Watching a spy thriller doesn't make me go out and hunt down Russians. Playing an FPS doesn't make me buy a gun and run around the centre of Oxford shooting people.

But again, the argument isn't that games make you want to kill, just that they disable an internal resistence mechanism to killing (or reduce it). Just as seeing enough blood and guts on movie screens makes the sight of blood less shocking through desensitization (it doesn't make you want to see blood and guts, but reduces the effect of it on you).

In fact, I think any effect, if there really is one, would be the exact opposite. Violent games are an outlet for violence without anyone actually being hurt. Sometimes you are just in the mood to lash out, and it is far better for everyone if you do it with a rocket launcher in the privacy of your own home rather than on the street corner with a broken bottle. It also allows you to try things you hear about but shouldn't do. What is it like to speed through the streets of LA gunning down drug dealers while being chased by the police? Now I know, and I never had to a hurt a single person to find out. How many teenagers don't go out joy riding because it's far easier, cheaper and safer to play GTA instead?

But again, it isn't about providing motivation to act, but in degree and type of action when the person would act anyway. And, again, it's primarily the games that include an actual "gun" or gun analog.

So far I have not really seen any decent evidence either way in the arguments about violence on TV and computers. However, pretty much every argument against computer games has sounded exactly backwards to me, from both a logical perspective and from my own opinion.

As to causing violence, yes. But I do think they work to desensitize, at least to a degree. They do not make a person want to kill or be more violent, but I think they can have an effect in making a person more open to violence as an option (I suyppose, I'm probably not wording it well myself).

Let's take the "crime" element away from this. Let's say you have two people, both in a similar situation: They witness a close friend/family member being mugged (possibly violently). Each person has a pistol. Assume that both are identically trained and skilled shots. However, one has played a lot of the games such as Gumboot is discussing, and the other has not. Which would be more likely to shoot to kill the mugger? Would the FPS games played by one give him a lower resistence to killing as an option in this case? That's probably a better clarification of the question...Gumboot isn't saying games make you want to kill, just that they reduce the resistence to the idea.

I don't know if I agree yet or not, I see some arugments for both sides. But it seems every new person to this thread mis-reads his argument in the same way, and I'm sure he's tired of explaining his position I figured I'd save him the trouble of re-typing his explanation

 

[gumboot]

Thanks Huntsman, that's an excellent summary of my view.

I just want to reiterate that I do not personally believe there is much support for the argument that video games make people more violent, or that they make people want to kill.

In addition, I think there are serious flaws with Grossman's argument that violent films play a key role in increased violence in the US because they desensitise young people to violence and give them immoral role models.

Finally, I absolutely 100% agree that a computer game does not enhance a person's technical shooting skills.

While it is a bit frustrating to have to repeatedly clarify my position, I do completely understand the misunderstanding. The contention that computer games or movies cause violence is quite a common one, although somewhat flawed. The specific topic of a resistance to killing and conditioning to overcome that is a very fine and precise distinction, so it's easy to allow it to bleed over into the broader political issue. Furthermore, the person whose work I am arguing for here does link the two issues and does contend that video games and movies are responsible for increased violence.

To be honest I have been pleasantly surprised by the interesting and reasoned responses (either agreeing with the OP, disagreeing with it, or exploring flaws in the argument) that have been offered in this thread.

For my own part, since I'm a filmmaker the topic of violent movies and desensitisation to violence (a topic Grossman touches on at the end of his book) is also of some interest to me, but that might be a topic for either the entertainment or politics/current events subforum.

I'd like to try limit this particular thread to the exploration of a theoretical biological resistance to killing, and methods for disabling it.

-Gumboot

 

[CplFerro]

Dear Gumboot,

A very interesting thread. It sure makes Hollywood films look insane and meaningless. Am I to believe that Braveheart got it wrong? Or were the depicted troops all stone killers by that point?

My second question is, does this conditioning to kill work in cases of suicide? That is, presumably killing oneself will be as hard as killing anyone else, if killing is killing. A would-be suicide would have to, thus, overcome his own innate resistance to killing himself in the same way, no? I'm curious if the book addresses that.

Cpl Ferro

 

[CplFerro]

Dear Gumboot,

Here is an interview with Lt. Grossman that better details his understanding of the nature of the murder simulator threat.

Violent Video Games Reward Children for Killing People
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/interviews/2002/2920hzl_grossman.html

One aspect which this thread hasn't touched on, or skirted in deference to those lovely games, is that these games build in a person a desire to kill people, they feed a kind of rage or hatred. What other emotion would motivate someone to practise murdering over and over? So, as Grossman describes, the games create in people both the skill (marksmanship) and the will (desire) to kill, in addition to overcoming their innate resistance to the final act (reflexive murder).

Grossman: Let me ask you this: Do you know what the all-time record—let's define juvenile as 18 and below—if we define juvenile as 18 and below, do you know what the all-time record juvenile mass-murder in human history is?

EIR: No.

Grossman: Columbine High School. The all-time Guinness World Record, juvenile mass-murder in human history is Columbine High School.

EIR: Well, now topped by Erfurt.

Grossman: Well, he was 19. We would have to define juvenile as 21 or below. Do you see?

EIR: I see.

Grossman: If define juvenile as 21 or below, which many people do, then Erfurt is clearly the all-time record juvenile mass-murder in human history. Prior to Columbine, the all-time record juvenile mass-murder in human history was Jonesboro, Arkansas, with an 11- and 13-year-old boy.

You see, these things have never happened before in history. The gun, the primary killing instrument at Columbine was a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun; 12-gauge, pump-action shotguns have been in existence for over a century—well over a century. The primary killing instrument in Jonesboro was a 30 calibre M-1 carbine, a World War II weapon. It's been in existence for half a century. Hundreds of thousands manufactured and distributed. But it is only today that we've got children willing to commit these crimes. And the new factor is not the guns. The new factor is the murder simulators.

Cpl Ferro

 

[Bikewer]

As a number of us have pointed out, video games are not even a close analog to marksmanship with an actual weapon.
Secondly, we might question "building a desire to kill people" and "feeding rage and hatred".
Perhaps in psychotic individuals, perhaps in sociopaths...

But as a gamer myself and one who is a regular contributor to a variety of gaming bulletin boards, I can't imagine but the tiniest percentage of the gaming populace that such comments would apply to.
Most of us treat these things as ....Games.

Mass murder entered the cultural consciousness before video games were available; the first such large-scale incident I recall was Charles Whitman in 1976 or so.
The idea of "going postal" was in the common culture well before the widespread availability of such games.

 

[CplFerro]

As a number of us have pointed out, video games are not even a close analog to marksmanship with an actual weapon.
Secondly, we might question "building a desire to kill people" and "feeding rage and hatred".
Perhaps in psychotic individuals, perhaps in sociopaths...

But as a gamer myself and one who is a regular contributor to a variety of gaming bulletin boards, I can't imagine but the tiniest percentage of the gaming populace that such comments would apply to.
Most of us treat these things as ....Games.

Mass murder entered the cultural consciousness before video games were available; the first such large-scale incident I recall was Charles Whitman in 1976 or so.
The idea of "going postal" was in the common culture well before the widespread availability of such games.

Dear Bikewer,

If hatred had nothing to do with it, it would be equally "cool" to play video games featuring nothing but bullseyes as targets, rather than people. It's more "fun" to kill people, it's more emotional, that's why these things are popular.

I suggest you read the article I referenced; most of these killers were videogame addicts or otherwise "infatuated with media violence."

On combat conditioning, think again:

EIR: There was a case in 1996, in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in Australia, in which where some combat shooter killed 35 people, wounding 22. And the point was made that the killed-to-injured ratio, was 1.6:1, which is exceptionally good. Now, in the case of the Erfurt boy, he killed 16, and wounded, I think, 6 or 9. You have a killed-to-injured ratio of 2.5:1, approximately. Now, can you really acquire that kind of skill, which puts you in a special forces kind of level? Can you get that from computer games alone?

Grossman: Absolutely. I'll give you another case, the Paduka, Kentucky case [of 14-year-old killer Steven Carneal].

EIR: Yes, I'm familiar with that case.

Grossman: A stunning case. You know, I train the FBI, I train our Green Berets, and nobody in history can find an equivalent achievement of marksmanship skills. He fired eight shots, got eight hits on eight different kids, five of them were head shots; the other three, upper torso. Three of those children, with just one 22 caliber bullet—a 22 caliber bullet is a very small, anemic round—he put one 22 caliber bullet in every child. Three of them were killed, and one of them is paralyzed for life.

Now, this is the kind of supernatural shooting skills we're seeing. Part of it is visualization. Understand that a flight simulator can't teach a kid to fly. A flight simulator doesn't teach you to fly; it makes the learning curve much, much, faster. So, if you spend endless hours in a flight simulator, when you get in a real plane, you learn much faster. The kid in Paduka had spent countless thousands of hours playing the murder simulator, the point-and-shoot video games. He stole a pistol from a neighbor's house, and he fired two clips of ammunition—now that was his flight training—he fired two clips of ammo from a real pistol. Prior to that he'd never fired an actual pistol, but he transitioned very, very quickly from the simulator to the reality, because of all of his thousands of rounds.

Cpl Ferro

 

[Corsair 115]

If hatred had nothing to do with it, it would be equally "cool" to play video games featuring nothing but bullseyes as targets, rather than people. It's more "fun" to kill people, it's more emotional, that's why these things are popular.

But there are different subgenres to the FPS genre; what effect does this have on your hypothesis?

You've got games which are pretty much just deathmatch contests, e.g. Quake III or the Unreal Tournament franchise; these games feature science-fiction weapons, locales, and enemies, and are all about the fragging - there's little or nothing in the way of characters or storyline.

Then you've got more realistic themed WWII games, such as the Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, and Brothers in Arms series; these games game feature more realistic weapons, locales, and enemies. But they also try to put together the missions into a storyline with continuing characters.

Then you've got games which are more science-fiction or fantasy derived, but still have characters and a storyline the player follows. These would be games such as Half-Life and its sequel and the Jedi Knight series, with the latter being based on a well-known and popular movie franchise.

Is there no practicable difference between these different subgenres of FPS games? Are they all the same in your estimation? Does the different focus each of these different style of FPS game use affect how the game is perceived by players?

 

[CplFerro]

Dear Corsair,

Just compare it to shooting a person versus shooting a bullseye. I’m not sure what “storylines” have to do with anything. The point is how such games channel and excite aggression and condition murderous reflexes. Whether someone’s wearing an exotic costume as opposed to ordinary clothing probably has little effect, the essence of killing someone remains. The only question is how it can be spiced up with blood and the like, to immerse the player more deeply in the act.

I read a short story one time set in the future, and a lonely man walked into an arcade, paid his money, and went into a room filled with his parents and siblings eating dinner around the dining table. He pulled out a gun and proceeded to murder them all. He repeated this over and over as the game reset, and finally returned the gun and left the arcade. This was entertainment in the future, “recreational evil.” Well, we’re living recreational evil.

Cpl Ferro

 

[Corsair 115]

I’m not sure what “storylines” have to do with anything.

It has to do with this claim of yours:

If hatred had nothing to do with it, it would be equally "cool" to play video games featuring nothing but bullseyes as targets, rather than people. It's more "fun" to kill people, it's more emotional, that's why these things are popular.

The above seems to suggest that's it's purely the shooting of people which makes the game "fun" and "cool." It discounts any effect that the settings, weaponry, type of action, storyline, and characters may have on how well a game is received by gamers. There are plenty of FPS games that come and go with barely a notice from gamers... why do you think that is? My answer to that would be the very items I listed - they are a big part of why a particular FPS game succeeds and becomes popular.

The point is how such games channel and excite aggression and condition murderous reflexes.

I've been playing FPS games ever since the original freeware Wolfenstein 3D pretty much invented the genre way back in 1992. I have yet to have any desire to pick up a weapon and kill anyone. I have played numerous Medal of Honor deathmatch contests on the Nintendo GameCube against my friend and neither of us have had the urge to murder each other. The vast majority of folks have played FPS games and have not gone on murderous rampages.

Indeed, plenty of FPS players merely regard the games as just another form of competition, albeit one which uses a different medium and platform than those who compete on a baseball diamond or basketball court. I also, and I'm sure many others as well, regard playing a FPS game as a vicarious way of experience a situation that I never would want to experience in real life - I would never want to be in a gunfight for real (especially not one using UT2004's weapons!). So a contrived one in a computer or video game provides the experience vicariously and without danger. This is no different than folks watching a scary movie to experience vicarious thrills arising from the frightening scenarios depicted, or from someone riding a rollercoaster to experience the sense of danger even though they know the ride is perfectly safe.

Does this line of reasoning have any weight with you?

Whether someone’s wearing an exotic costume as opposed to ordinary clothing probably has little effect, the essence of killing someone remains.

Okay, so how about a game removed from a direct depiction of a human being, does it still count as encouraging killing? What about, say, a WWII combat flight simulator, such as European Air War or IL-2 Sturmovik? The goal there is to shoot down enemy aircraft; successes are shown in detail as the bullets strike the opponsing plane and it bursts into flames and spirals downwards. Pilots are occasionally depicted after having bailed out if they survived the attack. Does such a game get a black mark in your book too?

What about real-time strategy games such as Company of Heroes which depicts WWII combat complete with views of infanty squads engaging in combat. You're not participating at the soldier's level but you are directing the squads and tanks, and the battles and their results are shown. Where does that fit in with you?

Where is your dividing line drawn? How do you define it?

... Well, we’re living recreational evil.

Interesting. What does that make all the game players out there who simply play an FPS game like they would any other game and never do anything violent or criminal. Where does your assessment leave us? Are we evil by extension because the games are evil? Are we corrupted by them without even knowing it? Dare I even ask what your proposed solution to this "recreational evil" might be?

 

[Bikewer]

I daresay that if you let junior play any FPS of your choice for some hundreds of hours, then handed him a 9mm auto pistol, he would exhibit no better command of the weapon than the rankest recruit firing for the first time.
I think such claims as mentioned are being made by individuals who have not the slightest inkling of the physical skills required.

The reaction I have when I "kill" a fellow player is "yeah! gotcha!" Often, the opposing player will kick in with a "GK" (good kill, acknowledging you got the better of the encounter)
In the far more often scenario where I am "killed", my reaction is a Homer Simpson-ish "D'OH!" , acknowledging what a dummy I was.

There is no rage, there is no built-up passion to kill.....It's a game. I have much the same feeling when I make a good capture playing chess.

Again, there may well be psychotic individuals who indeed use a game to express their own feelings of rage, but I would imagine if you looked at the gaming "community" as a whole, you'd find the normal reaction was similar to my own.

 

[gumboot]

Dear Gumboot,

A very interesting thread. It sure makes Hollywood films look insane and meaningless. Am I to believe that Braveheart got it wrong? Or were the depicted troops all stone killers by that point?

I would say that virtually every single historic depiction of warfare on the big screen is totally false.

My second question is, does this conditioning to kill work in cases of suicide? That is, presumably killing oneself will be as hard as killing anyone else, if killing is killing. A would-be suicide would have to, thus, overcome his own innate resistance to killing himself in the same way, no? I'm curious if the book addresses that.

The book doesn't cover suicide, which would be an interesting thing to look at in terms of the resistance to killing. The resistance to killing is overcome by intense emotion, and the cost comes after the killing with severe psychological trauma.

People who commit suicide are almost universally in an intense emotional state, and dead people of course cannot suffer severe psychological trauma.

-Gumboot

 

[gumboot]

Dear Gumboot,

Here is an interview with Lt. Grossman that better details his understanding of the nature of the murder simulator threat.

Violent Video Games Reward Children for Killing People
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/interviews/2002/2920hzl_grossman.html

One aspect which this thread hasn't touched on, or skirted in deference to those lovely games, is that these games build in a person a desire to kill people, they feed a kind of rage or hatred. What other emotion would motivate someone to practise murdering over and over? So, as Grossman describes, the games create in people both the skill (marksmanship) and the will (desire) to kill, in addition to overcoming their innate resistance to the final act (reflexive murder).

Grossman: Let me ask you this: Do you know what the all-time record—let's define juvenile as 18 and below—if we define juvenile as 18 and below, do you know what the all-time record juvenile mass-murder in human history is?

EIR: No.

Grossman: Columbine High School. The all-time Guinness World Record, juvenile mass-murder in human history is Columbine High School.

EIR: Well, now topped by Erfurt.

Grossman: Well, he was 19. We would have to define juvenile as 21 or below. Do you see?

EIR: I see.

Grossman: If define juvenile as 21 or below, which many people do, then Erfurt is clearly the all-time record juvenile mass-murder in human history. Prior to Columbine, the all-time record juvenile mass-murder in human history was Jonesboro, Arkansas, with an 11- and 13-year-old boy.

You see, these things have never happened before in history. The gun, the primary killing instrument at Columbine was a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun; 12-gauge, pump-action shotguns have been in existence for over a century—well over a century. The primary killing instrument in Jonesboro was a 30 calibre M-1 carbine, a World War II weapon. It's been in existence for half a century. Hundreds of thousands manufactured and distributed. But it is only today that we've got children willing to commit these crimes. And the new factor is not the guns. The new factor is the murder simulators.

Cpl Ferro

Thanks for the link.

As mentioned, the second part of Grossman's argument is not conditioning to kill, but desensitisation to violence and that sort of thing. This appears to be what this interview is about.

I personally think Grossman's argument in the area of desensitisation to violence and the application to society is seriously flawed. He focuses on one fractional aspect of modern life, and blames this for mass murders. He seems to totally ignore numerous other very important factors that could influence violent behaviour, and he also ignores evidence that undermines his conclusions.

For example, Grossman cites FPS style computer games. He does not provide any evidence for a rising popularity in these games amongst the youth, and these same games, equally available in other countries, do not produce mass slayings outside the USA.

Some mass killers have played these games, and some have not. The post-Columbine USSS study found no obvious common denominator amongst youth mass-killers.

I think Grossman's efforts of boiling down youth mass-shootings in the USA to violent games and movies is both naive and seriously flawed.

-Gumboot

 

[Cuddles]

Two things here. Gumboot mentions that he's specifically talking about the video games where you use a light gun and actually aim and shoot at targets on the screen, not mouse and keyboard shooters. Second, he's not claiming they make a person more violent; he's claiming that they reduce a persons resistence to kill when that person does become violent.

Fair enough about the controls but, as has been said, light guns still just aren't the same as real guns. In any case, the argument by CplFerro seems to include all games, and indeed other media, which certainly don't provide anything in the way of skills, despite his claim that they do.

As for someone being more likely to kill when they are violent and making a person violent in the first place, I'm not convinced there is actually a difference. Violence isn't an on/off state with various different options once you turn it on. It is a continuum, all the way from non-violence, through self-defense and general brawling up to cold-blooded murder. An effect could increase the level of violence, but that increase is the same whether it is pushing someone from self-defense to an aggressor or pushing a mugger to murder. You can't draw a line below which there is no effect and above which there is.

The argument about whether games actually have an effect is a good one, although I'm not really aware of any evidence either way. However, I don't think Gumboot's argument is valid because I don't think there is a "once they are violent". Becoming violent and the form of violence are all part of the same thing and cannot be seperated.

If hatred had nothing to do with it, it would be equally "cool" to play video games featuring nothing but bullseyes as targets, rather than people. It's more "fun" to kill people, it's more emotional, that's why these things are popular.

But then this just comes back to my point. I enjoy games like this precisely because I won't do this in real life. I think the effect is much more likely to be the exact opposite of the one you believe. Do you have any actual evidence for your opinion?

 

[gumboot]

Fair enough about the controls but, as has been said, light guns still just aren't the same as real guns. In any case, the argument by CplFerro seems to include all games, and indeed other media, which certainly don't provide anything in the way of skills, despite his claim that they do.

The conditioning process is psychological, not mechanical. It follows that, as long as the person is psychologically firing a gun, it works. It does not have to be an actual gun.

The interview CplFerro cites is Grossman talking about a second issue; desensitisation to violence and increased aggression. Grossman contends these are caused by violent games and violent movies. I don't agree.

As for someone being more likely to kill when they are violent and making a person violent in the first place, I'm not convinced there is actually a difference. Violence isn't an on/off state with various different options once you turn it on. It is a continuum, all the way from non-violence, through self-defense and general brawling up to cold-blooded murder. An effect could increase the level of violence, but that increase is the same whether it is pushing someone from self-defense to an aggressor or pushing a mugger to murder. You can't draw a line below which there is no effect and above which there is.

The discussion is not about violence.

The argument about whether games actually have an effect is a good one, although I'm not really aware of any evidence either way. However, I don't think Gumboot's argument is valid because I don't think there is a "once they are violent". Becoming violent and the form of violence are all part of the same thing and cannot be seperated.

My argument has nothing to do with violence.

-Gumboot

 

[Lonewulf]

One aspect which this thread hasn't touched on, or skirted in deference to those lovely games, is that these games build in a person a desire to kill people, they feed a kind of rage or hatred. What other emotion would motivate someone to practise murdering over and over?

Uh, the desire to have fun?

Seriously, I don't feel "rage" or "hatred" while I woop arse in Halflife 2 Deathmatch. Though I do feel a sense of accomplishment when I pin my opponent to the wall with a crossbow bolt from all the way across the map...

I pwnzered that n00b.

Now I'm going to clear out my high school full of students, 'cause games and real life are just the same to me!



I've been playing FPS's my entire life. I grew up on Doom and Quake. Halflife 2, so far, is by far the best, but I plan to try out FEAR soon (I'm kinda slow when it comes to trying out "new" games...), when my computer comes in from the U.S. I'm pretty sure that I don't feel anything like what you explain. I've felt anger, I've felt rage, and I've felt hatred before in my life. I have never felt those emotions while playing my videogames. None of the symptoms of rage is felt within me (rising of body temperature, slight pressure in my chest, feeling like it's hard to get my next breath out without shouting, etc.) I've never felt the symptoms of hatred, either.

Why is it when some dumbarse says, "Well, I think that it might be anger or hatred...", people just buy into those words without even critically analyzing them?

"Well, it *must* be this, because I'm too dumb to think that it could be anything else... BUY MY BOOK!"

The reaction I have when I "kill" a fellow player is "yeah! gotcha!" Often, the opposing player will kick in with a "GK" (good kill, acknowledging you got the better of the encounter)
In the far more often scenario where I am "killed", my reaction is a Homer Simpson-ish "D'OH!" , acknowledging what a dummy I was.

There is no rage, there is no built-up passion to kill.....It's a game.

Indeed, that's been my experience.

Though I've also seen some people that don't like dying. They tend to go "BS!" when I kill them, and sometimes sling insults. But you'll have to show me evidence if that's a "columbine kid in the making"...

I have much the same feeling when I make a good capture playing chess.

Then we obviously have to ban chess! It's destroying our youth! Just like Marilyn Manson, Rock and Roll, and anything new that the kids like! Like iphones!

 

[Cuddles]

The discussion is not about violence.

My argument has nothing to do with violence.

Yes, it is and it does. Killing is violence. You are arguing about the level of violence that people will use when they are violent. My point is that this cannot be seperated from the cause of violence in the first place.

Huntsman said in his post to me, which you agreed with:

They do not make a person want to kill or be more violent, but I think they can have an effect in making a person more open to violence as an option

A person "more open" to violence is a more violent person. That's what it means. You cannot argue that a person is more likely to kill but is not more violent, that just doesn't make any sense. The problem is that you are trying to seperate one issue into two different issues - whether a person will become violent, which you say you are not interested in, and what a person will do when they are violent.