We should have nipped it in the bud with Pong. Where, oh where, were the Tofflers when we needed them? Damn them!
Posted on 04/23/2007 5:59:57 AM PDT by presidio9
If you want to discuss this, please stay on topic. Name a video game where you cheat on your wife.
What he said was: that children are becoming dehumanized by years of playing violent video games,. That means they are no longer shocked by violence and don't empathize with victims. And GTA is an excellent example of a game parents should NOT be giving a 10 yr old.
I think you just succeeded in proving that violence cause video games to be violent :)
Yeah but you and I knew as kids that what we saw in cartoons would HURT us.
Kids now don't seem to empathise about hurting others either. All that matters is what hurts them.
We should have nipped it in the bud with Pong. Where, oh where, were the Tofflers when we needed them? Damn them!
Very well said. It is the general coarsening of society of which violent video games, rap music, senseless violence on TV and in movies and lax standards of civility are all part of the problem. I watched Newt yesterday and this article doesn’t really make the whole point of what he said, imagine that.
Although your character is not married in GTA San Andreas, you do have the opportunity to have up to 6 in-game girlfriends (something I found incredibly irritating, as they distracted from the flow of the game, but that is another discussion) and if one catches you with the other there are supposedly consequences. There is also an unlimited supply of in-game hookers as well.
And GTA is an excellent example of a game parents should NOT be giving a 10 yr old.
And how is that the game's fault? 10 year olds should not be driving cars either, and a parent who lets a 10 year old drive a car is almost always punished for doing so. It is not like the GTA series, or any other "adult" video game is purposefully marketed towards children. These games are all clearly and visibly marked as being for mature audiences only and as being totally inappropriate for children.
It is ultimately the parent who buys the game for the child, which makes the parent responsible for any ill effects the child gets from playing the game.
And you are mixing apples and oranges. Video games are a PART of the problem. You're mixing parts and trying to claim he said something that he did not say.
Odd, then, the grief and trauma on display in the aftermaths of the shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech, particularly since the vast majority of the people affected were teenagers and young adults. You know, video gaming's prime demographic. For a demographic desensitized to violence, they sure didn't look it.
They weren't doing the shooting, were they.
I'm glad we're on the same page.
We're not.
This is beggining to sound like the pornography threads on FR. All those in favour argue about it’s social validity when they are actually talking about the personal.
YOU compared todays video games violence with the Middle Ages in your statement I thought. Facts are the folks of that era weren’t quite as tolerant of Nihilist advocacies as we are in todays society. Rightfully so. Todays head whacking, dismemberment, blood and guts video games do in fact numb some in our society to the reality of injury. It’s sad as most are not effected, but it is that one or two that can make it a bad day for many others. Newt is right even if he is only addressing the issue metaphorically.
I also watched those same shows and cartoon and the difference was there was no blood and no death. Even on the Roy Roger, Hopalong Cassidy and Gene Autry shows no one ever died and there was no blood. Trying to compare that to a Quentin Taratino film or Grand Theft Auto I-V is ludicrous.
I am not saying that this crap affects everyone the same, and no it does not turn us all into mass murderers. But to say that a steady diet of this stuff from crib to grave has no small effect on everyone and a huge effect on someone that is already not wired to code is something I can’t agree with.
Disturbing that Freepers are fighting with each other over the side topic of video games as the cause of violence,
when the real topic is the results of 40+ years of “liberalism” with its total moral cowardice of unwillingness to “judge” right and wrong as absolutes.
Gotta defend those video games.
when the real topic is the results of 40+ years of “liberalism” with its total moral cowardice of unwillingness to “judge” right and wrong as absolutes.
Everyone agrees until it's something that you're attached to that may contribute adversely to society.
Re-read the quote. Gingrich blames liberalism for being why we can’t talk about violent video games, not that liberalism is responsible for violent video games.
His statement is absurd at face value: Hillary Clinton and Joe Liberman are the ones railing against violent video games, the liberal media continues to find ways to blame Virginia Tech on video games, and certainly there’s been a public discussion about violent video games since the early 1990s... when Nintendo shopped a carefully-edited tape containing footage exclusively of games on the Sega Genesis (the Super Nintendo Entertainment System’s primary competitor) around on Capitol Hill as a way of gaining a business advantage.
What you aren't using is logic.
Video games are merely the latest in a long line of cultural scapegoats.
Some are long commercials for nothing that's beneficial. And if commercials have an impact, video are longer and have much more of an impact.
And this is supposed to mean something? The shooters now represent the attitudes and mentalities of their victims?
What?! You said: For a demographic desensitized to violence, they sure didn't look it. I stated that they were not doing the shooting. Do you think the shooter empathised with them? Not likely. Which is exactly the point. How many of those kids do you think raced to their computers to play violent games after what they witnessed?
But when I was grown up, these cartoons and tv shows were ultimately considered too violent. Many were taken off the air.
I will say this though — we watched a lot of stuff that was perhaps violent, but we didn’t watch it morning, noon and night. We had a certain amount of time set aside for the cartoons or the Stooges, but once they were over, if the weather was nice, we went outside and played. Of course, if we didn’t have our homework done, we couldn’t watch these shows at all. That was top priority.
I still maintain it has to do with how one is raised. If the parents use the tv or the PlayStation to babysit, or in lieu of taking charge of their children and what they watch or what they do, then the children will turn out wrong. If they are supervised and monitored, then they will be fine.
You're absolutely wrong there. He's one of the brightest guys on the political scene, and almost always spot on with the issues.
Having said that, Newt's :
* political poison- will never get elected nationally or state-wide as anything but a dog-catcher
* Soured me on the Hillary-Care and Global Warming issues
* Showed incredibly poor judgement in the way (timing) he left his ex.
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