Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread [4]

[David H]

Why should the rest of us suffer artistic restriction because America cant keep its own house in order?

I never said you should. If a UK based company wants to develop such a game, or permit its import from anywhere in the world, it's not my problem. But remember just what you're arguing for here:

UK-based charity Freedom from Torture publicly condemned the use of torture scenes in Grand Theft Auto V. The organization who work to rehabilitate survivors of torture, joined other human rights charity's who were outraged at a torture scene in the game in which the players have to pull teeth and electrocute an unarmed man in order to extract information. The charity's CEO Keith Best stated: “Rockstar North has crossed a line by effectively forcing people to take on the role of a torturer and perform a series of unspeakable acts if they want to achieve success in the game."

So if the UK chose to ban the import of the game I'd have no problem with that either.

[Pettytyrant101]

As I said before I cant comment on content in GTAV because I havent played it yet.
However I gave the example previously of a game which puts you in the shoes of a border guard forced to choose between making increasingly dubious moral decisions and feeding and housing your family, all the while under increasing pressure and threat from your own government.
The game brings out the dilemma such people face and helps to create better understanding of how something like the Nazi gas chambers could have come about, carried out by ordinary people just going to work in the morning.
Its uncomfortable but valuable understanding.
I dont know what context the torture scene in GTA is or whether it crosses a line or not without knowing the game context in which it exists.

But I still believe that artistic freedom should not be limited because of specific social problems in different countries, especially when I believe far more serious underlying causes for those social problems exist which need addressed as a priority.
Blaming it on games, tv or media is a cop out, a dereliction of duty to addressing the real issues.
Its not that these media dont have an effect, its that the effect is miniscule and will adverse effect a very small percentage of the population.
Poverty, deprivation, lack of work and motivation, mental health, gun control, gang culture all affect a far larger percentage of people adversely.

[David H]

Its not that these media dont have an effect, its that the effect is miniscule and will adverse effect a very small percentage of the population.

To the best of my understanding, there's no good research on that, one way or another. The shouting has gotten in the way.

Poverty, deprivation, lack of work and motivation, mental health, gun control, gang culture all affect a far larger percentage of people adversely.

All important things to work on for many reasons. But I'm still not sure where you're getting your percentages from.
(FYI it's a pet peeve of mine when people use statistical words like "percentage" and "proportion" which imply they've got hard numbers to back them up when they're just guessing. Nothing wrong with guessing. I love a good hypothesis. It just needs to be labeled properly. )

[David H]

I hope you're still enjoying the debate Petty. Sorry if my question about your percentages sounded more confrontational than I intended. Reading back, I could have worded it better.

I think the reason the media industries have resisted good studies is that once it's been established exactly what that miniscule percentage of murders is causally linked to a film or game, the arithmetic becomes too easy.  If for example one out of every million players of GTA5 committed a torture murder inspired by the game, and everybody played the game, then on average that would produce an additional 316 torture murders in the USA each year.  

The industry may figure that's a reasonable price to pay for the satirical message they're sharing with the other 316 million people, not entirely unlike how the auto industry figures accidental deaths due to manufacturing defects or the coal industry figures deaths due to pollution.  They'd like to say it's a reasonable cost of doing business and is justified by the good they do for all the survivors. The trouble is that the courts haven't been seeing it that way recently, and any study that gave a number, however small would be decidedly awkward.

And so no studies are done, and no informed decisions are made. Or so it seems from a farmer's perspective.

[halfwise]

Poverty, deprivation, lack of work and motivation, mental health, gun control, gang culture all affect a far larger percentage of people adversely.

All important things to work on for many reasons. But I'm still not sure where you're getting your percentages from.
(FYI it's a pet peeve of mine when people use statistical words like "percentage" and "proportion" which imply they've got hard numbers to back them up when they're just guessing. Nothing wrong with guessing. I love a good hypothesis. It just needs to be labeled properly. )

---

I hope you're still enjoying the debate Petty. Sorry if my question about your percentages sounded more confrontational than I intended. Reading back, I could have worded it better.

No, it was a fair point that statements should not be made without clear backing or, alternatively, clear labelling as purely subjective assertions.

[Pettytyrant101]

I hope you're still enjoying the debate Petty. Sorry if my question about your percentages sounded more confrontational than I intended. - David

I always enjoy the debate David.   And no offence taken at this end.

I didn't provide a slew of statistics because its seems to me self evident that poverty, lack of education ect are a greater factor on criminality than playing a computer game.
And thats going on the assumption games contribute to real world crime at all.

Its both a matter of scale- there are simply more people in the world living in poverty than are playing games to be affected by them.
And a matter of history- humans were just as, if not more violent in our past before the invention of games, tv, film or even newspapers.
Violence hasn't changed its nature, it still happens for all the same reasons it always did. All that changes is what new thing we can find to blame for it.

But if its research you want I wasted twenty minutes of my life I wont see again on pointing out the bleeding obvious!

'The relationship between poverty and crime is in areas of concentrated poverty. It can be a contributing factor of hopelessness and despair,” - Andrew Ward, adjunct professor, Psychology

'It is a fact that neighborhoods where the poor are concentrated are more prone to high crime rates, and poor residents are the most common victims of crimes.

• A one-parent household headed by a female is more vulnerable to criminal attack.
• Families with only one adult present are less able to control their teenage children.
• Young teenage mothers are often victimized by their boyfriends.
• The criminal activity by the poor is tolerated, if not condoned, among the poor.
• The poor, and particularly the poor members of racial minorities, are unable to demand as much police protection.
• Committing crimes against residents in rundown and "ghetto" areas requires minimal skill and risk.

-U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

From UK research-

The Association of Chief Officers of Probation, found that young offenders 'are invariably poor, often destitute and . . . barely able to muster significant resources to subsist'.
After studying 1,389 young people on probation schemes, the researchers concluded that there was a 'real link between poverty and crime'.
Almost two-thirds of the group were unemployed and only 10 per cent had an income of more than pounds 100 a week. Just one in five of the offenders had a job.

Seventy-two per cent were in poverty, according to measures used by the EC, and more than two-thirds of the 17-year-olds surveyed had 'no reliable source of income whatsoever'.

Educational qualifications were equally sparse, with 98 per cent of the group having left school as early as possible and 'the vast majority of 17-year-olds were . . . neither in work nor attending training schemes.'

Those interviewed tended to leave home 'at a very early age', normally 16, sometimes after sexual abuse. Alcohol and drugs were also critical in turning people to crime, with probation officers citing addiction or compulsion as a key factor with 34 per cent.

What reveals the unmistakable connection between poverty and crime is that they’re both geographically concentrated – in a strikingly consistent way. In other words, where you find poverty is also exactly where you find crime.

In the countries where the social discrimination factor isn't very strong, results have shown that less education meant more criminal offenses ranging from property crime to “casual” theft and drug-related offenses (again, mostly theft). But not violence. It appears that in fact, poverty itself is more tied with violence, criminal damage and also drug use - as a catalyst for violence.-poverty and crime.org



To me the notion that all these factors that are a consequence of poverty and lack of education and opportunity, from psychological to physical have less of an effect on behavior than playing a game is a proposition that I can't accept as credible.

edit add- according to the World Banks conservative estimation there are 2.1 billlion people in poverty.
GTA sold 32.5million copies. A staggering amount for a game but pales into nothing next to the poverty figures.

[David H]

It's not so simple though Petty.

The economic state that passes for poverty in 21st century USA (defined by the Federal Government as $23,850/year) would have been considered relatively wealthy in my parents' and grandparents' day, even when corrected for inflation.  There's a lot of Asian and Latin American families that lives stably on under $500/year.  

The bigger factor in violence I think is the breaking down of stable communities that often occur with sudden economic changes and the instability that follows. For example, in rural areas like this, most of the community lives happily below the federal poverty level and wouldn't take a city job for 10 times the income.

On the other hand when Detroit's industrial base collapsed, most people didn't know what to do ( such as planting a larger potato patch and getting chickens.) and there weren't as strong family and neighborhood safety nets to help keep order.  I think the UK went through something similar under Thatcher.
Also worth noting, most violent revolutions are historically started by relatively affluent middle-class students with above average educations (like the Taliban was originally), rarely by the true working class who actually experiences the poverty and lack of educational opportunity you're pointing to.

So it seems clear to me that it's not so easy as just adding more money or more educational opportunity. Those are themselves just indicators of pockets of stability.  And stability I think is the underlying condition that leads to peace.

I also want to point out this:

Alcohol and drugs were also critical in turning people to crime, with probation officers citing addiction or compulsion as a key factor with 34 per cent.

So you might think at first that a prohibition of alcohol or a war on drugs would reduce crime by up to 34%, but in fact history has shown exactly the opposite.

You've got to be really careful when you're starting to play around with quick fixes.

[halfwise]

My time in Africa taught me that poverty is a state of mind, not money. You're right Dave, it's all about stability.

Of course this takes us away from the video game debate, where my gut feeling is it can significantly affect young minds and affect youth violence, but after a certain age it's irrelevant. The danger is if it catches kids/teens in a criminal spiral they can't escape from, but if they make it through youth without acting out the imagery (or even acting on it without getting trapped), then the effect is nil. Adult responsibility reforms the mind.

[Mrs Figg]

Its not so much about poverty as it seems.

[halfwise]

We have Research! But it never mentioned video games.

http://news.yahoo.com/mental-illness-not-biggest-reason-youth-carry-guns-144631216.html

Mental Illness Is Not the Biggest Reason Youth Carry Guns, Study Finds
By Stephanie Pappas

In the wake of school shootings, mental health is often thrust into the spotlight. After a young gunman killed children and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, for example, the state enacted laws requiring the tracking of voluntary commitments to psychiatric hospitals, upped state services for the mentally ill and required school districts to increase mental health trainings.

Such efforts may help prevent mass shootings, but new research highlights a challenge in preventing school violence: Other behavioral factors, such as alcohol and drug use, may actually be more closely linked to youth gun possession than mental health is.

"While mental health is one component, there are multiple other factors that are strongly associated with gun possession," said study researcher Sonali Rajan, an assistant professor of health education at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York.

Risk factors

Rajan and her study co-author, Kelly Ruggles, a research scientist in population health at the New York University School of Medicine, wanted to approach the issue of youth gun violence in a non-partisan, non-ideologically-driven way. They focused not on mass shootings alone, but on gun carrying among high-school-age teens. About 3,000 youth under age 18 are killed by guns each year, according to research by Children's Defense Fund. Though mass shootings are devastating, they account for only a handful of these deaths.

The researchers used data on 13,500 to 16,500 high school students collected yearly between 2001 and 2011 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In surveys, the kids reported whether they had engaged in a number of behaviors that researchers consider risky to health. The researchers then used a method of statistical analysis more commonly used in gene expression studies to look at how certain risky behaviors may cluster together. They also compared each risk factor to each other risk factor, to see which tended to go hand-in-hand.

The researchers found that the behaviors most strongly associated with gun possession were using alcohol, using tobacco and using other drugs, Ruggles and Rajan reported Nov. 5 in the journal PLOS ONE.

Other factors that strongly correlated with gun carrying had to do with the school environment. Teens who said they had done drugs at school, been in a fight at school or had been threatened at school were also more likely to report carrying a gun in the month before taking the questionnaire.

"The school environment seems to play a large role," Ruggles told Live Science.

The researchers' method of looking at so many behaviors enabled them to avoid biases, and come at the question of which behaviors in kids are linked with carrying guns with a blank slate. "Typically, [gun violence] research is not informed by data, but often is informed by incidents in the media and inflammatory rhetoric," Rajan told Live Science.

Casting such a wide net over data can sometimes lead to spurious correlations, warned Dr. Fred Rivara, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital, who was not involved in the study. For that reason, Rivara told Live Science, it is often useful for studies to focus on specific risk factors rather than analyzing everything.

Nevertheless, Rivara said, the new results were in line with what would be expected from other research studies: Gun possession in youth is part of a complex stew of risky behavior.

Fixing the problem

Between 5 percent and 6 percent of students surveyed each year reported carrying a gun in the 30 days prior. Most of these students did not engage in gun violence, the researchers said, although their carrying a weapon puts them at higher risk of doing so.

"The real question is, what can we do about it?" Rivara said. The risk factors for youth violence are known, he said, but research on which programs or laws can prevent gun violence in youth is lacking.

In part, that's because of limits on some of the federally funded research on gun violence, he said. Beginning in the 1990s, Congress began amending budget appropriations with language forbidding any research that might "advocate or promote gun control." After the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, President Barack Obama called for federal funding of gun research, prompting the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to put out a call for grant proposals. He also directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to fund gun research, but pushback from Republicans in Congress may prevent federal money from reaching researchers, according to an investigation by ProPublica.

Ruggles and Rajan completed their work without any outside funding; they say they hope to set the stage for future research that will dig into the cause-and-effect relationships between risk factors and gun use in youth. Focusing on mental health will not be enough, they said.

However, the finding that school environment is important may hint at one place that authorities can start in trying to discourage youth from mixing with guns, they said. Another study released this year found that bullied children are nearly twice as likely to carry weapons to school compared to children who are not bullied.

"Particularly in the wake of mass shootings, when there is really sensationalized violence in schools and communities, we have a tendency as community members to want to simplify the gun violence issue," Rajan said. "For example, 'Such-and-such was depressed and that's why they did this.' Gun violence is a very complex issue and one that is likely influenced by many factors that are not understood and rarely discussed."

[Pettytyrant101]

The bigger factor in violence I think is the breaking down of stable communities- David

I dont disagree with this. My point is that factors such as these far eclipse any effect caused by video games.

'Also worth noting, most violent revolutions are historically started by relatively affluent middle-class students'

I wouldnt disagree with this either. George Orwell got that spot on, the poor never revolt, the middle class revolt and enlist the poor with promises of equality and an end to poverty.
But I dont see where the influence of games comes into it.

'So it seems clear to me that it's not so easy as just adding more money or more educational opportunity.'

It snot about amounts its about how you spend it. Americas defence budget is something stupid like the equivalent of the next nearest 10 countries military combined.
Would that money be better spent on infrastructure work programs, health, education programs? I dont think it would do any harm.

'you might think at first that a prohibition of alcohol or a war on drugs would reduce crime by up to 34%'

I wouldnt think that. I would however reckon that if you stopped criminalising drug use and instead treated it as a health issue, with funding for proper restart programs then you could significantly eat imto the numbers.

And I still contest all these issues we are discussing here have a massive impact on crime, compared the negligible, if any effect that playing a game does.

[Pettytyrant101]

Halfy that report strikes me as supporting the view there are far more pressing influences going on regards violent crime that playing a game.

[David H]

Halfy that report strikes me as supporting the view there are far more pressing influences going on regards violent crime that playing a game.

Yeah, like Buckie.

{{Thanks for the report Halfy! }}

[David H]

Seriously though Petty, it may strike you as supporting that view, but doesn't actually appear to me to address the roll of gaming at all. Absence of evidence doesn't equate to evidence of absence, as they say.

If a similar study had evaluated the gaming habits of young people and correlated it to gun carrying or involvement in violence, that would be the kind of data that could either support or refute your position. Until we see some data like that though, we're all just hypothesizing.

[Pettytyrant101]

Yeah, like Buckie- David

Very true.

'BUCKFAST has been linked to almost 7000 crimes in Scotland over the last three years, police figures have revealed.
The tonic wine is mentioned six times a day in crime reports compiled by officers across the country.
Offences involving the drink made by Benedictine monks in Devon include attempted murder, assaults with weapons and sexual attacks.
The new figures show that in the old Strathclyde Police area (where I live), Buckfast was mentioned in 6496 reports over the last three years.
That was a rise of almost 1000 from the previous three years and the true toll could be higher as multiple offences can be included in one crime report.'


Thats nearly 7000 more times its been cited as a major component in criminal and violent behaviour than computer games, which get zero mentions.



Until we see some data like that though, we're all just hypothesizing.- Dav
id

There have many such reports attempted, I've been having a glance through them and they largely come to the same conclusions- that games have an effect but out of all the myriad of pressures on a person there is no way to show that games in particular were a leading cause.

[David H]

Until we see some data like that though, we're all just hypothesizing.- Dav
id

There have many such reports attempted, I've been having a glance through them and they largely come to the same conclusions- that games have an effect but out of all the myriad of pressures on a person there is no way to show that games in particular were a leading cause.

How about a contributing cause?  In the study Halfwise cited, they were correlating various factors to the number of students that claimed to have carried guns.  It would seem plausible to me that there would be a correlation between students who play first person shooter games and students who carry guns to school. Then it would seem reasonable that students who carried to guns to school would correlate to students who were involved in gun violence.  That's not a direct relationship, but it seems to me it would be a significant one if we had some numbers.

[Pettytyrant101]

How about a contributing cause?- David

I have said from the start that I have thought there probably is some minor effect.
But I just dont buy that someone sits down to play an fps then next day decides based on that to go out in the real world shooting real people.
Its far too simplistic and unlikely.
Peer pressure, social issues, poor environment, bullying and abuse, mental illness, drug and alcohol dependency would all I believe figure way, way more in such a decision than playing a game.

To me its like saying WW2 is all the that fault of one German soldier who was right at the back doing some filing. Was he a contributing factor? Yes. Was he an important or deciding factor? No.

[Mrs Figg]

I think gaming may contribute to the type of violence not the quantity of violence today. The fashion for drive-by shooting, or the fashion for kids jumping from high buildings to ledges, its all come from computer games and the false idea we can jump about like cgi characters and not break bones. That whole Jackass generation where did that all come from? video games thats what.

[Pettytyrant101]

They did driveby's in the 30's and 40's they weren't inspired by games.

as to jumping off ledges and buildings.

Parjopur was invented before WW1- 'In Western Europe, a forerunner of parkour was French naval officer Georges Hébert, who before World War I promoted athletic skill based on the models of indigenous tribes he had met in Africa. He noted, "their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skillful, enduring, and resistant but yet they had no other tutor in gymnastics but their lives in nature." His rescue efforts during the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on Saint-Pierre, Martinique, reinforced his belief that athletic skill must be combined with courage and altruism. During World War I and World War II, Hébert's teaching continued to expand, becoming the standard system of French military education and training. Thus, Hébert was one of the proponents of "parcours", an obstacle course, which is now standard in military training and which led to the development of civilian fitness trails and confidence courses.'- wiki

It was further devolved in 1939 by a Frenchman, Raymond Belle, his son David in turn took it further in the 80's and in the 90's it started to get picked up by tv and newspapers, and later the internet, where it gained popularity.

Nothing to do with games at all.

[Eldorion]

I'd also point out that practitioners of parkour, freerunning, and similar disciplines have pretty conclusively demonstrated that it is entirely possible to jump around off buildings in a manner no more dangerous than other intense physical sports (such as boxing or American football, which predate video games by decades if not centuries).

[chris63]

[Mrs Figg]

They did driveby's in the 30's and 40's they weren't inspired by games.

as to jumping off ledges and buildings.

Parjopur was invented before WW1- 'In Western Europe, a forerunner of parkour was French naval officer Georges Hébert, who before World War I promoted athletic skill based on the models of indigenous tribes he had met in Africa. He noted, "their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skillful, enduring, and resistant but yet they had no other tutor in gymnastics but their lives in nature." His rescue efforts during the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on Saint-Pierre, Martinique, reinforced his belief that athletic skill must be combined with courage and altruism. During World War I and World War II, Hébert's teaching continued to expand, becoming the standard system of French military education and training. Thus, Hébert was one of the proponents of "parcours", an obstacle course, which is now standard in military training and which led to the development of civilian fitness trails and confidence courses.'- wiki

It was further devolved in 1939 by a Frenchman, Raymond Belle, his son David in turn took it further in the 80's and in the 90's it started to get picked up by tv and newspapers, and later the internet, where it gained popularity.

Nothing to do with games at all.

all thats just wikiwords, the fact is most people only heard about these things, or tried these things relatively recently, and probably tried them after watching Dwarves running and jumping from bits of bridge 200 foot in the air.
I rest my case.

[halfwise]

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is an old but still very scary story.  What annoys me is extremely shoddy "thinking" connecting it to genetically modified crops.  One farmer noted that a few weeks after GM corn was planted, his bees died.  Oh, must have been the GM corn.  Well, a week after my neighbors got a parakeet, I caught a cold.  I never catch colds, and my neighbors have never had a parakeet.  Coincidence?  I think not.

There's even more things that make this connection ineffably stupid.  First, CCD has been happening for years and a large wave of it swept across Canada this year.  Not correlated to genetically modified crops.  Second, the bees died a few weeks after the corn was planted.  Bees eat nectar and pollen, not young shoots.  The reporter who first heard the farmer make that statement should never have printed it, and people who hear that statement should never pay attention to such nonsense.

Research is not in on genetically modified crops.  In all likelihood such crops could reduce the use of pesticides which are being linked to CCD.  There may indeed be problems with genetic modification, but people keep making wild claims without basis. My gut feeling is the bigger threat is from monocultures, and of course GM crops are part of the same thinking that feeds into monoculture crops. We've lost diversity in our food supply, leaving it susceptible.  That worries me far more than GM crops.

[Eldorion]

Most of the people I hear complain about GMOs, both online and in person, are actually arguing against pesticides.  They tend to be surprised and/or disbelieving when I mention that GMOs reduce pesticide usage compared to normal crops.  Some of them actually thought that GMOs needed more pesticides.

[halfwise]

the sad thing is, in many cases the same people who knee-jerk that GMO are bad, also knee-jerk that humans are causing climate change. The fact that they can be with science on one issue and make up science on another tells you that they aren't paying any attention to science at all. In which case, where are they getting their viewpoints from?