jeremywc

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Posts posted by jeremywc

  4. Posted

    I believe that's a false equivalence. I purposefully said that actual violence is a different phenomenon to point out that getting desensitized to fake violence does not mean you are desensitized to actual violence. They are qualitatively different things: actual violence is not simply 'more' compared to fake violence. An act of actual violence is a completely different decision to an act of play violence.

    If they are the same or of the same quality to someone, that points to an underlying condition. If someone does have such a condition and does play violent games, we cannot tell whether playing the games is keeping him from doing worse things or exacerbating the condition. There's no science to show either. For all we know, he could have spent the time torturing cats, which is not exactly unheard of.

    There's way too much violence in our media, but my opposition is mainly from the point of view or art. Millions of people see and perpetrate virtual acts of violence day in, day out, but there's no proof at all that any of them would be less shocked to see someone get shot in the face because of that media influence.

    Then there's presenting complex causes in such a simple manner that will make people think desensitization is one third of the problem when we don't know if it's at all. 'Desensitization' implies this person at some point was sensitized to actual violence, but what seems more likely is that this person never developed the empathy needed for that.

    Desensitization may not be the best word, then? I'll try again. I think for some people, violent media provides inspiration to act violently. A portion of those who are inspired will actually act upon those inspirations. But for the vast majority of people who consumer hyper-violent media, there isn't any lasting impact. My feelings on gun ownership are similar because I know that the vast majority of gun owners do not want to fire on another person. We have two major factions in the US. One argument says that limiting sources of inspiration for gun violence would decrease gun violence. The other argument says that limiting access to guns decreases the means of acting on those violent ideas. I think there are good elements of truth in both arguments. I lean towards limiting guns, but if someone told me the only way to accomplish that would be to also cut a few more gun fight scenes out of movies or video games, I could live with that.

    Another thing that occurred to me the other day was during the press conference where President Obama announced his gun control initiatives, he said that he intended to fund research on the impact that violent video games have on youth. It's interesting to me that he excluded any other forms of media, particularly movies. The gun industry certainly has a powerful lobby in Washington, but I find the omission of violent films from that research shows that there's an equally powerful film industry lobby at work. Both of them are happy to scape goat video games.

  5. Posted

    It's actually quite recently that I decided that life's too short to discuss feminism, sexism, and other topics on the Internet, which is not to say I never do it (I'm in this thread, aren't I?), but it is to say that my energy levels and enthusiasm for explaining this sort of stuff to people who aren't well-versed in the issues and who therefore, through a perfectly understandable and not at all malicious place of ignorance, constantly spout unhelpful, patently misogynystic stuff at every turn under the guise of simply trying to understand why anyone would ever be really serious about feminism, is... diminished. It certainly doesn't help that I'm teaching an English class and my students are reading the Bible right now, and part of the reading we're discussing tomorrow is a part where a woman gets gang raped then chopped into 12 pieces and Fed Ex-ed to various parts of Israel, and then I look at the headlines and the best we've managed to do is make it to the point where gang rape victims aren't also dismembered. So when 2000+ years of "progress" isn't enough to stop this shit, my energy levels for trying to solve it with Internet posts is miniscule.

    So instead of writing out a big long response, I'm just going to say that if you think the distinction between being harassed for riding a bicycle and being harassed for being a woman isn't about sexism but is instead about dudes being assholes then you don't know what the word "sexism" means and you haven't even the slightest clue what kind of connotations it has and what it means that our society today is sexist.

    I think there's value in what you're doing, it's just that you're really only going to get responses from people who disagree with you. You don't see a lot "I agree with everything you said" posts on the Internet because they just clutter everything up and there's only so many ways to say it. Karma systems like reddit's kind of address that, but they have their own problems.

    I haven't really contributed much in this thread because I don't think there is anything to add at this point that hasn't already been better stated. What I have taken away from it is a lot of good ways to further articulate the feelings I already had. So even when you're not getting much positive feedback, you should know that there are a lot of people reading what you say and taking it to heart.

  6. Posted

    I don't doubt at all that playing violent video games desensitizes people to video game violence. But actual violence is a completely different phenomenon.

    Correct. It's a piece of the puzzle. Desensitization + easy access to firearms + other psychological factors = gun violence. I believe we're all in agreement on that. Following that line of thinking, taking two of those factors out the equation could lead to an even greater reduction in gun violence than removing just one?

  7. Posted

    Of course I don't need to tell any of you this, but it's hardly surprising if someone who would shoot dead his entire family also enjoys playing violent games and watching violent movies. But that's hardly causation.

    I'm not completely convinced anymore that violent media doesn't lead to some level of desensitization. I don't think it's the root cause, but I do think it plays a factor. You could easily argue that a lot of countries that have stricter gun laws than America ALSO have stricter laws on violent media. Maybe that's also a contributing factor to their reduced gun violence?

    The best way to get something in politics is to give something up in return. This community is composed of people who consume a lot of media in all it's various forms, so we're naturally going to be "pro-media". But would you be willing to accept tighter restrictions on violent media or a unified, government controlled rating system in exchange for stricter gun laws? I'd consider it.

  8. Posted

    I understand line of thinking for gun safety education, I think it was beneficial for me. My dad taught me how to fire a rifle when I was about 13 or so, and it was a good education in respecting guns and treating them with care. You get a long speech about why guns are dangerous, about NEVER pointing a gun at anyone else, and then you fire it a few times so all of the information that was just dropped on you gets imprinted permanently. A lot of my friends and family had similar experiences.

    But I think the only reason any of that worked is because it came from someone I had utmost trust in. I'm not sure how we would build a successful program for gun safety at an institutional level. I think the only people who would walk away from a gun safety class and apply what they've learned are the ones we aren't worried about anyway. :-/

  10. Posted

    Sorry for the double post, but I thought an anecdote might shed some additional light on my line of thinking...

    A few years ago, someone broke into my house while we were sleeping. He stole some cash and a GPS out of my wife's purse. Nobody was harmed, but it was a very, very scary experience for us. We weren't exactly living in the best part of town. My wife was so un-nerved that she couldn't sleep for three days. I went to talk to my boss, who was in the Marines, because I was seriously considering purchasing a handgun for protection and wanted some advice. His political views can probably best be described as libertarian and he's probably the best boss I've ever had. He takes care of his employees and treats us like an extended family.

    His advice to me was to get a big dog and gave his recommendation on some breeds that were good with children. His reasoning was that I was probably just overreacting from a scary experience. Since I didn't have a history of being interested in gun ownership, I would probably quickly lapse on keeping up with the required work for owning a gun (regular target practice, cleaning & maintenance, etc) and it would end up doing me more harm than good if I was in an emergency situation. This was really responsible advice and we ended up finding a rescue dog at our local shelter.

  11. Posted

    Ah, I see. My bad.

    Maybe jeremywc will return and fully explain his point of view :)

    It's kind of hard to explain how I feel, but I'll give it a shot.

    I feel that the height of American prosperity peaked somewhere in the 1960's during the Space Race. We got to this point where we doing so well, but all of our prosperity was centered around this power structure that was operated by affluent white males. It provided a lot of economic stability, but not necessarily a ton of equality. And we're kind of unique in that our population is widely diverse AND very large. People are naturally distrustful of others who come from outside what they consider to be their home cultural group. The civil rights and counterculture movements that started in the 60's were so important to breaking down these power structures, but rather than bringing us together, I think it has caused us to turn back into these cultural groups that we identify with. I don't think America at this point in time is a melting pot. It's more like different colored Lego bricks that have been mashed together. We have all these artificial boundaries we build between one another and we don't really try to work together so much as just try push others in the direction we want them to go. It creates *so* much tension and frustration. We're angry with one another all the time. We don't have discussions, we have shouting matches. And I worry that sooner or later we're going to stop trying to find common ground and just break down. That's why, even though I'm a pretty liberally minded person, I also think it's wrong to dehumanize conservatives (citizens, anwyay, not the politicians). They're good people who work hard every day, take care of their families, and do what they believe is right. I think it's destructive to make a blanket characterization of gun owners as mentally unstable.

    tl;dr - I think gun violence is a symptom of the anger we've been carrying in this country and I think most of that anger is born out of our completely inability to find common ground as of late. I hope that makes sense.

  12. Posted

    Your argument appears to be "there's always going to be crazy people who will manage to find ways of killing people -- guns aren't necessarily the problem".

    My argument is that guns are a piece of the problem, but not the entire problem.

  13. Posted

    Who's extrapolating what now

    Fire with fire. ;-)

    But you still didn't answer my question. I'm seriously interested in hearing what suggestions people have for increasing security in schools, especially in light of the measures Obama just announced. I think they were pretty good.

  14. Posted

    Yup. A school in China got attacked in December and 23 children and an elderly woman were knifed. The difference is no one died.

    You're extrapolating my argument farther than I stated. I said "I think banning assault rifles would be an effective security control..." Past that, how exactly do you propose we prevent attacks in schools?

    EDIT: Also, holding up China as a model for good government has got to be one of the worst arguments ever. :-P

  15. Posted

    So by that argument, why don't we allow everyone to have nuclear weapons?

    I didn't make the argument that everyone needs unrestricted access to all weapons. I was basically saying there will always be crazy people.

  16. Posted

    I tend to think people who stockpile weapons legally are mentally unstable in the first place. I have never met someone who owns many guns (I live in Texas) who has not given me the creeps. From my experience, they tend to be backwards simpletons with paranoia issues. I'd personally feel more safe if the government owned the majority of the guns than some of these redneck wackos with cases full of assault rifles.

    I live in Texas too and consider myself a pretty liberally minded person. The department I work in has many gun enthusiasts who own AR-15's. I don't personally think they need those AR-15's, but I would never classify any of them as mentally unstable. They're all responsible people, many ex-military, who take gun safety seriously. I feel completely safe around them both inside and outside of work. I think making a blanket statement like that harms the conversation because it's so quickly dismissed by the other side (with good reason).

    I kind of stand in the middle on the issue. I've been reading up lately on trust and risk modeling. Reviewing assault weapon laws makes sense in light of the shootings lately, but I hope no one believes that it's going to stop people from finding ways to exploit the trust models we build in society. All security systems are based on trust models. Some people are mentally wired in a way where they look to use those trust models to exploit security systems. And a small portion of them will try to do it in the most violent, dangerous manner possible. Our trust (and security) models are actually pretty effective and, as a whole, violent crime continues to drop over the course of human history. I think banning assault rifles would be an effective security control, but no matter what we do, there's always a rogue element of humanity that will do whatever it takes to harm others. :-(

  18. Posted

    I like the aesthetic of a physical book, especially nicely bound hard covers with quality type setting. But I find that it takes me longer to finish physical books because when I try to carry one with me between work or home, I frequently leave it where ever I'm not. Cloud syncing on Kindle and Google Books is just too convenient to pass up, so most of my book purchases are eBooks these days, unless it's a book I'm especially looking forward to.

  19. Posted

    I agree with TP's point. I don't think MGS is sexist as such, I think it's more a case of Kojima loving to fuck with people. There's plenty of stuff in there to make guys feel uncomfortable too; for every 'Eva has her cleavage sticking out' there's a 'villain turns out to be gay and literally grabs the balls of the main character'. It's all fun and games, really. ;)

    Haven't played the game, but that sounds another example of weird sexism to me. It's promoting this idea that you need to avoid out gay guys because all they want to do is grab your balls.

  20. Posted

    There are so many good games coming up next year. It's not looking good for the status of my backlog. I really hope Sony announces the PS4 and it looks compelling. Software support for the 360 has been so much better than the PS3, but I cannot stand the ad-riddled eye sore that the 360's dashboard has become. Anyway, here's my lists:

    AAA games from established studios: The Cave, The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, WATCH_DOGS, and Telltale's Fables game

    Indie games: Clockwork Empires, Scrolls, Gone Home, Super Time Force, and Quadrilateral Cowboy

    And hopefully all the Kickstarter games I've backed: Planetary Annihilation, Double Fine Adventure, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Legend Of Dungeon, Full Bore, Sportsfriends, SpaceVenture, and Wasteland 2

  23. Posted

    Did anyone in the United States EVER own an Amiga growing up? It feels like took me forever to even understand what one was growing up, as I had assumed it was a game console for a long time.

    I had a friend growing up whose dad worked IT and preferred Amigas. At one point they had 3 Amigas in their house. One of my favorite memories is playing Star Control 2 all night on one while his brother ran some script he had hacked together that would dial into various BBS's and download pirated games.

  24. Posted

    I'm intrigued to know which OS you think I was trying to give props to.

    OS X. I have a buddy that works for Apple in Education Sales and that is _exactly_ the kind of snarky comment he would make. Shouldn't project so much.

    Anyway, how about those Linux games on Steam, eh?

  25. Posted

    It's OK, it's on me. Judging from everyone's reactions, I think it's clear I jumped the gun. I dish my fair share of flippant "I wasn't really that serious about it" posts as well, so I should know better. :-P