US President Donald Trump is to meet video games company representatives on Thursday to discuss violent content.
The meeting comes in the wake of last month’s shooting at a school in Florida in which 17 people died.
The president has in the past expressed the view that violent games were “shaping young people’s thoughts”.
Repeat after me: “Correlation is not causation.” And keep doing it until it gets past your daft comb-over and into that dome of a skull of yours.
We’ve been here before with the violent pornography cockwaffle. We now have laws in the UK that ban pictures of activities that are legal – such is the moronic nature of our lawmakers. But – and here is the clincher – there is fuck all evidence that simulated violence causes actual violence. Those who are predisposed to violence will commit violent acts with or without simulated acts to look at. Millions of people play shoot ’em up games (God knows why, the are mind-numbingly tedious and repetitive, but it takes all sorts) however, those millions do not go out and shoot real people. Doesn’t happen. The creatures that shoot up their classmates are disturbed individuals who would do this anyway.
Trump is demonstrating that he is almost as cretinous as the professional politicians he claims to despise. Well done.
Hmmm I think Trump might have a point. Play GTA 4 backwards-you can hear a prayer to Satan. Play GTA4 enough times and a demon might enter your soul and cause you to go postal. FACT!
As a boy, I had a schoolfriend whose father ran an air rifle stall at the local fundfair. As long as we bought our own pellets (possible in those days), we spent hours shooting at moving metal ducks and similar targets. Yet, not once did I ever contemplate buying a rifle and shooting up the local comprehensive (though after joining the British Army, I was allowed to play with real rifles, though still did not gain a murderous intent). Violent video games are simply a knock-on progression of those shooting galleries. The targets are usually zombies or some foreign looking people who have invaded your (mythical) country. The time to start being concerned is when the video shooter is targeting a school or shopping mall. That really would be worrying
Up to a point Longrider.
Politics dictates that he has to be seen to do something, and this is something. Better this than more stupid talk about banning legal gun ownership.
By the way I think he should have a word with hollywood woho are continually making films in which handsome cool heroes go around shooting people up and getting laid, and he might want to have a word with the ramains of the MSM who ensure that whichever sad loser/evil twat murders some of his school mates instantly becomes the most famous person in the world for 15 minutes.
The worst possible reason to do anything. Sure, that’s standard politics, but I understood he wasn’t doing standard politics.
Neither, frankly.
He hasn’t done anything.
Watch his lips, then ignore them. Watch his hands. What’s he signing? Nothing.
He shouldn’t even be pandering to such rampant nonsense.
Longrider, you suffer from the unproven, unlikely, impossible, downright crazy idea that the average voter is either rational or even human.
Trump does not.
Allow me to rephrase old aphorisms:
“Nobody ever lost an election underestimating the intelligence of the American voter”
“When you’re in a fist-fight, watch his hands, not his mouth.”
“…I think he should have a word with hollywood woho are continually making films in which handsome cool heroes go around shooting people up and getting laid…”
Killing off the James Bond franchise won’t help him much!
Trump is playing to the gallery on this one. He has to be seen to be listening. Remember it was Trump who suggested that its probably a mental health issue and that is the area that should be looked into more closely and where necessary, remedial action taken
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/02/mental-institutions/554015/
Well, on that, he is right. Normal, sane, well balanced people don’t go off on one murdering people.
He’s paying the issue lip service, like any politician. There is no link between violent video games and real life violence. Indeed it’s probably the opposite. Most people who play first person shooters are too busy trying to get the high score while pigging out on crisps and pizza than going out to get hold of a real gun and shoot real people.
The problem of mass shooters is more to do with poor socialisation and lax parenting. Which is a much harder thing to fix. Banning fun stuff is far easier.
This was on Samizdata a day or so ago:
Raskolnikov, the main character in “Crime and Punishment,” is not much of a role model.
But not to worry, because nobody whines about how literature has led them into ax-murdering or body dysmorphia or about how poorly the page represents reality.
They save those accusations for movies and TV.
Amy Alkon
Says it all, don’t you think?
Based on my games history, I should be a serial killer by now.