Video Games are dangerous
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David Wulff wrote:
Gun violence in Britian has not changed as a percentage since before or after hand guns were banned, when taken against the population growth. Unless you are black and live in East London then there is a greater chance of being killed in a plane crash than being shot. Interestngly, the areas with the most gun crime also have the most armed police officers. IYO, cause or effect?
In the US, if you adjust out the black population, gun violence is actually lower than in Europe, despite the fact that many people have guns.
Red Stateler wrote:
In the US, if you adjust out the black population
Now that's a racist consideration. Is your America white?
This statement was never false.
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Well at least you don't wear a fanny pack. I've always wondered what people keep in those... :~
Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milkStuff. :rolleyes:
This statement was never false.
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Red Stateler wrote:
I specifically said that gun violence of this particular sort (i.e. meaningless, and blindly directed) is a recent phenomenon, especially among young people.
I think that is a hard sale though. The question of why nihilism would result in so much more violence here than, say, in Europe is a valid question. I think a good argument could be made that in the US nihilism is being wrapped around a culture already predisposed towards violence and therefore is more likely to become expressed as we saw at Virginia Tech. That is, nihilism tends to be expressed as perverse self loathing in some cultures, while in our culture it is more frequently expressed in perverse loathing of others. I don't think you can ignore the background culture that these vast social changes are occuring within.
Modern liberalism has never achieved anything other than giving Secularists something to feel morally superior about
Very well said.
This statement was never false.
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Red Stateler wrote:
I specifically said that gun violence of this particular sort (i.e. meaningless, and blindly directed) is a recent phenomenon, especially among young people.
I think that is a hard sale though. The question of why nihilism would result in so much more violence here than, say, in Europe is a valid question. I think a good argument could be made that in the US nihilism is being wrapped around a culture already predisposed towards violence and therefore is more likely to become expressed as we saw at Virginia Tech. That is, nihilism tends to be expressed as perverse self loathing in some cultures, while in our culture it is more frequently expressed in perverse loathing of others. I don't think you can ignore the background culture that these vast social changes are occuring within.
Modern liberalism has never achieved anything other than giving Secularists something to feel morally superior about
That's a good point. It's just that in these cases, the common thread among the perpetrators seems to be a manifestation of nihilism (as they usually express the futility and burder of their lives) as the impetus for their acts. Nihilism doesn't imply associated violence and I agree that there must be something else that causes them to act out, but certainly their belief in their complete meaninglessness contributes to their lack of restraint. I'm not willing to concede so quickly that ready access to weapons leads these people to violence. I am more inclined to take the unpopular opinion that video games, which are extremely violent nowadays, do play some role ingraining violence in young people, which leads them to acquire weaponry. After all, teenagers are still developing mentally and their surroundings do have a significant influence on them and their thoughts. If they're spending 4 hours/day killing people in a video game, I suspect that it has some effect of desensitising them to violence and maybe breaking down the emotional barrier that would otherwise prevent them from acting on their urges. But all that notwithstanding, the fact that these acts are perpetrated by nihilists acting out against the world makes nihilism the fundamental cause in my eyes and is typically the stated reason for their acts. Christianity is inherently anti-nihilistic, but atheism is perfectly congruent with it, so I believe that this association goes a bit deeper than our secular humanist friends are willing to explore.
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Did you ever stop to consider that maybe this kid was a problem to begin with and this just made the school fear that he was going to act?
Did you ever stop to consider that maybe this kid wasn't? :rolleyes:
This statement was never false.
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Stuff. :rolleyes:
This statement was never false.
I think the correct term is Junk. :badger:
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
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Well at least you don't wear a fanny pack. I've always wondered what people keep in those... :~
Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milkI almost spit my coffee all over my monitors with that one. Thanks. :-D
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
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Red Stateler wrote:
In the US, if you adjust out the black population
Now that's a racist consideration. Is your America white?
This statement was never false.
Chris-Kaiser wrote:
Now that's a racist consideration. Is your America white?
Actually it's a "racial" consideration and also true. You can do the math yourself. Of course, it might be more of a socioeconomic thing. I checked into it after critically watching Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore went out of his way to make a point that "some people" claim that gun violence has to do with race, but Canada has "plenty of black people" (he then went out of his way to find the only two black people in Canada to film and specifically avoided mentioning numbers, which is always suspicious for him) and little gun violence. Not being a racist, I had never thought of that before, so I checked into it and proportionately adjusted the populations and gun violence wound up being almost exactly the same among the white populations, despite Canada's anti-gun laws. You can come to your own conclusions, but that seems to be a basic trend.
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I think the correct term is Junk. :badger:
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
Fanny trunk?
This statement was never false.
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Chris-Kaiser wrote:
Now that's a racist consideration. Is your America white?
Actually it's a "racial" consideration and also true. You can do the math yourself. Of course, it might be more of a socioeconomic thing. I checked into it after critically watching Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore went out of his way to make a point that "some people" claim that gun violence has to do with race, but Canada has "plenty of black people" (he then went out of his way to find the only two black people in Canada to film and specifically avoided mentioning numbers, which is always suspicious for him) and little gun violence. Not being a racist, I had never thought of that before, so I checked into it and proportionately adjusted the populations and gun violence wound up being almost exactly the same among the white populations, despite Canada's anti-gun laws. You can come to your own conclusions, but that seems to be a basic trend.
But its irrelevant. America is America in all of its colorful splendor. When speaking of American violence you can't equate out a segment of the population to make it appear cleaner. That would equate to stating that the Real America is the one where we don't count black people.
This statement was never false.
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Chris-Kaiser wrote:
Now that's a racist consideration. Is your America white?
Actually it's a "racial" consideration and also true. You can do the math yourself. Of course, it might be more of a socioeconomic thing. I checked into it after critically watching Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore went out of his way to make a point that "some people" claim that gun violence has to do with race, but Canada has "plenty of black people" (he then went out of his way to find the only two black people in Canada to film and specifically avoided mentioning numbers, which is always suspicious for him) and little gun violence. Not being a racist, I had never thought of that before, so I checked into it and proportionately adjusted the populations and gun violence wound up being almost exactly the same among the white populations, despite Canada's anti-gun laws. You can come to your own conclusions, but that seems to be a basic trend.
But its irrelevant. America is America in all of its colorful splendor. When speaking of American violence you can't equate out a segment of the population to make it appear cleaner.
This statement was never false.
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73Zeppelin wrote:
Neither does athiesm.
Not necessarily implicitly, but it's certainly a likely and frequent result of it.
We'll agree that your conclusion was silly.
"The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim." -Gustave Le Bon
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James L. Thomson wrote:
Do you think it an overreaction to say that such actions would be infringing on your rights, or that arresting all children for these actions would represent a looming threat to our general freedoms?
No,as a matter of fact, I don't. In fact, I think allowing local communities to deal with such issues as they best see fit is the very definition of our general freedoms. I think trying to reengineer our society so that only the all powerful megastate can make decisions of this sort for everybody, everywhere all the time (which is what all of you are actually argueing for) would be the grossest sort of over-reaction and would mean the complete destruction of our general freedoms as Americans.
Modern liberalism has never achieved anything other than giving Secularists something to feel morally superior about
Stan Shannon wrote:
No,as a matter of fact, I don't. In fact, I think allowing local communities to deal with such issues as they best see fit is the very definition of our general freedoms. I think trying to reengineer our society so that only the all powerful megastate can make decisions of this sort for everybody, everywhere all the time (which is what all of you are actually argueing for) would be the grossest sort of over-reaction and would mean the complete destruction of our general freedoms as Americans.
So you're saying that rampant violations of our civil liberties are alright so long as they're done by the local communities instead of the federal government? And where did I say or imply that the situation would have been better if the kid had been violated by the FBI rather than local cops and the school board? If your going to use a straw man at least construct one that looks vaguely like my argument.
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Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
I agree however that it would've been prudent NOT to have made that CS map.
Only because of the general level of paranoia. Back in the day, we made Doom / C&C maps of everything. Because, seriously, who hasn't wanted to run through their local mall, etc., with a chainsaw... ...point is, he made a frickin' map. For a computer game. What's next, rape charges for sketching nude pictures of classmates? :rolleyes:
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It appears that everybody is under the impression that I approve of the documentation. You probably also blame Ken Burns for supporting slavery.
--Raymond Chen on MSDN
Shog9 wrote:
What's next, rape charges for sketching nude pictures of classmates?
Last month, two Belgian publications reported that the Brussels police have begun an investigation into a citizen's allegations of rape -- in Second Life.[^]
Where do you expect us to go when the bombs fall?
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But its irrelevant. America is America in all of its colorful splendor. When speaking of American violence you can't equate out a segment of the population to make it appear cleaner.
This statement was never false.
Chris-Kaiser wrote:
But its irrelevant.
Statistically, it's extremely relevant and actually accounts for the discrepency between US and European gun violence and murder rates (again, despite the loose gun laws here compared to Europe). It would be foolish to ignore that observable and measureable truth in order to fit the world into your multicultural views. You need to ask "Why do black people commit so many murders?", rather than skirting the issue.
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led mike wrote:
So you are back to the avoiding answering questions game.
How did I avoid it? I told you that I believed was a perfectly reasonable theory. Since I have no reason to disbelieve it, then I suppose I believe it. It's just not something I devote much thought to (which contradicts your theory that it's somehow all-encompasing) or care all that much about. But if you're so adamantly against the magic bullet theory, you should visit the book repository and see what a clear shot Oswald actually had.
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led mike wrote:
As opposed to Bush who has done a better job of covering up the fact that he lied about WMDs in Iraq because that lie didn't leave a stain on anyone's dress.
According to George Tenet himself (who is trying to undermine the president since he was fired), all the intelligence he provided to the president said there was plenty of WMD. Also "lying" and committing perjury are two very different things,
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led mike wrote:
So you don't require proof, you don't question, you just blindly believe any lie your republican masters tell you? Is that the definition of a Democracy, a Republic, that the founders had for our country?
Democrats were in charge of that investigation...
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We'll agree that your conclusion was silly.
"The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim." -Gustave Le Bon
That nihilism (the belief that the human experience is meaningless) can easily be derived from atheism (that the human experience is temporary and will ultimately end and be forgotten and therefore is meaningless)? I think not.
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Red Stateler wrote:
Also "lying" and committing perjury are two very different things,
And how sad it is for that has become our standard.
led mike
I think you missed the part where I said that the director of the CIA who is currently trying to undermine the president stated that the president did not lie and acted on bad intelligence supplied by him (which he claims he did not know was bad at the time). That pretty much dispelled your "Bush lied" myth.