Freedomain Radio

Anybody seen the Penn and Teller episode on violent video games? Whenever this argument comes up I always think of that kid who was a huge fan of violent games, but when they took him to a firing range, he fired one round, and soon after was weeping from the experience. If anybody here has fired guns (it's a fun hobby), they are largely frightening just in the force and power that is unleashed with each round fired. You have to be psychotic to have the force of will to use one of those on another innocent human being.

I listened to the podcast while playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

I agree that violence in video games does desensitize one to violence in real life, I can imagine I've been desensitized.

I also echo the above statements about real firearms vs. games. It's a whole different animal.

But does 'desensitization' = 'more violent'? That's a stretch in my opinon. I hope that other players still have capacity to think about their actions, especially since you can't personally sustain physical injury while playing a violent game. And as a weak defense, since fundamentally everybody you shoot is intending to shoot at you anyways, the violence can at least be put in a decent frame of reference *that's probably not UPB*.

Just my thoughts.

MrCapitalism:

I listened to the podcast while playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

I agree that violence in video games does desensitize one to violence in real life, I can imagine I've been desensitized.

I also echo the above statements about real firearms vs. games. It's a whole different animal.

But does 'desensitization' = 'more violent'? That's a stretch in my opinon. I hope that other players still have capacity to think about their actions, especially since you can't personally sustain physical injury while playing a violent game. And as a weak defense, since fundamentally everybody you shoot is intending to shoot at you anyways, the violence can at least be put in a decent frame of reference *that's probably not UPB*.

Just my thoughts.

I'd like to mention that its not real firearms vs. games, its real violence vs game violence. Real life fire arms aren't equivalent to violence and shouldn't be thought of or treated as such. I should hope most people don't get emotional reactions just from seeing/holding a firearm in real life

Sorry to nit pick

 

Also, i do wonder even if violent video games desensitize, what does that mean? I do feel as though i am desensitized emotionally to violence, most violent things on tv etc don't get much emotional response from me . . but it gets a strong logical response. It sounds weird but i more think "thats a direct violation of personal property rights" instead of "omg how terrible"

Sorry to nit pick

I think that's a great point, I guess I mentioned the difference as a sort of metaphor... perhaps saying shooting a firearm in real life is analagous to seeing blood and violence in real life. Neither of which you can be really prepared for by some game. Although I think games might help you adapt to the situation quicker *that was my experience with guns at least*

MrCapitalism:

Sorry to nit pick

I think that's a great point, I guess I mentioned the difference as a sort of metaphor... perhaps saying shooting a firearm in real life is analagous to seeing blood and violence in real life. Neither of which you can be really prepared for by some game. Although I think games might help you adapt to the situation quicker *that was my experience with guns at least*

I gotcha, it's like saying that after logging 1,000 hours on Microsoft's flight simulator you can fly a jumbo jet across the Atlantic, or playing Grand Turismo means you can drive F1 cars

masonkiller:

Anybody seen the Penn and Teller episode on violent video games? Whenever this argument comes up I always think of that kid who was a huge fan of violent games, but when they took him to a firing range, he fired one round, and soon after was weeping from the experience. If anybody here has fired guns (it's a fun hobby), they are largely frightening just in the force and power that is unleashed with each round fired. You have to be psychotic to have the force of will to use one of those on another innocent human being.

Cool, looking forward to it.  (I don't have cable TV, so I have to wait until new Bullshit comes out on DVD)  I am very partial to FPS games (right now, Half-Life2 is the bee's knees) and have fired real guns, and there's just no similarity.  The amount of magic and suspension of disbelief that has to occur inside a FPS game is enormous.  Like the magic nowhere space where weapons appear and disappear into.  In fact I think the more reality they try to inject into the game the less fun it is to play.  ("Black" for instance, was just annoying, they used all sorts of tricks to damage you as you got shot, blurry vision, impaired forward movement...sure it seems cool, but it's not fun. "Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth" also did the same thing, where you get more and more messed up and have to find a corner to patch yourself up using a first aid kit.  Sheesh! 

A game requires that the player always win.  (at least when playing against the 'computer', it's different when playing against other people)  The player always makes it to the end, even with die-reload.  It's pure Bill Murray\Groundhog Day.  What if they put so much realism in there that when your game character died the game stopped working and you could never play it again?  "GAME OVER.  NO, SERIOUSLY!"  Who would buy that?  (Actually it might be sort of amusing to have such a game.  You could boast that you've been playing for two months and haven't died yet.)  People play games because they are explicitly NON-VIOLENT.  If they actually hurt people all but the tiniest minority of sadists would play them.  We don't like real violence, we only want the illusion of it.  Fake violence has more to do with art and show business than actual ass-kicking.

Probably the most unplayable game of all would be one based ultra-realistically on the actual real life day-to-day experience of a solider, including the rehabilitation part after your arms and legs get blown off.  If you do good in the game you might get a medal, if you fail you end up homeless.  Or both!

rpellow:

MrCapitalism:

Sorry to nit pick

I think that's a great point, I guess I mentioned the difference as a sort of metaphor... perhaps saying shooting a firearm in real life is analagous to seeing blood and violence in real life. Neither of which you can be really prepared for by some game. Although I think games might help you adapt to the situation quicker *that was my experience with guns at least*

I gotcha, it's like saying that after logging 1,000 hours on Microsoft's flight simulator you can fly a jumbo jet across the Atlantic, or playing Grand Turismo means you can drive F1 cars

I think if you log 1000 hours on Microsoft flight simulator with the PMDG addons you probably could land a jumbo jet. I'm just saying.......

Their 747-400X is AWESOME btw, just got it. And just got a computer that could handle it.

Yeah no kidding. It's a great plane. It took me so long to learn to program the FMC at even a basic level though.

Driving a race car is probably more of a physical skill whereas piloting a modern aircraft IS almost like a video game from the get go with so much instrumentation and whatnot.  But I'd soon be dead if I found myself in either one, most likely.