Addendum: I'm still Mad About This Video Game Thing
(An addendum to the previous post)
And another thing that makes me so angry about this whole "video games cause mass shootings" nonsense...
Listening to the pundits and politicians talk about the link between video games and violence, it is very notable that none of them are citing any evidence. At all. They're just talking about how they don't like video games, and how they're sure that it must be doing something bad to young people's minds.
Look, if you want to just complain about how you don't like what the young people are doing these days, you can retire and spend all day on your front porch.
But if you go on TV and make these allegations, you should do your homework ahead of time.
And it's bad enough when pundits do it, but then when actual politicians (people in actual positions of power) start talking about how they "feel" video games are behind these massacres, then this is the height of irresponsibility.
It's a stupid debate, like I said before. But, fine, if you guys want to get into it, then let's get into it. What does the evidence show? What is the statistical correlation between violent crime and video games? What is the link between crime rates and the popularity of video games in countries? What is the evidence that video games cause violent behavior? (This data is easily available. The topic has been researched to death. There have been literally thousands of studies on this by now).
This is serious topic. And the opportunity cost of addressing the wrong issue will mean that we've lost the chance to prevent the next massacre. So we should be taking this seriously.
Instead what we have is a lot of out of touch old people talking about how they don't like video games. Either they're stupid, or they're being deliberately obtuse in order to misdirect.
A-fucking-men.
ReplyDeleteActually, here's another link for you -- and I apologize in advance for it being Sullivan, but he's looking at ancient Rome and drawing some comparisons. Rome is more your thing than mine, so I'm wondering: is he off-base?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the links. Both of them were fascinating reads.
ReplyDeleteOn video games, I also found this website interesting. It attempts to present a balanced view of all the arguments on both sides, but after reading the whole thing, I came away with the impression that the evidence was overwhelmingly pointing to a lack of connection between video games and violence. (Maybe that's my own bias.)
https://videogames.procon.org/
As for the Rome one:
I'm in agreement with some of it. When I was reading "The Civil Wars" by Appian of Alexandria, I was also struck at how it seemed to mirror the polarization of modern politics. Appian talked about how the clash between the optimates and the populares started off as a policy dispute, but quickly just degenerated into a spirit of rivalry, so that both sides became more concerned about winning and scoring points off of the other, and that made compromise impossible.
I also agree that the principle weakness of the Roman Republic was a blind faith in the power of the laws and tradition. Nobody believed Sulla would actually march on Rome because nobody believed he'd actually defy the laws and traditions. But when Sulla did march on Rome, there was no defense.
Now, my nitpicks:
* it seems a bit odd to make the Populares the spiritual ancestors of Trump, because the Populares were on the "Left" (if I can use anachronistic terms). But Trump is arguably a populist, so I guess it kind of fits.
* If the conservatives in Rome had been more sensible about agreeing to needed reforms, it wouldn't have created a need for demagoguery and populism. This seems to be missing from Sullivan's analysis. He even seems to be crediting Sulla's conservative reactionary reforms with "restoring the republic"
* The principle cause of the fall of the Roman Republic was more than anything the creation of private armies which were loyal to their general instead of to the republic. This hadn't historically been the case, but was started by Gaius Marius. This is what allowed Sulla and Caesar to march on Rome. Everything else was just a secondary detail. Sullivan seems to miss this.
Thank you for the analysis, Joel -- that's stuff I did not know. As for the Irish Times, I thought they were pretty clear a) there's no evidence backing the hooey statements coming out of politicians' mouths and b) the press are complicit in keeping this hooey alive in the public mind.
ReplyDeleteNo, definitely, it was very clear. I was just adding the second link because I thought the break down of the pros and cons was interesting. But the Irish Times clearly made the case.
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