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Subject: Morals and values
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Posted by: Casey
Good point.

No one protests books for violence/sex/profanity,


Oh, not true at all. Books are banned all the time for far less. The classic example is banning "Huckleberry Finn" because it's racist... which of course it's not. But because racist language is used in the text, certain people draw that conclusion.

  • 12.17.2004 9:06 PM PDT
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It hasn't even been 24 hours yet. You have to remember senorita is a teacher, not a regular Bnet user....but I digress.

For myself, and probably everyone here, video games are a stress reliever. I prefer video games with realism and high entertainment value, but not excessive gore, etc. Video games aren't the source of the world's problems, (just go to your local theater and see how many R or PG-13 rated movies are showing) but they seem to be the scapegoat. I wonder why...

Could we possibly have done a full 360 straight back to...mass-media and or bad-parenting???



[Edited on 12/17/2004 9:09:12 PM]

  • 12.17.2004 9:08 PM PDT
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they banned huckle barry fin. My God what has this world come to.

  • 12.17.2004 9:12 PM PDT
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heh i play halo 7 hours a day and i dont feel like going down the street and killing the neighborhood.

  • 12.17.2004 9:15 PM PDT
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Posted by: justdontbiteit
Posted by: Casey
Good point.

No one protests books for violence/sex/profanity,


Oh, not true at all. Books are banned all the time for far less. The classic example is banning "Huckleberry Finn" because it's racist... which of course it's not. But because racist language is used in the text, certain people draw that conclusion.


'Nother good point.

Yeah, because Huck Finn reflected the dialogue and viewpoint towards Blacks in the South at the time, it had moderate use of the term "-blam!-." Yet, the idiots who wanted it banned obviously don't realize that a good chunk of the plot involves Huck seeing that African-Americans were equal to White people back then.

I totally forgot about that.

But, other than the literary classics they want us to read (half of which, in my opinion, suck. Examples are A Separate Peace and [shudder] The Scarlet Letter--oooh! One is about murder and the other one is about adultery!!!.), you don't really see a lot of media exposure towards violence/sex/profanity in books.

  • 12.17.2004 9:17 PM PDT
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Ah, but books ARE media.

I loved A Separate Peace, but I think Scarlet Letter is one of the most overrated pieces of literature in the canon. In my opinion, Hawthorne couldn't write his way out of a wet paper bag.

  • 12.17.2004 9:22 PM PDT

♠The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's friend's enemy♠

[color=red]Are video games bad?

Video games killed my father....


...And raped my mother<Sarcasm, of course>.[/color]

  • 12.17.2004 9:25 PM PDT

I hate everything, but it's not my fault.

The reason there is no media exposure about books is because the government already thoroughly censors what students read in public schools. We're reading the Scarlet Letter in my class and I like it so far.
But the government can't censor the content of videogames, so the liberal media has to constantly attack them. And of course they always group games that really aren't that violent like H2 with games like Hitman and GTA. I was going to make another point, but I forgot it since it's late.
-EDIT-
There has been has been one fatality from video games, in the 1980's a man had a heart attack while playing Bezerk.

[Edited on 12/17/2004 9:27:10 PM]

  • 12.17.2004 9:25 PM PDT
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Posted by: justdontbiteit
Ah, but books ARE media.

I loved A Separate Peace, but I think Scarlet Letter is one of the most overrated pieces of literature in the canon. In my opinion, Hawthorne couldn't write his way out of a wet paper bag.


You know what I meant by "media."

Really? You liked A Separate Peace? I'm just gonna say that I respectfully disagree with you about that book.

Oh well, at least we agree about The Scarlett Letter. I honestly have no idea where people get the sense to put some of the crap we have to read on the "classics" list. Ugh.

  • 12.17.2004 9:26 PM PDT
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It all just depends on where you are, I guess. In certain parts of the country, it's pretty much a par for the course that people are going to try to ban music, books, games, movies, etc. because of their content.

  • 12.17.2004 9:31 PM PDT

We’ve watched while the stars burned
Out, and creation played in reverse.
The Universe freezing in half-light.
Once I thought to escape.
To end a master, step out of the
Path of collapse. Escape would make us God.
Yet I cannot help but remember one enigma,
A hybrid, elusive destroyer.
This is the one mystery I have not solved.
The only element unaccounted for.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-12-16-docs-games_x.htm
Well, some video games apparently do have benifits beyond entertainment. There's Super Monkey Ball, as explained above, and Dance Dance Revolution, which despite being insanley addictive is a great workout! Of course, I doubt that Halo 2 and the like would have the same results as Super Monkey Ball, although it is possible that it would still have similiar benefits, and I know that it won't have the benifits that DDR has. The point is, things often are more complex than they appear.

  • 12.17.2004 9:43 PM PDT
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Posted by: un gato
[url]http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-12-16-docs-games_ x.htm[/url ]
Well, some video games apparently do have benifits beyond entertainment. There's Super Monkey Ball, as explained above, and Dance Dance Revolution, which despite being insanley addictive is a great workout! Of course, I doubt that Halo 2 and the like would have the same results as Super Monkey Ball, although it is possible that it would still have similiar benefits, and I know that it won't have the benifits that DDR has. The point is, things often are more complex than they appear.


I dunno...I have a friend who gets a pretty intense workout from playing Halo 2. He is the spazziest kid I know. Every time he squeezes the trigger he flinches.

  • 12.17.2004 9:51 PM PDT

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All media has been criticized at one point or another, Huckleberry Finn when it was written was benign, and, taken in the context that the author wrote it in, it's still benign. In fact, the character "-blam!- Jim" was probably the only reason the book got banned previously, and it was ironic in that he was a friend of Huck, and if anything would have been used to express the authors tolerance. A rare thing in that time. The only reason it's moved on to videogames, is because the technology of the world has advanced.

People love finding things they percieve as "wrong" in media formats. In the time of the printing press it was books.From the late 70's to the mid 80's it was RPG's like Dungeons and Dragons. In the 80's to the early 90's it was music, and from the 90's to the current time, the digital entertainment industry falls prey. One thing these forms of media have in common? Answer at the end of this post.

Part of the blame goes to news media. Until the mid 90's, the various newscasts around the world were the #1 form of digital media. Currently, the video game industry is the #1 industry in the United States, and as such, news media jumps on a story to discredit the industry or portray it in a bad light. Columbine for instance -- did they focus on the emotional problems those children suffered? Did they go into the psychiatric files of any of them? No -- the focused on a video the teenagers made, citing Doom. Was it fair? No, but the masses won't pay attention to the details, the story is answered in a way that they've been trained to understand, and the News media still gets the ratings. To quote another example just this year, down in Florida, 3 people were beaten and murdered in their home. Before the whole story had even begun to be investigated fully by police, the news media jumped on a line out of context from one of the suspects. Thus an XBox was blamed for the slayings. (It was later found that the incident was drug and money related, and the XBox was simply to be part of the payment).

Thus have things gone for years upon years, and will continue to do so as long as some form of media takes over another in profitability.

As far as the ideas fostered by the media, remember this cliche' : Ignorance is Bliss.
I interpret it in this way for this particular thread - Mainstream Ignorance is Bliss for those that stand to gain from the negative views of the Gaming Industry.

So spreading the word and educating people about all sides of the issue is the key. It won't stop ignorance, but it will, eventually, shift the focus of it.


The answer to "What do all these have in common?" ? They make you think. Rather than listening to what others think.
-Jim

  • 12.17.2004 11:54 PM PDT

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Posted by: Ghandi 2
The reason there is no media exposure about books is because the government already thoroughly censors what students read in public schools. We're reading the Scarlet Letter in my class and I like it so far.
But the government can't censor the content of videogames, so the liberal media has to constantly attack them. And of course they always group games that really aren't that violent like H2 with games like Hitman and GTA. I was going to make another point, but I forgot it since it's late.
-EDIT-
There has been has been one fatality from video games, in the 1980's a man had a heart attack while playing Bezerk.


You might also note -- that Berserk was a game that supplied loud noises and flashing graphics, as well as a sudden laugh when Evil Otto flashed across the screen. The man was 64 years old, and suffered a heart attack. It was in 1984.

  • 12.17.2004 11:59 PM PDT

I hate everything, but it's not my fault.

Thanks, I didn't know the date, and I was too lazy to look it up. That was a good post, and I agree with you completely.

  • 12.18.2004 12:21 AM PDT
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Although the game is violent, it does not instill violence in children because it is a video game and we don't have a role model/actual person to follow. Although you could count MasterChief, but he's good. Though really it is just a story like any other, be it book, movie or game. Books are violent, why not stop children from reading them.

  • 12.18.2004 1:25 AM PDT

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The only argument I might be willing to accept on videogame violence in society, is the ability of a game to "unbalance" an already loose foundation. The instability would have to exist previously for a game to be a catalyst though. The actual amount of people in violent crimes that claimed it was because of a movie or game has been roughly equivalent over the last 25 years. the only reason for an apparent upswing, is due to recent media attention, and the criminals who think they can blame a scapegoat for their indiscrestions and acts of random violence.

  • 12.18.2004 6:32 AM PDT

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