HDC Weekly Debate #2 - Sociopathic violence : Do movies & videogames play a big role?

[GorePhobia]

Originally Posted by Dante'sInferno

I was exposed to horror movies at 5, and also i loved to play grand theft auto when i was younger.My parents knew that i knew what was right and wrong.They didnt care.I think it depends on the person and also the parents.

Yeah but I am sure that you learned at an early age from your parents or teachers at school that the games and movies you played and watched respectively were mere fantasy and not able to be done in real life.

[Doc Faustus]

They play a big role in keeping deadly teenagers inside where we're safe from their shenanigans.

[Vodstok]

Small childen should not be exposed to anything graphic: Richard Ramirez was a kid, not even a teenager when he used to hang out with an uncle who would tell him stories about killing people in vietnam, and shot his girlfriend in the face right in front of him. Fucked him up but good.


Now, exposure to some of these things at an early age can lead to an unhealthy obsession with the subject.

However, do i think letting a 14 year old play doom and watch hellraiser will inspire him to shoot up his classroom? Not unless the little fucker wa seriously unhinged to begin with.


On topic, a bit:
a little article I wrote for PLanetHalflife during my tenure as a staff writer there:
http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/Vi...s.Detail&id=22

[ferretchucker]

movies can push people over the edge, but I'd say nearly all of the times it does, it's because their minds haven't been trained to know what's right and wrong, and what they can and can't do.

[newb]

If your wired wrong than anything can be a catalyst.


simple as that

[urgeok2]

Originally Posted by newb

If your wired wrong than anything can be a catalyst.


simple as that

i agree with that but in the old nature VS nurture arguement - i still think that if you are wired right but life is against you - the same outcome is possible.

[Despare]

There were young rulers who slaughtered thousands before they were out of their teens... some simply tortured and killed for fun. There were no movies or videogames to blame things on then but I wonder if people pointed the finger at the jester's silly antics.

[urgeok2]

Originally Posted by Despare

There were young rulers who slaughtered thousands before they were out of their teens... some simply tortured and killed for fun. There were no movies or videogames to blame things on then but I wonder if people pointed the finger at the jester's silly antics.

if the jester was ripping the heads off of small animals to make people laugh .. and people did indeed laugh..

and if the impressionable young mind wanted more than anything to make people laugh ... then yeah - but the people who laughed were enablers..

[Despare]

Originally Posted by urgeok2

if the jester was ripping the heads off of small animals to make people laugh .. and people did indeed laugh..

and if the impressionable young mind wanted more than anything to make people laugh ... then yeah - but the people who laughed were enablers..

I haven't found too many evil jesters, but there was one kept around for a king whose job it was to fart on command. That was his talent. Anyway, all I was getting at is that even without the things we're blaming current violence on there were horrible atrocities committed against people by other people and some of those committing such acts were young. I firmly adhere to my belief that we only look for a "cause" of certain behavior because it's not in our nature to simply admit that some people are evil.

[urgeok2]

yeah - i got what you were saying .. its just that evil has changed along with society as it changed.


there was evil done back in the day by people in the position to exert their power .. power corrupts.

now we're seeing a lot of social misfits - along with the same power hungry sociopaths that existed before (only held back by laws from doing what they'd gladly do)

i firmly believe it all comes back to the single parent/ teen parent - kids having kids with no family values whatsoever. statistically - these are the kids that fall through the cracks ..

this has happened in the past due to poverty , etc .. but it's so much worse now - and by choice.. our values are changing ... a lot of people are losing a sense of what a healthy society is (except for the ones who go to the other extreme and are freakish about it)