re: Do You Think Violent Video Games & Violence On TV Causes People To Be Violent?

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only simple minded creatures cannot differentiate fiction from non-fiction.

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I have been preaching this for years. I have also been accused of offending people by the use of the term "simple minded". I usually just smile.

If the shoe fits.

I was listening to a Dan Carlin podcast recently, episode title "painfotainment". Basically the whole episode is about how people have derived entertainment from watching people suffer and die from basically the beginning of history. The colleseum is a famous example. Executions used to be public and wildly popular up until very recently. People have basically always watched people die. Granted nowadays it's a quite different medium, but I would argue that it's still targeting a similar realm of the human mind. Humans are complex creatures and we don't really understand ourselves. I would say that violent media has an effect but I don't think anyone can say whether or not it is a negative (or even positive) thing.

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If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.

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In people that are not mentally equipped to fully differentiate reality from fiction, sure.

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I can agree with this, but in that situation, if it wasn't the video game or movie, it would eventually be something else.

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I think it makes things that should not be acceptable into things that are glorified.

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I agree with the glorification of things that shouldn't be accepted, but when you look at the homicide numbers.. They were much higher before they had the type of video games they have today.