Talk About GTA

[Binky]

If violent video games , violent movies, violent books don't hurt anyone or cause any problems in Society, then why have things got so bad in the last 50 years. 

And please don't respond that it hasn't. It has. The world is filled with violence immorality and terrible people. It wasn't that way 50 years and more ago. What's causing it if not the desensitizing of people by what they see and hear?

Cue invocation of Godwin's law.

There was plenty of really disgusting violence around 70 years ago. On a huge scale.

There have always been evil, violent people, and there has always been offensive language.

Prove that is getting worse. Evidence please! (Moxie has pretty much the right idea)

 

[moxie]

And, well, ZXDunny did put the finger on it, but I'll type out my own take on it, too:

"Immoral people" hasn't really got much content. Morality is more or less "what we as a group like", which means that as the group changes, the ideas about morality changes. Which means, certainly, that you or I, being Old Gits, might react that someone is behaving in a way that we don't like, and that people in general didn't like when we grew up. It is, however, nothing more than that: Something we do not like, and therefore call "Immoral". 

The same goes for "Terrible". 

However, when we look at quantifiable, measurable quantities: Homicide statistics, Starvation, Poverty, Expected life span, and so on - we really never had it so good.

 

[hailrazer]

Proof. I've lived to see it. So has every person who is older on the planet. We can all try to hide under a rock but it won't help.

My parents grandparents and Greta grandparents talk of a time when doors weren't locked and no-one felt unsafe walking down the street. History tells of this to. They are not liars, they have no hidden agenda. Just life experience. I myself see violence every day living in the same area I have always lived. Didn't see it when I was younger to this extent.

Im not blaming video games I'm just saying its getting worse and at some point we need to figure out why. 

 

[ShleeDragon]

We're currently living in the most safest period in history ever recorded.  Some of you seem to think that violence has increased or people who gotten more inherently vicious. 

Humanity has been horrible evil and monstrous since the beginning of time.... Why do you think society created Gods, to try and stop people from killing each other because "daddy" was watching.

edit: You also seem to think that people are more than animals.. we're monkeys throwing our own shit around. Humanity has no natural law and order....

 

[gotwake424]

Proof. I've lived to see it. So has every person who is older on the planet. We can all try to hide under a rock but it won't help.

My parents grandparents and Greta grandparents talk of a time when doors weren't locked and no-one felt unsafe walking down the street. History tells of this to. They are not liars, they have no hidden agenda. Just life experience. I myself see violence every day living in the same area I have always lived. Didn't see it when I was younger to this extent.

Im not blaming video games I'm just saying its getting worse and at some point we need to figure out why. 

bro 50 years ago they were lynching people in public and we were still divided along color lines in the united states. 

You are right! we need to get back to those times........./sarcasm 

 

[moxie]

Anectodal evidence isn't. Where I live, I usually don't lock the doors, either, even now. If I lived 50 km westward (that is, in the middle of a big city, I probably would have even 50 years ago. However, what I've experienced or what you've experienced really truly says nothing about anything except how we've moved through society and how our local community has developed. As I said: On a larger scale, it most certainly is the other way.

 

[ShleeDragon]

I wish people didn't live in fear of everything. Let your children run around and eat dirt, fall out of trees and talk to strangers...

 

[moxie]

bro 50 years ago they were lynching people in public and we were still divided along color lines in the united states. 

You are right! we need to get back to those times........./sarcasm 

Exactly. There was horrors around then that would be completely, totally unacceptable today, on a scale that would cause public outrage and rolling of official heads if they were discovered today. However, they were not seen by the more fortunate, or deemed interesting to report by media. 

That the neighbour came home drunk every saturday and beat up his wife? Oh, we don't talk about that. The kids on the wrong side of the tracks that were left alone and had to eat what they could find from the back alleys? Well, they are not our kind of people, now are they? And so on.

 

[Cameleon]

Proof. I've lived to see it. So has every person who is older on the planet. We can all try to hide under a rock but it won't help.

My parents grandparents and Greta grandparents talk of a time when doors weren't locked and no-one felt unsafe walking down the street. History tells of this to. They are not liars, they have no hidden agenda. Just life experience. I myself see violence every day living in the same area I have always lived. Didn't see it when I was younger to this extent.

Im not blaming video games I'm just saying its getting worse and at some point we need to figure out why. 

All this points to is an increase in violent crime in your area, not on a global scale. Why has crime increased? Greater device between the rich and the poor? Rich/middle class people living near people that have a sense of entitlement and believe that they 'deserve' the nice things, that leads to an increase in violent crime. As for history, it also tells of hanging people of a different colour, it tells of imprisoning people with a different sexual preference, it tells of invading nations and taking slaves. Let's not sit with rose tinted glasses on.

 

[hailrazer]

Murde rate in the USA 1900 1.2 per 100,000. In 2010 4.6 per 100,000

Rape stats in USA . From 1960 to 2010 the population doubled. Rape went up 5x.

Yep things have got worse.

Putting our heads in the sand doesn't help.

 

[moxie]

Rapes reported went up x5. That is different from actual rapes. Where do you get your statistics?

 

[Cameleon]

Murde rate in the USA 1900 1.2 per 100,000. In 2010 4.6 per 100,000

Rape stats in USA . From 1960 to 2010 the population doubled. Rape went up 5x.

Yep things have got worse.

Putting our heads in the sand doesn't help.

Yup crime has gone up. Now, that's not burying our heads in the sand, that is saying "Yes there is an increase, but I doubt there is a single cause."

*Edit* Also, Moxie has raised a good point. The reporting of rape has increased, that does not mean that there is an increase in the crime, it means that more people are reporting it.

 

[moxie]

http://www.gapminder.org/videos/

 

[hailrazer]

Oh no I never said reported.  

Very easy to find on FBI stats.

I agree there is no single cause. There are multiple causes all of which start with good parenting and good raising IMO.

but even then , yes some people still will do bad. 

 

[gotwake424]

Murde rate in the USA 1900 1.2 per 100,000. In 2010 4.6 per 100,000

Rape stats in USA . From 1960 to 2010 the population doubled. Rape went up 5x.

Yep things have got worse.

Putting our heads in the sand doesn't help.

I can post statistics that support my argument too 

United States 2003 --> 93,883 reported cases  of rape 

United States 2009 -->  84,767 reported cases of rape 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics

 

[ZXDunny]

People only lock their doors (again, I'll point out that I'm in the UK) because the media tells them it's not safe. House burglaries have actually gone down - and in those that actually occur, back doors are not the entry point in almost all of them. Yet people still lock back doors because they've been told to be afraid.

I leave mine wide open, never had an unwanted intruder (well, once, but he didn't last long against the dog!).

D.

 

[moxie]

Murde rate in the USA 1900 1.2 per 100,000. In 2010 4.6 per 100,000

Rape stats in USA . From 1960 to 2010 the population doubled. Rape went up 5x.

Yup crime has gone up. Now, that's not burying our heads in the sand, that is saying "Yes there is an increase, but I doubt there is a single cause."

One should always ask where the statistics comes from.

The number of reported rapes have gone up, in a big part because it is a lot more accepted to report a rape. 60 years ago, it wasn't possible to report a rape within a marriage. Being a rape victim because you were "in the wrong place at the wrong time" would, 60 years ago, end up with the victim being deemed the immoral part, for being out and about when no "pure-minded" girls should. The same goes for violence - Nobody booked a battery charge from the wife I mentioned above. Nobody registered a missing "n*gger" as a homicide victim.

So: That might be true. Or not. 

 

[Cameleon]

<snip>

The number of reported rapes have gone up, in a big part because it is a lot more accepted to report a rape. 60 years ago, it wasn't possible to report a rape within a marriage. Being a rape victim because you were "in the wrong place at the wrong time" would, 60 years ago, end up with the victim being deemed the immoral part, for being out and about when no "pure-minded" girls should. The same goes for violence - Nobody booked a battery charge from the wife I mentioned above. Nobody registered a missing "n*gger" as a homicide victim.

<snip>

This.

 

[Timstertoo]

People only lock their doors (again, I'll point out that I'm in the UK) because the media tells them it's not safe. House burglaries have actually gone down - and in those that actually occur, back doors are not the entry point in almost all of them. Yet people still lock back doors because they've been told to be afraid.

I leave mine wide open, never had an unwanted intruder (well, once, but he didn't last long against the dog!).

D.

Hehe, the only reason I lock my door is to save people from the dog  . I live in not the best area of Amsterdam and when I'm working at night I'm happy that our South-African Mastiff (Boerboel) keeps my girls safe.

 

[hailrazer]

I see ask for stats and when given try to explain or justify why they don't matter or are wrong. 

Im done. No point in this anyway. Only one thing that will fix our problems and its not going to be Internet Forums.